Chapter 130 – Sanctuary.
Jack sprinted through the rundown streets of sector six trying desperately to create distance from the massive tornado rampaging through the already dilapidated city. Elara’s fury never died down as far as Jack could tell, he had simply run so far away that it disappeared from sight. Only then did he stop to try and get his bearings.
Sector six of broken moon city could only be described as a medieval trailer park from hell. Run-down, broken-down houses of wood and flimsy sheet metal were stacked haphazardly all along the sides of the smashed and shattered cobblestones roads. In between the bent and broken stacked houses stacked high as though there were in a scrap yard were alleys that ran dark and deep, filled with shadows that shifted and loomed with danger.
The worst though was the hordes of zombies, and stopping for even a second was much like dropping bait into the ocean and watching a school of tuna swim up to devour it. Several times over now Jack had stopped only for a small horde of zombies to spill out onto the streets below. This time was no different as Jack glanced around in every direction.
“We should start running.” Nutt squeaked as doors started to grind open and rotting creatures in packs of three and five climbed out of the surrounding houses. The once dark alleyways became occupied with even more of the lumbering creatures that spilled out onto the streets.
“Not again,” Jack groaned, grabbing Nutt and jumping up to a ledge and quickly removing the heads of three zombies in the process of climbing down towards him.
You have slain Lesser Zombie
+100 AP
The zombies were easy enough to kill, the real problem was their numbers. Jack glanced down at the street now filled with hundreds of groaning zombies all banging and scratching at the side of the house he had climbed onto.
“Is the entire city like this?” Jack asked, trying to find a different route out of here that didn’t involve a small zombie massacre.
“No idea.” Nutt shrugged, mixing a potion with a puddle of green goop he found on the stoop of the house. His eyes went wide as he ran his finger through the substance and tasted it.
“What is that?” Jack asked.
“Ghoul waste. Piss, I think. Mildly hallucinogenic.” Nutt nodded with a satisfied look, bottling as much of the puddle as he could. “You want some?” He held up a small vial to Jack.
“How mild a hallucination?” Jack narrowed his eyes as he took the small vial and dropped it into his void sack. He needed a drink, but he wasn’t that desperate. Yet.
“Eh” the goblin said, tilting his hand back and forth “Probably best to wait until we get out-“
A loud bang came from across the street, sending four of the stacked houses toppling to the ground and crushing the zombies on the streets below. Two humans stepped out onto the debris, one wore a dark red robe and hurtled fireballs into the remaining zombies while the other shot forth like a fiery comet. He barrelled into a small group of zombies and tumbled forward, lashing out with flaming fists and feet covered in fire. The fire mage and flaming pugilist regrouped as a large bull headed monster with three large horns and steel armor covering his enormous body joined them in the frey. He wielded a large rectangular tower shield and a trident. The two fell back in place behind him as he squared off in the remainders of a narrow alley. As the horde of zombies approached him the trident wielding bull struck out with rapid, perfect precision. His trident was tinged with a dangerous gray hue and each thrust was joined by another translucent manifestation of a second trident that also pierced through the heads of the approaching zombies. When the small crowd got too thick one of the mages would throw a fireball setting light to half a dozen of the zombies and burning them to ash. After several minutes they had completely cleared out the horde and stepped back out into the broken cobblestone streets giving their slaughter an inspection.
“Told you. Already dead.” The bull said to his two companions. One of the mages, an older woman with black graying hair crossed her arms and let out an angry tsk as she inspected the damage.
“I told you we can’t keep blowing up buildings like this. Too much collateral damage. How are we supposed to rescue anyone if we keep accidentally killing them in the process?”
“Auntie, every time we take on a horde this size we always run out of mana and Raxx ends up almost dying because he has to fight them all alone.” The pugilist said. He was much younger than the woman with long black hair hanging loose and wild, and a strong frame. His earnest tone reminded Jack of Sam.
“Raxx doesn’t mind. One can only truly grow in strength when the odds are against them,” the bull gave a stoic nod to the other two. The old lady rolled her eyes, but the boy nodded in agreement with the bull.
“Although I don’t think they are dead. Did anyone get a kill notification outside of the zombies?” he asked.
Jack chose that moment to jump down and greet his “saviors.”
“Hi there,” Jack grinned. The trio immediately fell into a practiced formation. The bull squared off with his shield while the two other two started conjuring fire into their palms from behind.
“I’m Jack,” he continued. Nutt jumped down after him with a panicked scream, slamming face first into the ground. He tried to play it off with an awkward combat roll, only to trip and land on his face again.
“And that’s Nutt,” Jack nodded down at the goblin who was rubbing his nose and holding back tears.
There was an awkward standoff. The age of casual greetings is gone, Jack thought to himself as he stared down the point of the trident leveled at his face. He held up empty hands in surrender, but that did little to diffuse the situation.
“Enough, enough,” came a tired voice from behind the large bull. “If they were going to attack us they would have done it when we were fighting the zombies.”
“Auntie, wait!” The boy protested, but the woman stepped out from behind the safety of the bulls shield and walked toward Jack, giving him a discerning stare. Her face was whether beaten and it looked like frown lines had been permanently carved into her face. She didn’t seem angry or mean, just stern.
“New to the city, right?” she asked.
“Just dropped in like an hour ago,” Jack grinned. “Been running ever since. Is it all just zombies around here?”
The woman nodded like she was hearing a familiar story.
“Damn Tortugas,” she spat. “Alright, come with us. There's a sanctuary a little deeper inside the city. We can get you there safely.”
“Sure,” Jack shrugged, “but first maybe want to fill me in a little more before I follow you deeper into the zombie filled city? How about some names?”
“Rexx,” She said pointing to the bull, “Nisha,” she pointed to herself, “and Neal,” she finished, pointing at the tall fighter still behind Rexx. “Now let's move, quickly, this was bound to draw a lot of attention and-“
Before she could finish, loud shrieking could be heard from the rooftops of the surrounding buildings.
“Ghouls… They must have followed us here.” Neal said, panic in his voice.
Jack narrowed his eyes at the rooftops. Peering over the ledges were gray skinned yellow eyed rotting creatures. While the zombies had varied in size, race, and shape, these creatures now felt far more uniform. They crawled across the roofs with an unnatural agility, sniffing at the air and letting out shrieks as more jumped to nearby roofs, surrounding the group.
“What the hell are those things?” Jack asked.
“Trouble. We have to leave. Now. Rexx!” Nisha screamed.
“On it.” The bull turned back towards the narrow alley, his trident pointing forward and shield held at the ready. His hooves stomped the ground, and he charged forward in a burst of explosive speed. Jack watched as the bull trampled and ripped through the zombies that had filled the alley with a devastating charge, piercing several with his trident and even ripping through some with the horns on his head.
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“Follow him! Quick!” Nisha commanded.
The ghouls let loose another shriek and jumped down onto the ground, cutting off the path Rexx had just opened. Guess it’s time to repay the favor, Jack thought.
In a burst of speed of his own, he launched forward with his daggers at the ready burying them into the torso of one of the ghouls.
You have slain Lesser Ghoul.
+250AP.
They were worth about twice as much as the zombies, and Jack could see why. They were much faster than the zombies, with long clawed fingers and a mouth filled with sharpened jagged teeth. Still though, they were hardly a match for him.
Seven of the ghouls fell dead in the span of a second as Jack carved through them with ease. They died easier than the zombies. Fatal wounds to the organs or cutting off an appendage and letting their black blood drain out of them seemed to do the trick well enough. Whereas zombies needed you to separate their heads from their bodies to earn the kill.
Nisha and Neal stared at Jack with their mouths gaped open, surprised at the sudden display of power. Jack just grinned, wanting to show off a little more as he took in the surrounding ghouls. He had something he wanted to try.
As if reading his thoughts, Wiggleworm sprung to life and shrouded him in her dark cloak. Jack gripped his daggers tightly and let himself fall deep into [Storm Stance of the Lightning Centipede].
This was another one of the passive abilities that he found himself not utilizing very much after losing his core. His storm stance seemed to want mana coursing through his body when he used it. He had some interesting workarounds to that problem back when he had a core, now though he didn’t have anything to feed into the stance and using it often felt like more trouble than it was worth. It felt clunky to use. The stance always responded to mana in whatever form he could give it, and in turn would guide his body. He hadn’t realized just how much of the work the stance had been doing for him before.
When he tried to use it now though, it was simply all him, and his efforts were awkward and disjointed as he tried to mimic the former power the stance had given him. The problem with that was he didn’t really have any sort of guide or tutorial to help guide him through the finer points of storm stance. The best he knew, it centered around lashing out your opponent with devastating, unrelenting strikes. Beyond that he had never done much research into the ability, just sort of letting intuition and mana guide the stance. If he spent several hours in deep concentration, he was able to parse through some of the information uploaded into his brain whenever the Tower originally granted him the passives. The knowledge was there, it was just designed to be intuited as you used the ability, not so much carefully studied.
Jack was able to slowly piece together some of the techniques that made up the storm stance. The first technique of the stance was simply called Strike. It had him turning his arm into a whip, using the momentum of loose muscles going rigid as the strike reached its apex. When you made contact with your weapon you needed to add a sharp, violent twist to your attack. The whip speed combined with the violent twist created the strike effect, gouging chunks from your opponent the same way a lightning strike might rip a chunk out of the earth. Jack didn’t really have anyone or anything practical to use this technique on while on the first floor, but these ghouls seemed like some good training.
He lashed out with his daggers at the first nearby ghoul. His arm went loose as he whipped it out towards the ghouls chest. As the swing reached its apex and the tip bit into monster flesh, Jack flexed hard, turning his arm to stone as he added a violent twist with his wrist. He was rewarded by opening up a softball sized crater in the ghouls chest. He grinned as he let his arms fall loose at his side again. His executioner class seemed to respond to the vicious strikes because he instantly felt his [Mortal Wounds] and [Blood Scent] passive activated as well. The open cavity he created in the ghouls chest transformed as [Mortal Wounds] flared to life, opening up his chest further and spewing black ichor everywhere in a celebration of gore. The ghoul fell to the ground dead from one strike. Jack was grinning ear to ear as he threw himself into the chaos of the frenzied ghouls.
His shroud was like a dark storm cloud that allowed him to dance through his opponents with ease, Wiggleworm taking care to pull at the shadows and cloak him in further darkness. Each arm lashed out, striking at the ghouls all over, ripping out large chunks from their body with every attack. He sent the monsters to a quick death, each successful strike earning him another activation of the [Mortal Wounds] passive. Ghouls shrieked and howled all around him in maddening pain as his strikes of lightning brought down chaos on their bodies.
Not every strike was successful though, and he felt his arms start to go a little gumby mode after the twentieth ghoul was dropped. This was another reason he didn’t like using storm stance much anymore. One of the few resources Jack had left available to him was stamina, and this was draining him fast.
He let go of the storm stance and fell back into a casual fighting stance as he surveyed his surroundings, taking a few deep breaths.
It wasn’t that the zombies or the ghouls were hard to kill by any means. It was just that there were so damned many of them. For every one he killed two more showed up. That’s why he had just been running from the zombies. Now though there was the addition of ghouls who were not only much faster, but their numbers were quickly starting to rival the zombie hordes as more and more showed up, likely drawn from the stench of rotting blood that hung heavy in the air.
“It’ll only get worse; they are drawn by the smell of death. We have to leave, now!” Nisha screamed, seemingly reading Jack’s thoughts.
The path to the alleyway was clear and the small group moved into it, sprinting after the bull who was leading the charge. Jack squinted at Nutt, who was sitting on top of the bulls head, hands wrapped around his horns and laughing maniacally as he threw exploding potions into the horde of zombies that the bull was charging through. The ghouls climbed down from the rooftop, skittering along the walls with clawed hands and feet as they let loose shrieks of pursuit. Jack held up the rear with Nisha who set everything on fire behind them. Neal seemed to be doing a pretty good of jumping up and punching any ghoul that got to close with a flaming fist.
Jack had another passive ability he had earned that needed more training. [Throwing Weapons].
It was as basic a skill as any, but still plenty useful. Jack dismissed his daggers into his void rings and quickly pulled out two throwing knives. The first one he threw sank into an approaching ghouls head and it dropped to the ground dead. The second one missed completely and the ghoul almost latched onto Neal, but he delivered a fiery roundhouse kick to the ghoul that ripped it into two pieces at the torso. Jack pulled out several more throwing knives and launched them in every direction he could. He would kill every one in three, with the others either missing completely, crippling a ghoul, or hitting them and bouncing off. He grimaced at that. Hannah was always the crack shot of the team. Jack was more of a ‘empty the clip into his enemies and hope for the best’ kinda guy.
The group quickly spilled out onto the street and were met with even more zombies. Ghouls scrambled across the rooftops and along the walls as the size of the horde chasing after them only seemed to increase in size.
“This way!” Rexx roared. Grey mana coalesced around his body and took the shape of a giant bulls head as he charged forward again, knocking open a wide pathway in the sea of zombies. Jack was starting to second guess if there was actually any sort of safe haven ahead given how many zombies and ghouls were surrounding them. Then loud horns began to blare out.
“Finally!” Nisha screamed, hope in her voice.
The horns went off in all directions, soon followed by rains of arrows. Jack traced their direction further down the street. There was a large makeshift wall that ran across the large open road, built from a hodgepodge collection of the abandoned buildings no doubt. Archers lined the roofs opposite the wall, both helping carve out a path for the returning party, and fending off the ever approaching horde. The wall split down the middle and swung open. Another large group of adventures fifty strong poured out to meet the zombie horde, laying waste to them in an unrelenting fury of mana charged attacks. Jack and his group were quickly ushered inside by the defenders and the gate was closed behind them. He heard the sound of zombies slamming against the gate and looked upwards.
“What about the ghouls?” He asked, staring at the surrounding buildings.
“Archers will take care of them. The ghouls at least have some sense and will give up rather quickly. The zombies though will be banging at the wall all night if we don’t clear them out.” Nisha said to Jack.
Jack glanced over at Nutt, who was offering Rexx one potion after another and apologizing profusely. The bull’s face looked half melted from acid burns and Jack could hazard a few guesses as to how that might have happened.
He inspected the city defenders. A lot of them were humans. Some orcs. Several gnomes marching around. A few people who might have been elves, but not the summer elves he had seen earlier. They had pitch black skin in comparison to the suntanned summer elves, and were a bit shorter. Jack glanced around the camp. It looked to be some sort of massive town square with four intersecting roads. Each road was blocked off by another large wall and armed with several more archers.
The town square was filled with a small grouping of buildings and had tents scattered all around it. The camp seemed lively, and even relaxed, like this was just another day for them all. Jack glanced back to Nisha, hoping for an explanation. She was locked in conversation with a large slender… serpent faced person. He had scaled reptilian skin that shimmered green when the light hit it. His forked tongue tasted the air between every word he spoke.
“I’m glad to see you’ve made it back safely. How was your fishing trip?” the snake hissed.
“A little chaotic,” she said with a gesture at the gate, “but I think I pulled in a pretty big fish this time.” She turned her head to look at Jack and the snake followed. He gently pushed past Nisha and that’s when he realized the snake guy didn’t have legs, only a torso and a big long tail. He slithered up to Jack and extended a welcoming hand.
“Welcome,” he hissed, “I am Zeth, leader of our sanctuary. Allow me to be first to welcome you to the safety of our walls.”
“Just like that?” Jack raised an eyebrow, shaking the cold three fingered hand of Zeth.
“As per our Lord Gideon, all humans are welcome within the ranks of the Golden Scale.” He gave him a serpent's smile, and Jack felt his blood run cold.