by S. R. Witt
STATUS EFFECTS
STUNNED: You are unable to move or take any other action. All defenses reduced by 50%. (Duration 5 seconds)
BLINDED: You cannot see. (Duration 5 seconds)
You fail to master the rudiments of the Threadweaving skill.
Blinded and stunned, I lost my grip on the bookshelves and tumbled to the floor. “Ow, shit!”
Bastion grabbed me under my arms and hoisted me to my feet. He wheezed and coughed out, “I hope whatever you did worked, because we’re out of time.”
My vision cleared as we reached the door.
“Cross your fingers,” I said as I grabbed the wheel in the center of the door and threw my weight into it.
The plaster on the other side gave way with a sound like tearing cloth. Air rushed into the vault, and the fire erupted into a fist of flame and pressure that shoved us into the hallway and bounced us off the corridor’s far wall.
Stars danced before my eyes, and my ears rang from the impact, but I wasn’t dead.
Smoke gushed out of the vault, but it couldn’t compete with the fresh air in the hallway. I gulped at the freezing winter air, and it soothed my scorched throat and aching lungs. “I can’t believe it worked.”
Bastion patted me on the back, coughed, then sucked in another breath of fresh air before he could speak. “Don’t get too excited.”
I followed his pointing finger down the hallway and my breath caught in my chest.
The biggest, meanest warrior I’d ever laid eyes on was headed our way.
And he looked pissed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The enormous warrior charged down the hall at us. He was so huge he blocked most of the corridor with his armored bulk. He carried a club as long as I was tall and wore armor so heavily fortified it seemed impossible for him to wear it and move. The plates were as thick as my fist and curving spines with blackened tips jutted from every joint. His helmet was a glowering metal skull with a pair of curved horns sprouting from the temples and spiraling down around the jaw line.
He was an impressive hulk, standing a foot taller than Bastion and outweighing my brother by a solid three hundred pounds.
This was going to be interesting.
The big man’s club whipped through the air and missed my head by a handsbreadth. Bastion lunged below the attack and came up swinging his longsword, driving toward his opponent’s left side.
The flaming blade hissed and spat fire when it collided with the thick armor plates. Sparks flew, and metal rang with the impact, but Bastion’s attack didn’t penetrate the bigger man’s armor.
The attacker laughed and reversed his grip to drive a punishing backhand strike into Bastion’s left thigh. My brother’s already wounded leg crumpled under the abuse and forced Bastion into an ungainly retreat as the massive cudgel twirled through the air and came down for a blow that would’ve shattered his skull had it connected.
I didn’t wait to see if my brother was going to counterattack because I was afraid to see him fall. Instead, I focused on a desperate attack of my own.
Our opponent was big, but he wasn’t fast. His armor was thick, but that thickness created gaps where the plates couldn’t be formed around curves or joints. Where he wasn’t invulnerable, the big guy had weaknesses waiting to be exploited.
After his awkward backhanded swing at Bastion, he was slow to recover. I darted inside his guard and drove a stiletto at the exposed back of his calf.
VERBOSE COMBAT MESSAGING ONWEAPON (PIERCING, 1H) SKILL:
UNTRAINED
1/2 Dexterity (8) + d100 (90) - Precise Attack (40) = 58
vs
Dexterity (5) + d100 (45) = 50
Degree of Success = 1
(Piercing, 1H Damage 10 points of damage x Degree of Success (1)) + Dexterity Damage Modifier (10) - Brutal Ogre Plate Armor (0, avoided by Precise Attack) = 20 Total Damage
Attack Time: 5 seconds
Stamina Cost: 1
SUCCESS! You have learned the rudiments of the Weapon (Piercing, 1H) skill. (Rank 1)
BRACERS OF THE STRIKING SERPENT ACTIVATED!
Attack missed!
My eyes absorbed the combat message as I waited for the attack timer to wind down.
What did we learn, class?
First, it’s possible to avoid armor mitigation as long as you’re willing to accept a sizable penalty for aiming at an unprotected point. Second, this wasn’t a big guy, it was an ogre. Third, that free attack from the Bracers of the Striking Serpent wasn’t guaranteed to hit. And lastly, I’d somehow managed to never pick up a single skill point with the only melee weapons I owned.
What the hell, Saint? You’re better than that.
I didn’t stick around to see if the wounded leg would fail the monster but kept right on trucking. If I was going to survive, I couldn’t stick around in close quarters. If the ogre grabbed me, he’d squeeze the life out of me before I could escape. At the stairs, I skidded to a stop and turned to make sure I wasn’t swatted in the back.
The ogre’s oversized club came at me, sweeping in a diagonal slash aimed at my neck. Instinct screamed for me to raise my weapon in defense, but I knew better. My slender stiletto would never be able to parry a weapon as enormous the ogre’s cudgel. If I tried, best case he’d break my weapon, and worst case he’d drive the little blade through my skull right before he crushed my melon.
I went low, instead, dropping flat to the floor as the bludgeon ripped through the air above me.
The monster followed through with his attack, spinning on one heel and looping the cudgel around in a wide circuit. The heavy weapon smashed through the plaster on the walls as it circled around. The club obliterated the unlit candelabra overhead as the ogre raised it high above me.
For a moment, the ogre and I stared at each other, and then the club came screaming down at my face.
In that second, I saw how my life would end. The cudgel would bash in my face and leave a bloody crater in the floor where my head had been.
Then Bastion saved my life.
He launched a two-handed swing at the exposed back of the ogre’s calf. My attack had left a bleeding wound in the ogre’s leg. Bastion’s golf swing of a slice ripped clean through the muscle and sprayed the wall with a steaming red arc of blood.
The ogre’s leg gave out. His body twisted toward his vulnerable side and his balance deserted him. The massive club plowed into the wall, instead of my head, sending crumbling shards of plaster and splinters of wood in every direction.
Taking advantage of the ogre’s collapse, I rolled to my feet and jumped up the stairs. The attic was above us, as was the rope I’d left tied to the furniture up there. If we could get the trapdoor open, we could escape the mansion the same way we’d come in.
“Come on!” I shouted down the stairs at Bastion.
He elbowed the stunned ogre out of the way as he raced to follow me. Smoke chased Bastion, and firelight cast flickering shadows down the hallway. The house was burning, and it was burning fast. If we didn’t get out of there, and soon, the place would become our crematorium.
I helped Bastion up the stairs. He was limping, but his leg wasn’t completely useless. He just needed time to rest and heal. Time we didn’t have to spare.
We coughed and hacked as the smoke returned to plague our noses and lungs. I sneezed, and a glob of black mucus splattered on the floor. I’d be short of breath for days after this little excursion.
We reached the trapdoor, but heavy footfalls were already on the stairs. The ogre had recovered somehow and was coming for us.
Bastion was reaching for the attic door’s handle when it fell open, and another of our enemies appeared above us, bow drawn.
The archer threw back her hood, and my jaw dropped.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I don’t know what I expected to see under Jarissa’s hood, but it wasn’t what she showed me.
For a moment, all I could do was stare as she nocked an arrow to her bow and pulled the string back to her f
urry, pointed ear.
Her eyes were a vivid emerald green that glowed with an inner fire. Her lips were thin black lines peeled back along a wolf’s fanged muzzle. Tawny fur, short and speckled with dots of dark auburn, covered her face and neck. Her ears were sloped and sharply pointed, jutting from the top of her head like a feral predator’s.
Before I could recover from the shock of seeing Jarissa’s face, she released her shot.
I’d be dead if Bastion hadn’t knocked me out of the way with one armored elbow.
Thanks for the broken rib, I thought.
Pounding footsteps rattled the landing, evidence that our grotesque friend had reentered the fray. Either whatever damage Bastion had done to the ogre’s leg was healed, or the monster was good at ignoring damage. My money was on both.
My brother wasn’t waiting for another arrow to puncture his hide. He leaped at the wolf woman and grabbed her boot with his left hand.
She shouted and swung her bow at his head, but Bastion wasn’t letting go. With a roar, he yanked Jarissa out of the attic.
They tumbled to the floor, the wolf woman rolling away and springing upright as Bastion muscled his way to his feet.
The archer swung her bow at Bastion’s head again. She was fast, but her weapon wasn’t meant for that kind of attack, and she didn’t have the strength to bring it around in time to connect with her target.
Bastion ducked his head away from the scything blow and brought his longsword around in a crackling arc of blue fire.
The archer’s back was against the wall, leaving her nowhere to dodge. She held her bow in front of her, one hand near each of its horns, in a desperate attempt to block my brother’s attack.
Bastion leaned into his swing, and the blazing longsword split the archer’s bow in half with a resounding crack.
Jarissa’s desperate gamble had destroyed her weapon, but the tactic deflected Bastion’s longsword into the wall over her shoulder.
The missed attack shattered plaster and bit deep into a wooden beam. It stuck fast in the wood, defying even Bastion’s strength to tear it free.
The wolf woman slipped around Bastion’s left side and charged straight at me.
Well. Shit.
She shouted something in a language I didn’t understand and flung the halves of her broken bow at my face.
I swatted the shattered weapon away and realized my mistake too late. Jarissa wasn’t trying to hit me, she wanted to distract me.
A fist the size of a Christmas ham smashed into my back, dead center between my shoulder blades. The impact jarred my spine from the base of my skull to tip of my tailbone. My teeth clicked together, and the end of my tongue bounced out of my mouth on a little squirt of blood.
Somehow, that minor injury hurt worse than getting smashed in the back.
“Ugh,” I grunted and fell to my knees as the strength deserted my legs. My health dropped to a thin red sliver. Any attack at all would be enough to take me out of the fight for good.
Jarissa was waiting for me with her curved short sword drawn. She stepped to the side, caught my cloak with one hand, and swung the curved blade at my midsection with the other.
My only defense was to throw myself down, away from the swooping sword.
My desperate move threw her off balance, and her weapon scraped along my leather armor.
Her attack had failed to gut me, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet. With her hand tangled in my cloak, the archer still had the upper hand. She twisted the cloth and yanked me back, choking me with my own gear.
Survival instinct forced me to drop the stiletto and grab the collar of my cloak with both hands. It stopped Jarissa from choking me to death but left me exposed to a sword stroke to any number of vital organs. If she stabbed me when I was preoccupied like that, I was a dead man.
One of my stilettos was on the floor, well out of reach. The other still rested in the sheath on my right hip. Drawing that weapon would force me to let go of my cloak with one hand, which might give the wolf woman enough of an advantage to choke me out. Weapons were out of the question.
Good thing I didn’t need a weapon to fight.
Clinging to my cloak, I rolled forward. Jarissa was fast on her feet, but she wasn’t even as strong as me. Her hand was tangled in my cloak, and my sudden somersault yanked her off her feet. She flipped over me and landed in an awkward sprawl on the ground. She fell hard and yelped in pained surprise.
Her weapon fell out of her hand, and her hand fell out of my cloak.
SUCCESS! You have increased your mastery of the Unarmed Combat skill. (Rank 2)
I snatched my dagger off the floor and put it to use. The stiletto found the tear I’d opened in the archer’s leather robes earlier and sank to the hilt in her side.
Her eyes went wide with pain, and her clawed fingers hooked in my leather armor. She yanked me down until our faces were mere inches apart. Her breath stank of raw meat and blood. Her nostril flared, and foam dotted her lupine muzzle.
“You’re dead,” she growled.
“Talk is cheap,” I snarked and plunged my dagger into her side.
A blue flame lit up the hallway as Bastion freed his longsword from the wall. He spun toward me and shouted, “Move!”
I shoved away from Jarissa and scrambled to my feet. While I was struggling with the archer, the ogre had moved into striking range. With my bum foot, I had no hope of getting out of his way.
The monstrous warrior stepped into the swing like a batter leaning into an easy home run pitch.
The club folded me up like a cheap chair and sent me sailing down the hall with the last of my breath gushing from my nose and mouth.
Bastion shouted in warning as if I could change my course midflight. I collided with him, snapping the bow I’d stolen from Lyr in the process.
We slammed into the wall next to the stairs and fell like a pair of puppets with their strings cut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The ogre pounded down the stairs after us, eager to finish me off.
Bastion shoved me off him, and I rolled down another couple of steps. My ribs felt like a bag of broken sticks, and every breath I took was like swallowing a bag of broken glass. The little red sliver of health I’d had left a moment ago was gone. It had been replaced by a flashing red countdown box.
HEALTH STATUS ALERT!
You have been reduced below 0 Health. Unless your health is restored above 0 Health, you will die in ten seconds.
10…
“Help,” I gasped, raising my hand to my brother.
Bastion cursed and struggled to his feet. He drew his sword and it blazed to life. His eyes widened with concern when he saw how badly wounded I was.
He rooted around in the pouch hanging from his belt and put a glowing blue vial in my hand. “This is the only healing potion I’ve got. I was saving it for a rainy day, but you need it more than I do.”
The second floor was so filled with smoke i twas hard to see more than a few feet, and I could barely breathe. Something heavy crashed to the ground on the far side of the house. We didn’t have much time to get out of here before we were buried in a tomb of fire.
9…
My hands were as dexterous as a pair wooden blocks. I got my fingers around the healing potion, but they were too clumsy to get the damned thing open.
A hooded shadow erupted from the smoke to Bastion’s left and flung itself at my brother’s face.
With a snarl, Bastion took a step back and braced himself. He brought his blade up just in time to parry a long, hooked blade. Despite his counter, the blade’s curved tip slipped around his defenses and skidded off his armor.
8…
Bastion’s attacker wore an elaborate plague doctor’s mask, with huge black crow’s eyes and a gleaming onyx beak to match. Glossy black feathers covered the face and spilled out from under its hood.
It raised its sword for another attack, and my eyes were drawn to the vivid green ichor dripping from the curved tip.
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Corvus, Aryx Adept, Level ??
SUCCESS! You have spotted your foe’s secret weapon: a deadly poison sure to kill its victim.
Sadly, you do not know the poison’s origin or any possible antidotes. Good luck with that.
You have increased your mastery of the Spot skill. (Rank 3)
You have learned the rudiments of the Herbalism skill (Rank 1)
Before I could warn Bastion about the poison, his attacker’s head twisted in my direction, and I saw one of the eyes blink. It wasn’t a mask. It was another monster, an aryx.
Great.
7…
It hurt to breathe. It hurt even worse to cough as the smoke wound its way into my lungs and scorched my nostrils. I realized I’d been pawing at the healing potion while still holding onto my stilettos.
Pro tip: Being almost dead makes you kind of stupid.
I dropped my knives and pried the lid off the healing potion with nerveless fingers. The blue fluid sloshed up to the rim of its flask as I raised it to my lips and tilted it down my throat.
6…
“Poison,” I gasped to my brother.
He flicked his eyes in my direction. “I didn't poison you!”
“Not me,” I said, pointing at the aryx. “Her.”