It had taken Fizzy all night, but she was finally finishing up the schematics for her new arm. It wasn’t a complicated task. All she had to do was study her existing limb’s inner workings with Metallopathy and then mirror them onto some graphing paper. The only technical hiccup was that the smithing plans she had to make weren’t quite the same as an Artificer’s blueprints, but were still similar enough for her to manage. Overall, the biggest challenge was actually putting the ink down where it belonged. That too was relatively easy since her mechanized digits were the embodiment of precision. Unfortunately, she only had one hand to work with, which slowed her down quite a bit. Combined with the sheer number of parts that had to go into her limb, it had taken nearly nine hours of non-stop drawing for her to get to this point.
“Hey, Fizzy?”
Hm? What is it, Plus?
The golem was double-checking her work at the moment, so she didn’t mind the mild distraction of a mental conversation.
“I’ve been wondering, how come you’re so… well-built?”
What do you mean?
“Nobody actually made you into what you are. It just kind of happened from a magic glove.”
So?
“So, who designed all these bits and parts you’re drawing?”
Uh… Huh. That’s a very good question, actually.
There was, technically speaking, no such thing as a ‘natural’ golem. Aside from Fizzy, every single one of them was either manufactured by mortal hands or formed within a dungeon. Sometimes a malfunction or some other incident would cause a construct to become self-aware and break away from its intended purpose. These were commonly referred to as ‘wild golems,’ but even they were the products of an intelligent design made by a person or a dungeon core. As such, it was only natural to liken these constructs to machines. Well, the metal ones, at least. The crystal and stone variety were far more basic, closer to statues or puppets in their construction. They moved almost entirely through magic that bent and twisted their rigid bodies in ways that would be physically impossible otherwise.
Forged metal was not as malleable. Its shape could not be altered or transmuted with the same ease as purely natural mineral formations. For an iron golem to function its body had to be a collection of countless moving parts that worked in tandem to emulate a living creature’s muscles and bones. The downside to this was that such a construct was much more expensive and time-consuming to manufacture and maintain, as opposed to simply carving something out a block of granite and magically animating it. However, the end result was a golem that could utilize the power output of their core with much greater efficiency. Consequently, a metal golem was faster, stronger, tougher, and more nimble when compared to its simpler brethren. It was also possible to replace lost or damaged body parts, which wasn’t the case with stone or crystal variants. With all of that in mind, it wasn’t entirely unwarranted for Fizzy to hold such a high opinion of herself. Not only was she the indisputably superior type of the three golem types, but her body was also made up of one of the most valuable and adaptable materials known to civilized society. She was as high-performance as a construct could get, and her optimized internals reflected this.
That was what Plus was so confused about. Nobody made Fizzy. There was no will or intelligence behind her construction. At least, not that either of them was aware of. In retrospect, it seemed strange that she’d successfully transform into such a beautifully designed golem without any egregious flaws or defects. It was like turning a boulder into a lifelike statue by punching it once. The rational part of Fizzy’s mind quickly scrambled to find explanations for her paradoxical existence. Perhaps she designed herself subconsciously as whatever magic transformed her drew upon her Artificer experience. No, that couldn’t be. She didn’t know squat-diddly about golems back then. Then again, she had just cleared a golem-themed dungeon at the time. Maybe the core had magically imprinted something on the shield-gauntlet Artifact that came out of it? That was also an impossibly long stretch. Even if a dungeon core was capable of such things, there were no metal golems in that place. It was all stone and crystal constructs. So just where in Gunther’s jellied beans did-
Oh. Yeah, that’ll do it.
“What? Did you figure it out?”
Agent of Chaos.
It had been a short while since something exceedingly crazy happened, so the Paladin had almost forgotten that it was pointless to question things whenever Olga’s divine influence was involved. Tony said as much himself, but the golem’s alter ego wasn’t buying it.
“Agent of Chaos?”
Agent of Chaos.
“I don’t know, that seems like an excuse rather than an explanation.”
Even if she shared all of Fizzy’s memories, the two of them would have divergent opinions on some matters. This was one of them. The Hero Skill in question was supposed to bring about otherwise impossible events to fruition, yet it surely had its limits. Fizzy’s absolutely flawless golemification seemed like it was beyond mere random chance, no matter how high the dice were stacked.
Agent. Of. Chaos.
“Right. Never mind, then.”
That said, the Parallel entity wasn’t going to argue her point, least of all when confronted with the Paladin’s zealotry. It wasn’t as if Plus cared about it all that much anyway. The past was the past - it was too late to do anything about it. She only brought it up because she got curious after watching her ‘sister’ recreate her arm’s inner workings in such excruciating detail. As for Fizzy, she concluded that her schematics were ‘good enough’ and carefully stacked the twenty-two sheets they were spread across. Part of her wanted to spend a while longer perfecting them, but she recognized that would be a waste of time since Malcolm had just finished working on Tony’s new arm. The process hadn’t been easy on either of them. The smith had to chug several stamina potions throughout the night and the hobgoblin had spent the first two and a half hours screaming his throat bloody while the shoulder brace was bolted onto his flesh and bones.
The outcome was impressive, at least at a glance. Tony’s new limb was something Malcolm referred to as a ‘scout-pattern arm prosthetic.’ The construction was a lightweight steel alloy that was essentially a metal shell over a skeleton-like inner frame culminating in a bulky hand. There was a core-like spherical component embedded in the stump, on the border between meat and metal. This was attuned to Tony’s personal mana signature, which has a number of beneficial effects. The prosthetic received partial benefit from the hob’s Attributes and Skills, could be used for Spell casting, had a basic self-mending feature, provided limited tactile feedback, and cleared Tony’s Status of the Crippled condition. This Perk-in-name-only had reduced the hobgoblin’s total HP by 10% due to his missing limb, and its replacement reverted the penalty.
All in all the artificial limb’s pseudo-core was an incredibly useful thing to have, but it wasn’t without its downsides. It was a military-grade model that, unlike its civilian counterparts, had some steep energy requirements that it drained from the host’s body like a parasite. This made it so Tony would tire out quicker and require more food as if he had about 30% more body mass even though his new limb weighed only half of that.
“Jahahaha!”
The hobgoblin himself didn’t seem to care too much about that, given how much fun he was having playing around with it.
“Look at me fist go!”
His steel hand spun around atop the wrist joint with a high-pitched whirring sound as if it was one of those lever-cranked whisks.
“Etsan joamente fansika!” he cheered in his native tongue.
“Yes, quite,” Malcolm adjusted his glasses. “That wrist mechanism is something miss Rustblood gave me herself. I’m honestly astonished how easy it was to mod that into the prosthetic. And it only took her half an hour to assemble, too. I’m honestly speechless at how gifted she is.”
“As you should be,” the golem stuck her chest out. “It’s an original design based on my own flawless construction. You should be grateful you had the chance to work with something so beyond your understanding, meatbag.”
The human’s tired face twitched in anger. He didn’t like the way this shiny midget thought she was Goroth’s gift to metalworking. Her custom mechanism was indeed excellent, but hardly good enough to warrant that insulting remark. Why couldn’t she be a bit more considerate? He even put up with all her unreasonable demands, including this all-nighter spent on a talking hobgoblin shield-serf, of all things. He would have told her to fuck off several times by now if he didn’t desperately need her business. So, he swallowed his pride and forced a weary smile.
“Ahahah. I most assuredly am, ma’am. Would you like to inspect the quality of my work more closely, or should we move onto the matter of payment?”
“I’ll give it a quick look. Tony, stop goofing around and come here.”
“Ah? Oh, hey boss,” he gave her a rapidly-spinning wave. “Sure thing.”
The hobgoblin nearly tripped over his feet as he got off the ‘operating’ table. He had yet to fully recover from his fatigue and wasn’t used to the extra weight on his left side, so his sense of balance was way off. It would probably work itself out over the next few days, but for now he had no choice but to awkwardly wobble his way over to the golem.
“Wha-chu-wan-me-do?” he asked merrily.
“Punch me in the face,” was her answer.
There was a moment of silence as both the human and the hob struggled to make sense of her request.
“Uh… Okay,” Tony shrugged. “You da boss.”
He pulled his new arm back and swung forward as hard as he could. His wonky balance threw his swing off a bit, but he still soundly struck Fizzy’s forehead. The hobgoblin was surprised to feel the impact travel up his mechanized joints and into his shoulder, on top of realizing that he’d dealt a whopping 63 points of damage to her while taking none from the recoil. Shouldn’t the opposite have happened? It then dawned on him that his enchanted steel fist was technically a magical weapon, which allowed it to more easily inflict harm on monsters that were naturally resistant to physical attacks. It was nice to have that option, even if he’d never use it in an actual fight.
“Not bad,” Fizzy nodded. “Again.”
Tony’s surprise turned to wonder and then delight as he was allowed to take out some of his pent up frustrations on the golem’s face over and over again. That wasn’t her intent, of course. The point of this exercise was that it allowed Fizzy to study how the limb reacted to impacts firsthand and up close. She observed it with both her eyes and Metallopathy as she waited for her stress-test to reveal any flaws. This went on for a total of eighteen punches, each of which was slightly better than the last as the hobgoblin gradually got used to swinging the thing around. On the nineteenth hit, however, the golem’s scratched up face emitted a jolt of green lightning that pushed Tony back and onto his butt, nearly knocking the spectating smith in the process.
“What in the hell?!” Malcolm protested. “What was that?!”
“Just a Skill,” Fizzy said calmly. “Don’t worry about it.”
More specifically, it was the Paladin ability she’d acquired just two days ago.
Armor of Anarchy
Description: Unpredictability offers little assurance, but great potential.
Requirements: Level 40 Paladin, Champion of Chaos
Type: Passive
Range: 30 Meters
Effects: Upon taking damage from an external source within range, there is a 2% chance of reflecting a portion of the damage taken back at the source.
The damage reflected by this Skill cannot exceed 100% of the FTH Attribute.
Increases the chance of this Skill activating by 1% per 100 LCK.
Increases the chance of this Skill activating by 1% per 2 Levels of this Skill.
Increases the damage cap of this Skill by an additional 5% of FTH per Level of this Skill.
It was one of the benefits of spending a week doing nothing but killing monsters. Even though her targets weren’t all that challenging and therefore awarded little XP per kill, the sheer number of them had advanced her Paladin Job all the way up to Level 40 and a half. Her Metal Golem Job had similarly reached a milestone at Level 35, which allowed her to attain yet another layer of defense.
Shock Absorption
Description: The golem becomes able to disperse physical force applied to it and maintain its footing even in the most dire of circumstances.
Requirements: Level 35 Metal Golem, END 300
Type: Passive
Range: Self
Effects: Reduces the amount of knockback suffered from incoming physical attacks by 6% per Level of this Skill.
Reduces the amount of recoil suffered from outgoing physical attacks by 4% per Level of this Skill.
Reduces incoming physical damage by 1% per Level of this Skill.
Fizzy had thought long and hard before settling on these two. She was tempted to take some of the offensive options on offer, but ultimately decided to double down on her combat role as a vanguard. It was her job to block the enemy and take the hits so that the back line - in this case Tony - could focus on attacking. Even in a situation where she was fighting solo her biggest strength lay in her ability to outlast her opponents. Armor of Anarchy and Shock Absorption were thus chosen to reinforce that ‘survival first, victory later’ fighting style. The Paladin Skill in particular had immense potential since there was technically no limit to how much Faith (FTH) Fizzy could accumulate outside of Level-up bonuses.
“Ah-ha. Dat be a good one, boss. Really wakes a guy up, ya know?”
Tony hopped to his feet while cracking his neck. He looked surprisingly more energetic despite the pain in his shoulder, which bore the brunt of the reflected blow.
“R-right. Well,” Malcolm tried to regain his composure. “Are you quite done with your… examination?”
“Just a second.”
The golem walked over to the hob and grabbed him by the wrist, giving the prosthetic one last scan with Metallopathy.
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“Good enough,” she let go with a nod.
The human’s pride took another blow. Good enough? Despite the challenges involved it turned out to be one of his best creations - a Masterwork-class item. His Status agreed, seeing as both his Blacksmith and Enchanter Jobs had gone up a Level over the course of the night. Granted, they were close to advancing when he started, but it was still a lot of XP for a single commission. And yet she, as a fellow artisan, only deemed it ‘good enough.’
“Then, shall we move onto payment?”
Once more, he did his best to ignore the insult for the sake of profit.
“Indeed. I believe we agreed to 640 GP?”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
Usually one of these prosthetics could go for as low as 300 GP, but the one Fizzy wanted was an expensive model fit for combat. Even then, 640 GP was not that huge a price considering it cost nearly three times as much to buy a Republic-imported Rejuvenation Potion. And even then, golem prosthetics were an arguably superior method of limb replacement. A fist of steel was tougher and stronger than one of flesh and bone, not to mention that ten out of ten adventurers agreed it looked cool. Most importantly, the prosthetic didn’t sap the user of roughly ten years’ worth of their lifespan like the potion did. That was a scary thought that made many civilians wary of the elixir even if it were offered for free. In Fizzy’s case, she couldn’t care less for Tony’s longevity and would have gladly taken that option if she had it. But she didn’t, so she gladly handed the smith a stack of thirteen coins - all of them golden King pieces.
“Here’s six-fifty. Keep the change.”
“You are most kind.”
Most humans from the Empire might take offense to a tip that small, but Malcolm had lived in Gun Tarum long enough to genuinely appreciate every bit of coin he got. This much wasn’t enough to make up for the golem’s snarky attitude, but it was a start. As for Fizzy, she kind of wanted to ask for that 10 GP for the sake of optimizing her finances. However, she let it slide since she was making a conscious effort to be less like Boxxy, and getting bothered over such an insignificant amount was definitely something that mimic would do.
“Should I assume this means you’ve decided to let me carry out your repairs?”
“That’s right,” Fizzy declared. “Here are the schematics, and I can deliver the materials by nightfall. Is there anything else you need before you get started?”
“Yes. Two things, actually - a 250 GP deposit and twelve hours of rest.”
“… The rest I can understand, but why the deposit?”
It hadn’t come up during the initial round of negotiations before she brought Tony over, so the golem couldn’t help but be wary of this condition.
“Well, my humble little forge doesn’t burn hot enough for mithril. I’d have to rent one at a public foundry, and those don’t come cheap.”
“What about the money I just gave you?”
“I have… guild fees. A lot of guild fees.”
“And how is this my problem?”
“I can’t work on your arm if my workshop mysteriously explodes.”
A spark of something resembling empathy flashed within the golem’s core as she was reminded just how stressful it was to be in that situation.
“I see. Best of luck with that.”
She handed over five more King pieces that Malcolm accepted with a relieved nod.
“Thanks. I’ll need it.”
Fizzy and Tony then promptly left the building and were reminded to put their earplugs in as the Anvil District’s chorus nearly deafened them the instant they stepped out onto the street.
“Are you well enough to fight?” the golem asked.
“Bit hungry, but I’ll manage.”
Malcolm insisted that the hobgoblin remain conscious for the first part of the procedure, something about reducing the risk of rejection. He used that same excuse to deny his ‘patient’ any painkillers. But, once the shoulder brace was fitted and the base of the prosthetic successfully implanted in the stump, the greenskin was allowed to doze off as much as he could. That was mostly why he was so lively compared to last night, though his condition was still far from ideal.
“Here.”
Fizzy handed Tony some gold, much to his confusion.
“What’s dis for?”
“For your meatbag needs. Buy whatever you want, so long as its food and water. No weapons, tools, potions, or anything else of the sort. After you’ve eaten, head back to the snail place and round up another batch of shells, then wait for me at the Guild.”
“You sure about dis, boss? Lettin’ de big mean Scalper out of your sight like dis?”
“You’ll lose your head if you try something. I trust you’re not that stupid.”
“If you say so. What about you?”
“I need to do some high-profile shopping. Having you hovering around is only going to hurt my prospects.”
The main thing she needed was mithril ingots. She still had her old arm’s shattered remains, of course, but it was inevitable there would be some missing pieces. The golem also imagined that a portion of the smaller bits were so far gone that they weren’t worth melting down and had to be discarded altogether. That was how brutal the Hero’s crippling blow had been. In any event, Malcolm would no doubt need the extra material. Any leftover mithril would eventually go into Fizzy’s future creations once she learned how to actually handle the stuff. For the time being she shooed Tony off and made her way towards the inner city market. She hoped that securing some white gold would be a simple matter of purchasing it on the spot, but expected that wouldn’t be the case. From what she’d seen of it, Gun Tarum was a place where everything was made and delivered to order, so finding ingots that were available for immediate purchase would not be easy.
The mithril construct was so busy worrying about her shopping list that she failed to notice she was being tailed. Then again, she most likely wouldn’t have detected her stalker even if she was on full alert. That was just how good this guy was. The way he literally walked on air suggested he had the Air Step Skill, which would mean he was at least a Level 80 Rogue. His equipment reinforced this notion, given that he wore the stereotypical darkened leathers with a hood, mask, and a buttload of knives. He was also intimately familiar with Gun Tarum’s layout, allowing him to track Fizzy’s movements even though he barely had a direct line of sight on her. Then again, that wasn’t all that difficult when one considered just how much that walking lump of mithril stood out in this depressingly brown and gray city. He was also a gnome, which made him even more difficult to spot at a distance.
In short, this was a professional skulker with at least a decade of experience. He was even using a magic item to disguise himself with a basic illusion just in case he was spotted one of the few times he went down to street level. Most importantly, he was a man of immense patience. He had been tracking his quarry for nearly three days straight, even going so far as to stake out Malcolm’s shop for the entire nine hours that Fizzy was inside. He was mildly surprised to see her part ways with her shield-serf a short while ago, but he welcomed this development. According to his information, that greenskin was a Level 50 Ranger with several Perception-enhancing Skills. His chances of actually spotting the sneaky gnome were low, but the mini-creep was still wary of the hobgoblin. Rangers and Rogues were natural enemies, after all. Just like Wizards and Rogues. Or Warriors and Rogues. Or Rogues and other Rogues. Damned Rogues - always stealing his contracts!
The skulker was in the process of leaping from one rooftop to the next when his mental detour was interrupted by an incoming projectile. The gnome nimbly kicked to the side with Air Step, easily avoiding the spinning axe that ripped through his previous position and then vanished into thin air. A second and third throw followed up and were effortlessly dodged. By this point it was obvious that, as unlikely as it seemed, that shield-serf had somehow found him out and was targeting him. The clever bastard was also doing it from around a corner somewhere as his weapons curved unnaturally through the air to reach the gnome. Having been found out, the experienced Rogue did the smart thing and immediately retreated. As far as he was aware, that hobgoblin had at least 60 Levels more than he did on top of being a monster with inherently superior basic abilities. A clear gap in power like that meant it was impossible for the gnome to win in a confrontation, so all he had to do was flee and reassess his approach.
Naturally, Tony did not let that happen so easily. Normally a Rogue would outclass a Ranger of equal Level in terms of pure speed, but the hobgoblin Shaman had the Squat Nimbleness Skill and Step of Wind Spell to quicken his gait further. That and he was over twice the gnome’s height. Under such circumstances, the Ranger was actually able to slowly gain on the Rogue. To top it off he kept using the Whirling Blade Martial Art to give his throws target tracking capabilities. The magical guidance wasn’t accurate enough to land hits on the nimble air-stepping Rogue, but plenty to slow him down by forcing him to dodge. The sky-hopping gnome quickly realized he wasn’t getting away that easily and chose to retaliate.
He turned around and, in a flurry of hand movements, fired no less than fifteen bolts from his hand crossbow over the course of a single second - the Barrage Martial Art. The projectiles flew straight, seemingly unaffected by wind or gravity as they closed in on their target. About half found their mark, but Tony maintained pursuit without so much as flinching. A Barrage looked scary at first, but the power of each shot was so low that they were practically like needle pricks to the greenskin. The poison they were coated with retained its original potency, which might have caused serious trouble for the monster if not for his Prime Specimen ability. On the whole, that venomous volley was nowhere near as effective as the gnome hoped it would be, though that didn’t stop the man from firing it off again. Even if the damage was low and the toxins ineffective, the fact that he was hitting the greenskin without getting hit in return meant that the outcome of this confrontation was clear. The Shaman realized this as well and, even though it wasn’t as fun, skid to a halt and tapped into his offensive magic.
“Shtockalacka!”
A spherical lump of lightning flew up at the gnome. The projectile wasn’t as instantaneous as one might expect from a Spell called Lightning Bolt, but it was still much faster than a thrown axe. The Rogue had to try a lot harder to dodge that one, which he barely did. The same went for the next three. The Shaman then started mixing in Whirling Blade Arts and Vortex Spear Spells alongside the Lightning Bolts. The gnome evaded them all, but had no time to continue retreating or mount a counter attack. Ranged combat wasn’t his forte, and he was spending too much MP on aerial maneuvers with Air Step. He’d run out of magical energy far before his opponent did, so the Rogue decided to give up on his height advantage. He allowed himself to fall into the alley between two buildings, bouncing himself around with a few more Air Steps as he did so. Tony followed after him. He had momentarily lost sight of the Rogue, but caught up to him in seconds. A Level 10 Tracking Skill was quite the formidable tool indeed, even in this urban environment.
The gnome kept running down the narrow streets, jumping from signpost to windowsill to garbage container as he did everything in his power to make himself a hard target to hit. His strategy was paying off as his pursuer’s ranged attacks kept hitting his improvised cover. Pretty soon the hob gave up on flinging axes and focused on simply running. The gnome expected this and purposefully led his pursuer down to a dead end alley surrounded by extremely tall buildings that were at least 20 meters up. He rapidly air-dashed up the sheer wall at the end in a wild zig-zag pattern. Sure, that Ranger was faster than him, but he lacked the means for such vertical maneuvering. Or at least, he would have if this had happened yesterday. Tony fed a bit of his MP to Fizzy’s custom-made wrist mechanism, prompting it to magnetically launch his prosthetic hand upward. The limb grabbed onto the rim of the building to the right. It was still attached to the rest of the arm by a steel cable that allowed the greenskin to reel himself up to the roof. He smacked face-first into the side of the building on his way up, but hey - he was allowed some mistakes on his first time using this thing. Even if Magic Item Savant told him everything he needed to know to operate this thing, there was nothing that could prepare one for the real deal.
Regardless, the chase continued across several more rooftops before Tony’s unstable sense of balance made him slip on some loose tiles just before a jump across a two-lane street. He tumbled over the edge and crashed into the side of the three-story building, straight through a boarded-up window. Sensing this chance to shake the bastard, the Rogue threw a bunch of smoke bombs around as he leapt down into the alley on the opposite end of the warehouse. He activated Stealth and Adaptive Camouflage to audibly and visibly conceal his presence next to a brick wall while keeping an ear out for any suspicious movement, gleaming dagger in hand. With the thick clouds from his smoke bombs filling the area, hearing was the only sense he could trust to detect that damned hob’s position. The Rogue briefly considered taking out his enchanted earplugs to aid with that, but gave up on it. The sudden influx of noise from the Anvil District would surely stun him momentarily, much as it did Fizzy and Tony when they left Malcolm’s shop. The Rogue couldn’t afford that lapse in concentration in case the greenskin found him in that instant. Besides, with how these things were tuned, he could still hear footsteps, bumps, and voices just fine. The only way someone could sneak up on him was if they deliberately made a racket loud enough to be filtered out, but there was no way a feral savage could figure that out.
Unless, of course, said savage had automatic insight into how magic items worked. Tony had thought of that approach long before this chase started, and now he intended to use it to finish this. He already knew where the Rogue was since he could ‘see’ him through the ground he stood and the wall he leaned against, all thanks to Tremorsense. It was this same ability that allowed him to first notice the vibrations of someone who was always just out of sight, and he’d been locked onto him this entire time. Sure, the pipsqueak liked to dance through the air a bunch, but he had to touch down from time to time, and at that moment he was hiding in a corner like the rat he was.
Prey in sight, the hunter moved in for the kill. Not by walking or running, but literally kicking the ground with Thundering Strikes active. His every ‘step’ turned a bit of MP into destructive tremors that made wood splinter, stone crack, and the air tremble. Just as the name implied, Thundering Strikes was loud. Stealth immediately flew out the window as soon as this Skill was turned on, unless the bone-rattling noise was magically nullified by a certain brand of easily affordable earplugs. Granted, Tony didn’t know for sure whether his target was using a set, but his Tremorsense told him that the pipsqueak hadn’t moved a muscle despite his intense power-walk. That being the case, the hobgoblin instantly picked up the pace as he thundered towards the opposite end of the old warehouse’s second floor. He launched himself through a boarded up window and fell through the smoke screen the Rogue himself had thrown up. He landed right next to the unsuspecting gnome with a thundering shockwave that pushed the heavy gas aside just as his bloodthirsty axes came down.
The Rogue’s Uncanny Dodge kicked in, jerking his body away from the surprise attack just before it cleaved him in two. His conscious actions took over as he stabbed back at the hob’s heart, only to find his blade deflected by the steel arm. Having finally cornered the little shit, the Shaman blasted him with a burst of cold and ice while getting stabbed in the gut by a volley of conjured knives. The Rogue followed up with a series of rapid cuts that made the greenskin bleed profusely, only to to be stunned by a thundering knee to the head. One axe swing was parried and skillfully redirected back at its owner’s thigh while the other sank into the gnome’s shoulder and nearly inducted him into the One-Armed Gang on the spot. The sneaky midget then momentarily vanished from his space and appeared above and behind the Shaman, but was blown back by a sudden gust of wind before his blades could sink into the greenskin’s exposed neck. He landed on the ground with a backwards tumble to avoid a thrown blade, then lunged forward with a lightning-fast twin-bladed strike. He succeeded in sinking his knives into the greenskin’s chest, but was instantly blown back with a booming elbow to the nose.
At this point it was clear the Rogue was losing. He gave as good as he got, but his HP was lower than the hobgoblin’s if the Appraisal results he’d seen were accurate. It also dawned on him that he really should have looked into all those Shaman Skills he didn’t recognize, but who could blame him? This guy wasn’t his target, merely an obstacle to work around. That, and the gnome had a trump card that would guarantee his victory in case this confrontation happened. The downside was that it would surely tip off the golem that a higher power was after her, so he wanted to avoid using it unless it was a last resort. Well, his current situation seemed sufficiently desperate, so he decided to go through with it. He used what little MP he had left at this point to hit Tony with two consecutive uses of the Fan of Knives Martial Art. The damage done was minimal since the hob shielded himself with his prosthetic, but it distracted him long enough for the Rogue to take a step back. He used this tiny bit of extra space to take a deep breath and quickly yet clearly speak six words.
“Seven-seven-Charlie-Victor-Oscar-nine!”
That code was unique to Tony’s obedience collar, intended to trigger its kill-switch on demand should the need arise. This sequence was normally kept secret from the public to avoid abuse, but the Rogue’s boss was well-connected. The slimy midget had a nasty smile as he waited for the greenskin to topple over and have his cleanly severed head roll across the alleyway. He realized too little too late that this wasn’t going to happen, and Tony’s axe cut him down across the chest in that moment of confusion. As the gnome fell over from the mortal wound, his mind raced to make sense of what happened. He wasn’t fed false information - he’d seen the government documents himself. So then, what just happened? Did this savage manage to safely deactivate his obedience collar when the nation’s most dangerous criminals couldn’t? It was unthinkable. Inconceivable. And yet it was every bit as real as the cold, uncaring ground that the Rogue’s skull slammed into as he fell.
“Ahhh, what a let down,” the hob gloated over his defeated foe. “Here I was finally havin’ some fun, and den you go and start recitin’ some weird poetry or somethin.’ I’m disappointed. Disappointed, sir! Haaah. Whatever. It’s not a big deal.”
Tony grabbed the fidgety midget by his blood-soaked hair and hoisted him up to his eye level. He then mumbled a Cure Spell, courtesy of his Druidic Secrets Skill. A green wave of healing magic worked its way down the hobgoblin’s shoulder and into the Rogue’s skull, mending his mortal injury and bringing him back from the brink of death. Clarity returned to the gnome’s blurry eyes, which rapidly filled with terror as he beheld the hobgoblin’s wide, yellow-toothed grin.
“I can still have some fun before snack time.”
The Anvil District’s unique ambience was then subtly enriched with the screams of someone who became intimately familiar with why Tony’s nickname around Steelhead was ‘The Scalper.’