Honeypot scrambled to the surface of the street, then helped Treyu and the entire Bomb Squad up. They rushed back, looking at the entrance to the sewer as if it would jump forward and bite them.
Orion was about to ask what was wrong when a familiar-looking head slithered out after them.
A second serpent appeared.
The one before them looked to be green, its scales similarly transparent with shifting murk visible below them. Fener’s party pulled Seren back a safe distance before turning and launching their respective explosives at it. The monster was already wounded, and the explosions hitting it caused even more scales to get damaged, if not entirely destroyed.
Orion cursed to himself as he realized he should have already used his Time Bomb ability. He used it, feeling it snap into place on the creature with ease. It turned and looked at him as Honeypot appeared behind it, slashing viciously with his scythe. Gizmo reached it at the same time, using Taunt and drawing the boss’ ire.
Its head turned and hissed as it shot forward at the familiar, so Orion swapped Shadow in, and the creature promptly received an ability-empowered sword to the back of the head. One more round of explosives followed, and the creature swayed in a daze.
A whistling sound came, and the manhole-cover slamming back down onto the monster with ungodly speed—making a loud dong as it collided with the hard head of the Prince of Growth.
A familiar white light spewed forth from the serpent as it died in a spectacular fashion to explosives, weapon strikes, bludgeoning-by-manhole, and finally, Orion’s accrued damage.
Before the creature finished dissolving, Fener turned to Orion with a frantic expression. “Do you have anything else to heal debuffs? Seren…. please, he’s dying…”
“No.” Orion didn’t bother looking over the man, knowing there was nothing else he could do if he’d already taken a dose of his healing potion in the last twenty-four-hours. “You need to get him to the center of town. We just sent a large group that way, including a healer.”
“And where are you going?” Tallon asked.
“The southern gate. It’s gone quiet, so Captain Blanc sent us to investigate.”
Tallon looked toward the south, then back at Seren’s prone form, clearly torn between obligation to his friend, and the desire to defend the city.
Orion could see him being pulled both ways, so he put an end to it.
“We’re checking that it’s clear, then we’ll be joining everyone in the center. We don’t need your help. They need you more in the center.” He briefly informed them about the volcanic snail that had penetrated the northern gate, and the other creatures that circumvented the walls and defenses.
Tallon’s eyes became focused, and he nodded firmly. “Alright, then. But send me a message if things get hairy.”
“Only if you do the same.” Orion held his hand out. Tallon took it and shook firmly.
Honeypot clapped his acolyte on the shoulder.
“Treyu, I think you should go with our new friends here toward the safety of the town’s center. I shan’t hear any complaints, though I know you undoubtedly feel a great obligation to accompany and protect your master, I—”
“Okay,” Treyu said, cutting him off.
“Okay? What do you mean, okay?”
“I’d rather go with these guys to safety, to be honest.”
“And what of my safety? You could at least pretend to care.”
“You seem quite hard to kill, boss.” Treyu rubbed his stubbled chin. “Like an ant, or a cockroach.”
Honeypot looked at him flatly. “Indeed I am, but we will have words on your attitude and comparisons later, Treyu.”
Treyu shrugged, then turned and helped carry Seren once more as the Bomb Squad made their way towards the center of town.
Honeypot stared after him, hand to his chin and deep in thought.
“I quite like him. Can he join the party?” Arika asked.
Honeypot spun on Arika. “Don’t even joke about that. He belongs to chaos, and by extension, myself. Think of him as a small, physically repulsive pet.” Honeypot snapped his fingers. “No, not a pet, a piece of furniture. A chair, maybe? A sentient chair with a singular penchant for chaos and cooking.”
“Let’s walk and talk,” Orion suggested, checking his map and heading towards the south gate. Everyone else followed.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As they traveled to the southern gate, they caught each other up on everything that transpired while they were split.
Arika let out a scoffing noise toward the end of Honeypot’s clearly embellished tale.
“There’s no way there are urchin monsters with man-legs, Honeypot. I’m calling bullshit.”
“I’m serious! They’re super poisonous, too. That’s what got Seren. A man-legged-urchin-creature called a Phalanx got the jump on him, and without even a lick of consent, entered his body with just the tip—”
“Oh my god. Stop. I believe you.”
Their conversation came to an abrupt end as they entered the square that opened up before the southern gate. They tensed as they took in the sight before them.
The gate was smashed through, leaving a massive hole for monsters to enter the town. There were no creatures in sight, however, and strewn throughout the square lay unmoving objects—the lifeless bodies of the defenders.
Orion walked up to one of the bodies and knelt down to inspect an adventurer he didn’t recognize. He examined a wound in his back before getting quickly back to his feet as he realized what had killed the man. Cursing, he looked around the square, eyes darting to the rooftops and shadowed areas.
“What is it?” Shadow’s armor clunked as he and the rest of the party walked towards Orion and the dead man.
“His wound…” Orion gestured at the body and the stab wound on its back. “He wasn’t killed by a creature. Someone literally stabbed him in the back.”
Honeypot rolled over a townswoman, who had the same wound. Gizmo checked another to the same result. They had all been killed by what appeared to be a dagger.
“Wasn’t there a captain guarding this gate, too?” Arika asked, eyes going wide. “Surely they wouldn’t be easily killed, right? Do you think they kited the creatures back into town?”
“I don’t know, but I do know where the creatures went.” Orion pointed to their left, where the main street leading towards the center of town.
Lamps were flattened, walls scratched, and wooden furniture from a shop on the corner had been smashed into splinters, the small bits of wood strewn and dragged further up the street leading into the town by the passage of countless monsters.
A visceral sense of fear gripped Orion’s heart as he thought of the attacking monsters reaching the non-combatants that sheltered in the center of the town.
Without another word, he started running.
***
Captain Blanc swore as he braced his shield on the ground and tried to absorb the blow from the spiky creature charging him. The thing looked like a walking ball, with black sewing needles protruding out of its body. One of the spikes poked out right before his head, the momentum of the sharp point enough to make it all the way through his great shield. Thankfully, it didn’t come through far enough to hit him, and he looked at the purple liquid oozing out of the spike with worry and disgust. He knew from a party called the Bomb Squad, who had arrived just before the first monster, that the liquid was deadly.
The whirring of projectiles flying past him and into the creature consumed his senses. He both heard and felt a bolt from one of the siege weapons as it flew just above his head and slammed into the creature, which was jerked back violently, freeing his shield from its body.
He’d initially scoffed at that old bag Dave when the engineer began installing the over-sized weapons atop structures in the city, but the weapon stationed above him was now providing vital covering fire from its perch atop the town hall.
They arrived at the center of town not long before the creatures from the south. The Bomb Squad had come, dragging an unconscious and afflicted man with them. They had only recounted part of their tale when the first of the creatures arrived.
Captain Blanc only had a moment to worry about the safety of his old friend Noire—the Captain stationed at the southern gate—before all of his focus had been set on defending against the incoming monsters. He’d sent people into the buildings surrounding the town hall where non-combatants were holed up, with instructions to get everyone out as fast as possible.
There were plenty of creatures inside the city walls, but none were as deadly as the slowly advancing boss from the north. They had to get the townsfolk out of the city—the walls themselves were no longer the safe-haven they once were.
He was part of the rear vanguard, beating back the ever-growing force of creatures that were pouring in from the south. All of their best fighters were at the rear, only a handful of the more recent recruits and a single veteran escorting the caravan of hundreds of non-combatants from the front.
The attackers from the rear didn’t seem like too much of a threat initially, the large great shields of the defenders enough to block most of the blows. The creatures also paid each other little regard, doing more damage to each other with their attacks than the defenders. Small mice detonated themselves among their ranks, spiky urchins pushed through the others and poisoned their allies, and the squat lizards shot globules of magma from their eyes only to slam into other monsters instead of defenders. Despite this, over time, the defenders were still taking a beating—the sheer number of creatures pouring in beginning to overwhelm the defensive force.
Captain Blanc winced as a mouse detonated once more, and some of the obsidian shards slammed into his shield and armored boot. He braced himself, waiting to feel the sting of the shards biting into his flesh, but it thankfully appeared to have only damaged the armor.
The line of defenders slowly retreated as one, not able to move as fast as they would have liked. There were a large number of elderly and other slower-moving noncombatants among the ranks of the escorted townsfolk, and even with help, the slowest of them could only move at a measured pace.
The previously poisoned man was among them. He’d been healed by an adventurer named Mecina, who had particularly strong healing magic. Despite the healed man’s physical wounds being repaired, it did nothing to assuage his exhaustion from their apparent flight through the sewers, and hours of fighting off a deadly poison. He limped along slowly, helped by two of the people he’d arrived with.
As the group slowly advanced towards the west, more of the creatures reached the rearguard. The shields and determination of the defenders were tested over-and-over, and it was only a matter of time until the first of them fell.
Captain Blanc’s eye twitched, and he snarled as he watched a man to his left go down, covered in a fatal amount of magma that had slipped past his shield. The inevitability of their situation ground into his psyche and wore at his resolve. They had to do everything they could to get the townsfolk out of the town safely—even if that meant losing his life, so be it.
A pained groan escaped from a man to his right, and he glanced over, expecting to see another gap in the shield-wall where a life once was. Instead, he saw a man staring up towards a rooftop from where they’d come from, a look of horror etched on his face.
Captain Blanc followed his gaze, quickly joining the man in terror as he took in the creature that had just arrived.