by Eric Ugland
Thing was, I wanted to make it a bit of chase. I wanted to keep him after me as long as I could, to ensure the others had plenty of time to make an escape. I figured I could probably take the monster, and if not, if he did do some serious damage, and managed to kill me, well, I would get a nice hike across the Empire to get back to my village. For a second, I thought about changing my spawn point, but then I realized it wasn’t exactly the time to go about doing such a thing.
It was a pretty good plan. I mean, as far as my plans go. And I think it had a really good shot. Minus the cliffs.
The creature was definitely herding me, in retrospect, because I came hurtling over a downed log into a clearing and realized there were very tall cliffs right in front of me. But not like the ones near the settlement, the ones that were thousands of feet. These ones were mere hundreds of feet. But they were wet, and sheer, and the beast had caught up enough that any attempt to climb them would result in the creature pulling me down and having his way with me. Which, you know, was hopefully just eating me.
I slid to a stop in the mud, and had the spear out.
The creature stopped in the trees. It was dark, and he must’ve assumed I couldn’t see him. But I saw the outline of him. Again, it was like his skin just sucked light in. Dude was big. Huge upper body at least — he seemed to have skipped quite a few leg days. He had wide feet, and long arms that reached almost to the ground. Big round muscles and, from what I could discern, large flaps of skin over most of his joints. I couldn’t see much of a neck, so I had a feeling it was a lot of head and jaw. These sorts of fuckers always seemed to have an overabundance of teeth.
I wanted to say something sassy, but I couldn’t think of anything in the moment.
So I waited.
And he waited.
Maybe he wanted to make an entrance, but he didn’t move out of the woods until the perfect moment for spectacle. A giant streak of lightening cracked overhead, and he came out of the trees.
The thunder roared around us.
He was a mottled grey, with small eyes facing front, strange triangular folded flaps for ears, and a big fuck-off mouth with big teeth. Not as many teeth as I was expecting — there were a few pretty decent sized gaps. He had big hands: three long fingers with an extra joint at the end, and one stubby thumb. Extra grabbing power, I supposed. It wasn’t that he didn’t have a neck, either. His head just came out laterally from his body, coming forward, giving him a nice long jaw. His nose was pug-like. Giant pug-like, but a similar scrunched-up look that made me think he probably snored like a motherfucker.
I felt a little pang of fear rise up. It wasn’t an effect of the creature, that I’d be immune to, but it was from the creature all the same. He was big and mean, and yet intelligent enough to trap me. And to hunt me. I was starting to feel like I’d gotten in a little over my head.
Then, just to really cap things off, it started to pour down rain.
Oh well.
Chapter 105
He lunged at me, closing the distance between us faster than I could really comprehend. I managed to get the spear up and planted it in the center of his outstretched hand.
The spear sunk into his flesh, and the creature snapped his hand back.
He looked down at the spear embedded in his paw, confusion evident in his tiny eyes. With his other hand, he pulled the spear out like I would’ve a splinter, and tossed it aside.
While he’d been playing with that spear, I’d gotten another from my bag, and as soon as he looked up, I threw said spear as hard as I could. It whistled through the air and slammed into the creature’s shoulder. It hit with a good meaty sound, but the sound was deceiving.
It just seemed to sink into his thick wrinkled skin — he barely even noticed it. Sure, some blood came out, but no, like, spurts or anything. It was pretty much textbook evolutionary advantage. Thick wrinkles of skin for extra protection. Probably not intended as protection against spears, but worked just as well.
I took a moment to move farther back, and pulled a sword and shield out of my bag. I set to receive him even as he was already in motion. His big hand came around and slammed into the shield. But unlike the trolls, this dude was smart enough to grab onto the shield, and he ripped it from my arm.
It happened so fast and with so much power, I thought he was going to rip my whole arm off.
He threw the shield over his shoulder, and I took a chance, lunging in with a slash at the side of his leg, right into his knee.
The sword bit into the skin, but I don’t think it even went into his flesh.
Getting that close to him, however, was not the best of plans. His hand was around me in a flash, and he lifted me off the ground. He pinned my arms to my side, and just like that, I couldn’t move.
He brought me to his mouth, his breath horrible, fetid. All those terrible smells you get if you only eat raw meat.
Perhaps because of the rain, perhaps because he moisturized on a daily basis, but his hands were actually slick. With a little wiggling, I managed to slip one arm out of his three fingers. As he brought me into his mouth, I brought my dagger into his finger, jamming it in with all the strength I could muster. Which, in this case, was enough to embed the dagger into the knuckle.
He roared.
Thick ropes of saliva flew out of his mouth and wrapped around me in a viscous nightmare.
He opened his hand, and I dropped the 20 feet to the ground, rolling my ankle.
Which hurt like a motherfucker.
I hobbled away from him as he struggled to get the tiny dagger out of his finger. Which probably also hurt like a motherfucker. He had big fingers, so he was having a heck of a time getting a hold of the little knife.
Getting all the way to where my back was against the wall, I looked up, trying to judge if I could make the climb. The pain in my ankle was subsiding, but it wasn’t really doing the whole supporting weight thing, which made climbing, and even running, challenging at best.
I saw the sword I’d dropped, right where the beast’s foot was.
Seeing a quick opportunity, a lull in the fight, I shot an identification the creature’s way.
?????
?????
Really fucking useful information there.
Basically the Vuldranni method of saying, “This is bad Leroy Brown.”
I grabbed all the spears from my bag of holding, and just started launching them at the beast. One after another, the spears hit the monster. One after another, they did fuck all. Sure, some of them stuck in his skin, but none penetrated to any real depth. They got his attention, and he grabbed a big handful of mud and threw it at me.
I got covered in the sludge, and I couldn’t see shit.
Then he lunged at me.
Which I felt.
I dove to the side, and his massive clawed fingers closed on where I’d just been, my legs straight up sliding across his skin as he closed his fist.
Weaponless, I scrambled on all fours across the clearing, trying to get to the trees where I might have a chance to put something in between the two of us.
I felt him leave the ground, so I knew he was leaping for me. I tried to move faster, but it wasn’t enough. His hand slammed down on my leg, and he picked me up, dangling me in the air until I was eye to eye with him. Granted, I was upside down, but we were at eye level.
And, uh, that’s when he ripped my leg off.
Chapter 106
The creature had my left leg in one hand. He put his other hand in my crotch and around my torso, and pulled. He seemed a little surprised by how much effort he had to exert, and, probably at the volume of my screams. Or the tone. I was hitting some impressively high notes, but then again, getting a limb pulled off is definitely in the top ten of most painful things to live through.
My leg remained in his grip, and I watched as blood fountaining out of the stump covered his face. He sputtered and waved his arms around, trying to keep the blood from getting in his eyes or something. I suppose to really keep it from rui
ning his look, he tossed me to the side.
I spun through the air and hit the mud with a wet thwock, sliding across the clearing until I hit a tree. I laid there for a moment in shock, watching my health bar drop remarkably fast. It’s definitely something I would not recommend anyone doing — you know, ripping your leg off. With my health bar sliding under the 50 percent point, I finally got my shit back together. I reached into my bag of holding and pulled out the healing potions I’d taken just in case Amber needed them. I drank one, pulled the stopper off the other, and poured it over the spot where my leg previously had been. I realized the big fucker had ruined my god-given seal pants. That pissed me off.
The healing potion on the leg seemed to close things up, and the healing potion in my mouth got my health to stop dropping. I saw the bleeding debuff icon in the corner of my vision blink out. I was stabilized. For now. The first plan that came to my barely functioning brain was grabbing the taming ball out of the bag and using it on Mister Monster. It would be a pretty good time to use the gift, save my life for sure, and give me another monster pet. But, if this orb was as powerful as Paul had made it out to be, then using it on this random dude seemed a waste. Still, respawn across the Empire or use the gift. I reached into the bag, and focused on the orb. I felt it in my hand, and I was about to pull it free.
But Mister Monster had other ideas.
He’d been trying to eat my leg, but there was a slight issue. He couldn’t bite through the bones. As hard as he was trying, it just wouldn’t snap, and after a truly big attempt, he got frustrated. He looked around the clearing until he saw my limp form, and threw the leg at me.
My leg sailed across the open air and slammed into me. In a technical sense, I kicked my own face in. My boot did a solid number on my jaw, and I had to spit some teeth out.
Looking at my left leg… or well, the one that was no longer constrained by simple things like left or right, I had a vision. A memory of a film where the dashing hero faces off against a monster with a big jaw and an unquenchable appetite. He is able to overcome the creature, at least for a time, by using a bone to wedge its jaw open. I had a bone, a little over two feet long, and it was unbreakable. If I could get it in the creature’s mouth the right way, he wouldn’t be able to eat me, and I might be able to crawl away enough to be out of combat, and then, you know, see how intense this regeneration process really gets.
High up on the list of gross things I never wanted to do was reaching into my own dismembered leg and tearing the femur out. But, I had to hand it to the beast, he was really helping me get inside myself. See what I was really made of.
I closed my eyes, and willed up my Stand Tall ability, and the pain of my injuries seemed to subside ever so much. And it looked like my leg was back. All illusion, but it was a pretty damn good one.
“Hey,” I shouted, “you are one ugly sack of shit!”
The creature didn’t really seem to care what I said. He did, however, care that my leg was reattached. He darted across the clearing with a quickness that was at odds with his size, and picked me up again bringing me up to his mouth. This time, my arms were free, and I had my femur in one hand, holding it down and out of his line of sight.
I think he thought he’d just eat me and be done with it, because instead of pulling me part or anything, he just opened wide and started to shove me in.
Grabbing his tooth with one hand, I pulled myself into his mouth, sliding across his thick gross tongue. My other hand reached out, and I got the top of my bone into his gum Then, using all the strength I had, I forced his jaw to hyperextend before I got the other end of my femur in place, right against the last tooth of his bottom jaw. Perfect. He couldn’t hope to open his mouth any more, so getting the bone out was going to be next to impossible.
He tried to bite down. Nothing. His jaw wouldn’t move; it was locked open.
Immediately, he dropped me, and put both hands to his mouth. He got a finger into his mouth, but it was the finger with the dagger in his knuckle, and he couldn’t get it to work the way he wanted. He screamed in despair, trying to bite down, to get the bone out. But nothing was working.
I didn’t stay to watch the party. As soon as I’d hit the ground, I was crawling. This guy was going to realize he was fucked pretty soon, and he’d likely go mental on me if I was still around. Even if he couldn’t eat me, he still seemed more than capable of grinding me into a paste. I pulled myself into the trees, and then I reached into my Unfillable knapsack, and got out two long weapons, which in this case happened to be a battle axe and the magic sword. Getting the battle axe under one arm and the sword under the other, I had the best set of crutches I could hope for, and I was off, moving as fast as my one remaining leg would let me, hoping I could get some distance between myself and the monster before I blacked out from the excruciating pain.
Chapter 107
I found out very quickly that there seemed to be no limits on my regeneration abilities. About two minutes after I left the clearing, my leg was regrowing. It itched like you would not believe. And it hurt, but I was so beyond being able to comprehend the pain that I think my brain just shut that side of things down. But the itchiness, that stayed. I kept moving in the general direction of the river and of the settlement, cutting across the forest in the best angle I could.
The rain was still coming down in buckets, just drenching absolutely everything. And now that it was coming down harder, it wreaked havoc with my tremorsense. Tiny vibrations were everywhere. Any closer to the river, and I had to just forget about it. I would work by sight alone there.
It took about two hours before my leg was back. When it was, I have to say, it was a pretty perfect leg. No blemishes or bruises, no scars or nothing. Smooth skin. The lack of leg hair was a little strange, but I figured it wasn’t worth looking the gift from the god in the mouth — I’d take not having hair if it meant I got my leg back. It did make me wonder about something. My leg, the one I had left behind, would that grow another me? Or, rather, would it just remain as a leg, decomposing and eventually becoming soil? In a purely hypothetical manner, would it be possible to feed a village through a winter if I just cut my leg off once or twice a day?
It was definitely something I thought about while I limped along. The only real problem I had once I got my leg back had been rather ridiculous: I only had one boot. So I kept stepping on things, and it hurt.
Finally, though, as the sky way to the east had started to lighten ever so slightly, and the rain lessened until it wasn’t pouring down, but just sprinkling, I caught up to the group of the Ursus. They were sitting around at the edge of the cleared ground in front of the settlement.
I saw the twin red tails of Amber, and I walked over to her.
“Welcome back,” she said. “What happened to your pants?”
It was a rather hard explanation, considering that one leg had been ripped off at crotch level, and the other was mostly fine. And I was missing a boot.
“I lost some of it,” I said. “Why are we here?”
“Alexios went to the gate,” she replied, “said he didn’t want anyone to shoot these guys by mistake.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to eat some food, but not so long that anyone is worried.”
I nodded, and in the stillness and relative silence of the morning, I could hear the faint whimpering of the babies. It made my heart rage.
“This is stupid,” I said. “Get everyone moving, I’ll make sure y’all’re safe.”
I stormed out of the trees, glaring at the walls and the gates. I’d only been gone two-ish days, but there’d been more work done in the mean time. The walls were looking big and imposing, what with being made out of stone now. The wooden gates facing me had yet to be replaced with stone doors, but I knew that was on the docket. Some of the towers were mostly finished, and I could see a large fire blazing away in one of them. Alexios stood below the tower, and seemed like he was having a discussion with whomever w
as on watch.
Covering the distance in short order, I heard the banter between Alexios and the guard. It was just small talk.
“Open the fucking gate already!” I yelled up at the wall.
Nothing happened.
“Last chance!” I yelled.
Alexios just looked at me like I was crazy. Which, you know, I probably was a bit.
Still nothing.
I took a few steps back, then unleashed my version of the Sparta kick at the gates, right in the middle where I knew the crossbar had been placed.
There was a giant cracking sound, but the gate didn’t really move.
I kicked again, and this time, there was a loud snap, and the big doors opened inward with with a wicked creaking of the hinges. There were lots of people with weapons inside, and not a one looked at all welcoming.
The Ursus had caught up to me, and stood there, waiting to come inside, clearly unsure of how to proceed.
“Get the fuck out of the way,” I said softly, looking from one soldier to the next. “These people need our help.”
As I walked forward, the soldiers parted, and lowered their shields and weapons somewhat. It wasn’t a complete stand down, but it was reasonably close.
Wian and Nikolai came up to me, with Nathalie right behind. More or less, the representatives of three of the four groups right now. I was starting to get really angry at the divisions apparent in the community, because it was clear nothing good was going to happen with it.
“What is this?” Wian said.
“Hold your fucking horses, noob,” I snapped.
“Noob?” he repeated back to me.
“You can answer that question for me, then,” Nikolai said. “I am chancellor of this holding, and I have been here from the beginning.”
“These people asked for sanctuary here,” I said. “For our help.”
“They are the Ursus.”
