Chapter 21: Boss

Time left until monsters respawn: 6 hours, 38 minutes.

The door opens into a short corridor that ends in a large shutter door. There's a red button to the right of the door.

I give Jose my analysis. “I'm assuming that if you went through here normally you'd kill the boss and open this door. It's also safe to assume we'll encounter the boss as soon as I hit this button.”

He nods and takes a crouched shooting position by the door. This will give him the best chance to ice whatever is there the second the big shutter opens even a bit.

Jose already explained to me his power set. Each time he shoots he's got a 50% chance to immediately, magically put a bullet backwards in the chamber. With 6 shots in the revolver, that means an average of 11 shots before he's out. He also has a technique that makes bullets, but it's expensive so he can only do it twice before he's out of Ki points. The bullets only last a minute anyway so he can't stock up ahead of time. That leaves him with about 14 shots per battle.

For my part I've got my M3 Mongoose knife in one hand, and five fingers worth of Static Snap in the other. I hit the button and we take a last breath before battle.

The room has a gray concrete floor and dull brown walls. To my left and right I see shutter doors opening. The center of the room is empty, but on the other side of the room I see a door and some shelves with cleaning supplies on them.

When a trailer truck gets to a Get! store it unloads several pallets of products. A traditional Get! store pallet is a 4’ x 4’ square standardized wooden pallet. It is usually stacked about 5’ tall, with plastic wrapping around it to keep everything in place until it's time to unload it. We use forklifts to move the things as they're both large and often hundreds of pounds. This is the way things were in the old store.

In the new store there are three forklifts but unfortunately they're organic. They're creatures shaped like forklifts. What should be the forks are two long white teeth (or horns?). The body is pink and fleshy like a hairless cat. The top part has seven orange eyes of various sizes where the forklift's dials and warning lights should be. The handle/controls have been replaced by a goddamn spiked tail. Oh look, I found the mouth. It's the bottom of the monster and it's leaving a sticky slime trail as it moves towards us. I think they're moving themselves by pushing against the floor with their tongues.

Fuuuuuck no. I am not okay with this lovecraftian horror bullshit.

Jose unloads two rounds into each creature and then pops his revolver's cylinder to check his remaining rounds. This all takes less than 5 seconds. The creatures squeal like dying pigs and bleed oil. Or black blood. I'm no doctor/chemical engineer. They also don't stop moving. One heads straight for us. I'll call him Uno. Another I'll call Dos trails Uno. Tres goes off to the side into one of the other open shutter doors.

The creatures make slurping sounds as they move, which is just awful. Jose clicks his gun back together and I say “Concentrated fire!” He dumps three rounds into one and then I dash forward in a low crouch under the shutter door which still isn't fully open. I dash past Uno, tagging it with my Static Snap as I do. Between the bullets and the electro shock I think it's dead or at least very wounded.

I turn to Dos and pull a Shadow Stab up from right underneath it, using its own shadow against it. The thing reels back and blood oil shoots from the wound but it still moves. It spins backwards around at me and I dodge its spiked tail. I pull another Shadow Stab into Dos and it stops moving but the tail keeps wagging. I take half a dozen half inch spikes in my right arm but I'll live. The real problem is what Tres has been doing.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Tres wheels (tongue lashes?) out just the worst news I could think of. It's a goddamn wasp nest the size of a pallet. The wasps are about a foot long each. Aaaaand there are at least a dozen of them.

Fuuuuuck no. I am not okay with this big insect 50s sci-fi movie bullshit.

I pull out a Shadow Stab near a wasp and the thing just flies out of the way. I hear Jose's gun retort one more time as he shoots into Uno, popping an eye off top. It explodes in orange goo and Uno kicks the bucket at last. Jose holds his right hand over his gun and I see golden shining dust flow from his hand into the gun. That's his technique that makes bullets. He's going to have two, maybe three shots left.

“Wasps if you can,” I call out. Tres is starting to pull away from the wasp pallet and I dash around and slash twice at Tres before I keep moving, away from the wasps. Two of them leave the nest and fly towards me only to explode mid air as Jose pops them. I've got 7 Arcana points left. I figure small homing shots might be just what I need and call out two Dark Motes as three more wasps come towards me. The two motes slam into the first wasp's body and wing, forcing it to the ground. Dark Motes are good against flying creatures. Need to remember that. The second and third wasps charge me and one gets a knife to the thorax which cuts it in two. The other gets the better of me and stabs its all too long stinger into my chest. I'm alive but it probably missed my heart by an inch.

I feel like I'm choking. The damn wasp must have punctured my lung. While he's caught in me I flip my wrist up and cut some legs and wings off him. He falls and wiggles a little bit so I stomp him dead.

Jose flings spikes at the remaining wasps. These aren't as fast as bullets so the wasps either dodge or are missed if they're already in flight. They're all in motion now and the remaining 8 wasps all charge Jose. I reach into my pocket and throw some Peanut M&Ms into my mouth and hope the healing power of break room snacks is enough to fix my lung.

That's when forklift terror number Tres wheels in front of me, its fork teeth horns bared and... Wiggling up and down in a grotesque manner. I don't have the oxygen in me to fight so I pop three Shadow Stabs into Tres and the third one pierces all the way out its head(?) which shoots black gold into the sky and kills it.

By the time I've shadow stabbed the last forklift Jose is covered in bugs. He doesn't scream or yell, but he's trying to fight back. I feel luscious oxygen sweep back into my left lung as life recovering candy fixes me enough to fight.

I rush over and shout, “hold!” like he had hours ago. He immediately stills his flailing arms. He's being stung. Badly. I stab and slash and stab and slash. I have two AP left so with my right hand I call two more Dark Motes. I don't care what they hit and don't see what they do. I'm just stabbing and slashing.

After about a minute I've cleared Jose of bugs but he's in a bad way. I rip open a bag of Fritos and he opens his mouth. I oblige him and he crunches down on garlicy, salty healing. After the first bite he can move his arms again so I hand off the bag to him and start downing some peanut butter crackers to heal my right arm.

I try not to dwell on how badly Jose looks. It's... Gnarly, and not in the rad surfer brah way.

That's when the hive starts buzzing. One of the wasp eggs hatches and a brand new baby death bug is born into the world. Jose whips two spikes into it before it can free itself but the other eggs, the DOZENS of other eggs, are wiggling and making crunching noises as things try to hatch.

We need an area of effect attack, bad. “We need fire!” I say. I don't have the AP for Fire Bat left. That's when I spot the back wall and its collection of cleaning supplies. I start my way over and Jose stays and puts spikes in wasps as they emerge. I grab two cans of WD40.

I'm back over to the nest seconds later and lubricate the shit out of the hive. I have to wait now, just a minute. Just a minute... I slam my knife down into a wasp trying to be born. Come on, come on... I slit the head off a wasp as it breathes for the first time. Come on already! There! My Arcana regenerates the last point I need and I pull a Fire Bat out from thin air. I take one swing and the WD40 soaked wasp nest goes up in a flash of flame, heat and acrid smoke.

The smell is awful. Jose says “Let's retreat and let this air out.”

I look around for more threats but Jose doesn't seem to be worried about that. Which means he already scoped the area. He's standing in front of the shutter door on the right, so I assume he cleared it.

We turn to go when the door on the far wall opens. I spin around. Jose prepares spikes. And we both come to a shocked halt when we see a human face.