Excise: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG (Ether Collapse Book 2)

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Everyone looked serious, and Rocky swallowed while looking around at each person individually, measuring their strength. Then he decided to take charge; a little unsure but counting on his gaming experience, he whispered, “Sela, cat form. My clone, and I will be in the lead, forming a wedge. Zippo, you hold the middle as our light source and only cast spells forward if you see an opening where your splash damage won’t hurt Sela or me. Joe and Smith, you have the rear. Try to bunch up groups when you can.” Rocky made a motion with his hands that was meant to signify overflow. Then he pointed at Zippo. “If something attacks from behind, signal Zippo to light ‘em up!”

  Everyone nodded, and Rocky summoned his Shadow Clone, who came into existence staring into his face. He quickly held up four fingers, then poked Rocky square in the center of the chest before putting its hands up in surrender. Smith looked uncomfortable with the mime show and whispered to Joe beside him, “Think they need a minute?”

  Somewhat disturbed himself by the display of emotion from his clone, Rocky blinked before mentally commanding it to do what he needed. The clone got more serious and pointed to its daggers then held up its hands showing a small space between them. Rocky realized what the clone was trying to say, perhaps because it was a part of him or perhaps because it wasn’t a terribly complicated message. Its daggers were short, which wasn’t ideal for the current situation.

  Rocky looked around and then nodded before changing his own position of the wedge flank to the wedge leader, effectively swapping himself with the clone. The Shadow Clone widened its eyes and then nodded. Rocky had to wonder how sane people were who had this skill, constantly interacting with a part of yourself that is also not a part of you couldn’t be good for future mental health.

  Rocky activated his Dark Cloak as the group moved in formation down the last twist. They came out on level, interlocking brick. It was beautifully crafted with onyx stones shining from amidst marble. Rocky only glanced at the white and black chessboard-like pattern for a brief moment before he snapped his head up to look for enemies. His eyes found the same stonework on the walls but placed strategically to look like a dark black cityscape. The buildings it depicted, while clearly structures, were so alien in shape compared to what he was used to that his eyes were unfortunately caught by them for a split second too long.

  His Dark Cloak screamed a warning to him as a pale white hand attempted to locate the warm flesh underneath, and he made a quick, compact, vertical slash to remove the offending limb. The creature was getting ready to leap at the swirling shadows when a laser bolt put a hole in its forehead, and it fell dead. Rocky didn’t need another reminder of the stakes, and he waded forward in the Seraphin sword forms, keeping his body compact and his movements precise and deadly.

  The choice to move himself to the lead turned out to be a prodigious one as his blade carved a space around him that forced enemies to bunch together and impede each other as they tried to circle him. Sela and his clone both hugged a body’s width from the wall and struck out at the creatures that flowed off the side of his attacks. The hall was only about ten feet across, and his blade easily reached out three to four feet on each side of himself. This left his two assistants only a one-to-two-foot zone they had to cover; the rest of their energy was spent peeling the extras off of his edges.

  As they moved, Joe pumped out a laser bolt at the occasional creature, and Smith would fire some sort of spectral bolt, a new skill, that carried through multiple bodies, killing them and leaving behind a green circle on their skin. The circle would slowly grow moss as Rocky waded by the corpses.

  Within moments, Rocky was feeling his legs burn from keeping them bent and fluid. His arms were covered in the Zombies’ blood, which was mixing with the few cuts and scrapes that got through his sword forms. Each member was stepping over and, in some cases, on to dead Zombies as they advanced. Rocky tried to glance around to get an idea of how far they had moved forward but felt sharpened fingernails scrape his armor for his distraction. He pumped his blade with two charges of Dark Blade and sent it flying down the hall in front of him, turning the advancing creatures into a bloody, blended liquid. Then they dispatched the few who had been lucky enough to avoid the powerful attack.

  As soon as he cleaved the last one from shoulder to pelvis, he felt his entire body go heavy, and his breathing came fast and shallow. Sela, in her cat form, also had her head down and was panting heavily. Even his clone was leaning against the wall looking tired. Rocky forced himself upright and spoke between gasps, “This…. is… going… to take a… while!”

  Zippo, who hadn’t done anything yet but provide light, asked the obvious, “You sure you can handle this?” In the distance, more Zombies began hobbling into the light of Zippo’s hovering Fireball.

  Rocky groaned at the sight and checked his Ether and health pools. He had cast a few Dark Mends and the one Dark Blade spell, which left him with one hundred fifty Ether and full health. As the enemies continued to close the gap that his Dark Blade had opened, he finally caught his breath enough to talk normally, “Think you can give us a bit more breathing time Zippo?” he asked as he pointed at the advancing undead.

  Zippo smiled and began enlarging his hovering Fireball. Once it was five feet in diameter, he stepped to the front and shot his hands out in front of him. The shadows shifted as the light source began careening away from the group, and the moment it struck the leading edge of the wall of undead flesh, a massive whoosh sounded as much of the air was sucked into the conflagration. It had the desired effect, however, and the moment it hit, Zippo began summoning a new light source to hover above his hand. Rocky kept catching his breath and did a quick inner search for any infected Ether in his system. He found a few and used the smallest amount of his own Ether that he could to dump the infection using Ether-Cleanse. This, unfortunately, took forty more of his dwindling pool, but luckily, the flames still burned in front of them.

  Rocky noticed that Zippo held one hand still pointed at the fire and realized he was probably the reason it was still burning and keeping the enemy back. “How much longer can you hold it?” he asked once he noticed.

  A bead of sweat fell from the kid’s forehead, and he sheepishly responded, “Not much longer if you want me to keep my Ether above half. Maybe another twenty seconds.”

  Rocky nodded at him and then turned to appraise the group again. Everyone was breathing normally again, which was good, and his own Ether Pool was climbing back up to the one hundred thirty point mark. If they repeated this pattern, they should be able to–

  The fires died out suddenly, and Rocky looked to Zippo, who had gone pale.

  Not the kid’s doing then…

  Three Necromancers stepped out from the horde of undead where had been standing still behind the fire. Each one began gathering shadows to them, and Rocky leaped into action, having seen the destructive power of their shadow bolts in action. As he closed, he knew he wasn’t going to close the distance in time, but he pushed his legs as hard as he could over the sticky, bloody tiles of the hallway. When he was ten feet away, they all shoved their hands into the ground, sending a pulse of shadow through the walls, ceiling, and floor. Rocky closed the last three steps and cut them in half. Not sure what they had done, he backed away as the horde began slowly plodding forward again.

  Zippo gasped, “The corpses are melting again!” Rocky looked down to find that the blood, innards, and skin his Dark Blade had rendered from the closely packed undead was indeed beginning to melt into pools then flow into spheres before finally coalescing together into the forming shapes of Abominations.

  As he backpedaled towards the group, he looked back and saw the thousand plus meters they had traversed was pockmarked by a repeating scene, and he swore at himself for not realizing the trap. The only bodies that didn’t join the grisly flesh bubbles were the ones that had burnt.

  Well, you have certainly stepped in it this time!

  As the first Abomination formed up, he used Analyze.
<
br />   Abomination

  Level 20

  Apprentice – Necromancer’s Pet Horror

  Health Points 490/490

  Zippo shouted, “They’re lower levels than the ones we faced above ground!” Simultaneously with Zippo’s revelation, Rocky swung his sword at a still-forming blob, and it passed right through it, trailing liquid skin and muscle. Then the blood and viscera on his body joined the mass as it sloughed off of him, then his sword, and rejoined the forming Abomination. Rocky tilted his head and considered; it would seem that they had to form before he could damage them with a melee weapon. Another quick glance back counted more than twenty behind them, and with the five in front aided by the massing Zombies behind, they were in for some anvil and hammer treatment.

  Rocky thought desperately as he stepped back into formation in front. For a quick stop-gap measure, he turned to Sela. “You and the clone are going to have to hold this side. I am moving to the back!”

  Smith chimed in, “For each one we kill, I can raise a spirit of the creature to fight on our side to a maximum of two. They weren’t extremely effective against the Journeyman level ones on the surface, but that was because the spirits are maxed to my level. I think they might be more helpful here…”

  Smith had faded off, clearly indicating that he was only guessing and praying for what he surmised to be true. Rocky nodded to him as he squeezed by. “When I kill one, give it a try! Let’s not count on it until we see it in action.”

  A moment later, twenty-five bellows of Abominations sounded, reverberating off the walls and making him wince as he stood staring down the nearest creature that began charging from eight feet away. This one and a few others had two hooks for hands, while others had the three skeletal claws. There seemed to be three unique variations of Abominations, in fact, and that made Rocky assume that the shapes depended on the Necromancer.

  A massive hook swung a clumsy attack at the shadows that he was enveloped in. He didn’t even bother ducking, seeing that the bone hook would miss him high. Instead, he pivoted on his foot and stepped forward using his body to brace the sword as it cut through the thing’s stomach. As it howled, he turned the blade and stepped again, striking in the opposite direction and feeling his blade click as it bounced off the creature’s spine.

  He had almost cut the thing in half with two strikes, but the descending second bone hook told him it didn’t mean the creature was dead or even dying. To avoid the pulverizing blow, he let his momentum carry him into a front roll towards the wall and came out of the somersault with a leap at the structure. Planting both feet on the wall’s tiles, he bunched his legs and sprang back at the creature just as its hook crashed into the floor. Rocky took a vertical axe-chopping swing himself and cut the creature's skull in two. Its body went limp, and it fell to the floor. Instantly, smoky, white vapors began forming above its body as Smith’s spirit pet started to form. Rocky pointed at the corpse. “Can you burn each corpse while being controlled about it?” he shouted a bit too harshly, hoping Zippo wouldn’t take offense.

  Zippo nodded weakly before realizing that Rocky couldn’t see that gesture, so he added, “Yes, Rock. I got this.” As soon as the spirit was fully formed, the corpse lit up and began slowly burning.

  In the other direction, Rocky’s Shadow Clone blinked out of sight as the first creature struck at him. A half breath later, his Shadow Clone was on the Abomination, backstabbing its daggers into the base of the thing’s skull. Sela, seeing the distracted opening, slammed her horse-size bulk into the side of the creature while hunching low at the last second. The creature fell, and the Shadow Clone’s repeated stabbing finally made the body go limp. Again, a spirit began rising from the fallen Abomination as Smith summoned his second and final spelled pet.

  Rocky had continued wading forward to engage the second grotesque creature that had formed in the hallway they had painstakingly traversed. As laser bolts struck and staggered the charging beast, Rocky slid on his knees, leaving his sword out beside him and in line with the creature’s stubby legs. His sword failed to sever the limb entirely, but the momentum of its charge and his strength broke the short femur, which caused it to perform an unintentional, headfirst baseball slide as it skidded to a stop in front of the spirit Abomination. Two hooks came down on the creature’s skull in unison, and the struggle for another of the undead amalgamations ended. Both of the newly dead corpses lit up, and the fight continued.

  Three hours, fourteen minutes, and a handful of seconds remained by the time they had managed to finally fight free and have a moment’s respite. The ones in front had died rather quickly with the three melee combatants working together.

  Now though, Rocky felt tears running down his blood-stained face as he stood over a nearly cut in half Joe. In the middle of the fight, Rocky had been attacked by three Abominations in unison—one from behind that he had left for Smith’s spirits and two that he had been holding back with hit and run maneuver tactics utilizing his speed. A scream from Smith had announced the start of the trouble, as a load of bricks had tumbled from the ceiling right on top of him.

  Both of his spirits had rushed to his aid and began clearing the rubble, which admittedly probably saved his life when combined with the Health Potion his freed arms had allowed him to drink. Unfortunately, it had nearly cost Rocky his and had definitely created the disaster for Joe.

  Currently, Rocky was regretting his choice of tactics, but the whole reason he had chosen to whittle down their health was that they had been extremely effective roadblocks against their remaining brethren. Whenever the spirit finished off one, he would let it pull one of the two injured meat shields to itself and finish it off. It had worked in clearing over ten of the creatures, but in the freak accident that followed, the tactic had shown its weak point—Smith.

  In that instance, he had tried to react in time by sending a Dark Blade at the two he had been holding at bay, hoping to destroy them and the five or so bunched closely behind them with his nearly depleted Ether. Unfortunately, a single charge of the spell only pushed the creatures back and held them at bay while the final one’s hook entered the Dark Cloak and careened towards his stomach. He felt his Dark Cloak shift the strike slightly, but even if it didn’t instantly kill him, it would injure him severely enough that surrounded by three enemies, as he was, he would inevitably die.

  In that moment, when death stared him in the face, Rocky had only hoped that the group would still manage to dislodge Apep’s hold on the Territory, but unbeknownst to Rocky, Joe had a skill that he hadn’t told the group about.

  Suddenly, his view of his own impending death had changed, and he was watching the battle from about twenty feet further down the hallway from right beside Zippo and a recovering Smith. Extremely confused and with his nerves on high alert, he had started charging back before he had even thought about what had happened, charging towards the cloud of darkness that was slowly dissipating as a bloody hook of an Abomination exited the other side of it. He screamed and tried to cast Dark Mend on the body he knew must be in that swirling, dissipating cloud of smoke. It had rebounded and adhered to him instead, and he felt tears begin collecting in his eyes as he cut viciously through the Abomination that had done the deed.

  As soon as Smith had gotten control of himself enough, which had taken only a few seconds, he had sent both of the spirits to hold off the Zombie horde relieving Sela and Rocky’s clone to rush back to his current fight. As the smoke finally dissipated and his trusted friend came into view, eyes no longer reflecting the light he was used to seeing, he felt his rage stutter his heart and then consume his other emotions in cold strong hands. He drank an Ether Potion, noting the de-buff distantly for overuse, adding itself to his status ailments on his interface. Then his blade began sucking in what little light the tunnel had.

  A part of his mind stayed composed and screamed at the part of him now holding the reigns that he couldn’t expend another Dark Blade strike at the creatures. They had already proven that the
ones struck would die, but their bones would act as a strong shield for the ones behind them. All another strike would do would be to bottom out his Ether pool again.

  Surprisingly, he felt the angry, competitive part of himself acknowledge that sane part and begin stepping forward in the Seraphin blade forms. He had used the Dark Blade skill as a close-range melee attack before—one time against a troll, other times more recently against strong enemies and so blinked as he saw his instinctual competitive side hold the skill to do so again. His brain screamed at his anger, telling it to stop acting stupid and retract the spell to return the Ether back to his pool. In the past, each strike against his opponent, he still released the skill held in the blade.

  His first strike felt like a knife through butter as the shadows on the sword formed an edge that weighed nothing and cleaved the two Abominations in half. Rocky blinked, and his ‘intelligent’ side of his brain went catatonic.

  By the time Sela and his clone arrived, he had dispatched five more of the creatures, Zippo’s flames had already begun licking up their bodies, and as a group they easily waded through the remaining four that were at their rear.

  Once the coast was clear, he had made his way back on leaden feet and was now standing over a dead Joe.

  In front of them, Smith’s summoned creatures easily held the horde of lesser undead at bay, which allowed the four living members of the party to gather over their fallen member. Sela growled deeply, which forced the glance at the clock, which in turn made Rocky snarl. He turned to Zippo and stuttered out with deep emotional turmoil, “Burn the corpse. We have to keep going.”

  Joe had just saved his life, and all he could do for him was turn away and ensure that these minions of Apep didn’t use his corpse. He growled as he stalked towards the two massive Abomination spirits that held back the Zombie horde. That wasn’t true; all he could do was save the damn Territory and all the people in it!