Chapter 22: Flayclaw and The Butcher

The creature sprang from the aperture, claws extending on multi-jointed arms that had greater reach than I would have had with my longsword, we all dived to the stone floor, getting behind stone outcroppings or stalagmites. All of us except for Luna that is, she dodged behind the thing and stabbed at it with her sword and dagger until it whipped around and gurgled at her. At first that seemed to be all it had done, but Luna was launched back a few feet and hit the wall, struggling like her arms and legs were pinned against it. Then I saw it, filaments of black webbing bound her securely to the wall. The creature turned nightmarish, red-filled bug eyes back on us and copped another volley of ranged attacks that it attempted to intercept with a long, black-bladed scythe-claw. The creature was a Shadelock, one that had grown to twice the length of the two i'd seen in addition to gaining additional segments to its body, becoming more centipede shaped than preying mantis.

Magic missiles skipped off the blade and hit ceiling or less important body parts, Balthazar's spell had far more effect however, it seemed to be a more advanced form of Victoria's magic missile, instead of a dozen shots of whitish-pink magic it was a single spear of tapered, blue energy that punched through the creautures scythe claw, shattering and melting the iron components that had grown with the creature and then fizzling out 3 inches into the creature's meat-filled carapace. Black and red flesh, pink and grey muscle and sinew showed through the puncture wound and the creature sprang again, forging through the stream of flaming wax that I unleashed in the wake of the missiles. It had taken me longer to cast because I had to swap potentially arcing lightning for the shorter-ranged fire in order to avoid killing the trapped rogue but the staggered nature of our attacks worked out because Victoria had managed to cast another spell just as the creature burst through my faltering stream of fire and raised a claw to strike. The air rippled and a smell like boiling pond scum filled the cave as the creature screeched in rage and opened its mouth to spit something at me, I dodged backwards but I was no rogue, the thing had spat the same barbs the others had in their claws. My flame spell guttered out as I lost concentration even though my mana was still at 12, I felt the barbs shred my coat and embed themselves in me even though the armour had slowed them significantly.

"Agh shit!" I went down, not because it hurt, although it had hurt, I'd been dropped to 15 hitpoints by the small barbs tearing into me. No, I dropped like a sack of potatoes because my health bar turned green and my legs stopped working. "You have suffered Shadelock infection stage 4, you have received a massive dose of Shadelock poison, you will soon lapse into unconsciousness and then your maximum hitpoints will decrease by one every half hour until you die" There was no description of my chance of recovery, no cure, just that fatalistic description, delivered in a slightly cheery voice. 'Bastard system, not going to die with that customer service ass voice in my ear' I thought.

My hands felt like they weighed as much as lead bars but I forced them to my bandolier and fumbled for what I needed, still on her feet Victoria drove the thing away from me by continuing to concentrate on her Microwave spell, cooking the monster in its carapace as it thrashed around in agony. Until it caught sight of her anyway, then it went berserk, slashing and barrelling forwards to gut her. Victoria ducked behind a stalagmite and screamed as it pulverised the stone with one iron claw and then kept coming for her. I tried for the candle again and my fingers slid down the smooth wax, unable to pull it from the leather bandolier. I coughed, feeling spikes of creeping pain like hundreds of little needles throughout my body, poison radiating hotly from the shotgun pattern of barbs in my chest and stomach.

Balthazar tried to take the pressure off with another of those spears, the creature ignored the destruction that wrought on its thorax however and kept slashing at the desperately dodging figure, I heard stone breaking again and again as she used up every bit of cover she could get.

I looked at Balthazar with bleary eyes, still unable to get my candle, it was so close and yet so far, I could smell the sweet herbal scent of rosemary but my fingers just couldn't take hold of it. Balthazar met my gaze, his Mana down to nothing and regenerating far too slow for another spell to be cast in the next few seconds. Damn, that was an expensive spell, Balthazar ran, I couldn't turn my head to see but he turned his back on Victoria and ran. Rage filled my heart, pure anger pushing down the tide of poison and clenching my fist around what it sought. He was abandoning us, the coward was running again was he? Well, I hoped Ranyai's creatures tore him apart for his cowardice. I forced my eyes to focus on the wick until flame sprouted within its fibres and the soft candlelight washed the crimson of the cavern away, washed the venom inside of me away, diluting that sea of poison down to a manageable level as it burnt.

I clutched that candle like a lifeline, mana burning at a rate of 2 per second in order to focus the spell inside of it against the barbs afflicting my body. I rose, sword leaving the scabbard almost of its own accord as I stumbled towards the monster. Victoria unleashed another futile volley of magic missiles but this time the creature couldn't block with one of it's arms melted and a few missiles exploded inside of the hole in the front of its segmented body.

I staggered like a drunk and raised the sword, the creature tried to backhand me into the wall, a blow that would have bisected me neatly if it had landed. Fortunately for me my poisoned body had betrayed me and I slumped out of the way, driving the sword through the final, smallest section of the creatures body, it was the ass-section, dragging on the floor and looking basically like a queen ant's butt. The sword went straight through and pinned the segment to the floor, if it had hit the stone that made up 90 percent of this chamber then it wouldn't have done anything but send a jolt through me and maybe some sparks across the stone. Instead the sword went through ass-chitin and into a patch of soft earth.

That was it for me, 7 seconds to chew through the mana I had, i fell on my own ass and pushed off the ground, scooting on my butt until i ran into the wall and lay there, concentrating on gathering up mana. It was like doing coherent poetry while absolutely hammered, I was recovering mana at a rate of less than one per second and the barbs were pumping poison once again.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Then Balthazar was back in my view, the Shadelock mutant ripped its abdomen free of the blade, splitting its sac in two as it yanked through the blade. Victoria had slipped past it though, back to our side of the cave, facing the monster and casting alongside Balthazar. Together they wore down the horribly wounded beast, Victoria cooking it with her Microwave hands, Balthazar firing off pulsing waves of force that chipped chitin and staggered it repeatedly while arrows punched neat little holes in its armour. Ohhh, he wasn't abandoning us, he must have cut Luna free while he was recovering his mana. That's nice.' I wanted to sleep but I knew not to do that. I had a few points of mana now and I concentrated, boiling off another wave of poison before it could crash over me. Alertness hit me and instead of fighting I focused purely on drawing mana, pumping the energy back into the candle and seeing it burn down faster, consuming wax with worrying speed. This was one of the only candles I hadn't reshaped, filled with mana and rewicked, I'd focused on making my shrapnel grenade when I should have improved the one thing that could have fended off the infection.

I lay there dying, beating infection back with pulses of my cleansing candle while my comrades killed the monster, I hadn't been very useful this time. Stabbed the thing in the ass and got off a couple spells, that's all I had managed to accomplish. The Shadelock roared in one final act of defiance and then collapsed. Luna grabbed my face and snapped something at Balthazar, then I felt a little starburst of pain as the old man slipped a knife into my chest and began cutting out the barbs. I writhed, kicked and pumped mana whenever I could, by some miracle I didn't black out and more thanks to Balthazar's skill than any stoicism of mine no major arteries were severed or organs nicked.

Once most of the barbs were gone things got easier, I burnt the poison out far quicker than it could overpower me and rose again. The cave was filled with enraged jabbering and I noticed no sound was coming from above. "Why aren't they here? I heard my blessed creatures coming but now, now I hear nothing."

My candle burnt down to a stub but it had worked, the other two looked suitably impressed, I wondered why they didn't have some kind of cleric on hand to deal with Shadelock infection if it was such a terrible threat. The demon continued to wail piteously from his hiding place while the four of us got our bearings. My head cleared and I activated waxen balm, absorbing the drippings of the Rosemary candle that I had expended in order to heal myself by a whopping 6 hitpoints. It had felt like so long, so much mana expended to stay alive, had it really only been 30 seconds to burn through the whole candle. It made sense I supposed, 30 seconds was a long time for Victoria to stay alive against that thing. A long time to stay conscious with so many barbs inside of me.

"Oh, why aren't they here for me in my hour of need. Flayclaw, poor sweet Flayclaw, you did your job admirably but no one has come to honour your sacrifice. Oh no, Oh no, Woe is Ranyai, Woe to the Butcher."

Luna had an arrow drawn and pointed directly at the aperture Flayclaw had come out of. "Come out Carnifect. We just want to talk."

"Merillax, Merillax come to me at once." His cry was plaintive and shrill, an old mans voice that no longer dripped confidence or cruelty. Luna sighed, looked at Balthazar and made a hand signal I didn't understand. Balthazar got it though, grinning widely and working his hands rapidly, Luna's body took on a weird rippling effect then she walked around the corner with an arrow drawn and dodged a thrown cleaver with lightning speed. The butcher let out an indignant squeal of rage and then a splutter as Luna shot him without fanfare or indecision. I staggered around the corner to fix my gaze on the demon and saw him. "I was a commander, a Carnifect in all my glory." The demon was all gnarls and lumps, pallid flesh with chunks that looked rotten and others that seemed red-raw, like actual raw meat. I tried to look him in the eyes but those hateful little orbs were too disconerting to focus on for long so I looked at the bloody horns rising from his hairless scalp. If you've ever see a deer's antlers when they're molting then you know how unpleasant these looked. Bloody flaps of meat seemed to be spilling off of the bony tusks.

"You don't get to threaten my family, you don't get to bring your legion here and kill innocent people." Luna pulled back the drawstring of her bow for a point-blank coup de grace. Such a close range shot wasn't normally advisable but I wouldn't want to touch the horrid creature either. He looked quite humanoid but emanated wrongness and corruption. "Legion... No, no, I was leaving, I needed your souls yes, but I needed to open a portal to get back to my legion, not to bring them here. That would be a betrayal of my oath to fight for Lord Jial." Ranyai the Butcher whimpered like a dying rabbit and I almost felt bad but we could all see his knobbly hand inching towards another cleaver so Luna shot him again, the arrow went square between his eyes, punching into his brain but Ranyai didn't die. The old butcher slid down the wall and looked piteously up at us as he attempted to weave unlife into a parchment sized chunk of skin. The thing quivered and then began to fly towards us like a small, murderous kite. Balthazar vaporised it with a targeted puff of flame and Ranyai sighed. "Oooh, no, please don't kill me."

Then we were joined by another. Heeled boots clicked on stone and Merrilax's voice trilled sweetly. "Ranyai I'm home, you called for me?"

Ranyai's eyes bulged as a third arrow hit him, this time where his heart should have been. His eyes fluttered closed but the exp didn't come flooding in, Luna and I had already hit the exp cap for our level after Flayclaw had died but Victoria and Balthazar still needed the boost. Ranyai whimpered soflty and Merillax put a hand on her hip, striking a provocative pose. "Oh dear Master Ranyai, if only you hadn't given me such a direct order. I have obeyed you to the letter. I'm right here, but since I haven't been asked to protect you I won't do that, I'll just watch the adventurers shoot you until they get to your second heart, the one just to the side of your right kidney." Merillax winked and Luna loosed another shot.

Ranyai's body spasmed and then he died, after that the party exp was distributed to Victoria and Balthazar, most of the excess we couldn't use flowed straight to them, although roughly 20 percent seemed to be lost to the ether. After that the four of us switched our attention back to Merri, we all had a level up to spend but the demoness who had some questions to answer took priority.

"You lied to us Merri." I said flatly.

Merilax smiled devilishly, blood on her teeth and crimson light lending her a fiendish cast as she looked us over.