Chapter 60 - Be the Bait
“Run!” Trix shouted at me, as if I needed to be told twice. The last place I wanted to be was on ground level. None of our turrets’ lines of sight covered ground level with the exception of the stairs, and I was nowhere near those. Oh, and I was also about to be turned into jelly by an angry cow.
I ran.
“Not that way!”
A wave of pale and black bodies slammed into me from the side, out of the thin gap between two shops I’d already written off as too narrow to contain any danger. The scourge broadsided me, nearly forcing me to the ground before I even knew what was happening, but my enhanced reflexes and greater mass helped me convert the hit into a staggering blow instead of an overwhelming dog pile.
Hands reached for me and teeth snapped at my legs as I angled away and sprinted in the only direction I could see was clear. Most of my attackers fell away, unable to cling to a fast moving target, but I felt the claws of the shorter scourge-touched tear holes in my pants and rip the edges of my cloak. Only two of the particularly ambitious among them managed to hang onto me, one onto my leg, the other on my back. They didn’t slow me down, however. I had inertia on my side. Where I was going, they came with me, all the way across the miniature intersection to blast our way through the double doorway of an inn of some kind.
I used my prosthetic to take the initial impact against the well crafted wooden doors, while my weight did the rest, blowing the things off their hinges. As my new friends and I barreled through, I leaned sideways to clip the solid looking door jamb on my left, hearing a slightly different type of crunch as bone gave way and one of the monsters lost its grip.
The scourge on my back gibbered and slobbered on the base of my neck, rending with its teeth, tearing through the thick cloth of my cloak to get at the tender flesh beneath.
Reaching back, I grabbed onto its face, trying to trigger Devouring Grasp, but it wriggled out of the grip before I could clamp down.
I knew the rest of them were right behind me along with the heavy hitter that was the bray, so I didn’t stop or even break stride. Instead I kept moving, weaving between round tables in the middle of the communal dining room that seemed to have been set up for the express purpose of slowing you down if you were on your way to the stairs at the back of the building.
I needed to get up, off street level. I needed to get to those stairs. Street level was absolutely a no go considering I’d been down here for all of ten seconds, and I was already fighting for my life.
*FOOM*
Sure, I’d made an entrance by smashing through the door, but I had to admit the Bray Knight’s entrance was better.
The doorway, the tables, the lacquered wooden floor, and half of the bar became a hurricane of aerosolized wood. I wasn’t in the magical cone of destruction, but I was close enough to be blasted forward with the rest of the displaced air, stumbling to my knees before rolling into (then onto) the stairs. My passenger and I flipped end over end to crash against the far railing. The creature let out a choked sort of gurgle as I landed on it hard.
With a snap, one of the thick logs that made up the inn’s series of support pillars partially gave way, its tree-trunk thick wood bending while fibrous bits exploded out from its side.
I didn’t have time to get to my feet. Coughing, I rolled over and bear crawled up those stairs, hands and feet frantically taking whatever hold I could find, getting more distance between myself and death. The scourge on my back was stunned but still there. Its hands clutched at my cloak as if I were a life preserver.
The second floor landing had a lean to it, understandable since a good chunk of the building was now gone. Sawdust clumped in my mouth and irritated my throat as I panted and looked for a way out.
Where was the access to the roof? Every stupid building in Eclipse had roof access. It wasn’t here though.
I turned and sprinted the only way I could go, down the hallway, passing a line of doors that I assumed went to sleeping accommodations.
*CRACK*
The entire structure groaned as it leaned further out of whack. I cursed whoever it was that designed this building. They must have thought themselves so clever, bucking tradition and putting the stairs far away from the entrance.
Scourge-touched Goblin hits your for 8 damage. (slashing)
“Grplgblaaagh!” The asshole on my back said as it ripped into me anew.
“I know! I know!” I shrieked. My panicked mind could only deal with one life ending threat at a time, and the thing on my back wasn’t even in the top five on my priorities list at the moment. It paled in comparison to the Bray Knight and the collapsing building at least. If we stayed here much longer, we would both end up in pieces.
Stairs. Stairs. Where are the stairs?
Around a corner and down another hallway I found my answer. This place used a ladder that went up and through a hatch to get to the roof. Wonderful.
Heavy, hoof beats followed me through the place, shadowing me from the floor below. The bray’s hollow call held multiple, mournful tones in it now that I’d burned a large part of its throat away, making it sound more like an old train whistle from underneath our feet.
*BOOMF*
The shutters at the end of the hall blasted open, and the world tilted on its axis as the Bray Knight reminded us we weren’t safe even up here.
Status gained: Concussed [3 seconds]
My ears rang as I stumbled to the side, vaguely feeling my scourge passenger slide off my back to slump down to the floor finally.
Weaving drunkenly, I rebounded off the far wall and I got a hand on the ladder to start pulling myself up when half of the hallway disappeared, crashing down to the lower floor and bringing a significant part of the roof down to my level. The wood underneath me splintered and buckled, a floor slat at my feet snapping under the pressure and shooting sharp shards of wood into my calf.
Status Gained: Bleeding [1 HP/sec]
“Gaaaaah!” I shouted in pain, hopping onto the first rung of the ladder and using my upper body to get extra height.
Up the ladder to the roof. I reached daylight. Then I saw the rooftops of the buildings across my street except everything was at an angle, tipping.
No. No. No. No. No! No!
Then my attention was entirely on steadying myself with my hands and feet to try to not slide off into the street. Down below the bray kicked and stomped through all of those precious supports.
Meanwhile, the scourge, maybe a hundred of them, poured into the street, pooling at the base of my perch’s closest wall, waiting for me to come down and join them.
Wincing with the pain, I limped up the slope to the roof’s railing and lept for the closest adjacent structure on my side of the street. I aimed for an open shutter about five feet above my current altitude, but unfortunately, the inn chose that moment to collapse entirely. My foothold fell away just as I was about to jump.
I had a moment at the apex of my short flight where my target window was almost within reach, where I considered trying to activate Tension Step again, but the memory of just how badly it had debilitated me last time warned me away.
Then the moment was gone.
I landed in a heap amid the still settling rubble, back on street level but not swarmed with monsters as of yet. The inn’s roof came all the way down with a woomf and sprayed the area with a cloud of dust.
Adrenaline got me up on my feet again within a second, and I turned to discern some kind of direction where I might be able to run, but all I could see was the looming shadow of the wall. With no other landmarks, I coughed up something akin to mud or paste then limped in that direction, generally toward the sound of my turrets.
My eyes stung with all the crap in the air. Hopefully, it was as debilitating to the scourge-touched as well.
I summoned my sword and turned on Detect Iron as a precaution, reeling slightly at all the new sensory data. Running with it on was probably a bad idea on a good day, but today was turning out to be the other kind. Right now, all it was showing me was my body, my sword, and the trail of blood I was leaving as I limped on.
“Ryan!” Trix called from above me. I looked up but couldn’t see where Trix’s voice was coming from.
“What?” I asked, staggering to a stop but bending at the knees to be ready to strike at the next monster I saw.
“They are at the stairs! Keep doing what you are doing!” Trix shouted to me.
“I’ve got a mad cow chasing me!” I replied. My voice echoed off the hard surfaces of the empty alley, and my eyes darted nervously from window to window.
“Yes, I know! We cannot let it go near the main group! Keep it busy and off the route until they get to the exit!”
I did a full 360 degree turn, blinking the dust out of my eyes while I tried to get my bearings. “Which direction is the exit?!” I asked.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
There was a pause as I assumed Trix did some checking. “One street over and that way!”
I spun in a circle, looking for where Trix was, but for the life of me I couldn’t see him. “Which way?” I asked. I had to move right now, or I was in danger of being swarmed.
“Toward the wall and to the left!”
“Any chance you could toss a turret down here?” I asked, already not optimistic for the answer. A short, muffled howl came from one of the buildings behind me. “And soon?”
“Too heavy,” Trix lamented. “And those metal claws really hold on tight. Maybe if I had a saw or an ax. You should really consider making a release for those.”
I ground my teeth and cursed. My own short sightedness was coming back to bite me. Again.
The gears in my head ground together as I searched for a plan, then found one I didn’t like.
I summoned a vibrating purple fuel rod and cradled it in my hand as I made ready to throw it. “Trix, whatever you do, do not drop this!”
—-------------------------------------
I gasped for breath, coughing and gagging. The smoke choked me and stung my eyes as I stumbled through the burning alleyway. With every step, my left boot squished and popped as tiny bubbles of my blood were forced out through the seams. My cloak was mostly gone now, ripped away in a half a dozen close calls.
Honestly, with how badly the rest of my clothes fared, I felt lucky I still had part of my mask. A few ragged holes were in the thing now, probably not covering the entirety of my face, but it must have been enough, because I hadn’t been swarmed yet. I hadn’t heard that world shaking howl like I had the first time I’d run distraction for others.
The wall loomed up in front of me through the smoke. It was thick here, black and suffocating. Many of the buildings in this part of the neighborhood had been on fire since this morning, and they were all well and truly unsalvageable by now, their insides burning, their outsides pouring obscuring smoke into the air. Some of the roofs had already collapsed and become fuel to hasten the rest of their demise.
Everything in my immediate vicinity was on fire. That was bad. The upside was that it protected me from a lot of the small fries that were tracking me too. While I’d made my way through the burning neighborhood at great cost to myself and a significant loss of HP, my pursuers weren’t nearly so durable. They had to go the long way around or risk falling to the blaze as I nearly did. It was sad that I didn’t get the XP for those kills though.
HP 102/230
The trick with this little maneuver was keeping the Bray Knight’s attention while staying just enough ahead of it to not be blasted to pieces. It was an art more than a science, one I hadn’t really gotten the hang of. I was never good at art.
The bray was plenty pissed at me from setting it on fire, even more so from avoiding its overwhelming strength for so long. Honestly, it was strange that the plan was working as well as it was. If I were the collective mind of the scourge-touched I’d most definitely pull my heavy hitter off the slippery guy and go for the more vulnerable folks after the third or fourth near miss. That hadn’t happened yet, though.
Was there a certain degree to which it could control its monsters? Was there a limit? Was it more like a nudge than a full compulsion? Maybe compelling its troops to do things took more energy than letting them do their own thing until they are needed. That made sense.
This was all speculation, though. Maybe when I became a scourge monster myself, I could put that mystery to bed. Hurray.
I shook my head. Whatever the answer was, I still needed to stay one step ahead of the scourge, as long as it took to get people to safety. If my internal directions were right, I was close to where I needed to be. The wall was right here on my left, close enough to touch. The burning husks of the buildings looked vaguely familiar, and I could just barely make out a thick concentration of flames in front of me that just might be the junk berm I’d set ablaze not too long ago.
If this was my alley, which I was inclined to believe it was, then this was as good a position as I could get. I stumbled forward, coughing, my sword slippery in my hand from sweat and a little blood from the multitude of cuts on my arm. I’d need to be in position by the time the scourge found me, then I’d just need to hope Trix had done his part of the ‘plan,’ if you could call it that.
I listened for the right sounds. There was still at least one turret out there that was still operating. I wasn’t sure which one. Its *brap* *brap* cover fire confirmed we were still in a fight.
Something big snapped behind me, a wall or a pillar that finally gave up after enough of it was consumed by the flames.
The bray should have gotten here by now. Did I lose it?
How long had it been? Twenty minutes? Thirty? Had to have been. They had to have made it to the smuggler’s tunnels by now.
Just one more thing to do.
I knew my opponent was out there. It just needed a little encouragement. The bray itself couldn’t actually see. I’d figured that out. Probably a side effect of tanking a faceful of homemade napalm. Instead, it relied on its comrades to see for it, having the collective consciousness feed it my position continuously.
So, I surmised that I needed a volunteer.
I hobbled forward, drawing upon the supernatural awareness of Detect Iron. My timing would need to be right.
The muscles in my shoulder and torso tensed in preparation.
Then I lunged, grabbing a scourge-touched goblin by the throat. He’d been waiting there on the surface of the city wall and probably hadn’t seen me yet, but I’d certainly seen him and his iron rich blood. Thank Constance the Black Ones had at least some real blood.
The creature gurgled as I gripped its throat and held it out at arm’s length, giving it a nice, clear picture of my masked face, making sure it knew I was the guy.
I got what I wanted.
With a roar, the bray crashed through one of the burning buildings, sending a shower of sparks into the alley and stumbling as it caught itself. Like me, it looked run down, burnt and bleeding.
It was slow to get up, as damaged as its underside was, but it was hanging in there just for me.
This was the place, I was sure. I just had to hope it was also the time.
I reached up with my sword hand and pulled off my mask. My lips were too dry to whistle, so I settled for words.
“Come on, you little shits,” I said, directly into my captured Black One’s face, making sure it got a good look.
The world around me shook with the rage of the scourge-touched’s howls. The city was alive again with the fury of the horde. Good luck getting to me, in time though.
Now that I had the scourge’s full attention, I skewered the corrupted goblin and let it fall to the ground. Then I started backing up, feeling the heat intensify on my back as I approached the remains of the junk berm.
The bray fumed, its lungs letting loose a long, angry roar as it charged forward.
The cobblestones under its feet split, the drunken line it ran slamming it hard into the stones of the wall, rebounding to clip the charred corner of one of the buildings and sending a storm of sparks flying.
With a fortifying breath and a silent prayer, I finally triggered the rod I’d given Trix.
Near instantaneously, the alleyway became an epileptic’s worst nightmare. Hundreds- no, thousands of flashing, pulsing, purple lasers poured out of the far end of the alley, where the laser turret I’d set up upon our arrival yesterday was still functioning, the one Trix had, in fact, reloaded for me, thank Constance.
The lasers split wood, panged off of stone, splatted and sizzled when they struck water. Their accuracy hadn’t improved since yesterday, but they still did their jobs. They collectively ripped into the back of the Bray Knight, thousands of tiny attacks chewing up the monster’s flesh, dissolving it like acid.
You hit Scourge-touched Bray Knight for 3 damage. (0 base, +3 Knife in the Dark bonus)
Scourge-touched Bray Knight is marked.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight is cursed.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 3 damage. (0 base, +3 Knife in the Dark bonus)
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 1 damage. (0 base, +1 Marked bonus)
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 1 damage. (0 base, +1 Marked bonus)
Scourge-Touched Bray Knight resists mark.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 3 damage. (0 base, +3 Knife in the Dark bonus)
Scourge-touched Bray Knight is marked.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight is cursed.
Scourge-Touched Bray Knight resists mark.
You hit Scourge-touched Bray Knight for 3 damage. (0 base, +3 Knife in the Dark bonus)
Scourge-touched Bray Knight is marked.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight is cursed
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 1 damage. (0 base, +1 Marked bonus)
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 1 damage. (0 base, +1 Marked bonus)
Scourge-Touched Bray Knight resists mark.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight takes 3 damage. (0 base, +3 Knife in the Dark bonus)
Not every laser hit, but they didn’t need to. This was a hurricane of purple light. The particulates in the air contrasted with their brightness, widening and diluting the intensity of the beams, but every one retained its lethality.
The bray charged, but the back half of the monster simply fell apart, collapsing in upon itself, the skin, muscle and tissue flaking away to expose raw bone, rainbow colored with the greasy, vaguely organic byproduct of the weird bonus damage from Knife in the Dark.
With no muscles to support its weight anymore, the knight sagged in the middle and tumbled forward, mid-stride as the laser light show concluded. The juggernaut’s prodigious size and weight gave it substantial inertia, however. It slid, inexorably toward me, the cobblestones and packed dirt beneath cracking and piling up in a wave of earth until the dying monster came to a stop just feet away from me.
The Bray Knight’s head flicked, spasmed. Its breaths were weak.
*click* *clack* *CLACK*
The head turned in the bray’s pitted and cracked armor. I couldn’t see its eyes, but the black stained visor stared into me as it prepared to strike one last time at me as its final act in this universe.
*CLICK*
Lunging forward, I snagged the bray’s head in my Iron Grip, the metal fingers of my hand curling behind the outer edge and clamping down. The armor bent under my fingers, and tiny cracks formed in its surface.
Devouring Grasp (Magivore) [5 MP/sec]
The strange metallic bone that made up the bray’s shell suddenly crumpled like a beer can, and black liquid shot out of the monster’s visor and onto my pants.
Down at my feet, a smokey, gray crystal clinked off the cobblestones.
“Maybe next time, asshole,” I said. I hoped the scourge heard me.
Scourge-touched Bray Knight Defeated.
You have been awarded 8,082 experience points. [14,300 base (+1,222 level, +2,000 group, +2,000 chain, -11,440 non-combat class)]
Level up!
You are now level 18.
Loot Scourge-Touched Bray Knight? Y/N
Yes.
I queried the System and let the rest of the messages scroll by, two levels worth of achievements.
Summary - Levels 17 and 18:
1x All Natural: You have spent 80% of this level with full mana. [+1 body]
2x Spirit of the Warrior: You gained 51% of your experience this level from defeated foes as a non-combat class. [+3 spirit]
1x Near Death Experience: You fell below 10% of your HP this level. [50% bonus experience gain for next level]
2x Doing Your Part: Some of your creations have been used against agents of the Scourge. [+200% experience awarded for new designs next level]
2x Big Spender: You have spent 5,000% of your total mana pool this level. [+1% mana regeneration per second.]
1x Rift Hunter: You gained 51% of your experience this level from Nemesis tagged foes. [+1 to all attributes]
1x Inventor: You have created at least five new designs this level. [+1 Mind]
1x Boss Killer: You have defeated a foe far above you in level. [+2 to all attributes]
1x Ambitious: You have defeated a foe above your level. [+1 to lowest level ability]
1x Reversal: You gained 100% of your experience this level from Nemesis tagged foes. [+3 to highest attribute]
Shakily, I bent down as I hurriedly stored the gray crystal that held the Bray Knight’s ‘spell.’ As for the loot from the monster, that was a mystery. It was a shiny silver glob of… something that felt smooth and pliable when I touched it, so pliable that it slipped through my fingers like liquid every time I tried to pick it up.
So, I made it vanish into my spatial storage where I could examine it later.
Now it was time to go.
The Southern Gate burned behind me as I flew down the alley to finally join the others.