Redeemer of the Dead

by Tao Wong

  “Yeah, but not Frakin, right?” I point out and wait for a few more seconds. “Anything?”

  “Well, a pair of the bastards looked at me and lobbed something, but none of them are moving,” Ali says.

  I report the results back to Capstan. He lets out a growl, his eyes tightening. I don’t much like it either—when monsters stop being super-aggressive, it means they’re smart. Smart monsters are bad. Smart monsters are dangerous.

  Finally, Capstan taps Tahar’s shoulder and waves him back. Capstan walks forward till he’s shoulder to shoulder with me. “The Redeemer and I shall proceed first. The rest of you, stay back.”

  Great. Just great. I walk forward with Capstan, both of us doing our best to be quiet even though it’s probably utterly useless. Just because I have the best armor and a ton of health, I get to be the guinea pig. At least Capstan is with me.

  When we reach the entrance, the Frakin all turn toward us and my minimap blooms. Creatures that were hidden before, that ignored even Ali when he was doing his light show move, suddenly appear. Capstan and I just stare at the Frakin and they back at us, neither of us willing to move.

  I’m wondering how the hell we missed this, how the monsters could avoid detection by Ali, when Capstan mutters, “Sixty-seven.”

  “Huh?”

  “There are sixty-seven Frakin. Levels are the usual, but they are red,” Capstan says, the Yerick seemingly perfectly calm. His tone, his professionalism pulls me back to the present, and I actually look.

  “That’s a lot…” I frown, then mutter to Ali, “Any data on the color?”

  “Incendiary. Don’t use fire,” Ali says after a moment, shaking his head. “Sorry, boy-o, they fooled me. Something in here was hiding them from me.”

  “Why aren’t they charging us?” I growl softly.

  Capstan shakes his head. He jerks his head upward after a moment, his lips snarling. “They’re flanking us. Aron just commed—two of our drones are under attack. We have to retreat.” He steps backward and freezes as the Frakin rustle.

  Jesus, these guys by themselves could probably rush us all and finish us—they have to flank us too?

  “I don’t think they want us to leave…” I eye the monsters, my mind flicking over options. We move, these guys light us up and charge us. We don’t move, their friends sweep in behind us and take us and then these guys will light us up anyway. We need them frozen, held here which means… “Oh hell. On my word, Capstan, run.”

  “Redeemer,” Capstan growls softly, and I shake my head.

  “No time. You can get my friends out, and I’ve got the mecha. I’ll light these guys up with everything I have and you get running. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, so you just get my friends out,” I say, my voice strangely calm. I’m not angry, surprisingly. What’s there to be angry about? What is, is.

  “Honor to your family,” Capstan growls.

  I nod, recalling Ali to me and dropping the drones back into my inventory. No need for them to get wrecked. From the corners of my eyes, I see the group already retreating, backing off to where we came from, but they’re going to hit opposition any moment now. I mentally issue a command to the suit, letting it inject every single potion of regeneration into my system before I replace them via my Skill with instant heal potions. I’m as ready as I am going to get, which means…

  Now. I trigger the missile launcher, dumping the full load in one wave. Twelve high explosive missiles sent direct into the cavern. The moment I make my move, I see Capstan sprinting away. I take a short hop backward again and again, even as the Frakin open fire, tiny balls of plasma flashing from their stingers.

  Then my missiles land and explode and the blast wave is enough to pick me up and throw me backward onto my butt. Sabre’s already cycling and reloading, but I don’t have time for that because the Frakin are rushing the entrance. Seated, I bring my hand up and open up with the Inlin, lobbing armor piercing rounds downrange as fast as I can target a new monster. Five seconds and I’m dry.

  Lightning next, a spell that I’ve used so often, the spell formations are second nature to me. I feel myself reaching into it, altering the structure of the spell in a way that has nothing to do with the System, enhancing it with my Affinity, even as Ali ducks overs and helps. We throw electricity and death down the cavern hallway. All the while, plasma lands around us, burning through armor and circuity in search of my flesh.

  We bring death, and for a time, it’s enough. The missiles killed a bunch. The electricity strikes stun and eventually kill the vanguard. When the vanguard dies, I wait a moment for the monsters to clump together again before I loose another wave of missiles, backing off a bit and hunkering under the blast wave before backing off further. I repeat the shoot-and-lightning process once more and start feeling light-headed, my Mana down to nearly fifteen percent.

  Pain as plasma sears my skins, the temperature in the cavern so intense, it cuts through my battle haze. Without my Resistances, without Sabre, I’d be dead already. Sabre whines and cycles, attempting to fix itself and load my weapons, but there’s only so much it can do. I reach into my inventory with a thought and drop a portable shield generator, activating it with a flick of a hand before I run away. It lasts for three seconds before it blows.

  By then I’ve dropped a second generator. Outside of the punishing heat, the second generator lasts seven seconds before the plasma bolts tear the shielding apart. Five thousand Credits each time, all gone. I can’t even mourn it as I hit the spot where the team planted the Chaos mines in the vain hope I could get there. Ali’s zipped right ahead of those, not wanting to get caught when I release them. I don’t want to be there either—Chaos mines are powerful but cheap. You never know what you’ll get.

  “John!” Ali screams and flashes the map up to me as we take the next corner.

  I see it—the others are caught, stuck in a bottleneck, unable to push past the monsters that clog the exit. I stick my head around the corner, back the way we came.

  The Chaos mines go off and maybe we’re lucky, but they rip open a portal and tentacles of lurid yellow and pink stick out, grabbing and pulling in Frakin. There’s something in there, something that even with my mental resistances, I can’t see, can’t comprehend. Or maybe it’s because of the mental resistances that I can’t comprehend what’s in there.

  “Shield up. NOW,” snaps Ali.

  I comply, then suddenly my eyes are filled with notifications.

  Level Up!

  You have reached Level 30 as an Erethran Honor Guard. Stat Points automatically distributed. You have 6 Free Attribute Points to distribute. You have 6 Class Skills to distribute.

  I’ve been saving my points, my Class Skills for a rainy day and for Level 30. I might not have much time to use it, but I’ll be damned if I don’t see what I can do. I slam my points into my Class Skills and feel the ice cold rush of knowledge and pain that hammers into my body as the System grants my wish.

  Chapter 15

  I come back to my senses in time to see Sabre’s shield fail. To see the damage icons, feel the heat radiating from the missed and blocked plasma bolts, to taste the dryness in my mouth and the smell of cooked flesh and ash. I come back to see the Frakin storming me, and I grin.

  My friends are behind me, fighting their own battle in a desperate attempt to escape. I need to buy them time, time enough to break through, time enough to live. I find myself grinning, laughing as pain courses through my body, as new knowledge and abilities resolve themselves in my mind.

  I flicker, one second crouched and the next behind my attacker, spinning to punch my sword through it. I step and kick out with Sabre, mecha- and System-enhanced strength picking up the Frakin and sending it bowling into its friends. Even as the monsters fire on me, their shots explode against my newly created Soul Shield. The translucent barrier of Mana absorbs the damage and covers both Sabre and me. I duck to the side, grabbing one of the Frakin by its tail and lifting it, using its body to shield me against mor
e attacks while I wait.

  Time. I’m fighting for time. I feel my Soul Shield flare, cutting off plasma blasts that slip around my improvised shield. When the Frakin stops twitching, I send it flying into its buddies, then I step sideways, giving myself a few moments to open up with the Inlin. I shoot to cripple even as the Soul Shield flares red.

  “Corner,” snaps Ali.

  I trigger Blink Step and cut across the corner. I snap the Shield off the moment I’m away.

  “Sticky grenades!”

  I pull and throw. I bounce three around the edges, following the lines of power that Ali drops into my vision. The explosion is muted, and for a few moments, silence holds as the creatures struggle.

  “Polar zone,” is the next command from the diminutive olive-complexion Spirit who hovers and plays eyes for me.

  I spin around the corner, raising my hand and casting the spell. The glue-cement mixture that makes up the grenades is already melting and burning in the residual heat. I let the spell loose, and the fires go out, the glue hardening again. Resistant to heat and cold or not, the Frakin aren’t used to sudden temperature changes and their carapaces shatter, exposing yellow flesh to the cold.

  A mental command and the barely regenerated shield in Sabre flickers to life before me. I open fire with the Inlin, each shot shattering frozen flesh and scattering limbs. Bodies pile up and monsters die, but the next wave is already here, firing plasma bolts at me. I spin back around the corner as a plasma bolt burns through Sabre’s shield and its armor into my stomach. I groan, the fire quenched in my flesh, and I thank the vagaries of the System even as my health drops precariously. I trigger the potions, watching my health shoot up as my Mana refreshes itself. Unfortunately, the instantaneous potions only work a couple of times a day, after which they lose all effectiveness.

  Between the initial health regeneration potion, my spell of Greater Regeneration, and my Skill Body’s Resolve, I can literally see my body stitch itself together. It’s a battle of attrition now, and even with all my Class Skills allocated and Ali watching and calculating, all I’m doing is buying seconds.

  “Missiles!” Ali chants.

  I snap around the corner, Soul Shield triggered. I open up with the missiles, my last full load, and watch as they fly out, shattering bodies and splintering rock. The dungeon’s walls crack and shatter but they don’t come down, and I snap back around my corner. The monsters are barely five feet away now. I skip back a few steps, wishing that the dungeon hadn’t reinforced the structure of the walls. It’d be so easy if we could bring the walls down…

  One, two, three seconds as the monsters recover and race across the ground, skimming over the dead bodies of their comrades. I pull out my sword and set myself, waiting. Health about a quarter, Mana nearly all gone. I have enough Mana to trigger Soul Shield one last time and then... and then it’s over. I stop looking, knowing there’s no point. I can buy them a few more seconds, so that’s all that I can do.

  “Incoming,” Ali intones.

  I meet the first Frakin as it skitters around the corner, its legs attempting to find purchase as it makes the turn. Time to finish this.

  The sunlight of the exit is the best damn thing I’ve felt in ages. I walk out, helmet down as I soak in the liquid happiness, under-armor burnt to a crisp on my body. Sabre is stored in my Altered Space, so damaged that its actuators no longer work. I look around, the Frakin scrambling left and right as they sweep the exit and the surroundings, and I shake my head.

  “Best get moving, boy-o, you’ve only got another minute left,” Ali intones and I grunt.

  “Give me a break,” I mutter.

  Then I lurch ahead, the burnt shell of my right leg barely wanting to move. It doesn’t help that my balance is completely thrown off by the fact that I’m missing everything from my left arm down, the casualty of a too slow dodge. It’s only some Adventure-strength painkillers and a hell of a lot of willpower that keeps me on my feet as my body works to stitch me together. I pass right through the Frakin in front of me, the counter in my left eye ticking down the time I have left on the QSM.

  As I told Capstan, I’ve got a few tricks left up my sleeve.

  Finding the group is easy—the rally point was the same spot we found ourselves the last time. I’m half-healed by the time I make my way to them, and as always, it’s the puppies who note me first. Shadow hits me so hard, he knocks me over, and I find myself being assaulted by wet tongues. Trust me, a pony-sized puppy has a very big and wet tongue.

  Eventually the Huskies are pulled away and I’m dragged to my feet by my friends, everyone looking a bit shocked. I let my eyes survey the group, assessing the damage.

  “Again, Richard?” I blink, staring at his missing foot.

  He nods slightly, glancing at the stump of my arm, which is slowly reforming. Amelia is seated next to him, a pale pink shroud covering her upper body as replacement skin. She seems unconcerned by the pain, drinking from a water bottle, but her slightly too large pupils tell me she’s drugged out of her mind. Most of Mikito’s armor and clothing has been burnt off, the shreds not even covering her dignity. The normally reserved Japanese lady is so tired, she doesn’t even care. Rachel’s missing most of her hair and is dressed in civilian clothing while Aiden… well, Aiden looks fine actually.

  As bad as the humans look, the remaining Yerick are even worse for wear. None of the Yerick seems to have any fur left, most of it burnt to a crisp, and Nelia seem to be missing one of her horns. Aron lies on the ground, bare-chested as his flesh slowly knits over exposed bone, the side of his face bandaged. Capstan, on the other hand, looks to have been in the blender. There’s so much blood, some of it still leaking from him, that I can’t tell where the injuries start and his skin ends. That he’s still standing is freaking impressive. When I raise an eyebrow at Capstan, he just shakes his head.

  Thousand hells. I close my eyes for a second, feeling frustration boil out of me before I push it down. Not right now, we’re still too close. Later, later, I can process my feelings about losing another.

  On the way back, my body curled up against the puppies in the back of the truck, I take the time to review the piled up notifications.

  Status Screen

  Name

  John Lee

  Class

  Erethran Honor Guard

  Race

  Human (Male)

  Level

  30

  Titles

  Monster’s Bane, Redeemer of the Dead

  Health

  1420

  Stamina

  1420

  Mana

  1100

  Mana Regeneration

  77 / minute

  Attributes

  Strength

  80

  Agility

  133

  Constitution

  142

  Perception

  45

  Intelligence

  110

  Willpower

  112

  Charisma

  16

  Luck

  25

  Class Skills

  Mana Blade

  1

  Blade Strike

  2

  Thousand Steps

  1

  Altered Space

  2

  Two are One

  1

  The Body’s Resolve

  3

  Greater Detection

  1

  Instantaneous Inventory*

  1

  Soul Shield

  2

  Blink Step

  2

  Cleave*

  1

  Frenzy*

  1

  Combat Spells

  Improved Minor Healing (II)

  Greater Regeneration

  Improved Mana Dart (IV)

  Enhanced Lightning Strike

  Fireball

  Polar Zone

  The Body’s Resolve (Level 3)

  Effect: Increase natura
l health regeneration by 35%. On-going health status effects reduced by 33%. Honor Guard may now regenerate lost limbs. Mana regeneration reduced by 15 Mana per minute permanently.

  Soul Shield (Level 2)

  Effect: Creates a manipulatable shield to cover the caster’s or target’s body. Shield has 1,000 Hit Points.

  Cost: 250 Mana

  Blink Step (Level 2)

  Effect: Instantaneous teleportation via line of sight. May include Spirit’s line of sight. Maximum range—500 meters.

  Cost: 100 Mana

  I wince again at the low, low Mana regeneration rates. Gods, I’m going to have that get fixed at some point, but without increasing my passive healing, I’d be a lot deader. Thank the gods that the System has more than one way to get your body patched fully. I admit, I’m a little curious to see what Mana Shield is like, but I’ll need to dedicate my Class Skill points to Thousand Blades before I have chance to check it out. For now though, I’m happy enough to just chill till we arrive home.

  We are a sad and sorry lot by the time we get back to Whitehorse. Most of us have lost our armor, and there are more than few missing limbs in the group.

  As we reach the Yerick’s compound first, Capstan turns to each of us. “Tonight, we hold a memorial for Tahar. As blood companions, you are invited.”

  Nods and assurances of our presence are given in short order before the rest of us make our way farther into town. Amelia and Richard head directly for the Shop, Mikito helping them along. Aiden breaks away, begging off to his apartment, and suddenly, it’s just Ali and me.

  I stare at the buildings, watching people walk without seeing them. We lost. Again. Even with more people, even knowing what we were walking into, we lost.