by Deck Davis
“I’m gonna have some strong words and a quite frank discussion with that god damned doctor when I see him,” said Ash, and sank onto his back on the ground and let tiredness wash over him.
For somewhere deep in the forest came a chorus of howling. It could have been wolves, mountain lions, or something a hell of a lot worse, but he didn’t want to find out.
“I need to Life Drain this bastard, and then we’re out of here. No point sticking around now we’ve rescued Rebel Without a Cause.”
He stood over the rubigne’s corpse. It’s brown scab-like skin had almost completely melted away to reveal its fleshy insides. It looked like a man-sized slug that had been scooped out of its shell. The smell of it made him feel sick, and he found it extremely distasteful that he was going to have this…thing’s…life force inside him.
Still, what choice did he have? He was down to the bare minimum of HP, enough for a few Ignis flames and nothing more.
He began to form a Life Drain spell, when he stopped.
Hang on. This was exactly the wrong fucking thing to do.
“FF,” he said. “This thing grew stronger the more we hurt it, and it died when I healed it. Everything about this god damn monster is opposite. If I drain life from it…will it hurt me?”
I see your intelligence points have been put to good use. You know have three brains cells instead of one.
“We better go, guys. As soon as we get back to the ranch, I need to work out a way of topping up my HP without murdering something first. Either that, or find something to kill and drain.”
“You can keep your life-draining ass away from my cows,” said Tony.
The chorus of howls grew louder. They sounded far away, but they were getting closer.
“Let’s go,” said Ash.
Jake and Ellie walked back away from the tree. Suddenly, Jake darted over to a thorn bush thirty meters to his left.
“What the hell is that?” the teen said.
He reached into the bush, and strained to pick something up. He grunted as he scratched himself on a thorn. He reached further in, before taking hold of something and pulling it out. When he showed what he found to the group, Ash felt his chest freeze.
It was a glowing red orb the size of a football. Red light pulsated across it.
“Guy, look what I-”
Jake didn’t get chance to finish the sentence. Red light left the orb and drifted into his mouth, moving in snake-like zigs zags and gathering over his tongue. Red lines, vein like and pulsating, spread across his skin. His eyes rolled back white, and he collapsed to the ground. The red light of the orb unravelled like a ball of yarn, creeping into Jake through every open orifice until it disappeared completely. Jake lay still on the forest ground.
“He’s been violated by a fucking orb!” said Ash.
Ellie ran over to him. She took his head in her arms and tried to shake him awake.
“Come on, damn it! Come on,” she said. Tears formed in her eyes, and Ash almost couldn’t watch.
They heard more howls. They were even closer now, and it sounded like there were a dozen of them.
“Grab the kid and let’s go,” said Tony, pointing his rifle at the forest around him. “If we stay any longer we’re gonna get banged by forest wolves.”
Chapter Eighteen
A Dozen Burning Gimps
By the time they got back into town the sun had fallen and the sky was the murky dark blue of dusk. Ash felt his arms and legs ache and his eyelids start to drop. They parked the vehicle in the centre of town. Ellie and Tony carried Jake out of the backseat.
“Thanks for your help,” said Ellie.
Ash couldn’t help but notice that she’d directed this at Tony, but he guessed that helping her find Jake didn’t really cover what he’d done to her.
“I hope he’s okay,” said Ash.
He had to admit that the kid didn’t look good; his face was pale, and even though he was unconscious, he thrashed around every so often as if he was having a fit. They were going to have to do something about that, since Ash’s Transfusion didn’t seem to have any effect when he’d tried it.
In a grand show of patience, said FF, I held back on your stats while you ran like chickens from whatever was in the woods. Can I tell you now?
“Sure,” said Ash.
Transfusion lvl 2 increased to 40%
Level up to Level 11
-HP 740
He was well overdue a grinding session if he wanted to get tier 3 anytime soon. Maybe when they got to Tony’s ranch he’d go hunting. His Ignis skill was maxed, but there was still plenty he could do. He could cast Durus to form blood armor and then let something beat the crap out of him for a while to level it up, then kill the enemy and cast Life Drain. Given a week with nothing to do but grind, he could make this class great.
“What do we do about the kid?” asked Tony.
“I need to get him to a hospital,” said Ellie. The hard-assed sheriff was gone, replaced by a woman whose only concern was for her son.
“Do you know anything about this, FF?” asked Ash.
“Who the hell’s FF?” asked Ellie.
“Sorry,” said Ash. “With everything going down, I was behaving like an ass. I should have explained.”
“Come here, hon, and I’ll fill you in,” said Tony, and gently put his arm around the sheriff.
“FF, do you have any idea what’s happening to Jake?”
The red orb is infecting him, said FF. It’s carving up his mind like chicken. It’s a testament to how strong he is that it hasn’t claimed him already. Remember how quickly your blue orb got you?
“It was pretty fast. What can we do?”
You need to get him to a mage, one with experience in cerebral spells.
“Great. Let me go grab the fucking phone directory.”
Chad scratched his ears. “Listen, I’m kinda sat here on my ass. I’ll check the pharmacy for painkillers and stuff,” he said.
“I think the soldiers cleaned it out. Hang on,” said Ash. “What about the potions guy? The alchemist? Maybe he’ll have something.”
Worth a try, Einstein.
“Something for what?”
Damn. He had to try and remember that nobody else could hear FF. He explained to the others what FF had told him about Jake and the orb. Ellie, to give her credit, took the news as well as he’d expected, by walking over to her four by four and smashing the passenger door window with the butt of her gun.
“First priority is the lad, obviously. But we may as well stock up while we’re here,” said Tony, his voice rough. “Pasture’s been raided once, and it’ll be raided again. In a few days when more people realise how serious this is, they’ll start to lose their shit. We don’t want to have to come here again and get caught in the violence and looting.”
“Agreed. Let’s get moving,” said Ash.
As they walked through town they found that it had changed beyond recognition. Red Rabbit’s, a hellhole whiskey joint, had changed into a ye olde-style tavern. Laughter and drunken shouting drifted from it, and as they passed, Ash saw sword-brandishing warriors clinking glasses of ale together. Half-naked whores danced around the tables and tried to tempt the warrior men and women into taking them upstairs to a room.
They headed toward the alchemists’ potion shop. On the way there, two axe-wielding barbarians stopped them in the middle of the street. They were half-naked, and had muscled so tight it looked like they’d rubbed themselves in oil before leaving the house.
“Something you need?” asked Ash. “I’m not oiling your backs for you.”
“The girl,” said one, nodding at Ellie. “How much for us to have her for a while?”
“Fifty dollars,” said Ash.
Ellie elbowed him.
When Chad politely explained that the woman wasn’t their property and they couldn’t just ‘hand her over’, the barbarians grew balls. Bellowing war cries, they charged at the group with their weapons aloft.
&
nbsp; Two barbarians wouldn’t have been a big deal, but Ash was starting to learn that Rapto didn’t like even odds. The barbarians were soon joined by ten more brigands, evidently part of the same group. They were dressed in black leathers with chains hanging from them, making them look like gimps caught in the middle of a night of debauchery.
Not wanting to mess around, Ash had Chad tip over a barrel of petrol. It had worked with Beele, he reasoned, and anything that saved his HP was fine by him.
When the brigands were in the middle of it he cast Ignis, and the flames licked around their sexual leathers. Pretty soon, a dozen burning gimps ran screaming through the center of Pasture Downs.
With that, he had just 15 HP left. That was it; no more spells, no more screwing around. He needed to be careful.
Level 12 – 727
Blood Concentrate Level 1 – 10%
Blood Concentrate was a handy spell, since it took ten percent off the HP cost for his powers. Since it was passive, all Ash had to do was to use his other spells, and Concentrate would level up along with them. Pretty soon, he hoped he’d be able to cut his HP cost in half.
One by one the screaming gimps fell to the ground and died, their leather completely melted into their skin. They gave off a sour smell of fire. Ash Life Drained them, topping up his HP and getting a 20% bonus toward level 3.
He and Tony looted the gimps. Tony, the lucky son of a bitch, collected gold, while Ash found a trinket called the Necklace of Libido, a golden piece of jewelry that increased the wearer’s sexual prowess. Having no need of such a boost, he gave it to Chad.
“Here you go,” he said, passing him the necklace. “In case we run into any goblins you take a liking to.”
With Pasture Downs thankfully gimp-free once again, they headed to the alchemist. He was a mean old git with a belly almost too big for his belt to reign in, and he gouged them with ridiculously high prices.
Luckily, he had what they needed, and Tony and ash left his shop with three potions of mental fortitude. Administered every few hours, these would help Jake fight his red orb mental battle for a while. It wasn’t a long-term solution, but it was something.
Hours later, they all gathered on the edge of town near Ellie’s four by four. She rested against the bumper and rolled a cigarette with practiced fingers. “I need more tobacco,” she said.
“Now’s not the time to think about luxury,” said Tony. “Your vehicle will struggle to carry us all if we overload it. What’s the weight limit?”
“Around 1500 kilograms,” said Ellie.
Tony shook his head. “That doesn’t sound right. I think that’s the towing limit.”
“Jesus. I don’t give a shit. Just tell us what we need and we’ll get out of here.”
Tony sat up and looked at Ash.
“The salesman will tell us,” he said.
Ash felt under pressure. Ellie, Tony and Chad all stared at him and waited for him to speak. Was this some kind of test? Tony seemed to be on a quest to bring out Ash’s survival skills, and he saw himself as a mentor. In a stupid way, Ash liked it, and he didn’t want to disappoint him.
“Let’s see,” he said. “The basics first, I guess. The three-minute rule. We need as much water as we can get, so go check the grocery and see if the soldiers left any water bottles. Don’t just check the aisles, either. There will be a stock room at the back. If it’s locked, get a fire axe from the wall and just smash through the door.”
“Yes, sir!,” said Chad, and put his hand to his forehead in a comic salute.
“You just nominated yourself as the water boy, then,” said Ash, and glared at the recruit. “And while you’re at it, go to the outdoor clothing store. They might have a survival or camping gear section. If they’ve got any water filters, get as many as you can carry.”
They all went off and looted the few shops that weren’t from Rapto. Pretty soon they had all hauled their stuff to Ellie’s car and loaded it in the back. The four by four shouldered the weight well, but Ellie had to slam the boot twice to get it to close.
“You helped me find Jake,” she said, and put her hand on her son’s head. “So, you can use my wheels. I never thought I’d hear myself say this particular combination of words…but we need to find a mage. What’s the plan?”
“Town’s not going to be able to support us, and it’ll get dangerous here,” said Ash. “we need to get to Tony’s ranch and figure a way forward from there.”
He looked over at Tony and saw the man gave him an approving nod.
“I’ve got a few long-range radios,” said Tony. “Let’s see if any buggers are still listening.”
Chad leaned against the car. He had a small ukulele in his hands that he’d raided from a discount furniture store. According to him, the stringed instrument was essential survival kit. As he watched the recruit struggle to tune it, Ash wasn’t sure he agreed. Chad was never going to be the bard class, that was for sure.
“We need somewhere self-sufficient,” said Chad.
“What about your aunt and uncle? Aren’t you going back to them?”
“Sure, but I figure I’m safer with you guys. I just need to make sure they’re okay.”
“I have some land,” said Ellie
Tony spoke from the back of the 4x4. “But have you actually done anything with it?”
The sheriff shook her head. “No. But we could grow things on it, given time.”
“My ranch has crops planted already. They’ll be ready to eat sooner.”
Ash folded his arms. “Listen guys, let’s start thinking about growing carrots when we’re sure that a troll army isn’t going to turn up and break our necks with their cocks. We’ve got more immediate things to be worrying about.”
“Agreed,” said Tony. “Let’s hit the road.”
Chapter Nineteen
We’ve Got a Green-Skin
Tony’s ranch was twenty miles due east of Pasture Downs, out on the plains where people rarely travelled. It was a tight squeeze fitting five of them in Ellie’s four by four. Normally it would have been alright, but with Jake comatose, it complicated things. Ash volunteered to sit on the open-back of the vehicle with Jake. He put his coat under the teen’s head and kept a hand on his chest to make sure he didn’t move much when the vehicle lurched. It was hardly a sterling ambulance service, but he did his best.
Crouched down on the back of the vehicle, the wind slapped at his face and made his cheeks raw. He watched the landscape whizz by, and was surprised by how much it had changed.
He’d hoped that most of the Rapto-Earth meld had centered around Pasture Downs, but it seemed to be spreading. They drove through a landscape that had, until the day before Tony told them, been green with grassy fields. Now it was a desert of cracked earth that resembled the moon, and a dark mist seemed to gather an inch above the ground.
A thin patch of land surrounding Tony’s ranch was still green, suggesting that Rapto hadn’t crept up to Tony Fucking Shore’s property. The ranch had a ten-foot-high concrete wall surrounding it. Ash could see the roofs of a house and barn, with smoke drifting from the chimney and mixing with the ocean blue sky.
A sign at the beginning of Tony’s stone driveway proclaimed, ‘The Shore Ranch – Private Property, Keep Out or Get Shot.’
Stern warning aside, Ash got a good feeling about the place. His dad had a buddy out west who owned a ranch like this, and before he fell on hard times and had to sell it, he’d let Ash and his family stay there some weekends. Ranch life was peaceful. Or it was if you were just having a vacation there, he guessed. If you owned the ranch, it meant a hell of a lot of hard work.
Ellie drove forward, and soon a metal access control gate blocked their way. Tony got out of the vehicle, walked toward a wall, and pulled down a section of it to reveal a panel of numbers. It had looked just like the rest of the wall until now.
“How is this thing still working?” asked Ash.
“Generator, dumbass,” said Tony. “I had some spares for the ci
rcuitry, and it seems like they didn’t get ruined. Maybe because I kept ‘em in the basement. Walls are really thick down there.”
“Are you completely sure you don’t kidnap people, Tony?” asked Ash.
“Why do you think I brought you here?” said Tony, with a wink.
The metal door creaked open and Ellie drove through. They pulled up next to a chicken coop. Tony was the first out, plating his feet on the ground and taking a long deep breath, as if the air of his ranch nourished him. He was like a boat captain setting foot on dry land after spending a year at sea. The metal gate closed shut behind them.
