From what I’d gathered, she’d only been with him for a few days. He’d “borrowed” her while Anatoly procured him a new consumable. Only a few days. What the hell could that man have done, what possible horrors could someone impose that were worse than what SmashSouth did?
I shuddered. I couldn’t even begin to fathom what it could be.
Long ago I’d learned that when someone was afraid, you needed to listen to them. It didn’t matter if their fear was real or imagined. If they perceived something as a threat, then the reality was irrelevant. The most predictable of people behaved in wildly nonsensical or erratic ways when they were afraid. Only in understanding that fear could one begin to understand how they might act.
“Grief is a kind of fear,” Dr. Metcalf had said to us after the accident. Mary never bought into that, but I always did. Anger. Anger was a type of fear also. I believed that with all of my heart. It was only when I could alleviate the fear in Mary would she even allow the idea of Ruth moving back in with us. It was only in alleviating the fear within myself could I think of my daughter and not have anything but hate within me.
This is too much. This is too much.
“He won’t know we’re there,” I said. “If by some odd chance this guy is logged into the game, he’ll be in his base. He’ll be inside of his kaiju. We’ll sneak right past. Do you remember what time of day he was usually logged in?”
Clara looked at me, then. She really looked at me for the first time in days. “He was usually only around at night time in the game. His nighttime. He was from the Toronto area, and the sunsets are synced up to the Seattle area. It’s two or three hours ahead, I think.”
I nodded. “Okay, so we’ll try to get past Orthrus around noon. So an extra layer of protection. Okay?”
She visibly relaxed at the suggestion.
“Okay,” she said. “We sneak past Orthrus, get to the groundlings, and we’ll get our respawn sorted out.” She looked at me, her wide eyes open, betraying a wild kind of fear, that of a cornered animal. This is her, I thought. This is the real Clara, laid bare, open and exposed.
“He can’t find us. He can’t find me. Not again.”
“He won’t,” I said. “I promise.”
Chapter 19
We left the safety of Charnel about a half-hour before sunrise. We waited until the gargoyle attack, and the moment it was put down, we cautiously set forth, hurrying our way to the forest as the purple and orange light of a new day filtered through the smoke and clouds.
Renault had promised that the most dangerous denizens of the forest—the wendigo monsters—only came out at night. There was plenty to fear, even in this place, but with Clara’s ability to move silently and to pacify the wildlife, we were relatively safe. It wasn’t nearly as deadly as the abandoned city, he added. We just needed to be wary of the demon invaders, who could show up anywhere at any time.
Also, another kaiju had appeared out of nowhere during the night, hovering on the far edge of the forest, near where we’d encountered the night thieves, the parasites who took babies as their shells. This was on the south side facing the rift, about eight kilometers away. We would make our way through the center of the forest, taking the same path we had earlier, not getting too close to Medina and the army parked just outside.
This kaiju was called Bubilas. Clara couldn’t remember what race was associated with this one, and the map gave precious little details. This far away, we couldn’t even get a take on its size. Just that it moved fast, faster than most of the others. I hoped we didn’t get to find out.
“In the early days of the season, the sky outside isn’t nearly as smoky,” Clara said as we walked. “If you’re high enough, you can look out in any direction and see two or three kaiju roaming around. Now you can’t see them unless you’re right on top of them. The sound doesn’t travel as well, either.”
“At least I have my map now,” I said. We pushed our way into the forest, the same place we’d been ambushed by the wendigo. Banksy slithered between us, a much larger presence than when we’d first arrived. He’d lost some of the eagerness he’d had when he’d first come out, but he was more voracious than ever. The small bugs and rats he’d devoured on our way in weren’t going to cut it anymore. We would have to find and kill creatures whether we wanted to or not. Hopefully there were mid-level creatures about we could handle without attracting the attention of anything too large.
It only took about five minutes for us to come across the first hostile creature. A dog-sized, wolverine thing appeared on the trail about twenty paces ahead. The brown and tan beast bristled with coarse hair. It seemed solid, nothing but muscle and teeth. It had been devouring something small and furry with a manic ferocity, shaking, tearing, and digging at the corpse all while making angry grunting noises. In a matter of seconds, the beast’s prey went from something vaguely resembling a small rabbit to nothing but a lump of red-soaked fur.
The thing looked up at our approach and growled, blood and spittle cascading off its six-inch fangs.
The indicator over its head blinked yellow, signifying it as a creature up to five levels higher than myself.
I took a knee, pulled my rifle and aimed. Next to me, Banksy tensed. Clara took a position on the other side of the hook slayer. The wolverine hissed and growled at us, clawing the ground.
“Don’t you have that Friend skill?” I asked, whispering.
“I do,” Clara said. “But it’s only level 1. This guy looks a little too angry for it to work on him.”
I sighed. “Okay, Banksy,” I whispered. “Just like we talked about. Clara and I will hit it with our guns. If it charges, stand your ground while we pour fire into it. If it runs, we’ll each fire one more time, and you take it down. Got it?”
If Banksy had eyes, I could tell he’d be rolling them. “We have discussed this already, father. Shoot it already.”
The creature took a tentative step toward us. Its growling intensified. It was going to charge at any moment.
“Okay,” I whispered. “On three, two, one.”
Thwump. My bolt traveled noticeably faster than Clara’s, hitting and spinning the creature about ten feet back. It yelped like a dog. Clara’s bolt went high. Her blaster fired round, fist-sized balls of plasma that sizzled when they hit.
The monster shook its head, standing up slowly. I shot it again, right in the head. It flipped onto its back. A second bolt from Clara’s gun hit it square in the chest. It squeaked again, then stopped moving. I felt the rush of soul power. Banksy was on it, moving even faster than I realized he could go, shaking the creature while devouring it.
My experience went up a small but satisfying amount.
I stood, looking at Clara. “That was easy.”
Another wolverine creature emerged out of the woods. It appeared from the brush, a mere three meters from where Banksy crunched his prey. Its red dot appeared on the map, astonishingly close.
Oh shit.
This one was the size of a horse, easily five times bigger than the one we’d just killed. It roared in anger. A blinking red indicator pulsed over its head.
“So there’s his mom,” Clara said. She raised her blaster.
We wouldn’t be able to run. I took a knee and started pouring fire into its head.
“Banksy,” I cried as I fired. “Watch out!”
The monster slashed at Banksy, who twisted out of the way.
Clara’s gun sounded like the crack of a thick branch when it fired. Crack. Crack crack. The blue and white balls of energy exploded off the monster. It roared in pain. Both of our weapons were hurting it, hurting it bad, but not enough for it to stop its attack on Banksy.
Banksy twisted away again, this time skirting under the creature’s legs. A red light pulsed in the right corner of my vision as the wolverine scored a glancing slash across Banksy’s flank.
Banksy has low health pulsed in my notifications.
Shit. Just from one hit?
The worm twisted his
way up the howling monster’s thick leg, lightning quick. And then the hook slayer was wrapped around the monster. Banksy pulsed.
Banksy has used Unsteady.
Banksy pulsed again.
Banksy has used Disorient.
The wolverine fell over onto its side, screaming while Banksy constricted. The worm’s jaws clamped onto the thing’s neck, tearing viciously, ripping back and forth. The intertwined monsters rolled through the underbrush.
I no longer had a safe shot. I rushed forward, slinging my rifle. I cast Scalpel, but I paused about ten feet away, skidding to a stop. The wolverine’s forward legs continued to scrabble as it tried to get to Banksy. One more hit, and my pet would be dead. But it was a rolling, spinning tornado of claws and teeth, and I couldn’t get close. This is a bad idea.
A yellow lance of light pulsed down from the sky. The light forked, turning into a double-prong as it screamed directly into the eyes of the wolverine.
Its head exploded, popping like a tomato hit with a grenade launcher.
I staggered with the hit of soul power. Level notifications scrolled by.
I looked at Clara, who had fallen to her knees. She pulled at her pack, grasping for one of her candies. She looked almost dead. She glowed as she healed herself. She fell onto her back, panting.
“What the hell was that?” I asked.
“It was my Holy Flare spell,” she said, still gasping. “It brings my health and magic down to 1%, but it does massive damage. I didn’t know it was going to hurt to cast. That was worse than childbirth. I wasn’t expecting that. Holy crap.”
“I went up two levels,” I said. “Banksy went up one.”
“I went up two also,” she said.
All three of us were now level 13. I put my two attribute points into strength, bringing it to 15.
Banksy emerged from the gore of the wolverine mother. The familiar moved slowly, painfully.
“Father, I need healing.”
“Banksy, come here,” Clara said, pulling herself up. She put her hand against the hook slayer. He glowed for a moment.
She grinned. “He’s level 13, which means he’s now a mount. Fae can cure mounts. Actually, it might be because of my class.”
“What is your class?” I asked after I realized I had no idea what it was. The class system in this game was weak and only seemed to matter in the very beginning. It was odd since it was so important in other games. My class as an artisan had given me a couple attribute points, but that was it.
“I’m a stable hand,” she said.
I nodded. It made sense. It also explained why my worm had taken to her right away. Banksy had gotten a little longer and thicker upon level-up, but not significantly so. I could attach a cart or saddle to him now once we found one of those mount upgrade centers. I doubted we’d find one of those in the underground village of Kinnegad.
The creature dropped a mouthful of teeth. Between Clara and myself, we now had about 325 teeth. I suspected that wasn’t very much.
We moved more cautiously after that. My promise to Clara that we’d only pass by the kaiju around noon meant we’d have to move rapidly. Despite my efforts, it was now looking like it’d be mid-afternoon by the time we emerged on the other side of the forest and trekked our way through the field toward the entrance to Kinnegad.
Banksy continued to snatch up small mammals. He now left a deep tread in the dirt as we passed, something he hadn’t done before.
Clara’s Friend skill did seem to work on medium-sized creatures. A foxlike animal, colored a deep blue jumped out onto the path once, growling. But then it put its ears against its head and slinked away. It had a green difficulty meter over its head anyway. Banksy wanted to run it down, but I told him to hold back for now.
I guessed it was around two o’clock when we emerged out of the forest.
Entering Bibic Outskirts.
The fallen town of Bibic lay just west of the edge of the forest. It was a burned-out copse of trees with a few smoldering towers. Unlike Charnel, there was no activity. It had a red border on my map.
In the middle of the field, less than a kilometer away, Guardian Orthrus slept peacefully.
Unlike the grasslands surrounding the rift, the area here was mostly flat. The sky was overcast, and smoke gave everything a dirty haze. A slight breeze whipped across the clearing, and the world smelled of a distant garbage fire burning out of control.
Despite the haze, the giant, black guardian was clearly visible, a mountain unto itself, an electric presence.
Clara tensed.
“He’s too close,” she hissed. “We have to go around.”
There was no going around, not really. If we skirted the forest too far north, we’d run into the army surrounding Medina. Too far south, we’d run into the village of the baby-stealing night thieves, which now had a kaiju of their own hanging about.
“We can’t,” I said. “We can go a little north, but not too much.”
“Then we have to wait here for him to move away.”
“If we wait any longer, we’ll have to spend the night in the forest again.”
“I don’t care,” said Clara.
“No. He’s asleep. And do the kaiju even care if we walk near them anyway? I thought they only attacked demons. Cast your Cone of Silence, and we’ll hurry past. We’ll be past him in five minutes. He’s still a good ways away, and neither of the heads are facing us.”
I examined the two-headed, wolf kaiju. He was huge, about the same size of Bast, maybe even a little larger. Earlier, I had compared Bast to the size of an aircraft carrier. That was even more evident here. The kaiju in this game were much bigger than even the ones in the Godzilla movies and games. The wolf slept longwise, two legs splayed forward, two back. Where the lion-like Bast gave the impression of brute strength, Orthrus was sleek and fast, almost cunning in appearance. From this angle, we could only see the side of his left head. It was wolfish, with an incisor the length of three people jutting up like a stalagmite from the mouth. His long, shaggy tail curled into the air and back onto his flank like the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis. A flock of birds flew through the curved tail as I watched.
The two-headed guardian breathed, up and down, up and down as he slept.
His long, black fur shone with a purple opalescence, waving in the breeze. The wolf’s coat looked slick, smooth, well-cared for.
Healthy.
This kaiju is not sick, I thought. The realization sent a chill through me. There is someone still here in the game, maintaining this kaiju.
I looked at Clara, who stood still as a board. I didn’t dare tell her my suspicion.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s the middle of the day. You said he was never around at this time. Let’s go.”
She nodded.
We moved a few hundred meters north and emerged from the forest’s edge onto the field. The grass here was much shorter than the knee-high grass on the other side of the woods.
“Stay close,” Clara whispered. “Banksy, you too.”
I felt a whoosh as Clara’s Cone of Silence enveloped us. The ground around us rippled.
All sound instantly cut out. I looked at Clara and tried to say something, but I couldn’t draw the words. Well this spell sucks. I can’t hear or say anything, either? I used a similar spell all the time in Dominion of Blades, and I could hear everything just fine. In that game it was like being inside of your own, hidden room.
I motioned forward, and we rushed through the field, keeping the kaiju’s back to us. Banksy snaked through the grass between us. His length was longer than the cone-shape of the spell. He was very quiet either way, so I prayed it wouldn’t be an issue.
About halfway through the field, Clara clutched onto my arm and pointed.
I swirled. It was there in the grass, not moving, staring directly at us.
My heart leaped. The beast was an antlered, pig-sized frog. It sat, its head about as tall as my waist. The antlers brought its height almost to my shoulde
rs, but taller than Clara. Like a pig, the thing was wide and solid, and I guessed it had to weigh at least 500 pounds. The jade-colored frog was covered in odd, tumor-like growths across his back and face. The tumors pulsated with something just under the skin. Each of the three toes on each foot was a gleaming, curved talon. The stag-like antlers appeared to be made of razor-sharp steel.
But most terrifying was the frog’s tag:
Familiar – Player Jenk (Offline)
Fuck.
Clara appeared to be screaming with terror.
“Come on,” I mouthed, pulling her forward. We’d be away in a matter of minutes.
The frog did not move from his spot in the grass. He sat there stoic, staring, scary as hell. Then, a moment later, he disappeared with a blink. He’d teleported away, an action even more terrifying than him just sitting there. Clara turned and bolted.
Damnit. I had to speed up to remain in the area of the spell’s effect, though I didn’t know if it really mattered anymore.
“It says he’s offline,” I called after her. I didn’t know if she had seen or cared about that part. My voice had returned, which meant I’d left the spell’s area.
Several minutes later we crested over a small hill, hitting the rocky outcroppings that indicated the outskirts of Kinnegad, I ventured a look back at Guardian Orthrus, who remained asleep in the distance.
I had a terrible feeling we were being watched.
Chapter 20
The grass gave way to low, rocky ground. This was the area that led to the western edge of the world map, a tall, impassible mountain range that was called the Spit. Boulders and crevices dotted the barren landscape. Just to the south of here was a desert area, and to the north was a lake, the area of the dagon water-breathers.
Creatures that appeared to be cat-sized crosses between armadillos and scorpions scattered as we approached. Most had green indicators over them, though some of the bigger ones were yellow. They did not approach or attack us thanks to Clara’s Friend skill. Banksy snatched a few up here and there, and they each gave a small amount of experience and soul power.
“Stop,” I called. Her silence spell had fizzled out a minute earlier, but she kept running. Jesus. She’s lost it. “Stop. It’s not safe here!”
Kaiju- Battlefield Surgeon Page 15
