by Demi Harper
“Creeping” was a generous word to use for a group that were about as stealthy as a herd of sheep wearing stone shoes. True, this particular handful of gnomes had grown more adept at their role over the past fortnight – so much so that they’d unlocked the ‘Scout’ vocation, which, once assigned, eliminated the mana cost of the active ability of the same name – but they still had a long way to go.
The circumstances that had necessitated their on-the-job training were actually pretty grim. A couple of days after the battle for the Grotto, I’d sent a pair of gnomes out beyond my SOI to gather materials as well as keep an eye out for lingering kobolds. The enemy Core might be destroyed – at the hands of its own denizens, no less – but who was to say some of its former minions wouldn’t seek revenge?
When only one of the two scouts had come back, I was a tiny bit concerned for the missing one, but not all that surprised. I’d once seen it try to eat a rock that was shaped like a fish, and I suggested the returning gnome had probably bumped off its companion in annoyance for the crime of being too stupid.
That did not go down well with Ket.
Nor did my decision to send out more scouts the following day, though this time I had chosen to send a whole group of fighters, including the only two surviving members of the Grotto’s militia. They didn’t find the missing gnome, but they did find something else.
I’d done a double-take at the sight of their leader, Longshanks, who’d returned wearing the bloody wrinkled skin of a creature I’d as yet failed to identify (Insight only worked on living things, and this thing was clearly as dead as they came). The ragged-edged ensemble even came complete with glassy-eyed head-hood, making the warrior-scout appear like some kind of snack-sized serial killer.
Once I’d gotten over my initial disgust at this new and unwelcome fashion statement, I looked more closely at the material of the scout’s outfit and realized it was entirely hairless. Why the little idiot had shaved this mysterious creature before donning its skin – or possibly after; who could fathom the inner workings of his dense gnomish brain? – I had no idea, but the result made him resemble a pickled scrotum with disproportionately long legs.
Like the bipedal lemmings they were, the other scouts had followed suit, returning from subsequent trips wearing the mangled hides of their slain enemies as trophies in the tradition of primitive warriors everywhere. At some point the tribe’s armorer, Shuck, had inserted herself into the proceedings, which was why several of them were unfortunately now sporting matching jackets, trousers, or shoes – sometimes all three – made from pale wrinkly skin. One advantage of the hide’s… unusual texture was that the folds of flesh provided plenty of built-in pockets, perfect for the traveling gnome on the go. The downside was that they looked utterly horrific.
“They’re just expressing themselves, Corey,” soothed Ket when I voiced my disgust for the fiftieth time.
“Expressing themselves” would be taking up an instrument, or learning to paint, I thought grumpily. This? This is a crime against gnomanity.
The scouts were wrinkling their noses as they followed behind Ris’kin, and not just because of their proximity to their own stinky days-old skin-suits. The tunnel’s stench had intensified to almost unbearable levels. Moreover, the moss on the walls was disturbed in places, as though scraped by the repeated passage of bulky bodies. And it had gone quiet. Too quiet.
Adrenaline pumping, I scanned the walls and ceiling and realized that all the local creatures and insects – which had until now been providing an ambient underground soundtrack of chirps and croaks, chitters and skitters – had fled, leaving behind only heavy, ominous silence.
We must be getting close.
As I bent to investigate the spoor, the moss curled away from the light of the scouts’ illumishroom torches, as though in pain. I was so fascinated by its behavior I almost missed the hulking silhouette of a four-legged figure that lurched out of the gloom of a crevice to one side.
Thankfully, despite letting me move freely and decide our direction, I was never anything more than a passenger in Ris’kin’s form, though she granted me the illusion of holding the reins. Our bond may have allowed her to anticipate my wishes and respond accordingly, but my avatar retained complete autonomy over the squirrel-fox body I’d granted her on my first day on the job (and upgraded several times since).
So while I’d been mentally drooling over the feel of cobwebs on my face and the sensation of foliage beneath my fingertips, Ris’kin was somehow able to compartmentalize all that and had instead been paying attention to her innate survival instincts. Now, she detected the onset of danger and twisted just in time to meet it head-on.
Whatever it was.
What in the name of all the unholy hells is that?!
Two
Whack a Mole-Rat
Corey
The creature looked like a pale pink sausage with teeth and four legs, and I immediately recognized its kind as the driving force behind my scouts’ recent testiclesque fashion choices.
Its naked body – tubby, hairless, and more wrinkled than a waterlogged Shar-Pei – wasn’t much longer than the average gnome was tall, and its bared incisors were blunt like a squirrel’s. However, those teeth also happened to be the length of a finger, and they were gnashing furiously just inches away from my avatar’s face.
On instinct as unconscious and reactive as soiling myself – which, incidentally, I would definitely have done had this body belonged to me and not Ris’kin – I activated Insight.
Dire Naked Blesmol
Mammal
Also known as a ‘mole-rat.’
I couldn’t help but snigger a little at the name before rapidly recalling the gravity of the situation.
Focus, damn it.
I blinked away the Augmentary’s text, applying what little I’d learned to the much more pressing situation at hand.
So, not only was it a combination of two useless creatures – a mole and a rat – but it was a naked one at that. I actually felt sort of bad for the little monster. Unlucky for it.
Unlucky for me, I amended, as it dove right at us.
Ris’kin and I barely got our weapon up in time, raising the spear’s shaft to block the blesmol’s lunge.
Big mistake.
What I’d mistaken for fat on the creature’s podgy-looking frame was actually muscle. It barreled into us with the force of its momentum – or rather through us, knocking Ris’kin’s lithe form flat on her back and half-trampling her before managing to halt its charge and lumber around to see where she’d gone, gnomes scattering in its wake.
Flinching at the flare of pain from fresh-bruised ribs, my avatar raised herself into a crouch and jabbed upward with her spear to meet our opponent’s second charge. Shock jolted through us both as the stocky creature reacted faster than either of us anticipated; it reared back from the attack, front claws slashing at the air as its forelegs flailed like an outraged horse with a penchant for dramatics.
Recognizing her own imminent future as a red-furred pancake, Ris’kin launched into a roll, narrowly avoiding the blesmol’s front feet as they came crashing down where she’d lain just a moment ago.
Up close, the smell wafting from its underbelly was almost unbearable. Forget shart-blankets, this thing reeked like weeks-old cheese. The kind you’d have to wear goggles before consuming, and that leaks milky fluid when it’s ready to eat. A filthy cocktail of aromas.
Thankfully, my avatar had no gag reflex, though she was still clearly perturbed by the stench because her next attack fell well wide of its target. After stabbing at the air where the creature’s second head might have been had it had one, she ducked its retaliatory snapping jaws, reversed her grip on the spear, and stabbed down into the thing’s foot.
I expected it to shriek, to recoil, and maybe even retreat a little bit. But the blade barely penetrated its hide, and the creature let out nary a squeak. Ris’kin might as well have poked it with a toothpick for all the effect it had.
The sounds of more combat behind us reminded me that we weren’t alone here, for better or worse, and it was with no small surge of anxiety that I realized we might just be out of our depth. I needed to assess the situation.
I need to see.
Quickly, I urged Ris’kin to withdraw the speartip from the blesmol’s bald foot. The small spray of crimson as she yanked it out reassured me these creatures did bleed, so that was something positive. We dodged another lunge, then scrambled up the craggy tunnel wall, the slender spear haft held tightly between Ris’kin’s thumb and palm as she worked every muscle in her fingers and toes to ascend out of melee reach.
We reached a rough ledge – just a few inches wide, but it was enough to take some of the strain off my avatar’s arms and legs. Forcing down a pang of guilt for not doing so sooner, I took stock of how the gnomes below were faring.
My denizens were under assault by multiple mole-rat ambushers. The creatures kept launching quick, aggravated attacks in rapid succession before scurrying away into the crevices they’d come from. They would then lunge out of a different hole a few moments later, which made it hard to tell how many there were. Perhaps only a handful, but their strikes were fierce and bold, unsurprising given that they were on home ground and clearly loving the advantage it gave them.
My gnomes had apparently learned from past experience not to even attempt to block the brawny creatures’ attacks. Instead, those with shields angled them expertly, deflecting incoming blows without having to withstand the full force of them, while those with spears did their best to parry and dodge, taking advantage of their weapons’ reach and keeping out of range of slashing claws and gnashing teeth.
The spear-gnomes soon maneuvered themselves behind the shield-wielders, who had formed a constantly-shifting half-circle, and at coordinated intervals – heralded by Longshanks’ shout – the shields would drop momentarily, allowing the spears to shoot out, the gnomish warriors’ reach fully extended as they directed their strength into mighty thrusts aimed at the blesmols’ (presumably) more vulnerable faces.
In short, they were giving it the best they’d got without risking getting caught up in close-quarters engagement, though it was proving impossible in such, well, close quarters. They were demonstrating surprising competence. I couldn’t help but be impressed.
However, their foes were even more impressive. And by impressive, I mean appalling. True, the ugly creatures flinched back from each spear-jab to the face, unlike when Ris’kin had impaled one in the foot, and one of them even let out a yelp when Longshanks managed to score a deep gash right underneath its eye. A scar near its other eye, along with the fury with which it had been focusing on the elusive spear-wielding warrior this whole time, suggested this wasn’t the first time the two had met in battle.
But in spite of this, the creatures kept coming. They appeared as monstrous silhouettes in the wavering light from the dropped torches, as though the tunnel were the scene of some grotesque shadow-puppet show. No, forget shadow-puppets; they looked like hand puppets, but only if the puppeteers were wearing the skins of much older hands as costumes. I shuddered at the image.
Having seen the gnomes’ smart tactics in the face of adversity, Ris’kin was raring to get back down there and help them out. They were now also being harried by the biggest of the bunch, the one that had first attacked Ris’kin and me. Its size and aggression were beginning to turn things in the blesmols’ favor.
Unacceptable.
I sensed Ris’kin’s agreement, and together we decided on our next move: to stay out of reach, out of sight and (hopefully) out of mind, and maneuver our way along the tunnel wall until we could drop down behind the big mole-rat alpha, stabbing it hard enough to get its attention. Then we’d draw it away from the gnomes, leaving them to deal with the weaker enemies. Ris’kin might be small, but she was the nimblest creature I knew; she’d outrun the mole-rat and lead it on a merry chase until the others had fled or the enemy keeled over from exhaustion.
I’d grown so used to using Double Sight by now that I’d learned to trust her instincts and go along with them, though this was the first time we’d been tested together in combat. If Ket were here she’d have been yelling at me to get out of there and let my avatar do things without my interference, or better yet, for both of us to flee, leading the gnomes away from danger and back to the safety of the Grotto.
Speak of the devil-sprite…
“What is it? Corey, what’s happening?” came Ket’s voice, sounding much less sleepy than before. She’d obviously sensed my distress, just as I could now sense her worry and frustration at being unable to leave my Sphere of Influence to come and investigate.
“Nothing!” I reassured her, cursing my inner voice for somehow sounding out of breath. Ris’kin and I scaled the wall sideways in a series of awkward shuffle-hops, fingertips stinging, arms beginning to tremble with the strain, until we’d maneuvered ourselves directly above the gnomes’ defensive formation.
“Are you sure?”
Unlike the one time I’d used the Observe ability – draining almost all my mana and nearly shattering myself in the process – Ket could not see what I saw through Double Sight. Thank goodness, I thought, wincing as the scarred mole-rat Longshanks was fighting lunged inside the reach of his spear, closing its jaws around one of the gnome’s long legs.
Okay, change of plan. Help Longshanks first, then go after the alpha. Hurry, I urged Ris’kin, who’d already begun to speed up, putting hand over hand and seeking toeholds in the rough rock as quickly as she could. But as we were above the gnomes’ defensive half-circle, the hand holding her weapon lost its grip on the stone, and our precarious balance was shattered.
Time seemed to slow as we fell, and despite the danger I couldn’t help but marvel in the sensation of having reflexes for days. Though Ris’kin instinctively yelped, her body was already twisting, muscles shifting to align her posture for the safest landing on where her inner ear told her the ground was.
Or would have been.
One of the shield-wielders heard her yelp. He brought his shield up to intercept her, so instead of a graceful landing on all fours, she thudded side-on into the gnome’s upheld shield. The angle was such that rather than squishing the well-intentioned fool, her weight simply sent him staggering back, shield dropping so that Ris’kin rolled to the hard ground in a heap.
Our elbow hurt from where we’d landed on the shield, and this latest tumble had made the pain in our ribs from the mole-rat’s trampling flare up to near unbearable levels, but at least we were where we needed to be. Ris’kin hauled herself to her feet and immediately took off in the direction of my beleaguered lead scout.
As Ris’kin and I tried to fight our way through the press, stabbing and jabbing and slicing at enemy flesh along the way, I realized I’d never replied to Ket’s last question.
“Corey, are you sure everything’s all right?” Ket sounded urgent now.
“Fine! Everything’s fine,” I sang. Ris’kin and I swerved around a rearing enemy, ducked beneath a whipping tail like a massive earthworm, then drove our spear two-handed into a dirt-smeared flank. It was like piercing tough leather. The creature squealed as we yanked the spear out again with barely a trickle of blood from the puncture wound.
“Everything’s fine,” I said again, thankful Ket couldn’t hear what was going on either. The blesmol we’d just stabbed backed into one of its fellows, instinctively turning to bare its teeth in warning before realizing it was an ally, and Ris’kin and I used the distraction to dart away in the opposite direction.
“If you say so,” said Ket uncertainly. “Have you found anything yet? How about Shanky? Is he okay?”
I cursed silently. “Shanky” was Ket’s affectionate nickname for Longshanks, who was of course currently propping open his opponent’s jaws on the far side of the melee. Trust Ket to focus on the one thing that was going wrong, even though there was no way she could have known.
The creatu
re holding on to my lead scout shook its head fiercely—Longshanks’ cries ululating in a way that might have been comical were he not about to become mincemeat—and began backing into one of the hidden crevices the blesmols had come from, dragging my scout along with it into the darkness.
“He’s fine!” I lied brightly. Ket started to voice yet another question, but I cut her off. “Sorry, Sparky, I think we’ve found something. Give me a few minutes to concentrate?”
Yes, I’d recently given Ket a nickname of her own. And she hated it. If there was one thing guaranteed to make her stop talking to me, it was calling her “Sparky.”
Sure enough, the sprite fell quiet, and I breathed a mental sigh of relief as I focused instead on plotting a course through the confusion.
The mole-rats should not have been allowed to move so quickly. By my count there were five of the creatures, but it felt more like twenty-five. They darted in and out of crevices and tunnels with almost as much dexterity as my teensy skelemanders. Every time Ris’kin or the gnomes drove one back, another would pop out of a nearby crevice, then another, and another.
Their sustained speed and aggression were alarming, and Ris’kin’s lightning-quick reflexes were starting to make me dizzy. I almost deactivated Double Sight, relinquishing my hold on my avatar’s mind, then realized just in time that this would have pinged me right back to the Grotto. If that happened, I’d still be able to use Observe to view how things were going—for the grand total of a minute or so, anyway, until my mana ran out—but I’d no longer have any control over the battle, since my connection with Ris’kin could only be re-initiated once she was back within my SOI.
After parrying a swipe of our current opponent’s claws, we twisted out of its reach, then were immediately forced to duck into a crevice to avoid another flailing mole-rat. It was trying to pull away from the two gnomes it was attached to by lengths of rope they’d pulled from somewhere.