Sometimes, nature was just cruel to you. A former classmate loved bread and baking enough that she bought herself a small shop in a nearby town. Nearly a decade went by, with her making her dream life work by scraping and pinching in the hard years. All the while - though every bad day and in every celebration - she was still doing what she loved. Brioche bread was still fluffy, even if you were late on a utility bill. But what she loved betrayed her. It was almost targeted, that a baker would develop a severe gluten intolerance. It was doubly terrible that what you'd enjoyed turned around on you. Reid had an unwanted appreciation for what that must have felt like.
The first rock slammed hard into the ground less than 50 feet in front of him, as if he'd thrown it into the dirt. He rolled his arm. The second, he wound up like a pitcher - and watched it slam into a mound instead of heading to its intended target. The third he'd let go of early, and it managed to scrape the ceiling of the den - okay, he'd let go of it very early.
The fourth and final failed throw missed its target wide. He gave his arm an angry look. In the tunnel, he'd killed the mole with one throw - but that had been an enclosed space... and he'd been much closer to the beast. With more range - and accuracy required, Reid was starting to have an appreciation for how much precision he seemed to be missing. He'd played sports pretty regularly, and he knew his aim wasn't that bad. Heck, back at Santuary's wall, he'd been a human catapult with thrown projectiles. Maybe it was the aftereffect of what the system and stats were doing to his body - or the consequences that resulted when you didn't put enough points into things like dexterity. In any case, his missed shots meant he'd lost the element of surprise and burned his initial tactic with absolutely nothing to show for it. The moles were awake, and they were not happy he was there to visit. The king's claws glowed.
Stone bullets, each the size of a VW Beetle sailed towards him from the king's direction in arcing, artillery-like shots. They slammed hard into the floor of the space and shattered on impact - a two-part danger that would see Reid get injured if they impacted directly or if he didn't move himself far enough from the point of impact to prevent shrapnel from hitting him. Dodging the car-sized projectiles required him to jump and dive and keep track of the trajectory of the growing number of the things, and it was taking up far too much of his attention. Thankfully - those ranged attacks stopped a minute later. The king had halted its magic to prevent friendly fire - and the two non-magical moles that had caused the cessation of car-sized projectiles tried to rip him apart in their teeth.
Reid was much happier with this fight.
They'd run out to meet him, and one flicked its paws at Reid like pinball paddles. He was ready for a thrown stone - but instead he got the mole version of pocket sand. Red-orange dirt and dust flew into Reid's path, and left him blinking. He took a swipe from his left, and stumbled into a mound before his eyes could focus again. Reid tried to climb the mound to get the high ground, but it crumbled as the moles smashed the dirt and rock away. He slid down the collapsing dirt side of the now-broken nesting mound, and came to a stop in front of a pair of massive front paws.
Reid stomped down and broke a finger. The mole screeched in pain, and reared back - leaving its stomach exposed. Requiem pulled open a long, jagged gash, and intestines spilled out and steamed. The cries from the mole lowered in volume as it struggled and succumbed to its wounds.
So far, the prince had been holding itself back. When it saw the first mole screeching and bleeding, it let out its own cry of fury and threw itself forward to join the fight. As it closed in, Reid saw the thing flicking its attention between him and the disemboweled creature.
The prince got in close - and Reid prepared himself. He'd dealt with pillars and spikes, bullets and walls. Whatever came, he'd be ready.
The mole swiped its paw at Reid in a downward diagonal. Reid brought Requiem up to meet it - and the claws glowed.
What happened next wasn't a direct magic attack - nor was it technically defense.
The ground under Reid's feet shook and moved. The sudden change in footing threw him off balance, and instead of meeting the strike with Requiem, Reid fell on his ass.
The paw slammed into his prone form as the ground stilled. It knocked the wind out of him and put a dent into the dirt. Reid's bone armor stressed and flexed under the force of the blow and the weight of the mole. He brought a hand up to meet the beast's, and pushed. His arm tensed - and he flooded power into the muscle. His hand practically threw the paw in the air, and Reid used the opportunity to get Requiem back up, pointed at the beast. He thrust forward, and was rewarded with torn flesh, and fur matted with blood. The prince let out a roar as it jumped back, and its claws started to glow again.
Reid pushed power into his legs, and jumped.
The ground below him shook and churned in a 10-foot radius centered on where he'd been standing. It was like a minor earthquake, but even that description didn't feel quite right. The solid earth where he'd been standing shook and jiggled like it was made of jello.
Reid's jump wasn't really aimed at anything - it had just been his way to get away from the area affecting skill. So he was midair, in the middle of the cavern, just starting his descent. He let himself fall, with his mace readied for a swing. But nothing was in range. Instead, he tumbled down into the bowl of a nest mound.
There were remains there. Infantile skulls of moles that had never made it out of the small pile of dirt. Many sported thin and fine holes in their skulls, and most had cracked arm or rib bones. Many looked like they might've been killed with weapons, but others had damage that didn't seem to line up with what would come from moles or standard weaponry. One body was more of a husk, and Reid could tell that it had starved to death. Part of him almost felt sorry for the dead beasts - but there were people's remains in the trash piles. Things were just unfair like that.
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The ground beneath Reid shook again, and he pushed more power into his legs. They burned with the repeated effort as they propelled him up into the air - and towards a target.
The final, uninjured, non-magical mole had taken itself out of the fight to stand in front of its disemboweled brethren. It was another slightly touching scene, but the mole made for a poor protector.
Requiem caught it in the spine at its shoulders and crippled the beast in a single blow. He took the opportunity to finish it off with a blow to the snout that caved in part of its skull. Both non-magical moles were dead, mere feet away from one another.
You have defeated Elder Deep Mole - lvl 21. (+100,000xp)
You have defeated Elder Deep Mole - lvl 21. (+100,000xp)
Now, only the prince and the king remained. The ground started to rumble beneath Reid's feet - and he threw himself forward. The prince was still fighting him, hard. It seemed to be even more upset now that he'd killed another of its kind... but the king's efforts hadn't really changed.
The king had stayed on the shelf for the entire fight so far, content to fire off ranged attacks while the others harassed Reid up close. Why hadn't it come out to attack him? Or, why hadn't it used different magic? It was almost as if the king had been something of a ranged spectator in this fight. And that had to change.
With the close combatants dead, the prince would now be able to keep him at bay with magic, and force Reid into a position where the king would be able to start his rock rain again. If his sure bet on avoiding magic attacks was to be in the vicinity of another mole, Reid's best option was to draw both enemies into melee range at once. Since the king wasn't moving, Reid needed to bring the fight to it. He pushed power into his legs, and sprinted. His muscles groaned with complaint.
The king screeched at his advance, and a nearly-solid wall of stones hurled themselves in his direction.
Reid didn't look for a gap - he looked for weak projectiles. Ones he could afford to take.
He found it in a tan colored boulder.
Reid skidded to a stop where the thing would impact, and braced Requiem against the ground. He huddled down as low to the base of the weapon as he could manage, and kept both arms as close to his head as possible. The boulder slammed hard into his weapon. It sent a shock down his body as the boulder split into smaller stones. They pelted into Reid's armor - and the gaps. Bits of rock embedded themselves in his skin, and marred what had been mostly-intact ivory plates.
Reid rose, ignoring the pulls and tears of the bits of rock stuck in him. He didn't have time to worry about such minor injuries. One of his pauldrons was cracked, but his armor had held up. Now it just needed to do that again. Reid charged ahead, until another solid volley sent him skidding to a stop at a breakable impact point. This time, the stone didn't split as well. A chunk with leftover momentum slammed down into his right foot. It cracked and chipped his bone armor enough that his pinkie toe was injured. Reid grunted in pain. These stones weren't just rocks from the cavern. There was some sort of extra energy to them - probably added by the king's attack, that made them much stronger than they should've been. All around him, these new volleys had half buried themselves in the ground. He pushed forward again
The only real upside to Reid's current advance was that there was no chance of the prince catching up to him too early. It waited behind the outer range of the boulder artillery, cautious of the rocks.
When Reid finally did reach the shelf, he was panting. He bled from dozens of rocks and pebbles that had found purchase in his skin, and his bone armor was fractured, chipped, and broken in multiple places. The king was still in the same spot - and sluggishly tried to back itself towards the rear wall. It let out a loud and long screech that also distinctly sounded... scared. Reid slowed his advance and took it in.
The king was larger than the others, but also much, much older. White and greyed fur covered its face, and its eyes were bleary and red. There were sores on its body - the kind that happened when things were immobile for long periods of time. Its claws were overgrown and curled back towards themselves, and its paws were gnarled. It panted in labored, shallow breaths. The overgrown claws started to light up with color, then failed and started to fade.
This might have once been a warrior king, but it was no warrior anymore. Despite the awesome power it showed with the magic it had flung at Reid, the creature had been dulled and weakened by time long before he'd ever stepped foot inside its den. He took another step towards the old beast - and realized he'd over-focused on his target when the prince slammed into him from the side.
Its teeth gnashed and cracked against his armor, desperate to find purchase and end him.
He'd imagined this whole thing so wrong. Reid expected the prince was the sub-boss he needed to make it through just to get the chance at the final, fraught confrontation. It was a silly thought, but Reid just assumed that was how things worked.
Instead of what he'd envisioned, Reid got a different scenario entirely. The prince wasn't the lead up to some final fight. It was the fight - like a bodyguard that was desperately trying to keep the king alive. It was frenzied now that Reid was up on the shelf with the older creature.
In its desperation to protect the king, the prince left openings. Requiem came down and cracked the top of the prince's eye socket. The prince stifled a screech, and didn't let him go. He tore a four inch deep ribbon of flesh off its neck with a good swing, but the mole kept trying to shake and bite him. Reid managed to get a good swing into the cut he'd just created, and finally did real damage. Requiem sunk into the prince's neck and pulped flesh. The prince bled profusely. It gurgled breath in and out of the side of its neck.
But it still refused to let him go. Even as it died, the mole put every ounce of its effort into keeping Reid locked in its jaws.
You have defeated Elder Deep Mole Prince - lvl 24. (+200,000xp)
Only after the final blow did Reid manage to get himself free. He looked down at the prince with mixed emotion. It had been doing everything it could to protect... family. Reid knew what that was like. It had fought like hell, even if it was panicked and stupid at the end. He knew a little of that, too. There was no one else here to recognize its efforts, nor its will. Reid shifted his mace to his off hand, and gave the defeated beast a pat on its snout.
-
As Reid approached the king, it looked out at the cavern as if it were scanning over every mound and rock. Its panoramic gaze stopped on the prince's body, and then it looked to Reid. He may have imagined things, but he felt like there was longing, resignation, and relief all set into its eyes - like it was finally done with a life drawn out for too long.
It huffed with effort, lifted itself up on two front paws, then shakily extended its neck, and lowered it to the ground.
It vocalized in a low, undulating grumble as it offered Reid its life.
Reid pushed power into his arms and back until his muscles were ready to burst. He hefted requiem above his head.
Then Reid granted the king the mercy it desired.