Death's Mantle 2

by Harmon Cooper

  But the cut scene never started up.

  Instead, the goat began to quiver, its body exploding into a cloud of viscera as a flesh-colored monster with horns and spikes took shape.

  “A parasite, huh?” Lucian said, already cycling through some of his options in his head.

  He attacked first with his scythe, just to see if it had any effect.

  The goat surged forward, taking quite the bite out of Danira, who had already started firing at her with bursts of electric magic. She came in with a sword as well, Lucian doubling up her attacks as they attempted to hack the goat to pieces.

  The goat’s life bar flashed, which Lucian took to mean that it would soon die.

  Instead, it grew even larger, sprouting another head.

  For a moment, Lucian wondered if it was like the parasite that had latched onto his brother, the demon bug growing in power with each strike. But he could see its life bar, and it hadn’t risen any, which meant this was simply another stage in the fight.

  He cast fireballs at it before switching to his ability that drained life and reduced attack power. Danira fell, his companion killed by an especially nasty blow, the words CRITICAL STRIKE appearing on the screen and fading as she died.

  “Nooo…” Lucian said under his breath, this time going to his inventory list and throwing back a potion that doubled his strength, and another that made him impervious to harm for one minute. He also chugged a potion that refilled his HP and fourth that added to his overall speed.

  He started hacking away at the monster goat, occasionally casting magic at it, the demon’s life bar slowly starting to dwindle.

  It took him another round of potions, but Lucian finally took the fucker down.

  As soon as he did, the young girl appeared on the screen.

  “What did you do?” she cried, balling up her fists in anger.

  [Your goat attacked me first.]

  “But Marlena was such a sweet goat!”

  “Yeah, right,” Lucian grumbled. “You see what she did to Danira over here?”

  The young girl ran off, leaving Lucian’s avatar with some XP, but not much else.

  “What the hell kind of side quest was that?” he asked as he opened his map, selecting the nearest city.

  With Danira gone, he’d need to get another companion, preferably female.

  Lucian expanded the map and checked out a few of the other cities. There were some at the far ends of the map that he hadn’t explored, and he’d visited the ghost people in the Lawless Lands before, but he wasn’t at the right level at the time, and wasn’t able to actually converse with the townspeople.

  But that was ages ago, hell, when Lucian was alive, and there was one village called Nuxvar that he could fast travel to which totally had a pub.

  “Pub it is,” Lucian said, recalling when he’d first come to Old Death’s world and liked to booze a bit. It hadn’t had an effect on him then, and thinking back now, he realized it hadn’t really had a taste either.

  Maybe it was a good thing Old Death hadn’t told him about how he could use his mantlecore to enhance the flavor of things. He may have spent a lot of useless energy trying to get wasted, especially at the start of all this.

  “Probably smart not to tell a new Death that stuff,” he whispered to himself as he selected the village of Nuxvar, a prompt asking him to confirm.

  The load screen started up, featuring an image of a sword with leather wrapped around its hilt, reminding Lucian to revisit past towns, that new quests can come up.

  “Duh,” Lucian said under his breath as his avatar took shape.

  The village of Nuxvar was bathed in twilight, an eerie melody moving through the air. The beefy guard at the village gate, who had the upper half of a man and the lower half of a ghost greeted him.

  “Welcome to Nuxvar,” he growled, Lucian momentarily startled by how gritty he sounded.

  Responses appeared, and as usual, Lucian went with snarky.

  [What’s someone have to do to get a body around here?]

  The guard laughed. “You think you are pretty funny for a mortal, don’t you?”

  There was no option to reply, so Lucian moved on.

  Apparently, he was at the right level to talk to the people now, and as he moved through the village, people called out to him.

  “Mortal!” one of them said, an elderly man with a voice that sort of reminded Lucian of Old Death. “May I have a word with you?”

  The quest box appeared and Lucian declined it.

  The NPC turned nasty. “Then be gone, you filthy scoundrel!”

  Lucian thought about engaging the man for a moment, but decided to move on instead, walking up a set of stairs that led to the residential area. His first action was to verify that there was indeed a pub, which was toward the end of the area.

  And once his final destination was secure, Lucian circled back around to the first home. The door was locked; he attempted to pick the lock, but wasn’t able to get it open. There was always the option of smashing through the front door, but he figured he’d check for a side entrance just in case.

  He moved around the home, past a few shrubs with red berries on them, where he found a door.

  “Lootville,” Lucian said as his avatar entered the home and began stealing stuff.

  There wasn’t a lot, but he was able to get some cheesewheels to add to his collection, as well as a shitty pendant that he could either sell or give to the next person that begged him for a random item, which happened quite frequently in Zero Enigma.

  Lucian exited the front door of the home like he owned it, no one the wiser as he moved to the next place, which just so happened to be two stories. As he moved to the top floor, he encountered a ghastly woman in one of the rooms.

  “I’ll stop you, thief!” she shouted.

  Lucian torched her, which apparently worked on ghost people.

  He heard the sound that indicated his character had done something bad, that his reputation had been stained by his actions. Before the sound could finish or the woman could fizzle away, Lucian’s avatar moved over to the woman and checked her body, finding a dagger and a potion.

  “Dang,” Lucian mumbled, hoping for better loot as he ransacked the next house. There was only one more house to go, and he was able to get a pouch filled with silver from this one, which made his whole looting side quest worth it.

  Now it was time to get to the pub.

  He entered the dimly lit space to find a bard serenading a small group of pub goers.

  “...The mermaid from Murgnar was a fantastic sight, with scales a-plenty and gracious curves, her hair was golden and her clams were white…”

  Lucian turned to the bar and started up a few quick dialogues, seeing who was up for hire. The ghost people at the bar were too infatuated with the bard to pay any attention to Lucian, so he moved to the corner of the pub, where he found a female warrior sitting with a couple empty pints in front of her.

  “What do you want?” she asked drunkenly, the scene starting up.

  The buxom woman had her hair in a giant braid. Aside from the swath of flesh visible across her chest—which never made sense to Lucian regarding women and fantasy clothing, but there was little he could do about it—she was heavily armored, her shoulder pads practically reaching the bottom of her ears.

  She was also a ghost.

  [Are you for hire?]

  She glared at Lucian’s avatar. “What kind of bloody question is that? If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you’re at the wrong bar!” The ghost warrior placed her hand on the hilt of her sword.

  “Dang,” Lucian said, seeing that his only option was to explain what he meant by his request. He would have liked to see that dialogue continue.

  [I would like to hire you to be my companion.]

  “Would you now?” she asked with a snarl. “I don’t come cheap.”

  [I’ve got money.]

  She finished her ale and named her price; Lucian was presented w
ith the option to bargain with her and he sprung for it.

  [How about we cut your price in half and call it a day?]

  “You dare insult me?” she cried. The woman stood and drew her sword. “You will pay me double or I will kill you.”

  Lucian laughed, seeing that he’d now been given the option of paying her double or fighting her to the death.

  “Sold,” he said, accepting her offer. “Welcome to the team, Danira Two.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Fallen Angel

  “Where am I?” Lucian whispered to himself upon waking. It took him almost a minute to remember that he’d flown around Old Death’s world and had discovered this desert that ran endlessly along the horizon.

  He eventually got to his feet, a cup of coffee appearing in his hand. As he sipped from it, Lucian looked up at Grimzilla, the giant mecha standing guard.

  His creation glanced down to him and Lucian waved back.

  Grimzilla didn’t return his gesture, the giant mecha stoic as ever, his face instantly serious because of the fact that he didn’t have a mouth.

  Lucian called his surveillance crows back to him, all of them returning at once.

  “Anything?” he asked, taking another sip of his coffee.

  They all shook their heads.

  Lucian transferred their feeds to the floating flatscreen television that he’d gamed on the previous night. He quickly cycled through some of what they had recorded, all the video in black and white, and all of it confirming that the desert was lifeless, not even a scorpion.

  “Keep searching,” he said, returning to his coffee.

  His surveillance crows zipped away, Hugin and Munin appearing.

  “Not much longer now,” he told them, toasting Hugin with his cup of coffee. Hugin tilted forward, clinking Lucian’s cup with his beak. “We’ve got to find Old Death, or get ready for a fight.”

  Figuring he’d get one thing out of the way, Lucian pressed his thumb and pinky finger together.

  He appeared in his brother’s home, where he found Connor sitting on the couch, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone.

  Name: Connor North

  Date of Birth: 11/01/1980

  Date of Death: 07/19/2058

  “Whew,” Lucian said under his breath as he noticed that his brother’s death date hadn’t changed.

  That didn’t mean he’d stopped using though, Connor getting sloppier with his habit, his mirror with pill residue on it resting on the table, the small pack where he kept his supplies tossed haphazardly onto a chair.

  “She’s going to find out, you know,” Lucian told his brother, now floating directly in front of him. He felt his cape tense up and he ignored it. “Seriously, man, you’ve got to get over this shit. Get some help, whatever. You’ve got a family. You’re getting married next month.”

  Lucian noticed something that resembled black silk beginning to form in the corners of the room. The space darkened as injuresouls swelled into the room, taking him completely off guard.

  There were six of them, all covered in bloody bandages, their heads starting to crack open as their teeth grew in size. Lucian's plane of existence changed, the battle about to begin.

  “Hell no,” he growled, Menor’s cannibalistic ax appearing. Lucian’s bone armor pressed out of his skin, his crows took off, and injurecrows materialized.

  Feeling a bit OP, Lucian charged into the pack injuresouls, swinging his ax as they all fell onto him at once. As before, they completely absorbed his attacks, regrowing any limbs he managed to hack off.

  One of the demons scurried over the others, launched into the air, and went straight for Lucian’s face. It clamped its jaw around his skull, dark energy swelling into Lucian’s head, his thoughts suddenly vivid, his energy draining from him.

  Lucian tossed the ax up so it could handle things on its own, his claws growing out of his fingers as he tried to pry the injuresoul off, explosions ringing out around the room.

  Lucian and a few of the injuresouls were thrown through the wall into Jen’s bedroom, Lucian still having the wherewithal to call backup in the form of Grim Mecha, who immediately started blasting at the pack.

  Lucian kept an eye on his Soul Points as he finally got the injuresoul off him.

  He had already expended over a thousand points, and he knew this number would grow rapidly with this sort of opponent.

  Back in the living room now, Lucian overpowered the injuresoul that had tried to take a bite out of his face. He was thrown backward again when a purple blast of energy disintegrated the roof, the injuresouls in its wake also banished at once.

  “What the fuck?” Lucian asked as the smoke cleared, his eyes falling upon an angel with dark hair and gray armor.

  Azazyel.

  The angel lowered into what was left of the home.

  More pillars of energy rained down from the sky, destroying what was left of the injuresouls, all of whom were looking up at him, hissing and screaming, saliva spraying out of their mouths.

  “Lucian,” Azazyel said, turning his focus to him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You’ve grown stronger since we last met,” the fallen angel said. “Normally, I like to go after more powerful targets, but many of them have become wise to the way I am able to find them. So, what will it be?”

  “What will what be?”

  “You are aware that I have been searching for Yoshimi,” Azazyel said in a solemn, matter-of-fact voice. “Will you take me to her?”

  Lucian felt anger flare inside him. “Take you to her?”

  “Yes. I am not here to hunt you; I’m here to hunt her. You are not a worthy opponent.”

  “You can go fuck yourself,” Lucian said as he fired a shot from his MX-11 at Azazyel, the blast striking the angel in the chest and doing absolutely no damage.

  “Very well, Lucian. Goodbye.”

  A purple-white pillar of blistering energy struck Lucian, driving him through the floor and to the basement below. Blocks of concrete fell on top of him, the dust settling as he tried to get back to his feet.

  Lucian’s Soul Points appeared:

  He had to blink twice.

  He’d checked his stats just moments ago and he’d only been down a thousand points.

  As it stood, one strike from Azazyel had taken three thousand points, and with what he had left, two more shots would finish him for good.

  As his eyes settled on Azazyel, who floated above him, strands of his dark hair in his face, Lucian pressed his pinky and thumb together, going to the first place that came to mind.

  The beach in Portland was calm and quiet, a light snow on the ground, the sky above gray with a handful of dark clouds cutting through the monotony.

  “Great,” Lucian mumbled. He was just about to summon Yoshimi to warn her, when he noticed a spark of light in the sky.

  Danira landed like a comet, her wings flapping once and kicking up a ton of air.

  “Lucian, are you okay?” she asked, her eyes rising with concern.

  “I’m all right; I was checking on my brother when injuresouls came, followed by Azazyel.”

  Danira gasped. “Azazyel came for you?”

  “Not for me exactly; for Yoshimi. He was trying to get her whereabouts out of me. I told him where he could stick his little query.”

  The angel nodded as her enormous energy weapon started to form in her hands, a halo circling around the muzzle of the gun.

  “I don’t think he’s coming here,” Lucian said as he glanced around. His armor started to peel away, submerging back into his skin. “Then again, he tracked me to my brother’s house somehow. Shit. How does everyone keep tracking me?”

  “Lucian.”

  “Yeah?” Lucian returned his attention to Danira to see her aiming her weapon at him.

  “Is he behind me or something?” Lucian asked, a grin forming on his face.

  Danira triggered her weapon, the blast cutting him in half.

  Two other angels appeared,
a heavily armored female and Hashul, the angel whom Lucian had fought several times now.

  “What the fuck?” Lucian cried, instantly going into defense mode as he summoned his two Grim Mechas.

  His lower half completely gone, he pulled himself away as his cape spun in front of him, his crows also taking off. Once again, Lucian invoked Menor’s ax, which immediately twisted into the air and came to his defense.

  The ax managed to stop Hashul’s golden spear attack, the angel’s weapon rimmed in oscillating light as the ax knocked it away.

  Lucian’s cape slammed into Danira, forcing her next shot to miss its mark.

  Her cherub crows appeared and tried to rip the cape to shreds as Lucian regrew his legs. He had reformed all the way to his knees by this point, but he needed his feet to be able to move around swiftly.

  While still on the snow-covered sand, Lucian aimed his palm at the other angel, who had curly blonde hair and a broadsword with ancient script trailing down the blade. A bolt of lightning struck the woman down, throwing her off guard while some of Lucian’s injurecrows charged forward.

  His spherical IEDs brought calculated confusion to the fight, everything partially obscured by smoke and settling sand.

  Lucian’s feet finished forming as his armor cascaded down his body.

  He shot up into the air, flaming mad now as his particle-beam cannon formed in his hands. His crows, cape, injurecrows, and Grim Mechas continued pummeling the angels, giving Lucian the time he needed to choose a target.

  The beam cut into Hashul, the angel’s body exploding into a mist of viscera a few seconds later.

  A golden pillar from the sky indicated another angel had appeared, this one a dark-skinned female with blade arms that Lucian swore he’d seen before.

  She was before him in a flash, her blade pressing through his stomach as she bared her teeth.

  “You will not survive this battle, demon,” the angel roared, the woman too busy trying to get the last word in to see that Lucian had equipped his shotgun.