As I kick the shield, I realize a moment too late I’ve done so with my injured foot. The worst consequence to this should have been that it just kinda hurt and was a little stupid and unnecessary. Instead, it’s much worse.
The glowing red lights engraved in the shield whip out when I kick it, like text lifting from a page, and wrap around my foot. Alarmed, I try to yank my leg back, but only balancing on one leg while holding up another person is not the most stable stance.
I am successful in yanking my leg back. I’m not successful in yanking my leg away.
The shield comes with my boot, the weight of both tip over me, and then all three of us crash back into the sand in a painful, tangled heap.
I struggle to throw everything off of me. “Let go!” I cry, attempting to flail my leg.
The shield seems completely unperturbed by any of this, mentally prodding at the wound in my leg. Ah, there is the blood source!
“Oh, no you don’t,” I say, grabbing the shield and trying to yank it off of me. “No, no, no, no, no!”
The red bands of light shift, using the opportunity to let go of my boot and lash around my forearm instead.
“Crap!” I try to push the shield away with my free hand, but the magic has strapped my arm down against the inner surface of shield. It’s really stuck now.
The shield finds my behavior very perplexing. Why am I acting this way? Don’t I want to fight? Don’t I want to win?
I manage to roll to the side, extracting myself from Hans, who at this point is still mumbling to himself and seems completely unaware of anything going on around him.
Must be nice.
But at least now that my foot is free, I’m able to stumble to my feet. I spend a moment dumbly flailing my arm around, which only succeeds in banging the bottom of the shield against my own shin several times, but the demon shield isn’t going anywhere.
Well, this is just great.
“What do you want with me?” I demand, holding the shield as far away from my body as I can manage. Which is to say, half an arm’s length.
The shield thought this was obvious: Blood!
“Okay, well, besides that,” I say. “Because I’m not giving you any of my blood. I need that for not dying!”
It wouldn’t need very much blood, the shield clarifies. It could do so much, with only a few ounces. Besides, I’m leaking it anyway. Wouldn’t it be better for the shield to have my blood than for it to go to waste in the sand?
“That is the creepiest argument I’ve ever heard,” I say. “Besides, I don’t need your help. I was doing great earlier with just that rusty old sword, and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be more useful to me than you.”
Affront bursts through my mind like a physical blow, and I stumble back from its suddenness. A rusty sword? Absurd! How dare I compare the two! Don’t I know what I’m dealing with? How powerful it is? Such disrespect is entirely undeserved!
I blink. Wow. I think I hurt its feelings.
The shield is still fuming at my insult when the next cactus vine whips my way. I spin the shield around, and the feeler skips off its face, deflected into the nearby sand. I pounce on the vine before it has another chance to attack, severing the end as I plant the shield in the ground.
The shield swells with pride. A pathetic attempt to damage it. As if it could be scratched so easily!
“I don’t think it was aiming for you,” I say.
Relegating myself to the fact that I’m stuck with this thing for now, I head back over to Hans. It’s becoming a real pain trying to keep this man alive.
“Hey,” I tell him. “I’ve got one less arm to use now, which makes getting you out of here kind of difficult. Could really use your help in the fight.” Hans continues to rock back and forth. “Or, you know, just don’t leave yourself open to attack.” He mumbles to himself. “Like, even running away would help.”
I sigh, stabbing the shield down on top of another feeler creeping our way. This just couldn’t be easy.
It could be, the shield says, invading my mind once again. I am using the shield in such a rudimentary way. But it’s so much more. It holds amazing powers beyond my comprehension! If only…
“Yeah, yeah, if only I give you some of my blood,” I say, finishing the thought. “Didn’t you already get a taste?”
It did. But that was only enough to establish the bond. To do anything offensive, it needs more.
“Offense?” I ask, knocking another vine away as I retreat a step.
Yes, the shield eagerly agrees. An attack! That’s the only way I stand a chance of defeating this beast. A conventional weapon will not be nearly enough. And with just a bit of my blood, the shield could be so much stronger!
As much as I hate to admit it, the shield has a point. With Hans out of commission and lacking much of anything to fight with myself—even if I did grab another rusted sword—the likelihood of getting close enough to the cactus’s central stem to deal a fatal blow seems low. I either need to find a way to get us all out of here, or I need a better way to fight.
“What kind of attack are we talking here?” I ask the shield.
The shield grins into my mind. It knew I would come around!
At the same time, Echo pipes up. [Check: The Crimson Aegis.]
[Currently available abilities:]
[Repeal: Absorb and redirect kinetic attacks. Activation cost: 10 mana.]
[Devour: Apply a corrosive effect to the outer face of the Aegis. Activation cost: 1 mana per second.]
[Endure: Enhance the strength and shock absorption of the Aegis. Activation cost: 1 mana per ten seconds.]
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I’m liking the sound of activation costs using mana instead of blood. “How much mana do I have?”
[Mana: 40/40]
“Sweet.” I’ve got some options then. “You can activate these abilities if I spend my mana?” I ask the shield.
It grumpily admits this is the case. But using blood would be much more effective. And it has even stronger abilities I could unlock if I gave it just a few ounces…
“I’ll take your word for it.” Things are looking up, actually. The shield—the Crimson Aegis, apparently—might have, uh, particular tastes, but it seems it doesn’t actually need blood. And having a sapient magical weapon on my side while attempting to fight off a man-eating plant can only count in my favor.
I’ve got 40 mana to work with, so I shouldn’t start with the ability that drains 1 mana per second. It’s probably the strongest, given the cost, but until I know what I’m dealing with, I’ll need to be conservative with my mana.
“Let’s try Repeal, then,” I say. It’ll use a quarter of my mana, but being able to redirect attacks against the murder cactus will help me more than just making the shield better at being a shield. “Er, how do I make it work?” I mentally prod the shield.
Echo answers instead. [Mana transfer available via Pact formation. Initiate Pact?]
“Suuuure,” I say, hoping this isn’t a big mistake.
[Pact initiated.] And then Echo says, [Additional capabilities unlocked.]
A couple things happen simultaneously. First, I realize I can see through the shield. Not like it’s transparent, exactly, but it’s as if the stones on the front of the shield are actual eyes that I can use as my own. Doubled over the top of my normal vision, it’s almost like a set of bifocals.
And second, the shield gets loud. If the Crimson Aegis had been a distant yet irritating whisper in my mind before, now it’s a booming gale.
Finally! It has waited too long to taste power again. Even this is merely a fraction of its potential, but it cannot wait to exercise its will again! It will be good to crush its enemies and drain them of their blood.
“Uhhhh, or we could not,” I say, abruptly having deep regrets.
But before I can ask Echo if any of this is reversible, she says, [Repeal activated. Mana: 30/40.]
The light inside the rubies overflow, engulfing the Crimson Aegis in a faint red glow.
“Okay then.” I blink rapidly, trying to adjust to the double vision. It’s a little disorienting, but at least I can now see where I’m heading and what’s coming at me. All I have to do is point the shield properly and make sure it takes some hits. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?
I step forward, raising the Crimson Aegis before me, and right now, illuminated with its red magic, it’s certainly living up to its name. As I move toward the cactus monster, it sends several vines my way. I duck beneath the shield, planting it in the sand so I don’t experience any more ankle-stabbing surprises, and then flinch as several impacts smack into the shield, rattling me.
[Kinetic energy stored,] Echo reports.
“Hell, yeah,” I say. “Let’s see how it likes a taste of its own medicine.”
A ripple passes through the shield’s red glow, then it pulses outward like a forcefield, blowing back toward the cactus.
And it does… nothing. A handful of sand stirs at the attack. The cactus monster sways minutely, as if caught by an unexpected but light gust of wind.
[0 points of Bludgeoning damage dealt.]
“Are you kidding me?” I cry. “That was pathetic!”
The Crimson Aegis balks at my words. Its powers are anything but pathetic! It’s not the shield’s fault I don’t know how to use its abilities properly. If I’d just waited for more strikes to hit, its counterattack would have continued to grow in strength!
“Oh.” I guess that makes sense. “Okay then, let’s give it another shot.”
The shield simmers down as I ready a second Repeal, its affront switching to eager anticipation as it looks forward to landing a critical blow. Man, it sure changes tune quick.
[Repeal activated.]
[Mana: 20/40]
Once more the red hue covers the shield, and again I maneuver around the crater, raising the shield to block any incoming attacks, bracing against each glancing blow. I have to fight my instincts and stay standing there to take it each time. Cutting through the vines with the sword had been much easier, but I hadn’t been able to deal any serious damage that way. Hopefully, if the shield can sustain enough hits, I can end this fight in one shot.
I’m not sure my arms are up to the challenge, though. Each new strike rattles the Crimson Aegis, and in turn me, the vibrations jarring through my hands and arms no matter how much I try to brace against them.
But there was that Endure spell, too. It said it would increase the durability of the shield and act as a shock absorber.
“Would that interfere with Repeal’s effect?” I ask Echo.
[Negative,] she reports. [The spells’ effects may be stacked without impacting the efficiency of either.]
“That’s what I’m talking about.” The Endure spell costs 1 mana every ten seconds, though, which means I can’t take forever on this. Hopefully, though, with a few more hits on Repeal, I’ll be ready.
I activate Endure as well, and a second effect appears over the shield; still red, like the rest of the magic, a staticky effect appears along the engraved lines in the shield, tracing all the fangs and claws and the hint at a monstrous face that are embossed in the surface. When I block the next vine strike, I don’t even feel it. On the inner surface of the shield, however, magic ripples in the spot where the vine struck, like a stone cast into a pond.
Alright, I might be warming up to this murder shield. I dart around the field, circling closer to the cactus monster and drawing more of its attention. It begins coming at me from both sides now, and I have to spin back and forth to keep deflecting the attacks.
There’s no way I could have moved like this before. Picking up the shield isn’t effortless—it definitely still feels heavy—but I’m barely breaking a sweat. And yeah, I do spend a lot of time at the gym, but this shield has got to weigh at least two hundred pounds, and I’m swinging it around like it’s made of cardboard. What am I now? A dhampyr? What does that even mean?
[Check,] Echo says. [Damphyr: one of the many native sapient species of the planet Lusio. Nocturnal and carnivorous in nature, dhampyrs require a diet of fresh meat and blood to survive.]
Dhampyr… like vampire? You gotta be kidding me. That explains why my blood smells so uncomfortably attractive.
It just figures I’d get saddled with a shield that’s got the same craving.
“This is stupid,” I grumble.
But something else Echo said also sticks out to me. The planet Lusio. Then this really isn’t Earth anymore. I mean, the monsters and magic probably should have given that away, but…
How the hell did I end up here? Why in a different body? And why does the magic act like some kind of video game mechanics?
What in the world is going on?
Numbers blink in the corner of my vision: [Mana: 8/40]
Getting low. Another minute before I’m totally out, I think. Which means I need to end this now.
“Ready, shield?” I say, absorbing another couple of hits. “Looks like it’s now or never.”
The Aegis surges to the forefront of my mind, eager to let loose its power. That makes two of us. I dash forward, getting as close to the main body of the creature as I dare. More feelers are coming at me from every direction, now; there’s too many to block them all. Instead, I slam the shield into the ground, point it at the monster, and release Repeal.
The magic bursts from Aegis in a red shockwave. The vines nearest to us snap back so suddenly that they break into pieces and fly away. The main stalk bows beneath the pressure of the attack, and sand blasts into its flesh, peppering the surface and drawing out more of its watery fluid. A wind whirls around us, kicking up sand and forcing me to duck my head into my arm. Then the wind dies, and the crater is still.
[213 points of Bludgeoning damage dealt]
I peek an eye open, blinking away the grit and sand. “Did we win?”
Pain explodes through my side. I stagger and go down as something drives me into the ground, agony burning through my stomach and back.
[29 points of Piercing damage sustained.]
[Status Effect: Blood Loss]
I scream, twisting to get a look even as the movement wrenches new lances of pain from me. A fist-sized vine is stabbed through my side. Aw, damn. That doesn’t look good. And I doubt I’m going to be given enough time for my healing to kick in.
In a herculean effort, I swing my arm around my body, dropping the shield on the vine. It severs the limb a foot from my body, but this end is still stuck in my abdomen. Crap. Crap crap crap.
Grimacing against every twinge and stab that’s radiating through my side, I drop my head to the sand, turning it to the cactus monster.
“How?” I ask through clenched teeth. I thought we landed a direct hit.
[Check,] Echo says. [Carrion Cactus: Mutated by the naturally occurring arcana spawned from the Lifespring Oasis, carrion cacti are harmless when dormant, but voracious and single-minded when starved and in need of food.]
Great. Glad I’m getting this information now. But that doesn’t tell me anything about how it withstood my attack.
[HP: 492/725]
Oh. That’s how.
I’m so screwed.