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Our Little Dark Age
51 - Life finds a way

51 - Life finds a way

Elia tumbled down the giant hermit crab house, bounced off a chitinous leg and hit the ground with a definitive bonk. Everything looked and felt weird. She was fairly certain the world was trying to convince her that gravity always had pulled people to the left by default. That didn’t keep her from rolling out of the way as an errant crab leg tried to fuse her face with the pavement.

Not a bad death that would have been. 5/10, instant, a bit overkill, but lacking drama and tension.

Rye, get your magic ready in case we – ah shizz, we swapped again.

“T-that was a miscast. A strong one, a self-sustaining reaction.” Rye struggled to stand. Her apprentice ring was covered in a growth of green flakes and her instinct was screaming bloody murder.

She found a wall to lean against. One breath in, one breath out. Two breaths in, two breaths out. Three, and she was Elia again.

Be careful. Karla is–

“–doing a heroism? Sure, I‘ll stop her.” Elia groaned, setting into a power walk towards the alleyway. The spell miscast left a rupture in place, a swirling mini blizzard where the occasional hand-length shard embedded itself into the nearby stone walls. “I hope she isn’t dead already.”

The girl wasn’t, though not by her own initiative. Where they arrived at the monster pulling the last limb from the conjurer, Karla had determined that she was going to be the last line of defense for the only remaining person on the field. The claws had already scored thin lines along her shield though luckily the ambient screwyness was affecting both of them. The monster struggled on its side, skin on its face blasted away down to the bone as heavy squirts of blood dropped from the holes in its neck.

“Do these things never die?” Elia yelled in frustration and ducked beneath a thrown torso. “Yeah, screw you too! And screw the trees. I’ve got a car battery with your name on it, bambi!”

Careful Elia, staying here any longer than necessary is dangerous.

“I know, I paid some attention during magic theory class. Hey Karla!” The girl didn’t move from her protective position. There was a bowl nearby. Evidently, the group had thought they could retreat to it in time. Evidently, they didn’t make it far enough. The monk was bleeding out from a single nick that had slashed through her thin robes and had hit an unfortunate artery.

I don’t recognize their colors. Then again, the empire supports many cults, subcults, temples, monasteries, et cetera.

“People? This far in?” the monk, who reminded Elia too much of a buddhist, asked. “Amitabha, purple friend. I come in peace. Or rather, pieces. If you could drag me to the bowl, I would be very–”

Elia left her lying in the dirt. Knowing your priorities was important.

*Gong*

Checkpoint got. Her arm regrew. Karla was still alive, but too far up front.

Elia swore, making her way right up to her even as the claws lazily swiped at her along the way. They were getting slower by the second. The beast was done for, which was just the signal for Karla to move in for the kill. The girl would have walked right past the magical anomaly and towards the still living blender-deer had Elia not pulled her back.

“Wha-what? Miss Elia, we have to finish it off.”

“No we don’t.”

“It killed all these undead in minutes! It is a danger to all, no matter their allegiance.”

“At least wait until it’s bled out some more. Use your head, use your blood magic. That’s not a person, is it? You can sit here and just go ham!”

At that, the girl blinked in belated realization.

“Blood magic doesn’t look very heroic though,” she muttered and Elia felt near ready to strangle her.

Karla sheathed her shortsword that would never have reached the deer-thing anyways and stared at it with a deep intensity. She beckoned something invisible in the air with grasping hand motions, pulling at the ether like she was plucking cotton candy from a stick. Elia watched in morbid fascination as at first a stream of blood slowly dribbled out of its mouth, shortly after followed by a gush of red around its neck. The creature howled and scrabbled against the pull. Its eyeballs burst with an audible pop.

Oh, that is… urgh…

Karla was laughing maniacally, eyes aglow as the creature came undone in front of her.

More blood exploded out of the creature’s wounds, tearing them open like a rupturing pipeline. The bone-starved beast collapsed in a lake of blood. Elia just gaped at Karla, who quickly after having done the deed returned to her rather unassuming posture. Elia took one look at the body as it twitched and tried to pull itself forward, still somehow alive. Her gaze wandered to the embarrassed, but innocent looking girl.

“Was I, uh, laughing?” she asked, growing red as a beet. “Oh no, I was.”

“Most impressive friend.” the monk rasped. “However, I am still bleeding,”

Elia ignored the monk, leveling a pointed finger at her actual friend, at Karla.

“You could do this the whole time!?”

“… I didn’t say it was easy, or that I liked doing it,” she murmured. “It needs to be near death and have blood in the first place. And I need to stand still. Very still.”

“I can’t believe it. I can’t fuckin’ believe it.” Elia grinned. “This is totally our new tactic for dealing with monsters.”

Um, I don’t mean to rain on your procession, but the weird monk looks delirious, and that ice storm is still there.

They turned to the orb of multicolored ice, swirling and leaking errant puffs of ice, force, and what looked like liquid nitrogen. As far as Elia understood conjuration miscasts, she knew it should go away with time. What kind of chaos it would exactly create until then was anybody’s guess and not her problem. In the present, it would certainly complicate gathering the loot. The dregs weren’t worth much, but the conjurer’s staff was miraculously untouched and the beast itself no doubt had a greater soul. Maybe It had an uncommon one. Maybe even an essence. Maybe–

A tinkle like a shattering mug echoed through the alley. Elia, Karla, and the barely conscious monk turned to the origin of the sound. There was nothing, only the belated realization that the world was tilting sideways before their heads toppled to the ground.

You have died

You have lost: Soul x3.415, Bone shard [Common] x2, [Uncommon] x23, [Rare] x1

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Heyyy, Rhuna here. Wow, long time no see – or read, rather. How’s it hangin’? Me? Oh, am I glad you asked. After cleaning up a bit on the far side – there was this dirty black mold infestation, many good dregs heroically sacrificed themselves to stop it – I’ve taken some time to reminisce on my grandeur. Reminisce. People still say that, right? Anyhoo, I want to show the world how great I am. I’ll get back to you once I have the details down.

Toodles~

Elia shot up, straight as an arrow. Death followed by an annoying message. Death, right after getting a bowl. How? No matter. Priorities.

First thing, she got her souls, still lying at her feet. Once that was done, she scanned for threats. Nothing down the alley. The crab-house was sitting snugly in the middle of the road, unbothered, and in its lane. The roofs?

A good chance it had come from the roofs. Karla was still fighting the beast and – Karla!

“God fudging dang this girl,” she said as she caught her by the scruff and yanked her off her feet.

“OW! Elia, what–“

“Ambush,” she said. “No idea where, or what. Rye, any chance it was the mini storm?”

W-what? Elia, it’s a self-perpetuating miscast, a perpetuum mobile with connection to the sea beyond, it could do anything!

“Friend, help, I am still bleeding,” the monk rasped in the exact same tone as before. No help there.

Alright. Her first priority then was to cut line of sight. She pulled Karla further towards the nearest building, past a shop window presenting a wide array of rugs on sale. They leaned against the building, keeping low under the overhang and–

The sound of glass sounded out again, but this time movement out of her eyes. Where did it come from, where did it go?

Her body fell apart in two pieces.

You have died

Undead curse overflowing

Further deaths will lead to erosion of self. Sacrifice a boon to gain absolution.

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Oh, I know! I’m going to build an orphanage. Y’know, for all the orphans I’m making? Eh, you probably can’t relate, if you were an orphan you’d be solid C- material. Anyhow, I’ll get my undead architects right to it. It’ll have trampolines, a jungle gym, death lasers. You know, things that make kids run around screaming with joy. Also, electricity. Nothing like a good zap for conditioning. Can’t start soon enough. I wonder, should I include live weapons in the king of the hill chamber?

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

O-o-oh my gods, Rhuna is such a terrible person. And we’re dead again!

Ever the observant commentator that one.

Twenty-three seconds. She had twenty-three seconds to get the armor that was cutting through her skin off, sacrifice a random boon, and then find the monster from there.

E-elia, what was–

“Shut,” she said, tearing and struggling with her clasps.

Seven seconds and she had enough freedom of movement to breathe. She dunked her head in the bowl, letting the water stitch up where the razor edges of metal had sheared into her body.

Sacrifice a random boon to–

“YES!” She begged it to take her bad ones.

You have offered a boon: Perfect Parry [Common]

Undead curse quelled

Elia slammed her hand into the bowl hard enough that it cracked, then reformed at her next sip. Sixteen seconds had passed. She gave the bowl a kick for good measure before running to pull Karla from the beast again and then retreat. Down an alley, far away preferably.

“W-what? Elia, what are you–“

She stopped. The shadows played over the edge of her vision, reflections of the ice storm’s blue light dancing across every surface. Reflections?

Glass tinkled and Elia wrenched Karla’s head down. The beast some distance away was split in three parts, somehow still alive. Was it above them? Behind them? Inside the store? Four, five, seven seconds passed. She could say with certainty that she still had her head.

“Friend! A malign spirit! It is a daemon! Behind you!” the monk yelled, too late to matter.

“Karla, you al–“

The girl looked at her with two stumps for arms. The cut was clean, right through her shield and her lauded, impregnable Ferrini’s. She slumped down in silent shock.

Tinkle, tinkle.

The monk lay dead, cut from head to groin. Elia had already associated the sound with incomprehensible danger and flinched, ducked, jumped, and rolled away from the storefront. She only lost a foot for her efforts. The pain served as a locus for grim focus.

Elia, it’s–

“–in the glass.”

She threw a severed head into the window front, shattering it on the spot. The shards on the ground lay still, but she saw the shadow swimming from one to the other. It looked surprised, angry perhaps that it couldn’t form a coherent reflection. A beady black eye fell square on Elia. She looked at the shards, didn’t hear that telltale sound. Could it not cut her through such a small piece?

“Twenty-three seconds until it appears after respawn. Get to counting Rye.”

There was a small sound of affirmation. It didn’t matter much. Every one of the dozen houses had two or three windows around. The creature surged and it was gone from the pile of glass and onto the next. Death. Death was coming, but that was fine. This loop was lost, but the information lived to the next.

Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.

You have died

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Oh, it’s gonna be one of those days. Sigh. It’s hard to write things down if I just have to rewrite my whole plan over and over. Ink doesn’t come cheap in this dump, y’know?

Wait. What if I used those black moldy tar people as ink bags? They’re literally free, I already have like fifty of them! Oooh, this is gonna be so good. Gotta dip, you have fun wallowing in obscurity, frenemy.

Toodles~

This was starting to get annoying. Not the constant revives, that was quite the everyday experience for Elia. But the messages were taking up a good part of her field of vision precisely when she couldn’t use it. It wasn’t much, but a tiny, overlooked hint could lead to mistakes, and mistakes lead to death.

… two, three, four…

Regardless, she had a five-second plan. There wasn’t more time to come up with anything, they were on the clock as it was. She took the nearest heavy object and threw it at the storefront, sprinkling the rugs in rough glass shards. That got the attention of everyone involved and Elia breathed in before yelling at the top of the lungs.

… Eleven, twelve, thirteen…

“Miscast monster! The windows! Smash them, Karla, smash them!”

She shattered a first story window, then another one, then another. It didn’t help with the confusion that Karla was well in range of the beast she could see. It slashed at her shield once, tore a gouge out of it.

“Friend, help, I am still bleed–“ She dumped a handful of projectiles right on the monk’s lap. The monk wheezed.

“Smash the windows and I’ll help you up.”

… twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three. Twenty-three, Elia, it’s here!

They looked around. Were they too late? The only windows present were barely a foot in diameter and quite foggy from eons of dirt. Elia still kept clear of them, hoping to tickle out yet more secrets from the creature swimming through the reflections.

Nothing came. Maybe it was lying low. Maybe it fell victim to the butterfly effect. The deer monster hit Karla’s shield again.

“Oh, for the love of god, use your blood magic!”

“But–,“ came back, but under Elia’s glare the girl seemed to find the rationalization quickly.

Karla plucked at the creature with her magic. It fell to the ground like a metric ton of goulash, cut up into fine pieces.

“UMMM,” Karla ummm-ed. “I didn’t do that!”

She jumped as a window to her front left shattered. The monk was putting in work. Nothing like threatening someone with saving their life to spur them on. Now, onto the other kind of threats.

“KARLA GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW OR I WILL SMITE YOUR ASS WITH A SPOON,” Elia yelled as she pulled the monk to her feet.

“Amitabha, friend, I–“

The rest went unheard as she dunked the monk’s head under water. Perhaps she should stop interrupting the poor woman. Waterboarding someone tended not to go over well as far as first impressions went.

“Sorry, one sec.” She turned back to Karla who was still quite confused at how the giant beast had disassembled itself. “KARLAAA!”

You sounded like my father for a second there.

“I… what?”

Nevermind. Just don’t be too harsh on Karla, I’ll have a serious talk with her later.

“God, I hope you will. The only thing worse than an incompetent is someone who doesn’t FUDGIN’ LISTEN. KARLA, move it girl, this is not a game, there’s shit in the mirrors and I don’t even know what it looks like.”

“Ummm, like a white thing with hands like a man but sickly and with a scissor head and also fins?”

Elia got precisely zero of that. At least the girl was now backpedaling towards them. “A what?”

The blood rippled. Its crimson surface, so dark it could barely reflect a thing turned a milky white. A single hand like a twisted human’s grabbed the ground like a ledge. The large body it hefted after chittered and cracked like a mechanical doll. It’s sickly white, bloated head twisted and turned, rotating like an unsteady propeller. Calling it a scissor-head fit quite well. Two long jaws like scissor blades snapped together as its head finally stopped twisting and settled with its singular eye on the nearest prey. On Karla.

You have challenged: Stygian pike

Elia, you have to–

Elia was already running towards her, unpacking her weapons. However, her spear’s shaft was cut in half from a previous death. As the creature lunged forward and cut a horizontal snip out of Karla’s inch-thick steel shield, she thought better of wasting her steelwind buckler. She pulled out the spoon of death. As she ran past the scattered dregs’ corpses, she spied their conjurer now turned shashlik and scooped up a mostly unharmed staff.

Ophelia’s staff

Staff of the conjurer Ophelia. She was a well-known magus whose reign was felt in her generosity and mercy to her subjects. Her reputation was not enough to save her from the retribution of the first true knights, who broke her on the wheel when her subjects raised a rebellion in her name.

Conjurations are stronger if you are close to death.

“Oh great, at least it works.” The frost covering it instantly grew up her arm. She only hoped Rye could deal with the pain. They could use her help.

A-alright, let me just fffFFF–

… maybe she could help in a few seconds. Those few seconds were already enough for her to catch up to Karla. The bone-starved beast was still alive and–

Beast slain

You have gained: Soul x4.000

– and now that it was dead, she cast her chain. It wrapped around the creature’s long snout, securing it tightly. Elia had to think of an alligator and how they could generate insane amounts of force when closing their jaws, but barely any for opening them.

“Elia, we must kill the beast, before it wreaks untold destruction!” Karla called, fear and awe mixing with excitement.

The chains shattered. The weird jaws turned in their sockets until the blades pointed outwards, then cut through in a scything motion that would have made any anatomist queasy.

“Ball joints!” Elia yelled “This creature’s theme is ball joints! We can’t win against those, we have to fall back!”

“But–“

Elia tentatively stabbed at it and nearly cartwheeled back away when the independent jaws swirled in her direction.

“Just cuz’ it’s out of the reflections doesn’t mean it’s vulnerable! It cuts through armor like butter Karla.” She pulled the girl by her scruff again, a remarkably effective move. “Think of your Ferrini’s, Karla. What would he say if he saw his masterpieces wasted?”

“B-but, well, um, they’re not masterpieces, just apprentice pieces a-and we need to protect the people and… what even is that?”

The creature fixed its gaze in that horribly clacking way again. It dragged the rest of its body out of the blood until it measured near thirty feet. Most of that was from its many dolphin-like tails, but its mouth made up a good third of its body anyhow.

Also, it wasn’t slow on land. Just clumsy looking as its mighty front legs and back fins launched it forward entire body lengths.

“But, but if you don’t want to be a hero… I can be one instead. Please, let go!”

The ground shuddered. The monk had had the good idea to vacate the area prematurely. Sadly, that left them without a suitable distraction. Quibbles ribbited nervously.

It’s gaining on us.

“HOW!? It doesn’t have any back legs!” And of course, this was the time where she couldn’t find a single back alley to run down.

They bolted past the bowl of respite moments before the creature’s jaws snapped shut against it. A deep clang rang through head and bones and Elia looked back to see the creature look up at them in annoyance. The bowl had chipped its bony jaw ridges. Interesting. Rhuna could easily distend the bowls, so why couldn’t the infinitely sharp beast from above cut it?

Thoughts for later, it could still cut through them all in a single bite, even if they stood in a line. There was a piercing sound like a bird’s cry. When both of the girls looked up, a man was standing atop the roof, poofy hair rimming a pink face.

‘Goddamit, is this another gank?’

The man gave them a holler. Though they didn’t understand what he said, his frantic gestures and point were enough. Over here. Over here it is safe.

They followed his gestures up until the creature nearly collapsed a bridge on top of them.

Friend? Foe? ACK, we need to scoot!

They left the smell of death and blood behind, only to practically run up against a wall of smokey ash and brimstone odors. Up ahead, the twist in the main road was fast approaching and at the end a splatter of yellow ran around the corner.

“Dayum, that monk can run.”

We better follow suite, AAAAH!

Another shudder. Elia felt a tug at her flowing hair that wrenched her to the floor. She skidded across cobblestones as she turned around, the air filled with cut hair like a rain of hay. She was underneath the monster’s body in seconds. She knew its underside was a weakness. It knew that all it had to do was sit on her.

Dodge, roll, slide, roll. Left, left-right, back and under the fins and by the gods not towards the scything jaws.

No way out. “BIG CHAINS, KARLA!”

“But–” But they would catch them both and it didn’t matter because she couldn’t keep this up.

“NOW!”

Karla listened at last. The girl stopped and focused her hands on directing her boon as Elia sowed the beast’s underside with spoon-stabs. A rumble went through the ground. Just as the magic seemed to start working, the monk returned, slightly singed, now running right back towards them.

“Oh great, what now?”