Samantha reflected on the chain of events that had led to her leading a small team of adventurers against the city where she had earned her post grad degree. Before this, she had fought in the Second Siege of SooHoo. Before that the First Siege of SooHoo.And before that she had been rescued from a grizzly death by the man who had brought them all here to wrench control of the city which had descended into barbarism, Karl Brunett. She looked up at the naked men and women hanging listlessly, crucified on crosses leading up to the city gate. Anger burned in her chest, as it did with all the men and women assembled here this morning.
Karl was a brutal man, willing to kill anyone that got in his way, but he seemed to have a code. And if he had claimed responsibility for you, he didn’t give up on you. That was evident when he returned from the prison and found his appointed guard captain wallowing in her own sweat and piss, refusing to get back to work after losing her arm in the First Siege. Samantha absentmindedly rubbed her own stump that ended just below her left elbow. She considered getting a replacement, but then she took her class and found she had limited telekinesis. She didn’t really need a left hand when she could grab shit with her mind.
She hadn’t been much of a gamer before the System arrived, though she got the gist of what she did as being a type of hybrid tank class. Psionic Bulwark. She could conjure her own armor and weapons, and she could juggle several at a time and direct them independently of each other. She had very little stamina for attacks, everything she did spent Mana, the very stuff that changed the fabric of the world around her. From her conversations with Choox’il and Junipher she was assured that as she grew, her Mana and mana regen would become vast, though right now she had to manage her mental arms and armor. On top of that she had several ranged attacks that rounded her abilities out nicely.
Samantha gazed at her friends and comrades in arms. Courtney and Stephen were shoulder to shoulder as usual, the fact the two were lovers wasn’t lost on anyone, though they never let it interfere with their duties. Stephen was some kind of physics based mage with truly terrifying abilities.Whereas Courtney was the designated healer. She looked at Michelle next to her who had focused an intense gaze on the crucified people in front of her. Michelle had learned some ancient alien kung fu and was a nightmare in hand to hand combat, and had strength second only to Karl. Just as she thought his name he appeared high above the city holding the squirming Mayor in one hand Just before he reached the apex of his jump he threw the Mayor back to the ground hard. The wall obscured what happened next but soon the notification they had been waiting for came.
Mayor Carol Blevins, owner and administrator of the City of Flagstaff has been defeated!
City Core is now available for capture.
They waited a moment to see what the guards manning the gate would do and just as they suspected they all left their posts and headed into the city. The other line of thought had them trying to flee the city as quickly as possible when they realized their benefactor was dead. They waited a minute before setting their plan into motion. As it would happen the guards charged inward, probably hoping they could scavenge something from the loss of their supposed leader.
Samantha moved out of the tree cover and conjured her armor and a trio of long swords. When the power took hold she began to levitate a few inches off the ground and movement became as simple as thinking it. She floated out next to the first crucifix with her team to cover Nandi and her two teammates as they went about removing the people from said crucifixes. Courtney stood ready to apply healing as soon as they had the spikes removed that had been driven through their wrists and ankles. Simple shirts, jeans, and shoes were available once they had been sorted. Samantha watched the other team go to work.
The only man on her team, Darren, produced a large axe and swung at the first wooden crucifix. It was enough to weaken the main beam and he slid up to catch it with his back and slowly lowered the mechanism with its victim to the ground where Nandi and her support mage went to remove the spikes from the man attached. Darren moved to the next crucifix and repeated the process he had started on the first and began lowering the roughly two dozen remaining crucifixes.
The people attached began to moan in pain and despair, the women in particular shivered and cried as one by one they were removed from their torment. Fortunately, Courtney’s new skill, Soothing Presence, was working as advertised. The men and women were healed, clothed, and given jerky and bottles of water. At first they looked around bewildered and terrified. They seemed to wonder if this was a trick or some kind of deceit imposed by their bored tormentors. As Courtney’s skill saturated the terrified and broken people they calmed enough to accept simple direction. They were slowly escorted to the nearby treeline and asked to wait for the rest.
There were about six left to recover when the sound of several men arguing and running was heard coming through the gate. Michelle and Stephen formed up, one next to her and one behind. Darren slipped back from the crucifix he was about to bring down and waited with her group as well.
“We need to get the fuck out of here. I recognize that guy, that’s the one that told us to get on the road headed south and not come back.”
“Yeah, I recognized him too, let’s grab us some entertainment for the road.” A haggard voice chuckled as they got closer to the gate.
“Nah man, you can waste your time if you want, but I’m not stopping to look behind me.” Another more clearly worried man protested.
“C’mon man.” Haggard pleaded.
“Fuck no, bro, I barely slipped away before that big asshole started gunning everyone down. He’s fucking unstoppable.” A new voice, Samantha had been counting as they argued. She was certain there were at least 4 headed their way, and by the sounds of the feet on the cement, probably more.
“I’m with Grim on this one, I was gonna have a go with that kid Grants ole lady after shift tonight.”
“Ah, fuck man, he comes out and pisses on her once a day, that’s just fucked.”
Samantha looked at Michelle and saw the same look of rage on the other woman’s face that was building in her own chest. These fuckers are gonna pay, she thought as she readied her first spell.
“The fight’s behind us, lets just -” The group came through the gate and halted their advance as they caught sight of Samantha floating in the air in front of them glowing with mental magic. The look of hate on her face was evident and she acted before they could react further to her presence.
“CEREBRAL CLASH!” She roared and unleashed a wave of pink energy in a three meter wide straight line that crashed into the nearly dozen men in front of her. Only one man in the back had the presence of mind to raise a barrier and was saved from the mental anguish of his compatriots. Almost all of Samantha’s attacks caused some kind of lingering mental pain.
Stephen pinned the evil men to the ground with a casting of Mass Manipulation then Samantha flashed forward in a display of bright pink energy, activating Vanguard’s Advance. Energy radiated from her and knocked the still tightly packed group to the ground. Only four stood as the support mage managed to get barriers around them. She lashed out with her armament, skewering the men she had just knocked to the ground but failed to penetrate the mages barriers.
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Michelle and Darren joined her at the front and attempted to break through to the snickering men behind their shields. “I can keep this up all day bitches, how about you all just step aside and let us leave, no harm, no foul?” The support mage pleaded.
“Guys! Move!” Stephen announced and the three scattered as he unleashed a Solar Flare against the four protected men. For a moment the beam of pure solar energy looked like it wouldn’t break through the mages barriers, then one by one screams were snuffed out as shields cracked and shattered under the onslaught of pure solar energy. When the attack subsided all the men that had gathered were gone, the road was scorched black and bubbled, and the city gates had a ten meter wide hole burned through them. Fortunately the beam subsided before it tore through the city on the other side.
“Darren, get back to it, Stephen help him, we’re definitely on the clock now.” Samantha started directing the gathered people, “We still need to move to the East side and get the people there, Nandi, think you can get on the wall here and let us know when more approach?”
“On it, mate.” Nandi said and gingerly stepped across the scorched highway and found her way up the wall and perched at the top. As soon as she was at the top she was already launching arrows at unseen enemies. “Got another ten or so inbound, they seem to be running for their lives!”
Samantha looked around at Darren's progress and grimaced. He had managed to bring down 2 more of the crucifixes and was about to start on a third before she waved him off. She braced her legs against the air where she floated and activated Telekinesis, then grunted with the strain of mentally moving more mass than she had ever tried before. She looked up at the hopeful stares of the people hanging before her and apologized, “This is going to be rougher than I had intended, sorry.” Then the four remaining crucifixes tore free from where they had been planted with four audible snaps and they were carefully floated back to the treeline where Courtney and Nandi’s third waited to free them.
Samantha hunched in the air where she floated, sucking in deep breaths and dripping with sweat from the effort exerted. “You can’t do that on the other side can you?” Darren eyed her skeptically.
“If I have to, I’ll try, but the headache caused by moving that much mass is going to slow me down for a couple minutes.”
“Nan, how much time we got!?” Darren yelled up to the woman on the wall who was nocking arrows and releasing them rapidly.
“NONE!” She screamed and backflipped off the wall as a chunk of ice smashed into the position she formerly maintained.
“How many?” Samantha asked calmly, trying to catch her breath.
“More than a dozen.” She responded and launched a power shot through the gap in the gates. A yell of pain on the other side indicated she had hit someone.
“Let’s do this shit!” Michelle barked as they waited for the former inmates to press through the gates.
A commotion behind Samantha drew her attention. One of the women she pulled from the crucifixes stepped forward with a vacant expression. She looked at everyone gathered and then locked her gaze on Samantha’s shortened stub of an arm. Samantha was about to ask her what she wanted when the young woman finally spoke, “Give me a knife.” The woman flexed her hands, the holes in her wrists slowly closing from Courtney’s healing as her eyes darted back and forth amongst the gathered team.
“Uh… is that really -” Nandi started to ask and the woman’s head snapped in her direction with a silencing gaze. Darren stepped up behind Samantha and held out a long buck style knife by the blade.
The woman flinched then snatched the blade from him and seemingly disappeared in front of them just as the group of inmates braved pressing through the gates. With no more time for discussion, they turned to engage the new group of enemies. Samantha roared into the air activating Psychic Scream. The inmates affected by the attack wavered and looked around in fear. The ones that resisted the effect turned their attention directly to Samantha.
Before anyone could unleash another attack the vacant eyed woman appeared behind a man in the back of the group with a hand around his mouth she stabbed her knife into his crotch. The man’s eyes widened in terror and pain, she whispered something in his ear and snapped his neck. Then she was gone again.
Stephen activated Mass Manipulation and locked several men in place. The woman appeared again and stabbed her knife at an upward angle into her target's neck. The man’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head as one of Nandi’s arrows appeared in the eye socket of the man next to him. The team occupied the front line fighters as the formerly tortured woman carved her way through the back ranks.
More inmates appeared attempting to flee the massacre that Karl and Junipher were inflicting at the center of the city. If they knew another slaughter was being perpetrated on their number they may have chosen a different escape route. Instead they ran straight into a petite, blood soaked woman with overwhelming rage in her eyes. The woman, now unrecognizable, absolutely radiated violence as the blood of her former torturers dripped off of her and puddled on the ground at her feet.
“Ah, fuck!” One of the inmates exclaimed, realizing the situation they were in.
The woman disappeared and Samantha and her team sprung into action to support her. It was more about keeping that crazy woman alive than killing former inmates at this point. Samantha screamed again to gather their attention and proceeded to move into the fray and cut down the inmates as they charged. Michelle and Darren covered her flanks, while Nandi and Stephen peppered the stampede of inmates with ranged attacks. This group managed to put up a strong defense and their healer maintained his own shield that prevented the bloody and violent woman from reaching him.
The battle had slowed to a stalemate with the enemy healer straining to keep his allies alive while they fought to escape the city. Abilities were traded and eventually the inmates began to fall, though they had managed to severely injure Darren taking him out of the overall fight. The battle appeared to have been won with only a handful of inmate fighters left. The bloody woman appeared beside a the inmate that had injured Darren and attempted to stab him in the ribs when his hand shot out and snatched her off the ground by the neck.
“Oh, I’ve tasted your ass before girlie! You won’t be sticking that in me!”He batted the weapon away from her hands and brought her close to hiss in her face, “But I got somethin’ to stick in you!”
Before the man could plunge his weapon into her stomach a brilliant light erupted around the girl and the man yelped as the hand around her neck began to sizzle in pain. He released her and looked to his right where Gregor appeared from around a corner. “That’ll be enough of that shit right now!
Gregor charged into the stunned man shield first and sent him tumbling into the gate wall. Then he brought his hammer down on his chest in a coup de grace. The dwarf then proceeded to dismantle the inmates one by one, breaking bones and faces with every swing of his hammer. When Gregor finished his violent dance of death only blood and broken bodies remained.
He moved to the bloody girl with the knife and gently reached out to her. “April?”
She flinched as he crouched low in front of her, making himself as small as possible. “You came back.” She responded in a weak and terrified voice, slowly inching back to her feet.
“Aye, I did, lass.” He spoke softly, not wanting to spook the traumatized girl.
“Grant?” Rage burned briefly in her eyes, replacing the fear momentarily.
“Dead. I crushed his skull with my hammer.” A point of pride rang in his voice.
April smiled, then nodded her thanks without speaking, and started skirting around the wall away from Gregor and Samantha’s team. She never let her eyes leave Gregor’s as she faded into the shadows and disappeared.
Gregor and Samantha stared at the space the woman previously occupied for several long moments. Samantha wasn’t sure what to say, and just remained silent til Gregor acknowledged her directly. “Well, I suppose that’s that. The lass is going to have to come to terms with her torment on her own.”
“What do you think she will do, where will she go?”
“I dunno. I think there wasn’t enough of us to keep all of these bastards from escaping, I suspect she will track them down and kill every last one of them. I think that’s all she can do at this point.” A sad look claimed his face as he considered his words.
They looked back at the center of the city where a sickly green light cascaded up from where the City Hall should be. The occasional sound of gunfire echoed back to them as the light flickered and wavered, silhouetting the tall downtown buildings.
“Let’s get to the East side and finish freeing these people. Then I suppose we head in and see if Karl needs any help.” Samantha said to the group and started heading around the wall without waiting for a response. Everyone fell into step with her while Courtney and Nandi prodded the Crucified into motion.