53. Is An Insurrection The Opposite Of A Resurrection? Then What’s A Surrection? Desurrection?
Slimey slowly overtook fallen soldiers in a slow-motion chase as his body’s pitiful state slowed him drastically. I couldn’t help my thoughts from straying to the sword that we had just looted, wondering if the sword projections were the swordsman’s skill or inherent in the weapon itself.
The first few enemies we came upon were swallowed up before they got their bearings, unable to do so much as shout a warning. The influx of organic matter increased Slimey’s size and, as a consequence, his speed. I ignored the shouting and the commotion from whoever or whatever had blown a hole in the side of the church, prioritizing thinning the Church’s ranks.
I threw one of Hasan’s starchy cherry-flavored candies at Burt and another at Yagmar, hoping they’d be lucid enough to consume the restorative sweets. I held onto the seven that I had left, not wanting to waste them on anyone that didn’t seem too hurt. Burt was unmoving, face down in a puddle of what I hoped wasn’t his own blood. Yagmar, similarly, had collapsed to the ground in a heap, the ritual circle under her feet having disappeared. She could possibly change the tide of battle if she regained consciousness, so I didn’t feel too bad about sending her some of my limited stock of life-saving candies, but I wasn’t going to be shelling them out for mere bruises to the rest of the raid group. Thankfully, I saw a couple of people nod at me in understanding, moving quickly to help administer the candies.
My summon spread out more and more, entrapping as many enemies as possible and silencing them before they noticed we were upon them. We sneakily gobbled up eight people before being spotted, leaving around twice as many still alive. I winced as a man’s voice called out, causing most of the soldiers to turn away from the battle around the building’s new open-concept renovations and towards the commotion we caused.
“HEY! The battle’s not over y-- ARGH!” A sword pierced through the levitating man’s chest from behind, causing him to cough blood and seize up in pain. A red and black scaled hand reached around and gripped his throat, draining the rest of his life force until he fell to the ground as a dried out husk. Rella’s intervention snapped everyone back into action, tearing the remaining eyes away from the battle at the breach.
Everyone scrambled to pick up their weapons and bring them to bear once again as the battle started up again. This time, both sides seemed more evenly matched due to a mix of exhaustion and reduced numbers on the side of the Church. A few lesser explosions shook the building, but with nowhere near the oomph of the initial explosion. I let out a relieved breath as I saw Burt climb to his feet, leaning against a woman with a crude metal sheet for a shield. He conjured his energy blade, shearing off tips of weapons as his opponents tried to stab in. He held a defensive stance, trying to buy time until reinforcements came in to help.
I tried circling around to flank Burt’s attackers, but a wooden wall shot up from the ground, blocking our path. As I moved to climb over it, dozens of needle-filled mouths opened and snapped at Slimey. They savaged Slimey’s underbelly, ripping off chunks of goo and swallowing them ravenously. We lunged backwards, unwilling to climb over the hungry maws and attempting to find another avenue of attack.
Suddenly, one of the Church’s soldiers let out a bestial roar. A sickly yellow pulse rippled out, covering his allies before seeping into their skin. The entire enemy force glowed yellow, their eyes growing wild as they echoed the roar and rushed forward in an all-out assault. They ignored their wounds as the defenders struck out while retreating, but the berserking enemies were much faster than their injured and tired opponents.
“Blood of my blood, Totec’s fury!” Yagmar’s voice echoed out as our side gained our own red auras. Unlike the softly glowing yellowish light of our enemies, our troops exuded a constant mist of blood from every pore. The tide of battle shifted yet again as Yagmar’s aura skill overpowered the enemy’s berserker aura. Wounds closed up, attacks were easily batted to the side and counter-attacks were devastating. Instantly, Jean’s shields popped back up and Burt’s turret slammed down again, despite surely no more than fifteen minutes having passed since the last turret.
I took advantage of the push-back by stepping out of Slimey, retrieving the last sword that I had looted. I sent Slimey around the wall of mouths, slinking after our pressed enemies at ankle height. He snaked his way through enemy lines, ignoring the few stabs he got in return. Nobody had enough time to spare to do more than throw half-assed attacks his way. Those that did got brutally punished by savage blows from overly zealous raiders. I gripped my sword tightly, running left, trying to position myself so that if my sword worked like I hoped it would, it wouldn’t catch any of my allies in the crossfire.
Once I was in position, I drew the sword back, pushed mana into it and swung forwards. Success! A crescent of white energy shot out from my blade and flew towards the retreating enemy line. Three soldiers saw the slash coming and leapt backwards, stepping directly into a Slimey-shaped trap. They fell backwards into my slime’s loving embrace, their feet caught in the dark green sludge.
The fourth soldier didn’t dodge, taking my sword slash head on. I leaned forward, waiting for the strike to bisect the cocky man. It impacted the burly figure in the chest and… Shattered. My smirk vanished as my sword attack’s energy dissipated, having barely left a scratch on the man’s armor. I figured he had a defensive class or skill, but my theory was disproven as a perfectly ordinary-looking spear stabbed into the man’s side. I scrunched my face in concentration and sent a second slash careening towards my enemies. A sword struck out, meeting the slash midair and shattering my attack on contact.
I let out a curse as I came to the conclusion that I either needed an accompanying skill to boost the sword projection’s damage or I had to send much more mana into it than I was comfortable with spending. Neither was possible at the moment, rendering the sword functionally useless. Really cool, but useless.
With Slimey preventing the enemy from retreating, we mopped up the remaining soldiers with ease. A few rogue skills came out, but were swiftly countered by our own. I let people swipe a few pieces of loot before making Slimey digest what was left of the bodies while the others scouted beyond the open double doors. I let Slimey mop up bodies indiscriminately, not wanting to leave any of our members behind. There was no telling what foul acts could be performed on fresh corpses, after all. I looked back at the portal, wondering if it was worth continuing or if I should just dip back. I shook my head to clear it. Sure, I didn’t know many of the raid team, but I wasn’t going to leave my friends behind. My resolve firmed, I rushed through the gate and entered the church-proper.
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It was chaos. True, our earlier battle was a hectic mess of blood, gore and loss, but this was a whole other level. Blood Oats threw themselves at unwavering Church members in neverending waves, their bodies adding to the piles that littered the halls. Splinters and rubble were all that was left of once-pristine pews, next to shattered multicolored glass. The Church’s members were more shakily defending the breach in the church’s walls, frantically throwing up magical and mundane shields to block explosions, and casting soothing healing spells on those unfortunate enough to be hit by magical blasts.
Amidst all the chaos, the sound of cogs turning clanked out. Low, at first, but then rising to equal the clamor of the battle. The entire ceiling of the church grew dark, as if a giant shadow passed over the entire thing. Fist-thick metal rods slowly emerged from trusses, pointing downwards at an angle towards the interior of the church. A familiar dark blue lightning bounced between most of the pillars, creating an electrical grid of sorts.
Before I could shout to Yagmar that I had seen the same metal rods and electrical discharge beneath the sludge lake outside of the city, a white-robed man slowly levitated towards the accumulating energy.
“Professor Quibblebottom!” A boy’s angry voice rang out over the din of battle. “I knew you were behind this!” The explosions, mercifully, stopped momentarily. The professor paused his levitation in order to sneer in the direction of the gaping hole in the building.
“The orphan boy,” Professor Quibblebottom spat. “I knew I should have gotten rid of you at the start of the year feast when I caught you sniffing around my office.”
“Why are you doing this?” The boy’s voice, which I was both shocked and unsurprised to recognize as Em’s, called out. “Professor, aren’t you supposed to be the Anti-Umbral Warding instructor? Isn’t it your job to protect people from this kind of thing?” His voice was desperate, as if pleading with the professor to reconsider. To make it all make sense.
“Foolish boy!” Professor Quibblebottom shouted, his laugh shaking the entirety of his slender frame. “I assume you’ve already guessed it. I only worked for that institution,” he spat the word like it was venom, “for a single purpose: gaining access to their records. I’ve got what I was searching for, so I have no need to keep up the ruse.”
“No!” Em shouted. “You’ve found the entrance to the Secret Floor? How!? Dean Fruggs’s journal said he triple hexed and then bewitched the entrance himself. Nobody was supposed to be able to get in without…” Em trailed off, realizing the hole in his logic.
Professor Quibblebottom chuckled mirthlessly. “There it is, child. The look of despair I was waiting for. Dean Fruggs is away on business, of course. And Provost Chapman is a little too loose-lipped after a few drinks. Anyway, I tire of this. Prepare yourselves for annihilation!”
With that, the professor completed his ascent to the ceiling. He withdrew a heavily adorned golden scepter from within his robes and held it aloft, lightning converging upon it in thick bands.
“Protect the Archbishop!” A woman’s voice yelled out from the crowd of gawking Church members. Instantly, their barrage of fireballs, enchanted arrows and hurled pews started up again. Yagmar countered with her own spell, but to no effect. The [Serpent’s Hand] gathered all of the nearby blood from the surroundings and sent it as a spear directly towards Professor Quibblebottom, Archbishop of the Church and tormentor of children. Skills flew to intercept, but were smashed aside with ease. The spear, however, shattered upon contact with a dome of blue energy that flickered into existence around the Archbishop just before the blood spear had the chance to reach him. The electric shield glowed brilliantly for a few seconds before dimming, then disappearing altogether.
As Yagmar went to throw another skill at the Archbishop, the woman that had greeted us at the entry portal appeared once more, slashing at the [Serpent’s Hand] with a four-pronged whip. Yagmar danced back, then retaliated with thousands of tiny red snakelike projectiles that slithered as they shot through the air. The woman cartwheeled, backflipped and rolled over and under the assault, still sending her whip cracking towards Yagmar all the while.
With those two at a stalemate, I slid towards the newly opened side of the church, finding Burt fending off a heavily armored man with a glowing yellow mace. Each blow of the man’s mace sent shockwaves of force outwards a few feet upon impact. Before I could come to Burt’s rescue, the mace came down and sent an overpowered shockwave slamming into him, catching him by surprise and blasting him backwards. I slid my way to the side, positioning myself to catch the Warfare Specialist with Slimey’s metal plates. He impacted the sheets with a muted clang, Slimey pillowing outwards to absorb the brunt of the landing while keeping the metal between Burt and sizzling burns.
A totem flew in from the right, stabbing directly into the mace-wielder’s chest. The follow-up pulse of energy tore through the man’s body, sending tendons, bones and viscera painting the surrounding area. I craned my neck to try and catch a glimpse of TG, but I couldn’t see him through the chaos.
Floorboards splintered as Em’s explosions started up again, scattering more limbs about the church. The buzzing from above grew louder and higher in pitch. The air itself seemed to vibrate with energy. I threw Burt to the side before rushing over and covering him with a cage of metal plates, then Slimey’s bulk. The impending blast from above finally unleashed, splitting the air with a boom so loud that Slimey dissipated into motes of light and despawned. I both felt and heard an awful ripping in my ears as I smacked face first into Burt’s metal sheet wall. I slammed my eyes shut, but I was too late. The flash from the lightning above, reflecting and refracting off of every surface possible around me, seemed to penetrate directly into my skull through my eyes like twin daggers of pure malice.
I let out a scream as my senses were overloaded, though I couldn’t hear myself over the ringing in my ears. I wiped at the rivers of what I assumed was blood gushing from my ears as I waited for my vision to clear. Eventually, I caught blurry glimpses of Burt crawling out from underneath the metal sheets, evidently much more in control of his own senses than I was. He froze, staring at something behind me. I followed his gaze, blinking at what I saw before me. A huge crater, at least twenty feet deep and twice as large, now lay where floorboards, pews and the hole in the wall used to be. Where Em and his friends used to be.
Blood stained black and red scaled hands gripped my arm. I turned to see a battered and bleeding Rella emphatically mouthing something at me. She did it again. No, she wasn’t mouthing. She was yelling. I just… I couldn’t hear her. Burt nodded and grabbed my other arm, tugging me away from the battle.
“No,” I said soundlessly. “We can’t leave. We can help.”
In response, the other two simply pulled harder, dragging me towards the exit portal. We had made it a total of six steps when the portal flashed, depositing Thwain and four other figures into the church. Burt and Rella dragged me over rubble, bringing me closer to the new arrivals. Once we neared, I noticed that Thwain had only brought three other people. What I had mistaken for a fourth was a headless hulking brute of a body being dragged by the other three.