Hark! Hark! Blessed be our fortune, for we are blessed by our Lord Almighty. So cursed had our lands grown, rampant with sin and rotten to its core. Deliver us, O’ Father, so that we may once again be worthy of a place in your kingdom above. Deliver us, O’ Feathered ones, so that we may feel the sorrow of our creator.
Saint Michaelangelo III, 2 hours before getting impaled at the pulpit amidst the 7th rampage of the Harbingers.
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Kayn ran with a purpose.
The shard had condensed its blue screens of text into a tight, glowing orb that now hovered a foot in front of his shoulder. It shone far brighter than the simple blocks of text and did more than enough to illuminate the path ahead, guiding its reluctant Hero over and under the many rocky obstacles the cave sprouted along the way.
“So what exactly is this beast you idiots prepared for me?” Kayn asked. He hadn’t been running for very long, yet he’d already begun to feel fatigue set in.
WE ARE NOT IDIOTS. THE BEAST WAS NOT PREPARED, TO BE EXACT. YOU WERE SIMPLY BROUGHT TO ITS ABODE. BUT I DIGRESS. TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, I REGRET TO SAY THAT I KNOW LITTLE ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE ASIDE FROM THAT IT INDEED DOES EXIST AND IS QUITE DANGEROUS.
Kayn kissed his teeth and said, “Guide my ass. The only thing you’re good for is shining a light.”
IN OUR CURRENT SITUATION, I’D SAY SHINING A LIGHT HOLDS MORE VALUE THAN ANYTHING ELSE.
“Well, I’d say being able to wield a sword, or making me one for that matter, would be a far more useful skill.”
TO EACH THEIR OWN.
“Oh, shut it!”
The further Kayn ran, the clearer the sounds in the distance became. Loud above the rest of the cacophonous mixture was an ensemble of screams and screeches, male, female, and beast, respectively. Underneath that layer was the clang of metal against rock, the thud of bodies against stone, and the beat of giant wings against the air.
A loud crack rang through the cave. Kayn came to a halt and stood dumbfounded at what he had just heard.
“A gunshot…?” he muttered in awe. It sounded old, like a model that still used gunpowder. The clean ring of chambers firing and mechanisms in motion wasn’t amongst the crackling that echoed through the air.
Things were already drastically different than in Esmera. Gunpowder meant Virnnel had reached a point in technology that Esmera was still centuries away from. What would this world be like…? His curiosity slowly fought its way back into the limelight.
Move now, deal with yourself later, he thought. He returned to his sprint in an instant.
Following the sounds of battle led him to an open, dome-shaped room with two paths leading out of it: one that Kayn had entered through, and on the opposite side of the dome. The room flickered with torchlight, casting shadows against the walls and illuminating the terrifying scene in front of him. Huddled up against the back wall was a group of four people, the source of the torchlight.
A man in red robes, collared at the neck, nursed two wounded at the back of the pack. The two in question writhed and moaned in pain, sporting ghastly wounds all over their bodies. One was a man in shattered armor, dripping blood from the puncture holes, while the other was a woman in cloth much the same as the robed man, but looser fitting and thicker in appearance, as if she wore curtain drapes from neck to toe.
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And in front of the nursing three stood a woman in defiance to the beast that barreled down upon her and her supposed allies. Her leather armor held firm to her body but showed signs of wear and damage. Red hair hung past her shoulders, waving back and forth as if mimicking the torch she thrust about in front of her as she cocked her lacquered pistol with her mouth.
“By God,” Kayn said. And while his awe could have surely been directed to the steadfast woman who stood her ground, unfaltering, his widened eyes looked elsewhere; to the beast, she stood against.
The mutant creature stood the height of the cave, bending ever slightly to avoid the ceiling. Fur coated its spine from the tip of its small head to the stub tail that hung between its wiry legs. Wings a span double its height spread outward, hands at their tips with claws the length of a man’s hand.
“It’s a giant bat….” Kayn said. “Esmera had its fair share of overgrown beasts but I’d be damned if I said I’d ever seen one like this.”
IT’S A VAMPIRE BAT, TO BE EXACT.
“I really don’t care, to be exact. And I thought you didn’t know anything about it.”
THAT WAS BEFORE. THIS IS NOW. IT’S A VAMPIRE BAT. AN OVERLY MUTATED ONE.
Vampire bat or regular bat, or bloody pigeon for all it mattered, it was clearly a handful. As firm as the pistol woman held her ground, the state of her group spoke evidence to their encounter with it.
But if travelers such as they, a group of four at that, couldn’t hold their own against, what good would he be to them? Would he not just add a body to the pile for future wanderers to stumble upon?
“Don’t just stand there gawking! My ally’s sword lays at your feet, take up arms if you have the body to do so!” the fiery woman roared as she unloaded her pistol into the bat's face.
The round exploded in a plume of smoke and fire, and the beast let out a roar, batting its wings. Seemingly unaffected, it charged at the unprepared gunwoman.
Kayn’s feet took action before his mind realized he moved. He grasped the sword that lay in his path, iron grip cold in his palm.
[Iron Sword Equipped | Power +2]
Far too focused on the beast to notice, Kayn’s eyes glossed over the sudden screen of text and raised the sword to his shoulder. The beast was too far from him. At the speed he moved, he wouldn’t make it before the four of them got trampled.
Dammit….he thought. Would there be nothing he could do to save them? Again….?
As doubt crept in, the gunwoman dropped her unloaded pistol and pulled another one from her belt. Unlike the mahogany finish of the first, this pistol was a deathly matte black that would’ve been unseeable in the cave had the accents not been a polished silver.
Pulling the gun from her waist, she dragged the hammer along the armor at her stomach to cock it. Without a second of hesitation, before she even brought the thing level with the beast's head, she fired it and near point-blank. The fire that erupted from the barrel was comparable to the breath of a dragon. It exploded as if it held enough powder to fill a thousand pistols ten times over.
It was brief, but Kayn saw the woman snarl with disdain.
For what? he wondered, but time was of the essence. Her blast stalled the beast in its tracks. How its face hadn’t been blown off at this point was a mystery, but nothing could stop the swift strike that fell upon the bat’s neck.
Kayn drove his iron sword from high above his shoulder to its lowered neck like the thundering crash of a waterfall. Even in a body as weak as his current one, he generated enough force to decapitate even a bull.
So when the iron sword shattered against the beast's neck, all he could do was stare, frozen in time, at the failure he just experienced.
“You bloody imbecile! Did you seriously strike it without any mana? Are you trying to get us all killed!” the woman said. She was hurriedly loading the brown pistol she had dropped prior.
“Wh-what? Mana?” Kayn said. It was all he could say in his bewilderment.
[Skill Tree Unlocked | The Basics of Combat]
This message, unlike the other, he did see. But before he could acknowledge the words in front of him, one of the bat's wings burst through the screen of text and smashed into him proper, sending Kayn flying across the cavernous dome right into the wall with a deathly crash.
All the wind was knocked out of his body, his limbs slumping like a drunk in an alley. As he lay there feeling the cold sensation of blood fleeing from some opening in his body, all he could do was stare at the blue screen that hovered in front of him and curse that fucking guide for being so damn late with it.