26.
The anchor for the curse was two men welded together in a fitful mockery of life. Four uneven legs had it tottering as it moved, four arms emerged from different parts of its torso, while the two heads looked about with wild eyes. The first head was where heads generally are, mounted on a fleshy neck above the shoulders. The second head was emerging from underneath the ribcage and facing backwards.
The first head was that of a rather florid white man, flabby cheeks drooping under the weight of its being. Thick golden hair hung in a loose disarray around his head. Its jaw hung open, viscous drool dripping as it muttered words as it staggered forth.
The second head, the one facing behind, was harder to see. As it lurched and stumbled on its uneven legs, Santi finally got a decent look. A Hispanic man, flesh pale underneath his normal tan. Thick black hair had turned into a helmet of a combover, dark eyes wide in horror as it spewed corporate rhetoric.
“I wanna go home now,” Trevor whined. The larger man was gripping a bat with white knuckles as the monstrosity edged closer to them.
“Spread out and encircle it when it gets out of the aisle,” Santi ordered, backing up to lure the anchor out of the narrow confines of the aisle. Everyone spread out, holding firm and not racing away. Santi hoped that Daniel and Hana hadn’t fled, but he had faith they’d arrive in time. It wasn’t a scout’s job to fight at the frontlines after all.
The melded creature put on a burst of speed and raced toward Trevor who was on the edge of the spread out arc of fighters. Santi cursed as he raced toward the creature’s broad back. The clothes it wore were little more than scraps clinging to various limbs and offered it little protection as Santi slashed across the back where the spine should have been. The secondary head was screaming profanities at him, voice vicious and cruel as the abomination spun around to try to get its four arms on him.
The wound he had inflicted, with all of his strength behind the blow, had left little more than a cut. As it turned though, Trevor came forward and struck with a powerful blow to the shoulder. Bone crunched and one of its arms sagged for a moment. Santi backpedaled, cutting two fingers off of a grasping hand. The thick sausage fingers fell to the ground, black blood welling out of the wounds to dribble down its arm.
Then the wound stopped bleeding, flesh wiggled and then sprouted out and both of its fingers regrew. The broken shoulder popped and the flesh reformed, the arm regaining functionality.
“Fuck off,” Santi yelled. It was just his luck to get a creature with this type of vitality. They would die, but often needed overwhelming amounts of damage for them to go down.
“Keep attacking, we’ll wear it down!” Santi ordered.
Chloe hacked at a leg, her skill active, and severed it right below the knee. The creature paused for only a second before a new leg burst forth. Rayleigh hammered a knee cap, breaking it with an audible crack. The girl dodged backward as it spun and lashed out with its flabby arms at her. Her trusty nine iron was bent now and her face was screwed up in a mix of anger and despair.
Paulie, Trevor, and Beto kept clubbing it, breaking bones and slowing it down as it spun around and around. Overall, it wasn’t very strong or fast, but its vitality was allowing it to tank all of the hits like they were mosquito bites.
“The heads, let’s try to kill the heads. Paulie, Beto, get the lower head. Chloe and me will take the upper head. Everyone else, attack on two, we attack on three.” Santi came up with his plan on the fly. He had no doubt if they stood in a circle and just kept beating the monster it would eventually run out of energy. It was very tiring though.
“One!” Everyone backed up, Rayleigh and Trevor gripping their weapons tight. They were on opposite sides of the creature and it was currently starting to march toward Chloe, leaving its ribs vulnerable to them.
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“Two!” Rayleigh swung with all her might like she was a softball batter. The heavy head of the nine iron cracked ribs, bowing the creature over as it screamed in agony. Trevor came a half second later, his bat breaking the same shoulder that he had hit every time so far. It was the same results of the arm falling limp as the shoulder was broken.
“Three!” Santi lunged forward, the curved saber angled to enter the upper head's flabby neck. Chloe rose up to her tip-toes and brought the axe down like it was a hammer. Silver light covered the axe head and it split the crown of the creature’s head like a watermelon. Santi’s blade went up and through the neck, emerging out the back of its skull.
Paulie and Beto both hit the second head at the same time. The skull splintered, slimy gray matter and thick black blood boiling out of it like a popped abscess. The thing stood for a second, and then slowly collapsed down to its knees. Santi looked at his notifications, waiting for the kill notification.
It didn’t come.
The heads slowly grew back together. Pieces of bone appearing as the skulls reformed, light coming back to dull eyes. The endless droning started up again as it leveraged its bulk back to its feet.
“Gross profit down yearly. Quarterly earnings not meeting corporate projections,” the heads spoke over each other, interlaying their voices into a weave of corporate bullshit.
“Move!” Daniel’s voice carried over the monologuing anchor. Santi looked over to see Danile and Hana running full tilt, a shopping cart between them. Santi’s eyes widened as he took in the fully loaded cart, bag after bag of dog food loaded into it. It had to weigh close to four hundred pounds and they were running at a full sprint with it.
“Back,” Santi slashed at the leading leg before scrambling backward. Everyone else listened, even if they couldn’t see what was coming in their direction. The bulky anchor powered itself to its feet, just in time for the metal cart to impact it.
More bones broke, the creature toppling over and screaming shrilly as two of its legs were broken. The cart tipped over, spilling its load over the monster and pinning it down, if only for a moment.
“Finish it!” Santi screamed as he started to hack at every inch of available flesh around him. If the targeted strike hadn’t been enough, then he was going to have to settle with overwhelming amounts of damage. Flesh was cut, bones shattered, limbs removed, and still it kept regenerating.
The minutes stretched on, all of the raid members growing weary as sweat slicked their bodies and every breath was nothing more than a desperate gasp. Slowly, but surely, the wounds stopped healing. The heads stopped spewing their nonsense and finally it grew still. The kill notification popped up and Santi sank back on his haunches, glad it was finally over.
Congratulations, you are now Mage lvl. 5
The notification was a welcome relief as it finally let him pick an offensive spell. He would have to do that in a minute cause he needed to get everyone set up and moving first. The anchor was dissolving rapidly, flesh flowing away into a black good. Within moments, the only thing left was a baseball sized emerald stone with swirls of black through it.
“Don’t touch that fucking stone,” Santi said between gasps as he looked down at the physical manifestation of the curse.
“No shit.” Paulie said as he slumped to the ground, his shirt soaked through in sweat. Santi recovered first, slowly rising up as he stared down at the stone. A powerful alchemy tool without a doubt, but would he be able to contain it till someone got the alchemist class? The rift stone was one thing, but this was a small scale disaster waiting to happen. All it took was one person taking and absorbing it and the curse would be running again.
“All right, time to start emptying this place out. Beto, partner up with Trevor. You two will focus on water. Chloe and Rayleigh, grab any type of containers you can. We will need that later. Daniel, Hana, look for anything that can help fill out the base with cooking instruments. Paulie and I will grab canned goods and whatnot. Two carts each. Ummm, who has the pack with all the supplies?”
“I left it outside. I’ll go and grab it now,” Chloe said, her and Rayleigh leaving to grab the pack. They had shoved a bunch of rope and some basic first aid stuff in the bags. Santi hoped that nobody had decided to clean them out while they were fighting the anchor.
“All right everyone, let’s get to it. We’re going to need to make a few of these runs, but this was a good start.” Santi tried to give everyone encouragement, but now that the fight was over, everyone was thinking about the one member who wouldn’t be going back with them.