Chapter 57 - Make things Worse

The wall was on fire.

The ground was on fire.

Most pressing, however, was that my cloak was on fire. I tried to put it out, but the liquid flame I’d used in my flamethrower design was sticky stuff. I ended up having to grab the offending edge and triggering Devouring Grasp. Interestingly, my Engine buff flickered on for about a quarter second when I did that, but it was gone before I could look at the values. I’d check the log later, if I thought about it.

I backed away from the flames. They were already climbing up the facade of the corner building, using the wood accents and window shutters to spread to the interior. The adjacent junk berm… well that was 90% wood, and there was a healthy breeze coming from the west, making the spread of my little campfire an inevitability.

The window of time we had to get out of the area was definitely measured in minutes, probably in the single digits.

Behind me, all the shouts, twanging crossbows, hissing scourge, and the hollow roar of the Bray Knight told me that I still had work to do.

Maybe it was best I put the flamer turret away just now, though.

It disappeared in a flash.

The yard situation wasn’t that much better than the raging inferno that was once my part of the wall. While I’d been fighting the scourge and plugging the breach, the big Bray had been having a field day with every solid structure in the immediate area. Half of the building that held the cells was a collapsed heap along with the gatehouse adjacent to the stairs that climbed up to the top of the wall. The crates where we’d been gathering equipment and supplies was now a vaguely conical splatter of debris.

Currently, three guards were in front of the bray, slapping their swords on the edges of their shields and dancing side to side to keep its attention while the monster shook its tiny head and huffed. Tens of crossbow bolts stuck out of the creature’s back and out of its sides, but the problem was that the bray just wasn’t feeling it. It was bleeding from countless wounds, but nothing was even close to slowing it down, much less killing it.

Approaching the monster from the back, Sissa and Samila flanked the bray, armed with a white bedsheet or maybe a table cloth. While the others guards ran distraction, the sisters crept up on the monsters’ side and, with a surprising amount of strength and grace, Samila vaulted up and over the bray’s back, letting the sheet billow in the wind to cover a good bit of the monster’s head.

Then it was time to scatter.

The bray went insane. It bucked wildly trying to remove the sheet from its head. The hard edges that made up its armor were working against it just now, keeping the cloth from just slipping down to the ground, and the beast didn’t have the wherewithal to stop and remove the blindfold with a hoof.

The surrounding guards closed in to capitalize, chopping with their swords at the tender flesh on the back part of the monster, but it was dangerous business. One guard got too close and failed to retreat quickly enough, and the back end of the bray came around to knock him to the ground. His desperate scream was cut off as a heavy hoof came down directly on his chest, crushing his breastplate and silencing him forever.

I briefly considered summoning the flamer again to see what that would do, but I decided against it. We had enough problems dealing with the Bray Knight without making it a Flaming Bray Knight.

The remaining turrets barked as more scourge approached the berm.

Level up!

You are now level 17.

Well, that was nice at least. What could I do now, though? We were on a definitive time limit. Our defenses were about to cook us, and if they didn’t cook us, we couldn’t hide behind a pile of ash afterwards.

I sprinted forward, getting my sword out again and casting Willing Edge. 40 Body and a sharp sword had worked so far. Maybe I could do damage where the others couldn’t. I took a curving route to keep behind the bray, twisted at the waist like a coiled spring, and let loose with a high vertical chop as the bray kicked out. My sword’s edge cut through the meat of the monster’s thigh and sank deep.

Scourge Touched Bray Knight takes 4 damage. (26 base, -22 Resist) (Slashing)

My sword stopped cold, my arm vibrating in its socket like I’d just hit a steel beam.

*BONG*

Scourge Touched Bray Knight attacks you for 40 damage. (-50 mitigated)

Then I was flying.

It was a brief flight, less than a second. I barely had a chance to register what was happening.

You take 1 impact damage.

You take 2 impact damage.

You take 1 impact damage.

Status gained: Stunned [10 seconds]

You take 6 impact damage.

Then I was rolling. My world alternated between gray and blue and back to gray a half dozen times before I finally came to a stop against the collapsed structure of the cells, staring up at the sky.

“Umf,” I grunted as the sky wobbled in my vision. My thoughts spun with it, whirling drunkenly, refusing to coalesce into something coherent.

Sluggishly, I got my arm moving and ran a hand over my body, checking for missing or broken parts. Everything was sore, my clothes were ripped, and the inside of my hood felt sticky, but I was otherwise intact. The flesh surrounding my prosthetic side did seem tender, though. Did I take that blow in the spooky metal parts? That would explain a lot.

A hand reached down and snatched me to my feet. My still recovering equilibrium didn’t like that.

“A good try, monk, but a bull like that’s not a job for swords,” Bole’s voice said.

I closed my eyes and shook my head, trying to get the world to stand still again, and it seemed to do the trick. The corporal’s face materialized nearby.

I focused on it, fighting my stomach to not expel breakfast.

“Umf,” I said again. Real speech was still an aspirational thing right now..

“Around. These church zealots make me want some alone time,” Bole answered a question I hadn’t thought to ask. He squinted, scanning the remains of the camp, not lingering on any particular thing while rolling one of those knives on his knuckles.

“Well, that’s us fucked then, isn’t it?” Bole asked. I assumed the question was rhetorical.

I worked my tongue around inside my mouth and spit out a mouthful of blood and a bit of something soft and chewy.

“Not if we kill thissh thing firssht,” I said. Damnit. Had I bitten my tongue? It didn’t matter.

Bole’s assessment did have merit, though. I didn’t know how to kill this thing without time we didn’t have. We couldn’t move, either, not with the bray at our backs. If we tried to bring everyone down the alley while the hulking cow was still alive, we’d just be lining up bowling pins. Squishy bowling pins.

Another guard died as the bray suddenly stopped bucking and charged forward blindly. The guard tried to dodge, but the edge of the creature’s armored shoulder clipped her trailing arm and that weird shockwave attack the bray used ripped the woman in half, along with the tablecloth blinder.

I cast about for my sword, finding it only a few feet away, mind whirling for a solution.

Bole put a hand on my arm, stopping me.

“Don’t. Let them distract it.”

“We’re losing people,” I growled. “Sissa, Samila, and Geddon are still-

Bole pulled on my arm, but I was heavy. He couldn’t budge me. Instead, he ended up just pulling himself forward until he was in my way. “Stop. Let them do their job,” he said, pointing to my right with his chin.

The stairs. The stairs that led to the top of the battlements were a popular place right now. A circle of goblin spears were gathered around the base of the stairs as people rushed upward to flee to high ground, two at a time. A few of the scourge lay dead around the base of the stairs, ragged holes in their bodies from sharp goblin spears. The church guards were getting personnel up there too, mainly those with visible injuries, I noticed.

I had told Tiba to get her people to high ground, didn’t I? She worked fast.

There had to be a way I could help.

“Brays are tough bastards,” Bole said in my ear. “This one’s just under a Prince, only three or four of ‘em in a herd. Culling one of them usually means digging a spike pit or burying a blade trap then running like hell. Unless you’ve got any of those in your magical mystery pockets, you’re just going to get in the way.”

“Brother Ryan, Brother Fidus, do you require healing?”

Suddenly, a hand clamped down on my shoulder, three thick, black fingers stuck to my cloak. I gritted my teeth, preparing myself for anything, then spun to find Bishop Kolash there, his robes dirty, his face lined and wrinkled with exhaustion. His staff was held loosely in his still broken hand while the one on my shoulder seemed whole. I glanced at the appendage twice to make sure there was no glow from a curse or some other attack. Nothing. Kolash saw me look, let me look, but kept staring at me and not letting go.

Bole had had another knife out in a flash and held it between himself and the Bishop like a crucifix warning away a vampire. “Don’t you call me that. You don’t get to fucking call me that,” he cursed.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Kolash only had eyes for me, though. “We have no time for this. Am I required here, or shall I move on to assist others?” He asked. That was a strange way to phrase the question. Additionally, he wasn’t trying to kill me, despite having a free shot while my back was turned. He’d called me Brother just now too.

Kolash, without saying as much, was proposing a truce.

“We’re fine for now, your holiness.” I replied tentatively.

Bole just spat at the Bishop’s feet.

Nodding slowly to me, the Bishop turned and began to limp away, working his way around the edge of the yard toward the next clump of soldiers.

Well, if Kolash was a problem I could put off until later, I was okay with that.

I looked up to the top of the city wall, fifty or so feet above our heads, at the line of people filing upward and disappearing onto the battlements.

“Corporal Bole?”

I had a plan formulating, something that would work with our current situation.

“What?!” Bole snapped. He spun to face me, only just now tearing his burning stare from the Bishop's back. His expression was one of white, hot rage.

“The stairs,” I began, picking up my sword and pointing toward the city wall. “These can’t be the only stairs that lead up to the top of the wall, right?”

Bole’s face went slack as his brain switched gears. He blinked a couple times, his mouth screwing up into an absent sneer. I was beginning to think that was his default look. “A- eh- a half mile or- No. Every quarter of a mile or so,” he amended.

“How close is the next one to our basement door?”

Bole caught on quickly, but he didn’t like what I was proposing. “No way. The wall isn’t the road to your gran’s house. It’s even narrower than the side street, and it’s exposed.”

*THOOM*

The Bray Knkight laid waste to the entire bottom floor of the barracks. The structure sagged on its mutilated supports and collapsed, the first floor simply disappearing like it was never there.

“Better there than trapped in an oven with that,” I countered.

“Fuck.” Was all Bole had to say.

“Make sure everyone gets up there!” I shouted over my shoulder as I took off at a jog, not waiting for more input from Bole. I circled wide around the bray fight and bounded up the alley-side junk berm with more grace than I thought I had but not quite as much as one of the goat legged folks. I’d need to find out what they were called.

I only fell once, the janky construction giving way under my weight and causing a minor avalanche of cabinet drawers and chairs.

The turret I’d been aiming for was still dispensing lead. The scourge were bolder now that they had monsters on the inside of our defenses, streaming out from doorways and slinking behind cover to get closer to the gun’s position. A couple bodies lay splayed just below the turret’s leading leg, a close call. Subsequent ones would get closer and closer as the enemy became more numerous. That wasn’t going to happen, though.

I disengaged the activation lever and detached the magazine, working quickly to disassemble the gun and get it stowed. The scourge didn’t catch on right away that the gun wasn’t firing anymore, but once they did, they came on in numbers, scrabbling from hidey holes and jumping from windows to join the fray.

The legs were the last to go, disappearing in a flash into my spatial storage, then I leaped down to the yard, the flamer already appearing in my hands again. The bravest of the scourge was just poking its head above the berm when I triggered the activation sequence again, dousing said face in liquid fire.

I winced. Even though the scourge wanted me dead, that had to have been the worst way to go. The berm immediately around the dying monster went up like a tinderbox.

A good start.

I waved the decapitated turret around, catching the scourge as they tried to climb over, and the berm’s fire problems got much, much worse. Soon, the entire mouth of the alley was ablaze.

Stowing the flamer again, I moved on to the next turret, running across the yard, through our beleaguered guardsmen. Every turret I could save from the oncoming fire was another I’d be able to use up on the wall.

“Sir! What are you doing?” Lieutenant Obvious called after me as I sprinted to the other alley approach.

“Get everyone onto the wall, Obvious! Do it quickly!” I didn’t have time to look at him. I just hoped he understood how urgent this was going to be.

“It’s Begdel, actually, sir!”

“Get them out now, Lieutenant!”

“Yes, sir! Very good, sir!”

The other alley approach worked the same way. Pack up the turret, wait for the scourge, set the berm on fire. The temperature in our general area was sweltering now. The fire was closing in. Sweat beaded on my face and ran down the sleeves of my jacket and shirt.

One more.

Up onto the main approach. The fire was close to this one. I had to dance in and out of the heat while I worked, unable to stay more than a couple seconds, and the gun was extremely hot to handle. I did the disassembling mostly with my prosthetic, slapping the component pieces in my fleshy hand and stowing them away before they could do real damage to me, but I still ended up with burns. Exotic healing would have to carry me through.

I stowed the legs and leaped down into the yard again, not bothering to slide down the side. The flamer was already in my hand by the time I got back to my feet. I peered up, through the smoke, waving my fire spitting pain machine back and forth frantically to sweep over the much more extreme angle I was having to cover.

“Come on. Come on,” I whispered. I needed one to show its face so I could start the fire. Damnit, why didn’t I create a manual firing mechanism for one of these? Oh yea, because it would be super dangerous and stupid to hold one while operating it… like I was doing.

“Look out!”

My cloak wrenched itself to the side, pulling the catch across my neck, choking me and making me stumble. A good thing too, because something huge blew past me on my left, so fast and powerful it didn’t even register before it clipped the wrist of my prosthetic and-

*BOOM* *BOOM*

My world went white.

A few things probably happened at once. The Bray Knight, having just made contact with something it wanted dead (me… or more specifically, my metal arm), unleashed its shockwave attack, disintegrating the junk berm, the cobblestones, and, most distressingly, my flamer turret.

Said magical shockwave tore through the payload of my flamer, making it go up in an angry, demonic fireball that blasted out from ground zero, propelled by the bray’s magical force attack right into an already very flammable pile of wood.

The shockwave turned said pile of wood into an aerosolized cloud of splinters and sawdust that mixed with the air and kicked off a secondary explosion, maybe a millisecond after the first, that washed over me and sent flaming wreckage hurtling in all directions including mine.

A wave of burning junk blasted my front side. Something slammed into my stomach, punching the air out of my lungs.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. We are not catching fire today.

Whether it was the adrenaline or being more accustomed to life threatening situations as my Exotic life went on, I was up on my feet before I even got my breath back. My legs carried me, stumbling, away from the flaming wreckage and in the general direction of the gates.

Something clawed at my back, scrabbling through my cloak and wriggled its way up and out until we were sharing the same hood. A fuzzy brown head suddenly took up half of my field of view.

“Run, Ryan! Don’t stop!”

I let out a hollow moan as my diaphragm finally decided to work again and allow oxygen back into my lungs. “Guh- Trix?” I gasped.

I spared a look over my shoulder, but I wished I hadn’t.

My theory about a Flaming Bray Knight being much worse than the vanilla kind was, sadly, correct. The Bray Knight was a lava powered freight train. Its hooves pounded on the cobblestones, cracking them underfoot. Liquid fire dripped from the creature’s armored shoulders, head, and back, leaving a wake of nightmare fuel behind, and it was gaining on us. I could feel the heat on my back.

Trix, clawed my face, forcing my gaze to lock onto the battlement stairs.

“Don’t look back! Run!” He shouted. He didn’t take his own advice, though. He wriggled until he was halfway out of the hood and contorting to look on, horrified, at the monster giving chase. The barrel of his slung carbine jammed itself into my eye.

“Trix! What the- Ow!” I sputtered.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I would ride on your shoulder, but it’s on fire!”

I wasn’t going to be on fire today!

I pumped my legs as fast as they would go. Breaths came to me in short, desperate puffs. My heart was humming, chugging, trying to keep my body from flagging. Being blown up did something to my nerves, though. My body felt loose, like I’d replaced key muscle tissues with gelatine.

The base of the stairs loomed in front of us. Guards and goblin spears, upon seeing what was coming, scrambled upward as we came on, their eyes wide, pushing each other to get the hell out of the way before impact.

We couldn’t go that way. If the bray hit the staircase when we did, we’d all turn into bloody chunks.

I cornered to the right, making for the piled wreckage of the gatehouse instead, the bray right on our heels.

*CLACK* *CLACK* *CLICK*

Oh no. Here it was. We were about to die.

I put on a burst of speed. My legs felt like they would go out any time.

“Hold on, Trix!” I puffed.

I shot forward at a full sprint, up the broken wreckage of the gatehouse, praying the footholds I chose were stable enough to support our weight.

Up. Away. Over. To the apex of the rubble.

I gathered all the strength I had, willing it all into my burning legs and jumped.

Trix and I had skipped the bottom of the stairs, choosing, instead, to fly right up to the first landing where the stairs folded back upon themselves. It was a bold move, a fair distance to cross even if we were fresh and not stupidly heavy thanks to being made partially of metal. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to work.

Too soon in our arc, the lip of the landing started to fall upward, away from us.

No. No. No. No!

My arms flailed in mid-air, my legs too. I needed distance, height.

Tension Step [4,000 MP/sec]

Leveling the Running skill to 5 had given me this one. It was a choice between this and reduced energy usage while running or increased inertia while sprinting. Of course I was going to choose a double jump. Every platformer I’d ever played taught me that it was awesome. For me, though, it was… not awesome.

Tension Step: User may treat any fluid as solid matter for the purpose of running. Limit: 1 step. MP/sec based on weight, fluid composition, and surface area used.

My mana bottomed out immediately. I wasn’t full to begin with, but this… this was an instant descent into migraine hell. The light became too much for my eyes, everything blurred, sound buzzed, and my head felt like it was about to explode.

Yeah, this was not how this ability should have been used. Hell, of all the abilities I’d picked since I leveled up in the past, this one was probably my only true dud. I was just too damned heavy, and the air was just too damned squishy.

The ability failed almost immediately. My leading foot caught something, not exactly solid, more like an ephemeral, feathery puddle that didn’t support more than a tiny fraction of my weight. I pushed down, sinking my leg into it, getting as much force under me as possible.

This wasn’t a jump, per se, more of a slight delay of falling, a change in our arc to something wider, wide enough to slam us into the wall just under the lip of the stairs. My fingers scraped over the stones, trying to get a grip, but I was, again, too heavy, and the ancient stone was too weathered and smooth.

Trix’s hands shot out to claw at the surface of the stone as well, his back legs wrapping around my neck to help me. Good on him, trying to pull me up, but never in a million years would it actually work.

I felt the two of us slip and begin to fall. I had the fleeting thought of attempting to grab Trix and throw him up onto the landing, but I didn’t get a chance.

Strong, iron hands caught me around the wrists, arresting my fall.

*BOOM*

A plume of dust shot up from underneath us, catching my cloak and making it billow up in front of my face. My mana migraine chose that moment to reassert itself, and I threw up a little in my mouth.

We were alive though. The bray had hit somewhere down beneath us, but the wall still stood. The Dark Lord had made this stuff to last.

Trix shuddered, letting go of my neck, slumping down next to me in the hood of my cloak as we hung there. As one, we looked down at the monster’s silhouette in the dust cloud and let out sighs of relief.

“Sorry I lied to you,” I said. I had meant to say something clever, but somehow, this was what came out.

“And I… am sorry for not… seeing things from your perspective,” Trix replied breathlessly. “It was selfish of me.”

“You really are a warrior, you know,” I said after swallowing to keep from throwing up again. Constance, my head hurt, and the world was too damned bright.

“You don’t need to do that. It’s-”

I couldn’t keep doing this. I needed a lie down. “Shut up, Trix. You killed… so many monsters. More than anyone… *uck* else. Saved people. That’s real.”

“That’s-” Trix paused to think. I could feel him do one of those Volpa shudders again. “That’s not inaccurate.”

“No one else I’d rather have watching my back.” There that was it. I was done talking.

Trix reached up and gave the top of my head a tired little scratch. “Thank you, Ryan,” he said, shakily.

“That is so beautiful! Finally!” Geddon sobbed from above us. I looked up, squinting, to find the giant leori’s two massive shovel hands gripping my wrists. Tears streamed down his face, and his bared teeth formed the tortured shape of an overwhelmed smile, the kind your mother wore on your wedding day. “Now kiss, already. Then maybe start climbing.”