Back and getting pissed in Nightmare...
I was mad, and I took it out on everything.
The opening daytime fights I hacked my way past, and I was quite cruel to the evening ones, giving them no face and slaughtering them at maximum speed. I didn’t even mock the grimm like I usually did.
The giants in the house died in record time. I paused only long enough for Battle Vigor to reset between fights, and then I was off and killing again, sweeping through every room savagely and stirring up lots of giants, my new size making it harder for them to surround me, and easier for me to move a step and kill them.
I killed the knights, their ‘mares, and then the rest of the whole damn front yard, all on one Potion, running everywhere, a whirlwind of destruction. The ants and Hell puppies in back didn’t need such a thing, nor the Swarm of dragonflies.
I went down to meet the sailors, and simply fought a battle in retreat, leaving a trail of burning dead behind me as I backed up towards the house, not letting them flank me, happy to cut down any of them that overextended into my reach, and chewed a path through them at my new size. Almost half of them were dead before we made it to the mansion, and then they couldn’t get through the door and had to smash through the wall to enter it, resulting in more dying. Metal rang as Tremble moved and parried and thrust and cut, singing their doom to them, and giants fell and lost their heads.
I liver-thrust the captain, beheaded him as he fell, and headed down to the pier.
The pier fights didn’t need me to be big, either, even when the Deep Ones and Brine Zombies were at it. Loot the ship and get off as it sank, kill the dragon turtle for some blood and its fundamentallum, chew through the morkoth and the scyllas, and then patiently hunt down the Brine Zombies wandering around in the fog wondering where I was, because Darkstalking Null not pop as living thing in their fog, duurrr...
Despite being en vivus, the dead giants still Animated as zombies, prerogative of the Curse basically resetting the scene entirely.
They didn’t die as fast, but they still died, this time vivic so there was no body left behind to pull that Moit nonsense.
Then I set the mansion on fire again, simply because I was pissed.
“Any ideas?” Tremble asked, as we looked out over the courtyard. Despite having mangled it terribly less than an hour ago my time, it looked almost pristine, save for the zombies burning in clumps here and there near the mansion, around which I’d led them a lively chase.
Oh, and the buildings were burning, but what could I say?
“It’s night, so undead are logical. Just where they are coming from is the key…” Which was why I wasn’t too far from the burning house.
My eyes flickered to the end of the long drive, going out onto the street and the very hazy city inferred beyond it… because something had just walked through it.
More somethings followed.
They were half the size of giants, which was notable. I didn’t want the Curse to realize it could fight me with giants at my size, and just kill me with numbers when more of them could surround me and I wouldn’t be getting additional bonuses against them. It seemed to think that size was better, and I wasn’t going to say a word otherwise. Being merely twelve feet tall, these new fellows were still Large opponents to me.
And they were kind of dog-faced, with ragged claws and rather straight-cut simple clothing that wasn’t falling apart.
Those were Leng ghouls? I narrowed my eyes, looking up at the stars, which were wavering and hazy through a dreamy fog, but I didn’t see or feel any kind of a dimensional rift or reality.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I bolted down the driveway towards them. The best place to fight them would be near the entrance, or I was going to have to run all over again. I had no idea how many were coming, but they were already in the dozens, so here we went!
“Undead config, these are Leng ghouls,” I told Tremble, who didn’t have to change much other than getting out of Firephasing.
“Oh, that means I can sing in both Aklo and Necrus, just for them!” Tremble noted with a verbal grin.
“That you can.”
He damped the fires around his blade as I went streaking down the side of the lawn, leaving the ghouls to stare at the fires dancing on the mansion, and I hit them from the side at double-size, the last Potion I would use.
The Olympian-sized ghouls were unduly tough, at least as hard to bring down as the giants, probably moreso, and with a claw-claw-bite routine that meant more attacks coming my way. My Charge took one down, ripping through it hard, and I stepped to the next and failed to kill it with a cut across its gut as it bent away from the death blow, and it raked back at me.
They all turned bright, intelligent eyes on me, and the fight was on. Their somehow reedy voices, despite their size, went up, and even more of them began to flood through the gates.
Not a Swarm, just a lot of individuals, given enough brains to work cooperatively and totally unrealistic levels of toughness. Like someone I could name, but I was too polite to.
I still had identical reach to them, but since I couldn’t drop one without a crit, and they were in three-hit range, it was going to involve a lot of running and striking again. Whirlwinds for the first hit, AoO’s for the second hits, and then a crit to open up the Cleaves, take down the wounded, a Finish and Hew to force-drop another and start a Cleave chain once more.
I could take them down in clusters, but they were quick to encircle me, spreading out and converging when I came in. They had the triple Cooperation Feats combo, so they were strong and quick and the lucky hits would be coming in.
They probably numbered at least as many as the zombie giants. I shook my head as Tremble happily belted out their coming fate, my heart was pounding with joy and verve. I lit into them with Wrathflame, chewing through the edges of their numbers as they poured onto the lawn, analyzing their attack patterns and style, fitting them into Courtier of Death as I reaped them.
---
Invigorating on Tremble blew relief and new stamina into my muscles as the last oversized Leng ghoul dropped, and I exhaled softly, breathing deeply and letting my oxygen deficiency right itself, very happy I had a Vajra to help me with such things.
Two minutes. Work, ye Battle Vigor, work...
There were oversized ghouls burning everywhere around me, dotting the fire-illuminated lawn with patches of whiteness that the Curse couldn’t further play with. I was standing in front of the gate to the road outside, waiting for the next wave.
Battle Vigor did its thing, restoring some of my depleted Soak. I had claw marks all over me from over twoscore hits, my clothes were in shreds, and I was way past the fifty kills I needed for Courtier.
I expended my last Vigor, wounds hissing as they turned into temporary damage, but I still wouldn’t get them back fast enough to really affect the next fight. My Healing Soul and Blood Healing were both expended, which meant I’d taken over three hundred in damage to both my Health and my Soak during this long fight, running all over the place and taking them down in batches of three to six before sprinting away before they could surround me.
The cockroach was still on the job, but I was down to my dregs now. I assumed something equally annoying was coming next.
A growl reverberated oddly, answered by more that went up and down the scale. It was Aklo, talking about smelling food nearby and something strange, a combination of whistle and drum laden with a dose of not sane, as the owners came slouching into view outside the gates.
Head split by vertical jaws, leaving one to wonder at its brain’s location. Bulbous eyes jutting out to either side, like a black-orbed toad. Greasy-slick hides, furred only in a few places… and arms that split at the elbows into two forearms with two sets of massive clawed hands.
“And these are?” Tremble asked softly.
“Aberrants. Gugs. Another Leng native,” I answered quietly. Runes shifted as he changed configs to the Cerulean Seal Format. “Olympianized, of course…”
“Of course, can’t let them be weak or something.”
I opened my eyes and focused… I had done a LOT of fighting today, which was par for the course. I would do more fighting tomorrow.
Four claws and a bite routine. Intrinsically more attacks and lucky hits than the ghouls would have. I sighed softly, and charged the first one.
If I was really, really lucky, I might get my fifty tonight, but I handily doubted it. Battle Vigor started up again, my Soak began to rise, and the gugs saw me coming, lifted their double claws, and bounded with great agility to meet me.
Out further in the street, I saw the looming shadow of a boss-type, half-again as tall as the others, bristling with muscle and a desire to see what I tasted like. I shook my head as the first one went down to its chest being carved open like a melon, and it was on.