“I think I’ve had enough fun,” I tried. “You’ve seen how we fight; isn’t that enough? You can leave us alone.”

I’d been a fool to use my best ability combo straight away. I was trying to buy time so that some of them could come back, but the chances weren’t looking good. The man in front of us was hopping from side to side like he couldn’t wait to tear us apart.

“Tabitha told me about you two.” A wicked, toothy grin unfurled across his face. It kept growing in size, until his gums were so stretched that they bled. I thought his lips might fall off. “She said that she wanted to help, but I wasn’t so sure. I don’t want Marla to encroach on my territory. So you’d better change my mind.”

So he is a Stake. And two eyes…Does that mean he’s more or less powerful than Tabitha?

Regardless of his comparison to Tabitha and Marla, it was clear he was too much for us. Whatever dark powers he had were literally pulsating into the ground, expanding his crater as they compounded more dirt. If either of those eyes activated, and they did anything similar to Marla’s, it was bye-bye to Asteroth and hello to a piece of dirt in the Yard.

“Could we change your mind by doing anything outside of fighting?” Claire asked. “Because, you know, the whole thing with the king and Lord Piliton doesn’t actually involve us doing any fighting or killing. That’s kind of the point.”

The Second Stake’s face contorted into a mess of wrinkles and bleeding skin and anger.

“If you had prostrated yourself to me in the very instant that you saw my form, I would have considered it. But Tabitha was not lying when she said that you knew not how to appropriately act around us. She said you fed something to Marla, and that you scratched Benjamin’s tongue. I will allow you to commit no such acts on myself.”

I glanced at Claire. “I assure you, mister, I will not be scratching your tongue.”

“And I won’t give you dessert unless you ask for it,” Claire added.

The Second Stake didn’t care.

He charged.

Whatever he was, he was fast. He slipped past us like an ice hockey player, skating along the black sludge that appeared in front of him. A silver baton appeared from the side, and he crunched it into my gut, folding me.

I saw stars. He had to be holding himself back, because he surely could’ve killed me.

He’s testing us.

While he turned around to come for another pass, Claire fired off arrows. She was holding back on using her abilities for now, probably to give me time to prepare something. I pulled the two remaining potions from my inventory.

Orange for skill-empowerment. Pink for the max-health buff.

I downed them both, wondering just how ‘empowered’ I would be with the Bard of the Yard buff stacked on top of Otto’s high-class potions. I envisioned using [Dash] and accidentally catapulting myself into a tree, or [Tsunami Strike] creating an actual tsunami. With any luck, [Critical Strike] would just turn my opponent into one giant blister, ready to be popped by {The Glass Cannon}.

“Here I come again!” he yelled, gathering up momentum from at least fifty meters away. He was very clearly aiming for Claire this time, but he didn’t seem to care how obvious it was.

When he got close, I stepped into his path.

[Shield Wall]

The air around me shook as the bolstered ability pushed away everything around me. It didn’t affect Claire since we were partied up, but the Stake’s progress was actually interrupted by it.

We can win. Maybe not win, but we can impress him.

He seemed interested already. His grin somehow widened. I was worried for his jaw.

[Arc Strike]

My javelin whipped over my head and slammed directly into his chest. He latched onto it with both hands, completely unaffected by what should have been a powered-up Stun. Black ooze squelched and made a sucking noise as he pulled it free.

“What the hell?” Claire yelled. “That’s so unfair!”

She sent a volley of her stun arrows, and they repeated the same effect. The Second Stake laughed.

“You’ll have to give me a lot more than a little shock! I’m coming through, watch out!”

From short range, we couldn’t dodge him. He simply sped forward with his impossibly long arms spread wide. We were both caught on the chest and flattened to the ground as he continued by.

“HAHAH! Get up! Keep fighting! I’m not done yet!”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I desperately wanted another nuke potion. Or I wanted [Tsunami Strike] to function even if I just stabbed the ground. Having to hit an enemy made things so much more difficult when said enemy was basically a god.

“Any ideas?” I croaked. Claire was lying on her back as she gained the ability to breathe again.

“Heaps of them. But I don’t think they’ll work. I’m gunna try a few things, you draw his attention.”

Sure. Great. I’ll take all the bone-crushing hits.

I stepped forward, doing my best to protect Claire while she did whatever she was doing. I heard the same noise that her skill had made in the caverns of Piliton’s Palace, but then it changed up an octave or two, like I had tinnitus.

“Working together. Finally! Now I can show you how pointless that is!”

He rushed forward, not bothering to change up his approach. He was completely and utterly predictable, but it didn’t matter. We couldn’t stop him.

I crouched over my spear and put my weight behind it. It was like facing down a charging boar, but a boar would probably be prettier than this man, and have less bloodlust.

He pushed straight through {The Glass Cannon}, purposefully impaling himself on the glass tip, then pushing further down the shaft, making gurgled noises and pretending to be a zombie. He might’ve winced, but for all I knew, he was just putting on a show.

Or my spear surprised him.

“Duck!”

I dove to the ground, bringing my spear with me. The tip and part of the shaft was still pierced through our opponent’s body, leaving me hanging on bravely to just the bottom-most part of the weapon. A sparkling ball of purple energy fizzed through the air just above my head, singeing my hair and colliding straight into the Second Stake.

For the first time, he staggered from one of our attacks. [Shield Wall] had only repelled him, but this was actually hurting him. His chest pulled away from my spear, and he batted at his eyelids and face as the purple energy surrounded him.

“Yarggh! GARRR!”

The energy cleared. He pulled burning hands away from his face and spread his palms wide, bringing them down like he was slapping an invisible drum. His left eye flashed red, and I knew it was over.

In an instant, the world became 2D. Trees that had stood tall were pulled from the earth and slammed down, their roots and trunks flattened into compressed splinters. The road itself dropped at least ten centimetres, forming a perfectly cut square shape. Claire and I were unceremoniously crushed into the dirt.

My nose was definitely broken. Gravity pushed down on my head, grinding my eyebrows and chin into the dust. One arm was pinned under my stomach, and it felt like my spine would have an arm-shaped ‘C’ in it when I stood up.

The intense gravity slowly lessened. I could hear the Second Stake’s angry, fast breaths slow to a more reasonable pace.

I looked up to see him meditating on the remains of a compressed tree.

He’s doing square-breathing. Calming himself down.

Claire got to her feet and looked around. She gathered the arrow that had hit him, inspecting the still-glowing tip.

I looked at her and whispered. “Should we say something? I’m not sure if he’s super pissed or if he approves. At least he didn’t kill us.”

She looked uncertain. “I don’t know if that was intentional or just a lucky break. He was definitely going easy at the start, but that last one felt like a knee-jerk reaction to actual pain. Pretty sure we just got lucky.”

I chose to believe that our quest hadn’t just been left up to a coin-toss.

Claire handed me a potion that fixed my nose right up. It probably patched me up in a million other ways, too. It was a brutal final move.

“Excuse me, sir? Can we…leave? Thanks for not killing us, by the way.”

His eyes flicked open and he gave us a disinterested look. “Oh. Yes, leave. I’m going to sit here and look inwards for a while. I’ll let Tabitha know.”

Let her know what?

His eyes were closed once again and there was a deep murmuring sound coming from him, despite his mouth being shut. I didn’t want to know what other strange things he could do with his body. Pushing his chest through the length of {The Glass Cannon} had been enough.

If I’d used my wombo-combo on that hit, I might’ve killed a Stake. Or at least properly hurt him.

It was a gratifying thought, but also a scary one. The Stakes didn’t appear to have too much love lost between them all, but I couldn’t imagine it would go down well for me if I killed one.

Maybe I’d take their place as a Stake. Ollie the Second Stake. Mega-powerful badass.

It wasn’t first on my to-do list, but it certainly wasn’t last. It had to be impossible though — it seemed that the Stakes weren’t able to leave Asteroth. I remembered someone in Bill’s Yard mentioning that I’d be screwed if one of the Stakes came to the final battle. That probably explained why none ever showed up to crush me in a split second. I’d gotten lucky.

I grumbled to myself. ‘Gotten lucky’. I was starting to hate the running theme between myself and that phrase.

“Are we supposed to just continue walking to Piliton’s now as though we didn’t just fight a crazy frickin monster? His body oozed, Ollie. It oooooozed.”

I had to agree. My appetite wasn’t super strong, but a break was a good idea. I’d made a very loose promise to myself to take more breaks and loosen my muscles during the day. Pointless concerns over blood clots plagued me, despite being reasonably healthy and having no history of any such issues.

“Yeah. Let’s have a quick break. I’m gunna eat something of a completely solid consistency. If I had yoghurt right now, I think I’d barf.”

Claire nodded. I could see her making the yoghurt-connection.

“Okay. Half hour. Then meet back.”

“Aye aye, cap’n.”

--Disconnecting, please wait--

I hadn’t had a proper lunch in forever.

The fridge was surprisingly full of options, ranging from ingredients for a chicken parmigiana with some boiled veggies, all the way to chicken and chive pan-fried dumplings in some kind of hoisin and oyster sauce dressing.

With a dejected look at the clock and my remaining twenty-five minutes before Claire would expect me back online, I had to settle for a chicken, avocado, cheese and mayonnaise toastie. It was wholesome enough, and a damn good flavour combo, but it was not quite what I had in mind.

I went through the motions, whistling to a random tune while I prepared everything. I thought of the Stakes — all three that I knew of — and ranked them in terms of scariness and apparent lethality. Tabitha was at the bottom of both lists, which I suspected was only because she was level-headed.

And her appetite had been sated.

Marla and the Second Stake battled for the two remaining spots in both categories, but Marla ended up winning the Scariness Section, and our most recent encounter won Lethality.

There was no doubt in my mind that each of the Stakes could instantly decimate me from anywhere inside the Asterian border, but I suspected that Marla and Tabitha would savour their kills more than the Second. He seemed like the kind of guy to show up and rip you to shreds before you could ask him for directions to Bretonhal.

I sighed.

This is gonna be a great sandwich.