Ah, the name was indeed quite appropriate.

That was the first of three insights, internalized while sprinting towards my target as one of the tentacles smashed down with alarming alacrity. The second realization was ‘fuck’, because trying to maintain a serpentine pattern only made it easier to track me. At least I acted on that one, all misdirection abandoned in favor of just legging it. The third was that my anxiety had finally stilled, so more of a distraction really.

I dove right before impact and lost all momentum, gracing the ground with an uncontrolled roll and skid. A crashing tremor and thrown up dirt accented the landfall of a thigh-thick tentacle. No clue by how much it missed me, wasn’t keen on looking back to find out. Instead my attention was taken up by recovering and regaining some speed before the next appendage closed in for another smackdown. At least there were pauses in between attempted murders. That didn’t help me much when the first appendage accelerated for a sideways swipe.

This time my dodging dive was controlled, ending in a roll which got me back up on my feet almost instantly. I manifested a sword and drove it into the earth, anchored by my foot on ground level and a palm pressed against the handle while I leaned in right before the low swipe slammed into it. Green-black smoky gore sprayed me as the extremity bisected itself. Rather than admire my tactical genius, I set off against the blade, leveraging the range of my skill to retrieve it after the kick-off, miraculously without losing balance. Nice.

The fly swat repeated itself, although I’d gotten close enough now. A wafting hiss followed the grinding sound of my double-launched sword entering the core, embedded up to the hilt. It didn’t attempt a swipe or smack anymore, my positioning below the monster was too awkward for it to pull it off. Memories of the bone golem made me afraid the monstrosity would drop itself on top of me, so I abandoned any ideas of hiding under it and instead built distance again while the snakedrop-rock awkwardly repositioned itself by turning languidly, one step at a time.

My distancing lacked any elegance, couldn’t keep my eyes on it while running away. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to curve my run around the bastard after blindly dodging the third slam, causing its legs to entangle the horizontal follow-up. After it missed the fourth, all finesse went out the window, replaced by a straight sprint get out of range. My sense of timing had caught on and I’d stuck close enough to the landing area to jump over the tentacle once it picked up some sideways momentum. A final evasion later my part of the job was done. Strings of smoke and spreading white cracks signaled the mounting damage.

There was only one thing left do. I raised a middle finger out to Barry in the distance, who’d nearly doubled over from laughter. Your move soon, asshole. Couldn’t actually be mad at the guy, entertainment was in short supply after all and schadenfreude had always been popular.

It took a good minute of relaxed observation before the cracks had spread to the point of conjoining - this was another Errant with severe mobility problems. Then it collapsed into a bundle of rocks with a long, smaller slithering tentacle each, originating from a single, regular albeit shiny, chunk.

That was Barry’s cue to… apparently run in at full speed. I couldn’t quite figure out his plan until he just jumped into the middle of the swarm before they managed to do anything. Then he exploded in a pulse of translucent white and… killed them all? He told me earlier, with a different number system based on referencing primary stats, that he was a bomber. I expected it to be more of the throwing rather than the suicide variety though. He waved me over and tossed my sword, which vanished into my skill before making contact.

He beamed, “See? Wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

I gave him a blank stare. “For you, maybe. Getting the impression that I’m taking all the risk here. So what’s the plan with the remains?” I asked, gesturing at the vineless clumps of dirt. “I can do this about four more times before I run out of juice.”

“I ain’t payin’ ya for nothin’, no need to get mad. Ya seemed to have it handled.” He folded out something akin to a rectangular backpack made out of sticks, hide and a board while speaking. It was more of a square basket, really. “We’ll be taking the material from the little ones and using the big one to refill. Ya take ten and I’ll take five, I’ve got enough saved to make up the difference.”

The big boulder gave me a choice between 15 energy, a ‘growth stone’ or manual. It disintegrated, forcing me to reach down. “Yeah, yeah, just not used to this whole fighting thing. Shit’s scary man. But they’re not so bad in the end.” I split off and tossed him a fiver. My mana spiked by ten, accompanied by a faint shattering sound and some fading dust.

His brows furrowed. “Ya sure? Looked like ya were havin’ fun. First ones the worst anyway.”

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He was right about the latter, although the former confused me. The thought of the next fight was already spiking my heart rate. He went about collecting little green obsidian rocks and stacking them up in his back-basket. The smaller pieces fit quite well, probably why he preferred those. We made some small-talk while looking for our next victim. There was a grid-search type pattern which Barry insisted we stick to.

“So what’s the deal with the stones? Guessing they help with growing stuff, but best I can tell they pretty much cost one, and you were grinding in pure energy before right? What’s the difference?”

“Got it in one, but they’re twice as good as usin’ crystal. Honestly it don’t matter much for makin’ grain, but I’ve got me some projects back at home that could do with a bit of a boost. You’ll see when we get there. Gives me an edge over the other alchies too.” Barry had an entrepreneurial spirit and I could respect that.

“There so many of you that things are getting competitive already?”

“Nah man, most are feedin' the village or camps, there’s enough but tools are in short supply. Ain’t nobody figured out how to make ‘em yet, aside from the basic stuff, so we relyin’ on the freebies from the System. Last I heard, the best guess was that we need some kinda magic clay, no one picked pottery ‘s far I know. Got plans to branch out though. I’ll show ya later when we get back.”

He didn’t want to divulge any more. I astutely figured that out by his circling back of statements and refusing to elaborate, so we degenerated to trading small talk, petty insults and bad jokes instead - my preferred kind of high-dialogue.

We searched around for another three hours, and just as many kills, before concluding our ‘trial run’. It truly was much easier the second time around since I already had the timing down, to a science now, and my dodging evolved into something far less frantic.

The appendages looked heavy, and likely were since the thick tentacles couldn’t re-angle their approach once they got going. They were surprisingly shit at grabbing onto me, so the swipes weren’t a threat either so long as I didn’t let the overgrown snake tails build up speed before hopping them. Overall, it was smooth sailing from then on, and fast leveling.

We could’ve stayed longer but Barry wanted to get a head start on grinding grain pills for the next few days, responsible for the camp food supply as he was. We’d range out properly and commit to snakedrop rockicide soon enough.

He also needed to actually sleep come nightfall. I interrogated him on it and physical endurance made us able to go longer without, obvious enough in retrospect - probably missed it because my mind had been occupied by other things. His class focused on physical endurance and magical power, and he only slept once per two days thanks to the stats. I supposed it was efficient, although everyone having a different sleep schedule seemed like a giant mess for coordinating, well, anything.

Upon our return, the realization hit me that my sleep schedule was going to be a little awkward. I tried to exhaust myself by means of physical exercises like pushups, sit ups, jogging, and anything else which came to mind, with questionable success. It was one benefit of the post-apocalypse, made me sporty again – along with a need to acclimate to my ever increasing stats.

Chatting around the camp had revealed two people with the same stats were very much not equal. Some people at the village were quite into experimentation and data-logging, who’d reached said conclusion. I welcomed the news, especially considering my starting point of a sedentary chain smoker.

A habit that left my nerves frayed and my disposition irritable, so I told Barry to hurry up and make some fucking tobacco already, he happily obliged. We dried it with magical fire and then realized we had jack to smoke it with. I’d been getting a little ahead of myself.

Good ol’ Bob had us covered though since he was the heaven-sent owner of a pipe, dude was quickly rising on my list of favorites. He let us borrow it in exchange for some smokables, a perfectly fair trade in my opinion. Fast addiction based friends we all were. We couldn’t distract him for too long though, since Bob had a job to do.

Barry turned in early after a late dinner and all the tents were taken, so I ended up stargazing again by the fire pit. At least there were spare hides to fashion into impromptu bedding and a mending later my winter jacket pulled its weight in gold on the comfort front, which incidentally sparked an avalanche of people wanting their stuff fixed – certainly possible for the low-low price of 15 energy. Didn’t want to gouge them too much, friends were in short supply nowadays. But convenience had a cost, one they happily paid.

Stargazing was another habit which probably warranted quitting, seemed to prompt strange cataclysms for some reason. Maybe the cosmos felt a need to remind me of my insignificance, couldn’t have the little guy getting too uppity.

Perhaps my eyes were playing tricks on me, but in the far distance of space, all by its lonesome, floated an iridescent white and layered outline of what must be a fucking massive, elaborate medieval castle-cathedral. An absolute unit - could almost make out individual spires, arches and whatnot. Who the fuck built that anyway?

I roused people in the camp to make sure my psyche hadn’t finally fractured, but the responses varying from ‘not again’ to ‘here we go’ suggested the instances of celestial Armageddon were in fact real.

Well fuck, for once I’d hoped to be proven wrong.

They were apt proclamations, as one chunk after another got blown off by invisible explosions and entire pieces slowly drifted away to nothingness.

No clue why the new Gods or whatever held such hatred for space borne structures, nor was I in any position to philosophize about it.

But instincts demanded what they did and I cheered once again, this time with company – Barry and Bob were truly kindred spirits of mine. Eventually, one explosion too many caused the whole thing to fade away. It was probably an evil castle anyway. Yeah, that had to be it. If it wasn’t, we were fucked if whatever did that decided to say hello… and obliterate us all.

Fuck Godstrikes.