by James Hunter
A voice boomed from the pit, loud and droning.
“Who dares despoil my temple? Who dares seek the Sower’s Glass when it was given to me to protect? Who dares to defy me!? Who refuses to worship?!”
“Got an awful big opinion of yourself, Entomo. And for the record, I dare,” I roared with my lupine voice. “Me. God of War. Give me the Sower’s Glass and I’ll leave. Fail, and I’ll crush you underfoot like the goddamned bug you are.”
The pit was nearly empty, save for one final, writhing mass of creatures, which I quickly realized was one uber monster. A centipede with a body as big around as a subway train, and sixty or seventy feet long. And sprouting from its bloated torso were five—count ’em, five—swaying centipede heads, all tipped with the pincers and blue poison sacks. Holy shit. Entomo was a centipede-hydra, and yeah, the old Greek writers never went there.
Hercules would’ve shit his pants if he had to go up against the monster I faced now.
All five heads spoke in unison. “Behold, War God. Behold your doom!”
I was in the right shape for running, but I didn’t want to battle Entomo with my claws and teeth. I wanted my sword. And if he was anything like the real hydra, we’d need to burn off his heads with fire.
I gritted my teeth and yelled, “Loxo! Sophia! Sabra! To me!”
Then I changed back into my human form, fingers wrapping tightly around the handle of the War Blade. Sophia dropped Loxo next to me, vanished, then returned with Sabra. I hit all three with Burning Aura, and then I yelled, “Sabra, Loxo, keep the snails and centipedes off me. Sophia, when I chop off a head, teleport in and burn the stump!”
Gritting my teeth, I triggered my Fury ability. Twenty-five points hadn’t been a big deal an hour ago. Now, it sent my Essence Points plummeting to double digits, only thirty-six left.
Battle rage enveloped me. I grew taller and stronger, and a good chunk of the damage I took went right back into my Health. The more it hurt me, the faster I would heal and the more damage I could deal. I literally saw red. I booted away a snail, shattering its shell. Its spikes dug into my leg but I healed that shit up right quick and in a hurry.
Sabra created a vinework of plants to keep the snails and slugs at bay. Meanwhile, Loxo sliced and stabbed at any centipede or mollusk that dared try and climb over the plant wall.
The centipede-hydra struck at me with one head, then another, then another. It was like fighting a goddamn multi-headed redwood tree. I took a blow on my shield, slashed off a head, and then hacked off another in quick succession, my sword howling through the air. I smacked away a third swaying head with my shield while I darted right. The last head struck like a cobra, though, and I was just half a heartbeat too slow. Its poisoned pincers sank into my chest like a pair of daggers.
My head spun from the pain and the poison, but my Fury burned both away.
Sophia teleported in, slashed her burning katana into the headless stump I’d created, then teleported away to cauterize the next one. The stink of burned centipede filled my nose. I glanced at a burned stump and hope bloomed inside my chest. The swaying neck was blackened, charred, and no new head grew. Holy shit, this was actually going to work. Two down, three to go.
I glanced at the entrance to the temple. It was literally covered with more monster centipedes than I could count. They were on the ceiling, around the walls, and stacked up like cordwood.
In my gaming display, I saw my Amazons taking a metric assload of damage. Their line was failing from the sheer number of insects pressing into the tunnel, but there was nothing I could do for them until I took out this multiheaded asswad.
Entomo laughed. “You know your stories, War God, but no one has ever written about me before. You know not whom you fight! I am beyond understanding. I am the devourer underground! Even Hades fears me, for I am Mother Gaea’s most beloved creation. Cronus loathed me but needed me and even he trembled before me. Look, fool, look upon me and my glory. And know despair.”
The cooked skin covering Entomo’s stumps cracked open, golden blood flowing, and three more centipede heads emerged to slash and strike. They were even bigger than before. Elephant big.
Well shit …
So fire wasn’t going to keep the centipede-hydra from sprouting new heads. Lightning would bounce off its armor. We had committed everything in this battle. There was no retreating.
In my combat interface I watched as Ariadne fell unconscious. Many of the others weren’t far off. And we still didn’t know where the goddamn Sower’s Glass was.
Loxo leapt forward and struck a head away before it could shear off my arm in those pinchers. “What now, Boss?” she shouted, eyes wide with fear as she backflipped away from a set of snapping jaws.
I didn’t have a fucking clue.
TWENTY-TWO
Inside Job
Sabra bolted forward, playing defense with her staff, batting away incoming strikes as she danced just out of reach. We now had nine heads to fight and more legs than I could count—a fucking sea of ’em. Sophia was on that shit though, playing the distraction by striking, teleporting, and striking again. She was quick, but not quick enough to avoid earning more than a few gnarly gashes to her face and arms. But thanks to her Tele-Heal ability, she regained HP with every jump.
Loxo ducked and dodged like a pro, putting her deadly agility to the test, but Entomo the uber centipede was one fast son of a bitch. Loxo juked left, but Entomo was ready and struck like a hungry tiger, plucking her up in a pair of deadly mandibles. She screamed as the mandibles chomped down, threatening to cut her in two. She sunk a blade deep in its head, buying me just enough time to shoot in and slice through the meaty neck. The head toppled and Loxo went with it.
Unfortunately, more heads were incoming.
Shit. We were going about this all wrong, and for every step forward we took, it was two steps back. We couldn’t afford to cut off any more heads, since I had no idea what in the hell would cauterize the stumps. Not fire, maybe lightning, but I didn’t want to take the chance. And we didn’t have any weapons or powers that could generate cold attacks.
I needed to think of something soon. Loxo, Sabra, Sophia, and I were losing ground fast.
Entomo continued to cackle at us with all his many, many heads. Legs slashed at us, pinchers clacked at us, and the swaying antennae would flick our faces, blinding us for seconds at a time. How could you fight something that was literally a forest of weapons? You couldn’t. Not from the outside.
The solution hit me right in the gut. And that was the answer of course—the guts.
“Sophia!” I called, nimbly avoiding another powerhouse lunge from a set of wicked teeth. “Get Phoebe. I need her bronze buzz saw. Get her quick!” I angled left, sliced through an incoming leg, then batted a head away with the flat of my blade. The creature seemed to sense my reluctance to deal damage, and the chitinous bastard pressed his advantage. In the span of a heartbeat, I found myself slowly falling back under an onslaught of blows. I used both shield and sword, not to attack, but simply to live a few more seconds.
Parts of Entomo smoked from being so close to the Burning Auras around me and my Amazons, but the underground freakshow didn’t seem to care in the least.
Sophia appeared next to me in a flash, and immediately hacked away an incoming head with her flaming katana. “She is on her way, War God.” Her eyes went wide. “Behind you,” she screamed.
I whirled and glanced up just in time to see a gooey-bodied slug drop from the wall of vines protecting our flanks. It slammed down onto my shoulders, and acid-covered suction cups stuck to my bare neck and uncovered arms. My gear seemed mostly immune to the corrosive toxin covering the slug’s belly, but I couldn’t say the same for my skin. My HP dropped slowly and steadily as the acid went to work. Pain flooded my body like a river overflowing its banks.
I spun in blind panic, desperate to dislodge the disgusting bugger. I caught a flash of movement—an incoming pincer. I faltered and darted forward. Instead o
f ripping through me, the pincer ripped the slug off me. Moist air washed over my acid-burned skin like a soothing balm.
“Thanks for the help, ugly!” I yelled, barreling in without pause and slashing off the pincer, just below a knubby armored joint. The limb dropped, clattering on the ground.
“Sabra, we’ll take care of the heads. Protect our flank!”
The Forest-Witch cursed, threw up her hands, and used her vines to fling mollusks off the top of our temporary wall.
Dammit, where the hell is Phoebe? I thought, fending off another strike with my shield. And then, above the din of battle, as though to answer my unspoken question, came the tromp of Phoebe’s mech.
Pincers raked across my arm and my flesh bubbled from the venom. My HP dropped further, down to fifty percent. Unfortunately, my Fury miracle had ended, and now I was taking damage and not healing. My head felt like a helium balloon thanks to the toxins pumping through my veins, and I knew it was only going to get worse.
Phoebe, can you read me?
Loud and clear! What do you need from me?
I glanced right—she was at the edge of the pit. Her face was gashed and bloody. Clearly, breaking through the wall of enemies had taken a toll on her and her mech. The steampunk contraption was scored, and the crossbow on her left arm hung damaged and useless. But her buzz saw was spinning and that’s what I needed. Those bronze blades were sharper than a surgeon’s scalpel, and with Burning Aura coating the saw teeth in golden flame … Well, it just might do what I needed.
Phoebe, get in the pit. Cut a hole in the thing’s stomach. I’m going inside the fucker.
Holy shit, Phoebe gasped. That’s a total Ares move if there ever was one. You sure this is the best play?
Not like we have a lot of options here, I sent back. Make it happen!
Alright. You go, War God. You do you. She piloted the mech over the edge of the bowl and then she was sliding down, down, down, away from the swaying heads high above and toward Entomo’s armored trunk. The buggy bastard was so caught up with me, Sophia, Loxo, and Sabra, he didn’t even notice the Rune-Caster. We would change that shortly. I ducked a set of snapping pincers, sliced one off with a twirl of my blade, then rushed straight in and hurled myself over the edge.
Suddenly, I found myself careening down the marble wall of the pit, which had been worn glassy smooth by countless centuries of writhing, chitinous centipedes. “Cut me a hole,” I bellowed, dropping the tip of my sword, dragging it through the stone to slow my descent.
“On it, my man,” she fired back, lurching forward, left arm outthrust, bronze saw buzzing like a city of angry hornets. Sparks flew and golden fire danced. Sure enough, the saw did the trick, opening a deep, angry gash in Entomo’s belly. The tender flesh beneath parted a second later and Entomo howled in reply. We had his attention now. The gash was only about four feet long—a tight fit considering how big I was these days—but I wasn’t afraid to get in there and get dirty.
I offered a war cry of defiance and cast Defender. The miracle dropped me down to a single Essence Point. My legs wobbled beneath me, the godstone in my chest flaring then dimming—warning me that I’d pushed too far. But arctic ice filled my body a second later, shocking my system as my skin transformed into impenetrable steel. I launched myself forward, becoming a living bullet. I dove, sword first, through the slit Phoebe had sawed open for me and into the frothing belly of the insect god.
Excruciating pain hit me in an instant. I’d thought the acid from the demon mollusks was bad, but it was nothing compared to the belly juices of the hydra-boss.
A vicious nastiness surrounded me, dripping down, splashing onto the Mammoth Cloak and my steel skin. If I’d been flesh, I would’ve been liquefied immediately. As it was, my metal body smoked and sizzled as the digestive enzymes deep-fried me. Seriously, the pain was blinding. I’d been forced to do a nonlethal weapons course once. The final test involved getting maced with OC Spray—the shit they use to ward off bears—then running an obstacle course full of angry attackers you had to fight your way through.
It sucked sweaty balls. But this? This was like taking a shower in OC Spray and then getting mauled by a grizzly bear with a personal vendetta against you. Just the absolute worst.
Still, if I was going to suffer this much, I was sure gonna give as good as I got.
I was fresh out of Essence, but the War Blade’s blazing golden light augmented the dancing blue arcs of electricity running along the edge. I slashed wildly, and the results were immediate and oh so satisfying. The oozing walls around me cooked into a blackened char wherever the blade touched. I drove a sandal into the crispy flesh and climbed upward, hopefully making my way toward Entomo’s vital organs. I hacked and flailed as I moved, cooking more flesh every second.
Something flashed in the corner of my eye—something made of glass. An hourglass shape. Yes! The Sower’s Glass! That was it! Of course this jerk would swallow the thing I needed to find. What better hiding place was there in the whole world? But I couldn’t go for it right then, not until I’d finished cooking Entomo.
The centipede-hydra wasn’t laughing now. It was experiencing what it was like trapped inside of a microwave: being cooked from the inside out. Entomo thrashed about in agony; my foot slipped, my free hand followed, and abruptly I found myself bouncing off the charred walls of his belly like a BB in a Coke can.
I landed with a wet thud, and lashed out with my sword on instinct, carving through an already fried section of stomach lining. I struggled back to my feet by sheer force of will, swaying as acid etched away my steel flesh. My HP was down below twenty-five percent, but I couldn’t give up—I was just too close to winning. I drove my lightning-wreathed War Blade into anything and everything in range. I must’ve cut into a major artery because a flood of golden blood came gushing down on top of me. Before I knew it, I was floundering in sack of gore, completely unable to breathe.
I had no idea where Phoebe’s gash was or how I could get out.
Ironic, I was about to drown in the blood of my enemies. Sounded cool, but the reality was nasty and tragic. I would’ve used a Fury spell, but I didn’t even have the Essence Points for one Lightning Lance. I drove my sword forward, and out of complete desperation, I sawed at the stomach sack, using every bit of strength I had left.
Disoriented, low on Health, and damn near tapped out on Essence Points, I was about to cash in my chips. Still, I sawed, trying desperately to get free.
I had to take a breath but didn’t dare open my mouth for fear of inhaling sticky golden blood. Fighting my instincts, I continued to saw until something tore into Entomo’s stomach and plucked me free.
I gasped, blinking away the goo. I was drenched in blech and stomach acid, and hung in the air by my Mammoth Cloak, held aloft by the beak of a giant blue eagle. Asteria. I’d never—not in my whole life—been so happy to see someone.
Wingless one, the entrails are delicious, Eagle-Asteria sent, but you go too far in your greed.
“Thanks, Asteria,” I muttered, reaching up and tapping at her beak. She set me down on the lip of the pit, then flew down and helped Phoebe get her mech upright—it had been knocked over sometime during the tussle. With that done, Asteria returned to the belly of the very dead centipede deity to dine like she was devouring the liver of Prometheus. Soon her chest feathers were covered in gold. Super gross, but that was just who and what she was. Unlike me, she didn’t fight against her nature, but embraced it to the fullest.
I tore my gaze away from the gruesome spectacle and glanced around, surveying the carnage.
What was left of Entomo was sprawled out, belly up, its many heads motionless on the floor of the temple while its main trunk took up the entire pit. Various sections of its exoskeleton had exploded outward, and some bits were a bright red from where I’d cooked it like a damn lobster. I looked left and right, noticing that the last of the centipedes were scurrying away through holes that had been hidden in the temple walls. With their lord gone, t
hey were fleeing.
Clearly, they were smarter than they looked.
My Amazons headed toward the dais with determination and resolve in their steps despite their tired eyes and bloody bodies. They speared or sliced through the last of the glowing mollusks as they went. Ariadne had finally come around, thankfully, and rode on the back of Thunderfoot. Both looked like they’d barely survived a trip through a wood chipper.
But we’d won.
I messaged my Rune-Caster. Phoebe, inside the thing, there’s an hourglass. That must be the Sower’s Glass. Gotta be. Can you fish it out for me?
Yeah, on it. Phoebe maneuvered over the remains of the slain insect god. She edged past Asteria—busy with her feast—cut through more armor, trimmed through entrails, and then reached in and drew out a gore-covered hourglass the size of a desk lamp. The glass was crystalline and flawless, the hourglass itself built from obsidian stone that seemed to drink in the light. The sands within the glass looked less like sand and more like microscopic particles of diamonds, which reflected a rainbow of color.
The hourglass flashed brightly, and all of the golden blood and acid goop simply sizzled away.
Phoebe held it up in victory. The Amazons let out a thunderous cheer—a war cry of elated celebration. We’d won the day, beat the odds, and retrieved the Sower’s Glass, and the good times weren’t done yet … There was still loot to collect. I grinned and headed for the altar, where my Amazons congregated, waiting to divvy up the spoils of war.
TWENTY-THREE
Loot and Levels
My warriors parted for me as I approached the altar—as war god, the spoils belonged to me. Mine to claim, mine to reward. All of them were wounded, scored, and weary, and yet they were smiling at me. Myrina, in particular, seemed to be nearly glowing with approval.
“I would be angry with you, War God,” she said as I passed by, “but you defeated the monster in a manner most befitting of your station.” She reached out a hand and squeezed my forearm.