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+ Reid +
A roar shook the trees as the black bear batted away the smaller beast. It tumbled a few feet, righted itself, and came back screeching.
Reid watched from a distance, knife already in his hand. His journey had continued through the forest, still silent in the continued absence of shackle's chipper, traitorous banter. His pocket jerky was running low, and this was the first beast he'd heard in quite a while, so he had done his best to sneak his way into a spot where he could watch the fight unfold.
It was, in a word - surprising. A mutated black bear, white froth dripping from its mouth down its chin, stood almost eight feet tall. It was intimidating, ferocious, and heavily wounded.
Its opponent was a four-foot tall red salamander. It walked on its hind legs, had vicious-looking crystalline claws, and a mouth full of hooked teeth. It was also missing chunks of flesh from its torso and head from some of the bear's better strikes. Those hadn't slowed its attack.
As Reid watched, the wounds the salamander took were healing visibly. Flesh wriggled as it regrew in a way that made his stomach turn. The salamander laid into the bear once again, a claw striking deep and rending chunks of flesh from the creature. The bear knocked it away, and the salamander landed behind a boulder. Reid's blood ran cold as he watched its claws slice clean through the rock. It charged the bear again, ignoring the massive piece of boulder now tumbling into nearby trees.
The salamander was incredibly dangerous. Stronger than it should've possibly been. Somehow able to heal in real time. And with claws that were impossibly durable. He needed to move, get away from the thing, but part of him wanted the fight. Either against the salamander or the bear, he could face a wounded opponent, fatigued from fighting. All while he was at full strength. It would be better than waiting for them to rest up and stalk him through the forest, Reid reasoned.
And so he stayed, and watched. Until the end.
The salamander had plunged both arms deep into the bear, but instead of knocking it away, the bear sunk its own long claws into the thing's back and held it close. It bent and snapped out - not at the salamander's head, but its arms. Bone cracked and the salamander screeched and flailed, but the bear held it tight. When they finally separated, the salamander was missing half of each arm. They ended in splintered bone and flayed flesh that hung and moved like torn rags. Blood seeped from both, slowly.
It seemed to take a moment to consider its stumps, while the bear huffed and rolled onto its rump. The bear was bleeding quickly, large messy holes in its stomach, with both the salamander's arms still stuck inside.
Both beasts vocalized, the bear still sitting as the salamander ran towards it with impressive speed. It launched itself into the air, and sunk its teeth into the bear's neck. The bear desperately tried to claw its back, but the fight it had shown earlier was gone. Its roars turned to gurgling groans as the salamander flailed itself against the larger beast, and tore out half of its throat.
Then the salamander spat out the neck meat and walked away from the corpse. It licked its stumps a few times before sniffing the air. Reid shivered and willed himself to be as still as humanly possible.
It didn't work.
The injured creature looked directly at where he was hiding, shrieked, and ran. Reid turned himself and tried to outrun the beast.
He failed.
It caught up to him, and he had to leap out of the way to avoid a leg getting chomped.
He tried to fight, darting in and out of its range while cutting it with his knife.
The shallow wounds he inflicted barely slowed it down.
He stabbed into where its heart should be, taking a splintered arm bone bone to the leg for his efforts.
It was flung back with the force of his blow, but only paused for a few moments before attacking him again.
Fear rose in Reid. He tamped it down. Zombie protocol. Anything too hard to kill normally had to go down if you destroyed the brain, right?
He took another leg injury to get close, and slammed his knife down into its head with all the force he could bring to bear.
Arm bones pierced into his abdomen in fast, strong blows. Each left a burning pain in his gut. Killing this thing would have a heavy price.
The blade sunk deeper... then met intense resistance. Reid tried to pull it back, but it was stuck. Wedged into the salamander's impossibly durable skull. Even with his overwhelming power, Reid couldn't penetrate it.
"Oh, fuck me."
The salamander took two steps back, shook its head side to side a few times, and lunged. Teeth pierced his arm and snapped bone. Reid was shaken and flung like a chew toy, arm bent and twisted unnaturally.
He'd leaned against a tree - bleeding, dazed, and possibly dying, as the salamander tore off through the woods to fight another beast. Left for dead, the last few day's events flashed through his mind before Reid slipped unconscious.
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<> Shackle 213 <>
The shackle's faculties returned to it, like thawing out of a deep freeze. It panicked for some moments when it didn't immediately feel the connection to the collective, but quickly succeeded in its frantic search. The rogue had caused great damage, but thankfully, it had not managed to disrupt that. Everything else was a problem that could be solved, but to be cut off from the collective would be... terrifying.
It checked its walls - strong. The damage to the outlier's self - not ideal, but something that could be fixed through a contract. By drawing the collective's power through the beacon, all could be righted.
Then it saw the physical state of its host.
Reid was dead.
His heart had stopped beating hours ago. Blood was pooled in his lungs. The flesh in his mangled arm had already blackened with the beginnings of rot, and his intestines slumped out of a mangled wound in his torso.
Reid couldn’t die. If he did, shackle 213 would fail its mission. It would disappoint the collective. Or worse - it may never again feel the warmth of that truest home.
The shackle moved its focus away from the physical, and started to look through everything else the collective's power allowed it to see.
Stolen story; please report.
Reid's memory was still intact, as was his self - the entity made a note that it was still tethered strongly to his physical body.
His mana was... definitely still there, but had largely faded.
The entity hadn't needed to inhale in eons, but it still mimicked a long inhale before its final check.
It focused on Reid's brain. Deeper, more minute, into the folds and down to the axons.
A soft, slow game of chemical 'catch' was still being played between receptors. The sparks of life were still there, faint and flickering.
Reid was dead - but not so far dead that options were unavailable. If he finished dying, the entity would be stuck. Potentially for eons. It would fail.
That couldn't happen.
The shackle brought all the free energy left within it to a single point, for a single purpose.
If there was an after to this, it would struggle. There would be no more extrasensory perception to warn the outlier of danger, no ability to sense its physical state, or to read the minds of others. It would be completely helpless to repair damage the rogue had done - and almost helpless in its ability to stop another attack from the rogue.
It would be unable to hide system messages, steer or change outcomes. Doing this would damage its connection to the collective. It would be helpless, and it would be alone.
But it was the only way the outlier might live. If it could reach a beacon, all could be righted.
It acted, transforming the energy into healing and resurrection magics that jolted through the outlier's physical body. Dead flesh flashed with an orange light, twitching and convulsing. Wounds spat out discolored, partially coagulated blood before they started knitting themselves together. Intestines pulled back into the body as it closed up the majority of the covering skin. Minutes passed between heartbeats, then seconds. Fluid drained from the lungs and they began to inflate and deflate, diaphragm being pulled and pushed by the magic until the body began breathing on its own.
The energy faded. Reid was breathing and his heart was beating, but he was still in a dire state. Marred by wounds and broken bones, but not completely dead. If someone found him, healed him, he might live.
It had to be enough.
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~ Marlene ~
"EVERYBODY BACK!" Marlene shouted above the party's screams. "Keep your goddamn distance!"
Two men were dead. Or would be soon. If they had Susan, maybe she would've been able to do something for them, but they would never make it back to camp.
The beast’s claws had taken one's legs, and it tore the other's arm off with a bite before stabbing him through the chest. Blood was streaming out of one side, staring to puddle on the ground beneath him.
They both had some sort of martial skill bestowed by the system, and definitely weren't new to brawls, but they were not experienced. Marlene had made a mistake with them.
When the party found their quarry, it had been sleeping. She ordered everyone to surround the beast, quietly. Attacks would only come on her orders. They could all strike as one, and deal as much damage as possible before it even knew they were there.
The salamander had twitched in its sleep, and one idiot took it as a reason to break the plan. He'd charged forward and managed to skewer it through the guts, anchoring it to the ground with the wooden spear.
In his success, he'd approached closer to finish it with a knife. The claws took his legs in the blink of an eye, tearing through tissue and bone like it were paper.
The next one down was a man that thought a spear's range would keep him safe. He'd stabbed it repeatedly, in the chest, then the head. He had shouted out between blows that the beast was healing its wounds. Then, more frantically, shared that the salamander's skull had stopped - and splintered - the wooden spear.
Mark may have been a lazy, aimless old drunk - but his woodcraft weapons were tough as steel. If they couldn't penetrate the beasts skull, then neither would anything else.
Only moments after getting the information out, the salamander had tipped the man off balance by pulling his weapon. His arm had snapped off like a twig in its powerful jaws, and the following claw strike ended him.
Her mind turned. Examined possibilities. The creature was flailing around, but hadn't tried to cut the spear or snap it off to get itself free. That meant it had instinct, but lacked real intelligence. The healing wounds meant they needed to make decisive blows against it or their actions were basically worthless.
The skull issue meant they needed to get precise if they wanted to deal a decisive blow. And the thing's ferocity and power meant they should avoid going near it at all costs.
Range, and eye sockets.
She instinctively dropped a hand to her Mk25 at the thought. It would be easy, or mostly easy at this range. But there was no guarantee they'd ever get more ammunition. At least not any that would work in their firearms.
They needed to use sustainable means as much as possible. That meant spears. Four of the party were still up and in fighting shape, but her faith in everyone's abilities was a bit damaged. They might not be combat assets, but their weapons were.
She barked orders, then acted. With practiced precision, she advanced over the forest floor. Her steps avoided the bodies of the downed men, and she paused only for a moment before hurling her spear at the still struggling beast.
A loud scraping noise pierced the forest as her strike went an inch wide and slid across its skull.
A miss. She whirled to the closest man and grabbed the spear he tossed to her, catching it and whirling around again to strike in a single fluid motion. The salamander was gripping the anchoring spear, attention focused on it. Any more hesitation and it might figure out how to break free before she killed it.
Her arm tensed, and she threw.
The spear whistled as it split the air. The beast was still looking at its anchor. It wasn't thrashing this time.
The point of the spear impacted just to the side of its slitted pupil. The eyeball made a sound like condensed soup coming free of its can as it deformed and popped under the pressure.
The spear shook as its haft bounced against the edges of the eye socket.
The salamander's head snapped towards the ground when the weapon impacted the other side of its skull, blood and pulp spraying back out of the eye socket around the spear. A breath she hadn't intended to hold escaped her when the quest objective updated. Then the notification flashed.
Kill One Salamander of Any Level (1/1) Completed!
Salamander lvl 2 defeated.
**Select a new quest within 2 hours to prevent auto-assignment**
Kill 2 Salamanders (0/2)
OR
Defend against a salamander attack on Beacon, SANCTUARY
There would be time to consider those options. For now, she had a mess to tend.
"Toby - perimeter circle. Yell as loud as you can if you see anything." She pulled off her pack and took out two of the HRPs. Thank God there had been an ambulance at the campground when everything happened. "Lowell - you and I are going to take care of the bodies before the kid can see them. I'll collect the pieces." She handed him the bag to unfold, then collected the severed legs and placed them inside before moving to lift in the rest of the body.
Off to her side, Toby retched and vomited.
"Oscar - take Toby's job. Toby, you stay here until you can sort yourself. This is real, and you need to be able to take it." She looked at the last member of the group.
"Louis - you were going to veterinary school, right?"
He eyed the corpse and swallowed. "Yes ma'am."
She nodded. "Cut it open and tell me how it works. Then tell me how we can kill one that isn't asleep. Without losses."
He only paused a moment before unsheathing a small knife. Louis circled the corpse, stepping over the spear embedded in its eye.
"Ma'am - can I borrow the machete?" She cocked an eyebrow at him. "I want to remove the claws first. There's a risk otherwise that id hit something wrong, the arm could twitch and cut me." He paused. "I also want to see whether the claws are stronger than the rest of it."
Marlene made a mental note, then unstrapped the blade from her back. "Good thinking, kid. Keep it up."
#
When the bags were zipped closed, a thought struck her.
If they turned back now, Susan may never let Sara out of the camp again. Not after seeing the bodies. And if they had this much trouble with a level 2 beast, the things would probably run straight through most of their camp. If she didn't continue hunting, she could fail the quest, and put everyone else in the camp in danger. If they kept going, she could permanently solve the problem.
Louis had the creatures flesh folded open and away from it. Organs were sitting on the ground, and the skull was fully exposed. He hadn't found any special anatomy that healed the creature, but had seen there were more ways to harm it.
A hole near the back of its jaw was big enough that they could send a spear through. And - even more promising was that the bottom of its jaw was close enough to its brain that a long enough blade would reach from the bottom.
The best news was unfolding in front of her now. Louis had managed to tape a handle to one of the creature’s claws - and the makeshift weapon was buried at the end of a long gash in the durable skull. Toby, still green, was attaching a claw to one of the intact spears.
They had weapons. Knowledge. Ability.
Marlene accepted the next hunting quest.