by James Patton
Passing through the exit, he was blindsided by several drakes. He counted three of them but ignored them as he let his momentum carry him through the door. The moment he was through, Boh slammed down on the button and drew the handgun.
His talon wrapped around one of the drake’s heads, and he pushed it, so it faced the girl. At that range and point blank, not even she could miss. A single bullet took down the drake, and he was surprised they had not used shields. He was sure the other two immediately tried to engage their Elemental Shields, and he swatted them aside interrupting their cast.
Striking at them again, he saw Boh run forward and slice the back of one of the drake’s legs. He admired the aggressive action but doubted she did it any harm. The distraction gave him a moment to bite down on the other drake’s neck. Pinning the beast against a wall, he yanked his head back ripping its throat out.
At this point, the last one had turned to focus on Boh. He reared up and slammed both of his talons down onto the feral monster. He could feel the spine snap before the body slammed into the ground, and ribs fractured, turning internal organs into mush.
“This way.” He told her and turned to head back the way the drakes had come. If he had gone straight, he was confident it would have brought them to the other ramp near where they entered Minot.
In hindsight, he was stupid for coming down here. He was not prepared, and at a disadvantage. Boh became a liability, albeit a useful one. It made him wonder what kind of hell she had gone through that this did not turn her into a whimpering pile of dead weight. Had he been alone, he would have just taken them all on and possibly found his warrior’s death.
The tunnel they were in now inclined upward at a steep rate. If Boh was tired, she made no complaints. The elf was tenacious, and grudgingly he found himself admiring her. Not even his former rider would go through this without a lot of whining.
“What is that sound?” Boh asked him, and now that she pointed it out he could feel the vibrations all around him.
“I’m not sure, stay quiet and hop on. If we need to run just stay low.” His arm went out, and he felt her slight frame leap lightly into the saddle.
The bend ahead brought them to a large natural bridge over a deep chasm. He had never seen this before, but he could smell the sea air. Rushing across, he glanced to the side and gasped.
“What is that?” Boh asked, and he knew she could not see what he saw. “It looks like a pit of snakes.”
“You are not far off. Those are drakes, thousands upon thousands of them.” He whispered and felt himself grow cold. In the distance, he could see dragons; they stood much taller than the mass. A lot of people would die attempting to stop this army, and he was not sure a single nation could hold it off. He now had more questions than answers.
“Go.” Boh hissed at him, and he did. They came to another one of hidden doors, but something had destroyed it. The dampness and salty air cleared the smell of rot and other horrors from his scent. He was never so glad to smell the sea.
This door he did not have to stretch to fit through, but Boh did have to climb down.
“What are they going to do?” Boh asked him.
“War,” he said, keeping his pace slow so the girl could stay ahead of him. Part of him wanted to put her back in the saddle, but it would put him at a disadvantage if more drakes attacked.
“Stop,” Boh told him as they came to a turn. “There is magic here.”
“Color?”
“Red.”
“Stay behind me. If I engage, you escape. There will be a carved archway, just run through and head towards Haase as we discussed.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll catch up to you eventually. Just do not stop until you reach Crosspointe, get someone to fly you the rest of the way from there. And Boh?”
“Yea?”
“Had this been another time and place, I’d gladly have you for my rider. Just keep doing things your way and do not take shit from any dragon. I am sure I will see you in Haase.”
“I will hold you to that. Now be a good doggy and kill some bad guys.” Boh slapped him on the side, and he tapped her with his tail.
“Here we go.”
Boh
Chapter 35
Blood Symphony
We all sacrifice, even those of us who survive.
-from Matriarch of Sorrows
Midnight went ahead of her, and she heard a deep booming laugh come from the room or cavern ahead. Moving forward, she wanted to see what was going on, but she had already put the light sphere in her messenger bag.
The room ahead held some light, and she peered around it to see what was going on.
“An alpha.” Midnight said. “Or you were once.”
“I know your scent.” The alpha drake said, and it was easily the largest drake she had seen yet. Not quite as big as Midnight, but she was sure it was not alone. “You smell like the Dead King, were you one of the betrayers?”
Midnight’s body went stiff, and she saw the carved doorway beyond him. That was her exit, but she waited a little longer.
“I am not one of the betrayers, and I am not sorry Osric is dead either.”
The drake laughed again. “I think you lie. You are a betrayer, and I will eat you as I was forced to eat your young.”
“I never served the old king. Think what you will, but you are a disgrace. You let them turn your pack into those feral beasts, you are the only betrayer in this room.” Midnight did not raise his voice, but she felt the menace to his words and the conviction with which he delivered them. She could even hear the stone cracking under his talons.
“I serve the Dead King, and he commands them. They obey like the beaten dogs they are. I have sought out death, an honorable way out. Now, I will see if I can die an honorable death, or if you are as weak as the others.”
The alpha moved and circled his prey, but Midnight stepped forward forcing the beast back and interrupting its pattern. Annoyed, it swiped at Midnight, but the big dragon danced about nimbly.
She moved along the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. If she stayed here, she knew she would just get in the way. She had already seen him holding back.
“I see you two-leg. Go ahead and run. I like to hunt for my dinner. I will be along shortly.”
“Doubt it.” She snapped back. “Midnight is going to gouge your eyes out, and leave your corpse for the mindless beasts that follow.”
The alpha growled and tried to get around Midnight. The dragon shot forward and slammed into the side of the drake, and the impact shook the cavern. She imagined a bus slamming into a truck, but unlike the smaller drakes, this one only stumbled back a few steps before it reared up.
“The machinations of war revealed
The skies burned with fire, while ash rains down
All the nations will crumble and drown
I drown them in the blood of their dead
Born of war, here is the Soul Sender
I am the Soul Sender!”
Midnight started chanting, and she paused at the exit. The old bastard was singing Panterdox’s Soul Sender again.
“Shut up and fight me, betrayer.” The Alpha growled.
“I am a thief, stealing their last breath.” Midnight chuckled and kept on singing, and she knew he was goading the Alpha.
“I march, I fight, I cannot die
Faces haunt me in darkness and light
Right of might is not my alibi
It's my catharsis; I live to fight
No redemption from the Soul Sender
I am the Soul Sender!”
Boh sang along with Midnight this time, which had them both laughing.
“Go girl. They are coming.” Midnight told her.
True to his word more drakes were entering the room, but Midnight’s every movement struck one of them while keeping the Alpha at bay. Tail and talon landed on the foe with equal viciousness, and he did not hesitate to take a quick win.
The
inky breath spewed from his mouth, and he did not try to disguise it. A room full of blinded targets striking at each other, and a demon among them landing mortal wounds with every strike.
“Ashes of the dead swarm over me
No souls are left, no souls to send on
Memories of the undead haunt me
Nothing to fight, the living are gone
My soul lives, one last soul to be sent on
I am the Soul Sender!”
Midnight continued to sing and measured his attacks to the beat of the song. She realized he was right; he was born of war.
Every inch of her wanted to fight, but she knew she would only interfere. Her mentor was buying her time that she was squandering and if she did not move, this would not be the only city to fall.
The dragon was sacrificing himself to save his Talon, and the last thing she heard as she left the cave was him singing another song. The death screams of the drakes were his musical accompaniment, and the sound of torn flesh and broken bones provided the instrumental section. It was a masterpiece, his Blood Symphony.
Boh
Chapter 36
Halfwit and the Vulture
Best hospital logic I ever received was from this boy who suffered brain damage. He said just pretend everyone is one kiss away from being a good person. So I laughed, and told him Nurse Crant was coming, prove it. He went quiet, and I thought he forgot about our conversation. Several days later he shows up with a black eye, and a big smile crossed his face when Nurse Crant brought him an extra pudding.
-from Boh’s Journal, October 27th, N138
High tide was pushing into the sea cave, and she had to wade through hip-high water to get through the exit. She recognized where she was because they had flown over this area earlier, only it was all beach. The rock shelf behind her was not very high, but she would have to wade towards the pier and go up through the city.
Waves tried to smash her against the rock shelf. The going was rough and she the water was crashing over her head by the time she crawled up to the pier.
Event Bonus: Escaping the Depths
- Agility + 1, Agility is now 7.
- Affinity with Earth +1%, Earth Affinity is now 77%.
- Affinity with Dark +1%, Dark Affinity is now 81%.
Damn you, Midnight! She raged inside. Midnight would never have fit through that cave, that bastard knew he was not leaving. Doubt was eating at her, Should I have stayed?
It did not matter if she wanted to help. There was no way she was getting back in now, and she lost a friend. Her box of broken dreams was open once more, and she tried to cram his loss into it. Freezing up now would only get her killed, and she wanted answers. Not to mention she had not fully given up on the big bastard, not yet.
The town felt more sinister than before, and the empty feeling only brought on more cold anger. All those senseless deaths threatened to break her stoicism.
Calling this a game and moving on was not good enough. She had lived in games long enough to know these people lived out full lives, even had children. She was just a visitor, a traveler, exploring new planets and civilizations. It was all too real to believe otherwise.
Whoever had done this, she would find and kill them.
Leaving the deserted town behind her, she stopped inside the treeline. She needed to maintain her weapons because she was sure she was going to need them and had no idea if the sea would damage them. So she took it apart real fast and dried it off.
You have learned to fix and modify a Luger. Currently, you do not know any modifications for your weapon. Your Tinkerer skill is not high enough to learn the recipe for the Luger.
The Tinkerer class would come in handy. If there was a crystal modification, she might be able to turn the Luger into a weapon she could use. She finished up with fixing it and reloaded the gun before dropping it back in her holster.
Satisfied, she took off running through the forest, feeling sick with guilt. Midnight might be a warrior, but not even he could take on all those drakes alone. She kept looking upward between the trees hoping to see the big beast, but hours past and there was no sign of him.
“Ya not hear me? I saw her. I saw a girl running. This way.” The voice startled her out of her self-doubt, and it sounded like the voice of a simpleton.
“Who is there?” She asked, and sounded much more confident than she had felt. It helped she had a gun in her hand, and her shield was already in place.
From out of the forest stepped a half-giant in plain clothes, and he held a staff with an L turn curve on top. On top of the staff rested a vulture, but of the two the vulture appeared much more intelligent.
“Toldja Johnny, ya a dumb chicken.” The half-giant pointed at her. “Girl.”
“Quiet Dusty, you will scare the poor thing. Caught up in affairs she does not yet understand.” The vulture spoke in a way that led her to believe it was highly educated, which seemed ridiculous.
“Look, I cannot stop, and you two should hide. Drakes, a lot of them are coming.”
“We will go soon enough, but if you indulge my dim-witted friend for a moment longer, I promise it will be worth your time.” Johnny the vulture said.
“I can spare a few minutes I guess, do all vultures talk?”
“Johnny not a vulture, dummy. He's a chicken.” Dusty said. “My chicken talks, no chicken talks. Jus’ Johnny.”
She said nothing, but she could not stop her brow from arching. The half-giant had a strange lisp, but it was not unpleasant. He was bald and hunched over with bulky muscles under the cheap fabric of his clothes.
In other situations, she might have completely ignored the man, but out here he stood out. And not because he was over seven feet tall.
“Dusty is special, you will see soon enough. We can walk with you if you like, maybe that will put you more at ease.”
“Yes.” She said, and they started walking down the road again, the trees surrounding them made the evening hours darker than they usually would have been.
Another thirty minutes down the road, and she started looking for a place to camp out. In the end, the dim-witted half-giant found a spot. Two large roots were coming away from the largest tree she had ever seen, and they curved in towards each other, creating a semi-circle. It was like they had a four-foot wall around part of their camp.
“Sleep if you must. I will keep watch over the camp and wake you if necessary.” The chicken-vulture said.
“Why?” She asked, and she already instinctively trusted the duo.
“The big oaf sought you out. He is gentle and harmless. I am tasked with guarding and guiding him. To keep those who would harm him away, just as I will this night. As to why we are here, the big guy roams the world at large aimlessly, until he is not. When he is focused, interesting things happen.”
“Well if you hear any drakes coming, please wake me.”
“No drakes are coming this night, sleep.”
She bundled her scarf up and used it as a pillow, and as soon as her head touched down, she was out.
Boh
Chapter 37
The Observer
Try as one may, it is impossible to deny one’s nature.
-from Aesop the Wise
She woke and found Dusty roasting something over a fire. It looked like an oversized lizard, but she was not sure what kind of beasts this world had.
“It has been some time since an anomaly has brought me to this place,” the half-giant said. He was speaking differently, and his words felt cultured and educated. She noticed the way he carried himself too, his shoulders were back, and his back no longer hunched. He moved like a boxer, and she liked what she saw.
“Where is the vulture?” She asked looking around. “And why are you talking normal now?”
“Don’t let Dusty hear you call Johnny a vulture. As for the vulture, he is patrolling. This forest is not that safe without a scaled beast to protect you.”
“Who are you?”
“It is a shor
t story, but I am not sure it's worth telling. My real name brings fear and trepidation. Just call me Dustin, and maybe when your journey is done, I will share my real name.”
“Ok, so why are you here then?”
“As I said, an anomaly. You.” The half-giant pulled the food off the fire and passed it to her. It was roughly the size of a small rotisserie chicken, and she realized she was quite hungry.
“How am I an anomaly?”
“Most actions can be predicted, within a reasonable degree of certainty. Just as I made that food for you, there is a small chance you would discard it. So small that it does not even register as a blip on my radar.”
“So chaos theory, predictive analysis type thing?
“Not bad. If we use your chaos theory, then we assume people will take actions based on certain initial conditions. There is a degree of uncertainty in any action taken.”
“And as an anomaly, my actions are falling outside those safe zones.”
“You are getting ahead of yourself. Safe zones do not exist, in theory, and I am not here to interfere. Adding outside elements into an enclosed environment like this will have drastic swings in unpredictability.”
“Are you saying I’m a catalyst?”
“More like you are a Butterfly Effect, you are taking actions, but I cannot predict the long-term outcomes. Anytime you get involved in a situation, It reduces my predictive accuracy to roughly 30%. Your torture has created a lot of turbulence and already triggered several events and has not stopped causing ripples.”
“Are you one of the dragon gods?”
“Not a dragon god. I am something different, an observer. Like you, I am not from here. And- I cannot interfere with events as they occur, but I can assist if I so choose.”
“And Johnny?”
“Think of him as an extension of me. I am like Janus, the god of beginnings and endings in your ancient Roman myths. I cannot control or participate in the middle, which is why I have the vulture because he sees the now.”