The proto-gnome glared up at us from the basin of the sink hole. Broken pipes sprayed foul smelling water and cracked pieces of concrete mixed with stone and rubble as he stood proudly in the centre of the swampy cesspit.
“It’s you,” he growled, locking eyes with me as his lips twisted into a contorted frown.
“Do you two know each other?” Bell asked in a mock shocked voice, lifting her hand to her lips, “is he an old flame?”
“No,” I replied slowly, “he’s a gnome, just a really, really big one.”
“We are all gnomes,” the proto-gnome growled, “you have hurt us.”
“You literally blew us up!” I shouted back, drawing my bow just in case, “I merely kicked a few of your… vessels… It’s not the same.”
“That doesn’t matter now,” he said, pulling his thick leg out of the swampy sewer with his hands, veins bulging through the tears in his brown, sodden shorts. “We are seizing the means of production, we have vanquished the capitalist scum, Cali Port is ours!”
“Well congratulations,” I replied dryly, “I guess we’ll be leaving then. Good luck with your new communist utopia or whatever.”
“You attacked us,” he continued as if he hadn’t even heard me, “we cannot allow enemies of the state to live.”
“This is ridiculous,” Panda muttered, “we’ve been through some pretty weird shit but this is-”
Before he could finish, the giant gnome screamed in a deep, booming voice and ripped a piece of thick metal piping out of the sewer hole, flinging it in our direction.
I shoved Panda out of the way and lost my footing as Bell blasted a fireball at the giant gnome. Slipping down the cesspit banking, I landed in a puddle of dirty sewer water and found myself coughing and spluttering as something heavy collided with my stomach.
Even in this world with all my stat increases I still felt pain, but it had been a while since I’d been properly winded.
Looking up I saw the gnome staring down at me, I was laid against his toe, which was larger than my torso. He was even bigger up close.
My bow was still firmly grasped in my hand and I rolled onto my back, drawing the string. There wasn’t enough elbow room to fully pull it back, but I figured as a distraction technique it might just work.
Nocking an arrow, I fired a shot into the gnome’s face which sunk into his cheek looking like a toothpick against his oversized head.
He let out a single, low-pitched laugh and then plucked the arrow from his cheek as if it was merely the end of a relaxing acupuncture session. Then he snapped it between his thumb and forefinger and let it drop to the ground.
“Puny human,” he rumbled, “since you seem to enjoy kicking my vessels so much, let’s see how you like it.”
I knew what was coming, but his foot was so large that even in my attempt to dive out of the way I couldn’t dodge it.
His meaty toes connected with my ribs, hoisting me off the ground with ease and flinging me into the muddy side wall of the cesspit. I collided with a squelching crack and before my eyes, my HP dropped by about a quarter.
The pain was blinding and my vision faded momentarily, but I knew I didn’t have time to lick my wounds.
Up above me Bell began firing a barrage of fireballs into the gnome which buffeted him, but ultimately seemed to do little damage. He was a level capper after all, we may as well have been flies.
Sitting up caused a shooting pain to ripple through my spine. I did my best to ignore it and raised my bow again, channelling a soul shot. My stamina bar was pretty full thanks to the potion I’d taken earlier, and the gnome was busy being pelted with magical fire, so I allowed myself time to channel in as much energy as I could.
Firing the shot, I was pushed further into the gunk by the shockwave. The arrow exploded away from me with a sharp crack and blew a hole through the gnome’s chest tattoo.
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His skin began to bubble and a torrent of blood oozed out of the space where his hammer and sickle tattoo had been only moments ago.
Howling in pain, he ignored Bell’s onslaught and glared at me with crimson, hateful eyes.
“That tickled,” he grumbled, raising his hammer high above his head and grinning maliciously.
Oh, shit, I thought as the hammer, which was large enough to block out the sun above us, came rushing down, splitting the air. My dragon’s eye exploded in my head as I saw the powerful aura emanating from the gnome as he used his level capper strength to swing the mighty hammer.
“Jump!” A gruff, familiar voice called out to me and without thinking I heeded the call.
Imagining my stamina coil pumping energy into my legs, I crouched down slightly and then, as the hammer was about to collide with my face, I jumped as high as I could.
Wind swished past me as I narrowly avoided the impact, landing on the flat of the hammer itself. This was my moment.
Channelling all of my agility skill points, I deftly began to run up the handle of the hammer towards the gnome. Drawing my dagger I felt like a ninja from a budget, subtitled movie.
WOOSH!
The proto-gnome reacted, swinging the hammer wildly to the side and unseating me from my tightrope run. I was flung from the hammer’s handle and collided with something soft and warm.
It grunted.
“Stroke the furry wall,” I said dazedly, running my hands over the soft, silky thing I had landed on.
“Sorry human, but I’m not into interspecies relations.”
Looking up, I saw Rex’s face staring down at me. He looked confused and I was pretty certain that had he not been covered in fur, he would have been sporting quite the double chin.
“Rex, what are you doing here?” I asked dumbly, probably concussed.
“I didn’t sign up to work with terrorists,” he replied in a growl, “the gnome has gone too far. The capitalists are defeated, yet our army is pillaging the city and hurting people. They’re lynching anyone who was associated with the old regime. It’s anarchy... This is not what I wanted.”
“I thought you’d been arrested?”
“The explosion gave me an opportunity to escape, it was anarchy inside the Ivory Tower after that. It… wasn’t what I signed up for. There is no honour in underhanded tactics.”
“Well, I’m glad for the help,” I replied as I struggled to peel myself away from the huge lycanid who had softened my landing.
Looking back, I saw the gnome flinging his sickle around his head like a windmill, deflecting Bell’s continued onslaught of long-range fireball attacks.
Fire deflected from his blade, spewing out in all directions like a rainstorm in hell. Nearby buildings caught alight and the stench of burning sewage hung thickly in the air smothering my nostrils and making my skin feel slimy.
“How do we stop him?” I asked Rex breathlessly.
“Like this,” he grinned, hoisting a huge double-sided axe from the ground and sprinting towards the monstrosity. “Go for the Achillies!” He shouted.
With a sigh I picked up my dagger, which was covered in green, stinking gunk that clung to my hand like slime, and charged after him.
I felt a little bit like I was part of a forlorn hope as we ran deftly through the mud and sewage towards an insurmountable enemy. Though, in a way, I’d never felt more alive.
“For the motherland!” The proto-gnome bellowed, smashing his hammer on the ledge above us.
I heard screaming and Bell’s fire barrage stopped suddenly.
Rex reached the left leg of the giant gnome and swung around in a semi-circle, using the momentum to slash at the heel of the beast with his giant axe. He looked like a lumberjack as his weapon got wedged in the back of the gnome’s ancle, causing him to sway slightly before swiping at the lycanid with his sickle.
Meanwhile, I arrived at the back of the right leg. I didn’t have the raw power, or the weaponry to chop into him like a tree. However, I did have acid.
I began slicing into the monster’s heel as quickly as possible, adding small cuts over and over again, hoping that the acid would stack over time. My shoulders and biceps burnt as I sliced his Achillies tendon like an anime chef chopping vegetables.
Acid bubbled on his skin and, after a few moments of furious striking, there was more decay than intact skin. Finally, he fell.
With an earth shuddering crash the proto-gnome toppled to the ground like a felled tree, splashing a wave of sewage over me as his huge body struck the muddy cesspit floor.
He struggled, thrashing and turning in the mud as he waved his hammer and sickle around madly. Thankfully, from his disadvantageous position he was easy to dodge and I went to work slashing at every part of him I could get hold of.
I wasn’t going to stop until he was a steaming pile of acid-rotted skin. He was a level capper after all, I had to make sure he didn’t survive this.
Rex hacked and slashed at the beast’s right arm until it eventually severed shooting blood everywhere and turning the sewer into a crimson puddle.
The gnome screamed in agony as we attacked it, but it still refused to die. The arm closest to me flew through the air, swiping at me with the sickle and I jumped upwards to dodge.
Or at least I tried to, that was when my stamina finally ran out and my jump was more like a hop.
The sickle was about to slice me in two and I had no strength left to move with. It seemed that even toppled and maimed, level cappers were no joke. I’d been careless, allowing my bloodlust to get the better of me.
“That’s my human!” Asmodeus cried and I felt his claws pierce my shoulders with a white-hot pain as I was suddenly yanked upwards. “What did I tell you about staying alive,” the dragon scolded me, “your soul is mine to devour. I cannot have it tainted by some ugly gnome creature.”
“Thanks,” I managed to say through gritted teeth as the pain in my shoulders shot through me like burning lightning.
Asmodeus’ claws had ripped straight through my skin and were anchored onto my bone. The pain was nauseating, my vision began to fade, and as I looked back at the proto-gnome as it was chopped up by Rex and pounded by a renewed intensity of fireballs, I felt oddly at peace.