Scales like blackened iron, sitting with strange suspension on four tree-trunk, armoured legs tipped with a line of long, fiery claws. This was what I faced now. The most fantastical fiend I'd come across by far. Its Weakness, Distracted by noise, seemed to me more difficult to exploit . . . but I had a few ideas, already.
In my first leap and bound I thrust down hard with my spear towards a gap that opened between shifting layers of carapace. Before the blow sunk home, it only needed shift its weight slightly and the legs on one side of its body compressed and those on the other side stretched out. With the glinting bronze spearhead inches away, it was suddenly at a slight diagonal, and the gap in the carapace disappeared between two thick layers of metal. The spear buffed off them, leaving an ugly white scratch, but no real damage.
Quick on my feet, FULLY committed, I shocked off [Vigour] and with a powerful burst of thigh muscle, darted around the other side of the thing to where the carapace had opened up, and gave a smaller, more controlled thrust. The demon armadillo’s Constitution was high, but not insurmountable, and had nothing on the skeleton I’d put down the day before.
One or two attacks like this should do it . . . If successful.
But the thing bounced again like a bloody lowrider, tipping towards me violently and closing all the gaps in a split second. The spear again screeched against the side of the carapace, digging another zig-zagged white line into it.
I hopped backwards to make some distance, to try to reevaluate, but the spearhead caught between two shifting scales and slipped out of my grip. Five yards away, weaponless and unbalanced, I skidded on the floor, I squinted and reached inside myself for [Battle Tactics]. I took a moment while it righted itself to glance at individual parts of it, but no sparks of insight came clearly. There were ways forwards, but none of them killing blows.
Spitting out a mouthful and clenching my jaw, and with a running jump catapulted myself onto its back, reaching into myself for [Vigour] as I pushed off the ground, already feeling the Skill delay in my mind. It tried to twist and claw at me aloft but didn’t have the Dexterity, leaving lines of fire in the air — it slashed into nothing.
My sandalled feet hit hard iron near to my stuck spear and on all fours my fingertips found purchase on one of the scales and pushed off with all the might in my legs, but even with my improved Strength I couldn’t move the carapace more than a half-inch. With the echoes of the Skill I dug deeper, pushed my feet apart like readying for a deadlift, blew out my lungs, tensed every muscle in my body, sinews strained to breaking, and ROARED effort. I felt something tear and give beneath my fingers, then the shining scale straightened, bent backwards, and lifted up with a sickening pull, stretching the orange flesh like webbing before it broke free and I almost fell back with the force.
I felt the armadillo rumble pain beneath me and snapping noises and churning erupted from below. Quick as a flash, I wrenched my spear free and gave a savage stab down into the exposed body. Its bile-yellow blood steamed and sprayed up from the wound, spattering my arm with searing heat.
Just as I felt [Battle Tactics] leaving me, I had a stabbing instinct to jump off the back of the thing even as it began to compress itself and curl up. In the space of five or six seconds, it had bound itself up, its legs tucked inwards. The demon armadillo became a perfect sphere of glinting metal and red fire.
Glancing around, I saw a tall, blackened rock jutting out of the ground, ten-foot tall and broad, and rocketed myself towards it. I heard the same churning noise again reverberating from inside the thing and knew it was rolling towards me, picking up speed.
Running as fast as I could, I dipped into [Vigour] for a third time, feeling the ache and strain in my thighs and calves. As I reached the rough wall, I waited for a moment with my back turned, then, panting sharply and heart pounding, I quickly dove out of the way of its blackened iron onslaught.
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A half-second of whirring wind, crushed ground and terror, then the Cinderback hit the boulder HARD, unsettling sheets of ash and leaving a long, deep crack in the stone.
Grunting and shuddering, the fiend unfurled in one mechanical motion. Its accordion-like legs came out at strange angles then found the ground, and it turned its disc-armoured snout to me and bellowed flame, its whole form trembling and clicking. Then, sparks flew off its body as it reared up, teetered for half-second, then its back legs extended like pistons and it threw itself forwards.
Instinctively, I overextended to another use of [Battle Tactics] and felt my mind grow hot, then as the Skill imbued my eyes with preternatural focus, my heart leapt: its underbelly was a living furnace, shedding embers and smoke, emanating heat, but looked like the same soft orange flesh I revealed under the broken carapace. I dove to a place unshadowed by the beast’s enormous black body.
Get it to roll up again, to unfurl, and to rear up and try that Searing Smother attack again.
Next time, I’ll be ready.
With an almighty CRASH its weight fell on the ashen ground and obsidian, crackling and shattering each part its armoured feet fell on and throwing up soot clouds and shards of black glass. I caught myself and rolled, and while it reeled from impact I clambered onto its back.
Opportunistically, spear-in-hand, I three-point scrambled over to the gap in the armour again and in exactly the same way, used every ounce of Strength I had to plunge the spear down into it. It raged and twisted again, to a predictable end: the churning picked up and its carapace started clicking together.
Leaping off again, I had a head-start. While it wrapped itself up into a ball, I sped at full bore towards a wide crevice, almost an enormous eroded hole, that extended a few dozen yards in all directions and disappeared into blackness below. By the time it was finished and gaining speed, I was already perched upon the precipice.
Lungs screaming, muscles stretched to ripping, I beat my chest with one hand, trying to bring myself back to my senses.
The metal boulder spun across the ground, spraying thin wet-looking arcs of fire into the air and choking the already ashen air with a cloud of smoke. It propelled itself and sped up, but well before the impact, when it had reached a predetermined point, I took off along the edge of the precipice.
Either it would fall, or . . .
A staccato CLICK-CLACK filled the air as it started to unfurl rapidly. A barrel-shaped leg, compressed short, shot out at a random angle from the ball, and another, then the rest, and acted as brakes, dragging the beast in a desperate attempt to slow.
The blackened iron screeched against the stone, a lick of wet fire blew out from every joint. The four legs behind it left scars in the earth as it slowed . . . slowed . . . slowed . . . and came to a halt a half-yard away from the abyss.
Clicking my teeth, the berserker grin split my face again. Eyes wild, heart beating like a drum, the head of the Bronze Spear glinting, I ran at it with abandon.
Just as expected, the Cinderback’s rage was instant and uncontrollable. Its strange mechanical-like insides chugged into gear slowly and its back legs compressed, reading its Special slam again. Its small nearly-covered eyes, burning like coals, locked on mine, its front legs telescoped outwards suddenly and it raised the front of its body up off the ground to a severe angle.
“ALATOR, NOW!” I yelled.
Immediately, Alator, eyes glowing yellow-gold, burst out from hiding and, still in the air, howled like a behemoth wolf declaring himself the alpha male after mortal combat with a rival.
The fiend reacted instantly and perfectly. Its armoured disc-like head twisted clockwise towards the noise and it lost all momentum in its movement. Its back legs buckled and it started to teeter backwards and forwards like a brittle tree in the wind.
[Vigour] pounded on and I launched myself forwards, [Weapon Mastery] commanded my arms into perfect, vicious motion, and I thrust again and again into the soft underbelly of the beast, my spear like a jet of bronze lightning.
Gluts of bright yellow blood sprayed from it at massive pressure from every wound, and the living engine inside it began to thrum with a sound something like a corrupted audio recording of a hyena’s laugh. I stabbed a half-dozen more times as it struggled tragically for balance, and by the time it had, its soft orange underbelly was a roadmap of streaks, cuts, runnels of blood, and dripping fire. Its eyes high above me, starting to dull, came towards me.
It started to fall forwards, the iron ton of its whole weight, right on top of me, but in the mad moment I could do nothing but roar laughter and continue to plunge the entire length of the spearhead into it. Movement in my periphery — but nothing else mattered!
I AM going to be the one to kill this thing. I DESERVE the XP here. I DESERVE THE GLORY.