Four more monks emerged from rooms adjoining the main chamber, drawn by the sound of Samo’s voice. There were a total of ten then, not including the Keeper of the Well himself.
The monks were all at or around Level 80. Their bodies were huge, and freakishly muscled. Many had re-fashioned their ruined robes into kilts, and Redmane didn’t have to wonder what might have happened to those who hadn’t transformed. The monks’ faces and bodies were spattered with dried blood, and their claws were dirty with gore.
[Beastman] Marked as Prey
“Who might you be?” said Samo, in a tone that would be pleasant and conversational were it not so guttural.
“Your executioner,” said Redmane.
A number of beastmen broke out into guffaws.
Samo smiled. “And what have we done to offend you, good ser? We are but simple holy men, attending the Well.”
Redmane shrugged. “I’ve only met you and I find your existence offensive.”
The monks were fanning out quietly, ten pairs of gleaming eyes fixed on Redmane as he stood, still as a statue, facing down Samo.
If he could best a level 100 Sicarius, he could best a level 80 beastman.
But there were a goodly number of them. It would be wise to use a Skill, an equalizer. Something to take away their numbers advantage, even if only for a moment. Fear Aura came to mind first, but it wouldn’t do. They may not be as strong as he was, but they were still much higher level.
Fortunately he had something new.
Roar of the Elder
Gnosis: 979
Redmane’s roar made the waters of the well ripple like an earthquake had just struck. It shook dust and debris loose from the walls, made a few pebbles skitter across the floor.
It also made ten beastmen flinch and slam their hands down onto their ears.
Samo flinched as well, though not as dramatically.
The sound could nearly be seen by the naked eye, as if it were a physical wave of force.
It was over in a breath. Many beastmen bled from the ears, visibly dazed.
Redmane was already leaping over their heads to claw Samo’s head off.
An action the Keeper of the Well answered with a serene smile.
Abyss Walk
He melted into the floor. More specifically, a shadow upon the floor. In a heartbeat he was gone, and Redmane landed in the spot he’d been a moment ago.
Ten beastmen were turning to lunge at him simultaneously.
Redmane did his utmost to avoid being trampled or piled down. His claws worked well for it, with their Cleaving quality, but they weren’t quite up to the task of fending them all off by themselves. Bloodlust made him fast, but it also made him greedy for a kill.
But the monks were competent as a team, they blocked the wounded ones with their bodies, moved them to the back rank, encircled him from all sides. They protected each other and harried him, thwarting any plans he made.
The huge monks crowded in over him, clawing and biting, grappling for him, threatening to pin him against the wall or the floor or simply between the lot of them. It mattered not where they succeeded. All that mattered was making him immobile, so he could be eaten.
Redmane understood that there were fates worse than death, as Pietr had said. He’d already experienced one. Even if he were immortal, he didn’t want to find out what ‘immortality’ looked like in the belly of a monster.
A beastman leapt over the line of his fellows pressing in on Redmane, and he looked up and struck him from the air with Flame Breath.
Gnosis: 959
He ducked through a gap between two of them to escape the press of bodies, took a claw across his back for his trouble.
Corpus: 5550
Rage Fueled Might made him whirl around for a counterattack, but it was the wrong time.
As he turned, two more claws struck him and a third beastman lunged for a grapple.
Corpus: 4126
But there weren’t many places to escape to. And his foes were fast. He snapped and clawed, threw them off him, leapt away before being cornered again.
It made him think of the Gruu. He was a fast eater. But ten sets of jaws were inevitably faster than one.
Redmane found himself cornered.
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Roar of the Elder
Gnosis: 939
The wave of sound visibly pushed them back a bit.
And they all clutched their ears for the second round.
Flame Breath
Gnosis: 919
Before they had a chance to move their hands, he hosed their faces down with fire.
Now would be the time to make short work of them.
He was just about to. But something caught his attention.
Summon Envoy
The water in the well looked different.
It was dark before. But now it was pitch black. A profound, unnatural darkness.
The surface of the water began to bubble slowly, but in a moment Redmane realized they weren’t bubbles at all. They were tentacles arching up out of the depths, curling and then draping over the ledge of the well, one after another. And then the center of the pool swelled, and a mass of tenebrous matter emerged from it, the center from which all of the tentacles sprouted.
Eyes opened all over the central mass, and focused on Redmane.
And then more tentacles than he could count shot at him like spears.
Many stabbed. Others grappled. Redmane leapt away from the first batch, glanced for the stairs. He broke out into a run and avoided another salvo, then vaulted up over one on his way to the staircase.
But there were dozens more where that came from.
They caught him in midair.
Six tentacles punctured his chest like arrows. One went through his trachea.
Corpus: 3822
Three grappled him, one around the neck, one around the right bicep, one around his middle. The Beast Within exulted as he used Rage Fueled Might to snap the first tentacle off with a jerk of his arm, but there were already three more on him.
They began to pull in opposite directions.
Redmane growled and resisted. His muscles twitching from the effort, heart thundering in his chest. Even with his Might so high, he could do little but preserve a stalemate.
He looked down at the pile of beastmen he’d left behind, saw Samo walk out of a shadow on the wall and raise his hands to the Envoy.
Shaman’s Heal
His version of the Skill mended the wounds of the whole group. For a moment, they were all enveloped in living shadows. When the shadows dissipated, they blinked their eyes, shook their heads to clear the daze, and stood to watch the Envoy rip Redmane apart.
“This one is tenacious,” said Samo, with a smile. “Mighty enough to resist even an Envoy of the Abyss. A shame he must be destroyed, I would normally be most curious about such a visitor.”
Redmane’s nose curled as he bared his fangs, growling down at them.
More shadowy tentacles lashed around his limbs. Pulling in four directions, trying to quarter him.
He aimed a gout of Flame Breath at its central mass. A cluster of its eyes closed where it impacted, and the flames appeared to pour over its body without effect.
Gnosis: 899
No good.
This stalemate had to be broken. Fast. Before Samo and his monks decided they were done watching and it was time to rejoin the battle.
Rage Fueled Might worked wonders, but it was so short lived.
Perhaps he could provoke one though.
“You think you’ve won,” Redmane called out to the many-eyed entity, growling and struggling against the shadows restraining his arms. “Finish it then.”
If it understood what he said, it gave no sign.
Samo did understand, however. And he had a shrewd smile on his face. Perhaps he understood that his opponent was trying to bait a response. Evidently he felt secure enough in his position to indulge Redmane, because he nodded at the thing.
A dozen filaments of shadow pierced Redmane’s chest and gut.
Corpus: 2190
Rage Fueled Might
Redmane snapped the restraints on his arms and legs instantly.
It felt like biting through his manacle, back at Häerz Castle. How fortunate, to be able to relive such a moment of freedom yet again.
Carnivorous Metamorph
Gnosis: 889
The wings of the Manticore sprouted from his back and he beat them downward the instant they appeared, sending him aloft rather than toward the ground.
Tentacles shot for him. He slashed the first set to ribbons with two claws, flapped up higher to escape the next.
Fortunately there was much vertical space.
Not that it would help him get the kill. But it did give him another moment to consider his dilemma.
The ‘Envoy of the Abyss’ was quite strong. Thus far, it appeared to be impervious to his attacks. He’d broken its tentacles, but more came to replace them instantly. The thing seemed to be formed from pure, dense Gnosis of a sort he’d never encountered before.
And then there was its summoner, and his many minions.
Samo didn’t want to fight face to face, it seemed. Redmane supposed he wouldn’t answer a challenge to do so either. He seemed a coward, content to hide behind others.
If he attacked again, he imagined Samo would use that Abyss Walk Skill a second time and vanish into the shadows, leaving him to deal with ten hulking beastmen and a tenebrous tentacle monster at close range.
Perhaps he could draw him away from his protectors…
Redmane looked up. The stairs spiraled around and around the great shaft of the well, a cylinder of stone stretching up into the darkness. He flew upward, out of the reach of the Envoy’s tentacles, alighted on the stairs at the nearest landing and ducked into a room. The quarters of a monk, it looked like.
Spawn
Spawn
Spawn
Spawn
Spawn
Flicker
Corpus: 1440
Gnosis: 739
He made five red lizards, each about the size of his palm, each armed with enough Gnosis for a single shot of Flame Breath, and had them skitter along the walls and ceiling so they were all aimed right at the door.
Flicker would serve him well, in case his foe was faster off the mark.
And then he stood there, waiting for the Keeper of the Well to Abyss Walk his way over here.
For many long moments, it was quiet.
Redmane stood still, listening intently for any sound below.
There was none.
Not even the scrape of footsteps ascending the stairs. If the beastmen were moving, they did so with great stealth.
But the better possibility, the one Redmane hoped for, was a surprise visit from Samo himself.
Just as it occurred to Redmane that Samo was unlikely to come through the front door, did a claw strike his back.
Flicker
His vision blurred.
He experienced a brief, gut wrenching sensation. Like being yanked through a hole too small for his body.
And then he stood behind Samo, who had used Abyss Walk to enter the room from behind him. From his own shadow, perhaps.
It was a simple thing to tell the lizards to turn around. Samo hadn’t even noticed them yet. He was still perplexed at his opponent’s sudden disappearance.
Flame Breath
Flame Breath
Flame Breath
Flame Breath
Flame Breath
His robes took flame. His hair and beard took flame. His flesh took flame. He accumulated 20 stacks of Burning in one instant.
Redmane decided to make it 24.
Flame Breath
Gnosis: 719
Samo shrieked in alarm and ran out the door with his huge arms flailing, the whole of him engulfed in bright golden flames.
Redmane couldn’t see him from the front, but he imagined the Keeper of the Well was no longer smiling.
But a realization startled him.
The Keeper of the Well was running straight out the door at full speed. If he let him go, he’d tumble off the edge and likely fall down into the well itself. Into the very arms of that thing he’d summoned.
That would not do.
He burst into a run.