At Large

by Andrew Seiple

  The dust peeled back, as Renny hopped up out of the pack and onto her shoulder, waving his paws. Lanterns with wings appeared all around them, pushing back the darkness.

  The still lumps on the ground were bodies, and Chase stared at them, acknowledging them and not feeling a thing. She remembered once how the sight of dead people made her vomit. Now? Now after all that had occurred, it didn’t faze her. Now she searched them, and the only emotion in her heart was concern... concern that the people she’d cared about in that tower had made it out okay.

  As it turned out, she had to settle for two out of three.

  The Muscle Wizaard found them, dust caking his beard, robe torn and tattered as he staggered out of the darkness. Metal gleamed on his silver knuckles as he shook his head. “I hope that’s you! My spectacles are quite gone and my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  “It is. Have you seen Cagna and Lachina?”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes I have.” His tone told her all she needed to know.

  Something had gone wrong.

  They found Cagna by a large chunk of bricks, holding Lachina’s arm. Just her arm. That was all that was sticking out of the masonry.

  The dog-woman wasn’t crying. She wasn’t making any noise at all. She just sat there, occupying space, and holding Lachina’s hand.

  Chase’s nose twitched. She stared up at the gutted shell of the tower, and the bits still falling off it, now and then. They were not out of danger, by no means were they out of danger. But...

  No.

  Cagna needed this.

  So Chase moved up next to the woman, reached up to her shoulder, and rested her small hand on the dog-woman’s sleeve. Then she quietly got to work healing her friends, until they were full up again.

  It was hard to say how long the moment lasted. She was distantly aware of yelling from the city, alarm bells ringing, as Arretzi woke to its danger. The tower was far enough back from the rest of the district that it would take some time for anyone to reach them, but Chase had no doubt they’d have visitors in due time.

  “What the Alpha said was true, wasn’t it?” Chase asked. She hated to do it, hated to break the silence, to pressure the mourning figure next to her. She hated to do it... but she had to. Time waited for neither, halven nor beastkin alike. Only the gods were above it all, and even then only to a point.

  “Yes,” Cagna said. “We were working a long-term operation. Just bad luck that the werewolf stuff came up when it did. Just her bad luck. Again.” Cagna’s muzzle lowered. “Orcs never have luck that isn’t bad luck.”

  “You come to my table,” a cold voice spoke from the darkness, and Cagna bolted upright, throwing Chase’s hand off as she twisted.

  “You damned bloodsucker,” Cagna snarled.

  “You come to my table...” Don Sangue said, striding out of the shadows, his cape gone, his fine clothes torn by debris, and covered in gray dust. “You come to my table under false pretenses, and you plot against me. These are not the actions of a guest.”

  Old Chase would have quailed in fear.

  New Chase had just survived falling down his godsdamned tower and knew that hesitation would get her friend killed.

  “Don Sangue!” she said, stepping between Cagna and the undead. “It is a moot point, now. You have no more table. And we are not the ones who took it from you.”

  The man paused, and Chase marveled at how... untouched he looked. His skin was unmarred; his hair was still an oily black. And his red, red eyes bored into her.

  The pressure was still there; the fear still gripped her heart... but Chase found it easier to speak, easier to push it aside, for now. “Regardless of what she’s done, it’s really a moot point, isn’t it? If you lived, then your enemy lived. Your TRUE enemy. And MINE as well.”

  “Ours,” Cagna rasped. “The Doge wants the werewolves put down. That is more important to him than my department’s own goals.”

  Chase risked a glance. The dog-woman’s ears were back, her fur was in hackles, and her hand was on her sword...

  ...but her eyes were human. And they were weary. Weary and sad.

  She’ll fight if she has to, but she realizes that it wouldn’t help matters. She sees it as I do, Chase mused.

  When she looked back, Sangue was there, towering over her, inches away. The Muscle Wizaard cried out in shock.

  “I could kill all three of you without much effort at all,” Don Sangue said. “What do I care that your enemies are mine? What help do you think I need here?”

  Chase swallowed. “And yet you worked with people a whole lot less competent than us, to try and stop the werewolves. If you COULD do it alone, you wouldn’t have bothered with the famiglias.”

  “You think yourself more competent than they were?” The undead raised a thin eyebrow.

  Chase looked back at the tower and swept an arm around, gesturing at the field of bodies. “We’re alive. They aren’t.”

  “That is easily fixed,” A voice growled from the darkness.

  “Uh-oh,” Renny whispered in her ear, as Chase stared at the hulking, furry shapes moving out of the shadows.

  The Alpha stepped forward, clothes in tatters, holding the rapier that Chase had seen so long ago. The squat werewolf was next to him, cracking his knuckles... and glaring at Sangue with green glowing eyes.

  “You!” Sangue hissed.

  “Me.” The Alpha growled. “Take the beastkin alive. Kill Sangue, and the rest of them.”

  “Not a chance!” The Muscle Wizaard roared. “Flex! Strong Pose! Signature Move, You Shall Not Pass!”

  But the Alpha shook his head. “You’ve pulled that one on us before, big man. Did you think we were fools?” He snarled the last word and flourished his rapier. “We’re already behind you!”

  Chase whirled, as forms bolted from the darkness...

  ...and then Cagna’s arm was around her again, hurling her in between the dog-woman and the Wrestler, tossing the halven like a sack of potatoes. Chase watched, dazed, as Cagna pulled something from under her cloak...

  BLAM!

  Some contraption of wood and metal exploded in her hand with a flash and a puff of smoke, and one of the werewolves fell. “Stand Down!” Cagna yelled, and another hesitated... but then three more were rushing in, and Cagna swore and drew her blade. “Always in Uniform!”

  “Time to Let My Muscles Do The Talking!” The Muscle Wizaard roared, and Chase shot her head around in time to see a charging werewolf meet a silver-knuckled fist. He flew backward with a yelp, leaving a trail of smoke and an odor of burnt fur behind him. “Aw yeah! Whatcha gonna do, furballs? Whatcha gonna DO!”

  They’re doing it again, Chase realized. Sending the extras, sending the lower-trained ones in to keep us busy while the Alpha and the short one kill Sangue.

  Do they have a chance?

  She stood up and turned, but time was at a premium, and she didn’t have—

  No.

  No, wait. I have ALL the time I want. In ten-second chunks, anyway. “Foresight,” Chase said, and instead of examining a course of action, she used the still time to take stock of the battlefield.

  There’s probably a Tier Two job in this somehow, she said, finally realizing some of the more martial applications. Combine it with a fighting type job, and it’s something like Time Warrior, or Chrono General, or something of the sort.

  But that was a musing for another time.

  With a few seconds left on the spell’s duration, she saw Don Sangue. He and the Alpha were caught mid-stride and mid-strike, far from their starting position. They were both fast, and both looked like they knew what they were doing, so that left...

  She found the squat werewolf just as the Foresight’s grace period expired.

  Fortunately, it was easy to synch up with her vision, this time. She turned, hearing Renny mutter words behind her, hearing the air elemental come down and smash into the ones trying to take down Cagna. But she didn’t spare that much attention.

  She was too busy w
atching the squat werewolf pull out a big pack and start tossing down flowerpots.

  It was a surreal moment. The blurred figures of the Don and the Alpha were silhouetted against the moon, fighting along a fallen support beam of the tower, while the Muscle Wizaard’s grunts blended into the snarls and growls of his opponents, and Cagna’s blade whistled behind Chase and left yelps and sizzling noises in its wake. And here the player, the most dangerous werewolf on the field, was throwing what had to be flowerpots around. Yes, those were flowerpots, complete with random flowers poking out of them.

  Then, the werewolf spoke and Chase understood why. “Call Vines. Call Thorns.”

  A mass of twisting, writhing vegetation burst up, thorns lengthening in the flickering illusory torchlight. Lengthening into stakes.

  Wood allergies, Chase remembered absently, as the mass obscured the place where the Don and the Alpha fought. Don Sangue is vulnerable to wood. Does this count?

  The Don screamed.

  Well, that answers that, Chase thought. She licked her lips.

  “Chase! They need healing!”

  Renny’s cry interrupted her, and she gasped.

  There were a LOT more werewolves this time around.

  And unlike the fight in the casino, they weren’t holding back.

  There was no time to watch the most powerful creatures on the battlefield duke it out. There was only time to keep her friends alive...

  And it was damned hard.

  “There’s too many!” Renny said, as his elemental shrieked and died. He threw blasts of wind at werewolves, knocking them around, and caught a moment to say, “Minor Elemental!” A new whirlwind roared to life... and got tag-teamed by two werewolves. “They heal as fast as I hurt them!”

  “Keep! Them! Busy!” Cagna snarled back, blade flashing, cloak over one arm as a makeshift shield. But blood ran down her legs, dripping around her boots, blood from where claws had caught her, time and again. The Alpha had wanted her alive, but the moon was full, and the beasts were out to play...

  And the Muscle Wizaard...

  Oh, Bastien, poor Bastien, Chase’s breath caught in her throat. Where Cagna was dripping blood, the Muscle Wizaard was a river. She watched as a werewolf lunged in and clamped jaws on his side. The Muscle Wizaard bellowed, dropped to one knee, clenched his hands together, and slammed the werewolf’s neck into his knee with a brutal double-punch. But the werewolf’s jaws still tore a hunk of meat from him, and Chase frantically threw Lesser Healings at him, trying to keep him alive. Then a few Foresights, to shout directions... but the more she used it, the more she realized it was like trying to plug up a failing dam with her bare hands.

  We’re losing, she realized. And this time I don’t have the fortune from Enrico’s Ante Up trick. There’s just too many, and they heal too fast. We don’t have enough silver weaponry...

  Or do we?

  Chase’s hands crept downward, and found the cool, thin cards tucked into her pocket, and pulled out Enrico’s last hand. Silver gleamed in the torchlight, and she took a breath. “I have another job! And plenty of stamina for all of you!” she shouted, and to her surprise, the ones nearest her paused. Then they jumped back, as she shouted, “Rapid Fire! Razor Card!”

  Silver cards flew and danced, and werewolves staggered back as she unleashed a one-woman barrage. Each card split into two as it sang through the air, and those that hit sliced through fur with hideous sharpness.

  Your Razor Arrow skill is now level 2!

  For a second, she thought that they could win this. For a second, Chase dared to hope. The lights in the distance were coming closer, the city taking notice of the ruckus or coming to investigate the fallen tower, she couldn’t say. But whistles were sounding, and the constables would be here, before long. All they had to do was hold out. And though Chase was burning through her stamina, it was working... she wasn’t killing them, but she was driving them back, and it was working...

  ...and then Don Sangue shrieked.

  Everyone paused and looked up to the mass of thorns and vines.

  The Don writhed there, hanging from hundreds of thorns, blood dripping down from him like the world’s most macabre lawn sprinkler. He twitched, one last time, and was still.

  And then the Alpha turned to her. “What is it you say, dear?”

  “Geek the mage!” Roared the squat werewolf.

  “Bastien!” Cagna shouted. “Plan Gimli!”

  “What?” Chase asked, confused.

  “Do it!” Renny hopped out of her pack. “We’ll be fine, we’ve got this!” he reassured Chase.

  “I don’t understand,” Chase said, pausing in mid-throw...

  ...and then the Muscle Wizaard scooped her up one-handed and threw her.

  Sailing out beyond the torches, sailing into the black, Chase gulped and dropped her cards and tucked herself into a ball. She heard the Wizaard yell one last time, voice fading behind her...

  “I hate to do this! But you asked for it! Rage! RAAAAAGGGGHHHH!”

  “Phantasm!” Renny shouted, and the torches disappeared, replaced by a cloud of evil-looking green smoke. She heard a whole lot of werewolves yell... and then the sounds of the furry mob vomiting filled the night air, even drowning out the shouts and alarms and whistles approaching from the rest of the city.

  Then she struck the ground, and everything went black... for a second. Maybe? It was hard to tell.

  CON+1

  Everything spun, and she got to her feet and used a bit of what sanity she had left to heal herself. “Score another point for the armor,” she muttered, brushing herself off. Bruised, yeah. Broken, no.” Then she narrowed her eyes and stared at the cloud. “Those jerks! They planned this!” Chase took off running, heading back to the fight, halven instincts momentarily deserting her...

  ...up until the point that a figure stepped out of the shadows of the rubble.

  A fuzzy figure.

  The smallest werewolf she’d seen yet, barely twice her height. Chase’s mind flashed back to the halven-sized knife, and she gasped.

  ...and somehow that sound drew his attention, as red eyes turned her way.

  Chase turned to run, but it was on her in seconds, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around. Its breath was hot and foul on her face, and Chase had nothing, had spent her energy in the fight; he had her dead to rights...

  “Berrymore?”

  It took her a second to realize that the creature’s growl was a word. She squeaked.

  “Chase Berrymore?” it asked again and released her.

  “What?” She said. “Yes, I’m... who are... wait, hold on, how do you know me?”

  The werewolf just stared at her, then it looked back at the city, and the roiling cloud. “No time. Where is the skin?”

  “What?”

  “Where is it? The skin! She needs the skin!”

  “I don’t... I don’t know what skin you’re talking about,” Chase said. “Please, just tell me, who are you?”

  But then he was gone, loping off into the darkness, and his final words rang back to her. “Leave the city! Don’t come back!”

  Chase slumped to her knees, exhausted...

  ...at least until the words roused her once more, driving past exhaustion, revitalizing her weary muscles and tattered mind.

  You are now a level 6 Archer!

  DEX+3

  PER+3

  STR+3

  You are now a level 7 Archer!

  DEX+3

  PER+3

  STR+3

  With entirely too many questions and dread in her heart, Chase headed back into the darkness to save her friends.

  CHAPTER 18: CSI ARRETZI

  “You think this’ll work?” Cagna rasped.

  “Only one way to find out.” Chase said, reaching into her dress and pulling out the miraculously-intact jar of earthworms. A second later she had one hand plunged down into the slimy wrigglers and the other clutching tight in Cagna’s gloved grip. “Absorb Condition.”

&n
bsp; You have been afflicted with Curse of Lycanthropy! (5:36)

  “Transfer Condition.”

  You are no longer afflicted with Curse of Lycanthropy! (5:36)

  Your Transfer Condition skill is now level 9!

  One of the earthworms twisted frantically under her hand, as Cagna breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Did it work?” Bastien asked, from his corner.

  “Yes,” Chase said, giving Cagna’s hand one last squeeze before heading over to him. “The worms sure don’t like it, though.”

  “I’d recommend killing them before the moon rises tonight, just in case,” Cagna said. “I don’t know what lycanthropy does to earthworms and I don’t want to know.”

  “It’s probably time for a fresh batch,” Chase agreed, taking Bastien’s massive hand and working her magic. “Absorb Condition. Transfer Condition.”

  You have been afflicted with Curse of Lycanthropy! (5:33)

  You are no longer afflicted with Curse of Lycanthropy! (5:33)

  “Thank you,” The Muscle Wizaard said, giving her a hug. “Coming so close on the heels of my rage, it was... harsh. I’ve spent a long time learning to master my anger. This was stress I didn’t need.”

  “So. Berserker, then?” Cagna asked.

  “I had a misspent youth. But it was one pillar of my true vocation. Combined with the Model job, it led to Wrestler, and that changed my life!”

  “Wait,” Cagna asked, surprised humor just underneath her words. “Model?”

  While the others discussed the ins and outs of proper self-care and muscle maintenance, Chase studied Cagna’s safehouse.

  It wasn’t much.

  It had taken them about ten minutes to reach it from the slums, after mutually agreeing that heading back to the villa would be unwise. And now that her cover was blown, Cagna had offered up this place as a probably-safe compromise.

  The crumbling tenement hadn’t looked like much from the outside, but once inside...

  ...well, it still hadn’t looked like much. Shouts and thumps echoed through the building on their way up through the cramped halls and past the slumped forms of vagrants and drunkards. But the apartment had a thick door with many locks; the windows had bars, and the walls were lined with cork that muffled the sounds from outside. “It also keeps us from being overheard by the neighbors,” Cagna explained, sweeping a mess of papers and dirty clothes from a table with casual disregard for cleanliness that made Chase wince.