Heart of the Void: Sosaku Online - Book 2

by J. Arthur Klein

  As we boarded the chariot, I handed out some of the new meat skewers, and as we rode towards the conflict ahead it was with stomachs full of, and buffed by, some tenderly grilled crocodile meat.

  Soon enough the dust resolved into a large force of mixed Kchil surrounding a small, makeshift fortification on top of a small hill. The hilltop was enclosed with a deadly looking wall of gnarly, thorn-covered brambles, too thick for anyone except maybe Mika to squeeze through without being torn to bits.

  Several dozen skreel corpses littered the ground at the base of the thorny wall, giving testimony to its deadly efficiency.

  From time to time, I spotted an elf popping up above the wall, sending bolts of some sort of silvery white energy blasting into the enemy before ducking for cover from any ranged counter attacks the Kchil could muster.

  “Damn it,” Mika said. “This once I wish I was wrong.”

  I chuckled and tightened my grip on the reins. “Hold on, things are about to get bumpy.”

  With a flick of the reins the horses took off, turning towards enemy force. “Hope your cousins don’t think we’re enemies.” I said, sparing a glance back at Kjara who just winked at me.

  I plotted a course that should bring us in parallel to the main enemy lines, cackling maniacally and yelling “Let’s get some!” as we gained speed.

  We raced towards the back edge of the enemy line where the skreel were supplemented by a splattering of marcids and arothrok elites. Mika and Kjara started firing as soon as we got into range, their arrows and bolts sinking into the unguarded flesh of our scaley foes.

  By the time they turned to see where the missiles were coming from it was too late, and all that those perceptive enough to turn got for their efforts was the sight of my grinning, cackling face as I increased our speed into the red, activated Aura of the Underworld, and brought my chariot in line.

  My aim was on point, and we hit the enemy at maximum speed. The chariot lurched as the drag created by the wheel blades blending through ichthyoid flesh and bone robbed us of some speed.

  We left a literal cloud of fish salsa behind us as the blades chopped through the enemy’s ranks. I almost felt sorry for them. A glance backwards showed that Mika had been covered head to toe in fishy fluids, and I had to look away or risk laughing too hard to control the chariot.

  Several of the creatures attempted to move out of the way of the blades, crossing in front of the chariot to be trampled under the merciless hooves of the team. Those unfortunate fish folk had a small measure of vengeance though as they did manage to do some damage to the team, dropping their health bars by several percent and raising their panic meters by quite a bit.

  As we finished our first pass and I brought the chariot around, I slipped the reins into their cruise control position and cast Cure Wounds at the more injured of the two horses. It seemed that healing accuracy was impacted by the driver penalty as well, and the bolt of healing energy missed my target and splashed into the ground instead.

  Mika cursed from behind me and I turned to see a small group of arothrok gathering at the back at the enemy force, chittering madly at each other and gesturing our way.

  I glanced back at Kjara to check on her side of things and felt my current rush fade slightly as she gave me an unamused smile, wiping away a strand of skreel flesh that was dangling from her hair.

  She was covered from the waist up in Kchil blood, although nowhere near the Gallagher-front-row level that Mika had experienced. It wasn’t as funny on her.

  Wisely, I kept my mouth shut and turned back to my healing efforts. After another missed Cure Wounds, I decided to see just how far the game took the classification of the chariot as a weapon and gathered the reins and began channeling Soothing Touch.

  The magic gathered in my hands and then flowed easily through the reins and into the injured horses, closing up their wounds and bringing their panic back down to a minimum. Another piece of data for that bug report, I thought.

  Reducing speed, I brought us about and took stock of the situation.

  The enemy force was in the process of shifting into a boxlike formation with ranks of skreel facing outward in all directions. It wasn’t an ideal formation for us to deal with, but at least they didn’t have pikes.

  In the center of the formation were their elite, the arothrok officers, and judging by strings of bones and baubles dangling from one of them, a caster of some sort.

  As I considered our next move something whirred by my head, missing it by inches and flying towards Kjara. I whipped my head around and saw a strange creature hovering near her shoulder. It looked like a combination of a squirrel and a hummingbird, like a miniature, adorable, winged fluff ball.

  I triggered Analyze on the critter as it chittered into Kjara’s ear.

  *** Faeling Pteromyinae, Level 10 (Minion) ***

  *** HP: 100%, MP: 64% SP: 53% ***

  *** Conditions: None

  *** Active Spells/Abilities: Wildsight

  *** Strengths: Speed

  *** Weakness: Fragile

  *** Highest Statistics: Agility, Fortune

  Her eyes widened in shock and said, “It can talk… Oh, she can talk, sorry Kiki…”

  Mika looked over. “What?”

  “It’s a messenger from the elves on the hill.” She paused for a second and a wicked grin appeared on her face. “Kiki here allows her bonded, a druid named Cynnedwyn, to communicate through her, although not quite to the level of direct conversation.”

  I slowed the chariot to a crawl, watching closely as Kjara nodded to herself and then grinned. “The elven rangers propose an alliance. They will ready an attack on their side, and we prepare to hit the Kchil from our own at the same time.”

  Mika chuckled and started singing, “Give me back that filet-o-fish, give me that fish. Give me back that filet-o-fish. Give me that fish.”

  The tune was vaguely familiar, but I was stumped on this one. He looked up and said, “What? You don’t remember that old McDonald’s commercial?”

  When we both shook our heads and looked at him like he was crazy he scoffed. “Bah! Well, I was just commenting on the fish sandwich we’re about to make.”

  I shrugged and looked back to Kjara. “I’m game. What’s the signal?”

  Kjara chuckled. “Not quite sure what she means, but she says be ready when the brambles roll?”

  I shrugged and replied, “Sure. We’ll be ready.”

  Kjara scratched the creature under its chin and it flew off back towards the wall of brambles.

  I looked back at the hill a second time and saw that the skreel had once again moved towards the hilltop. The front ranks were chopping at the wooden wall with a smattering of makeshift axes.

  From within the living fort, spears thrust through the branches, those within seemingly immune to the thorns of the twisted wall. From above, arrows and the occasional bolt of light flashed down into the crowded Kchil, taking out a bloated marcid or arothrok warrior.

  “You guys ready?” I asked, ready to get back into the mix.

  A pair of affirmative, if not completely enthusiastic replies later and we wheeled around, ready to charge whenever the elves gave the signal.

  A minute or so later, there was a loud rumbling from the hilltop, and the wall of thorns began to writhe and crash over the front ranks of the skreel like a wave of pointy death, revealing a small force of elven spearmen who immediately rushed forward in an attack.

  Their initial onslaught took out dozens of Skreel and even a few of the more resilient marcids before their momentum ran out.

  Mika perked up. “I think that’s the signal.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said in agreement, and whipped the reins, ramping the speed up as quickly as the horses could carry us.

  I brought us in at an angle to take advantage of the creatures’ current preoccupation, aiming to crash through the rear edge of the enemy formation. The enemy leaders in the center shouted in their chittering tongue, trying to wring some semblance
of discipline from their minions, but failed.

  I let loose a battle cry and charged. The buzzing of the wheel blades as they cut through the air was music to my ears, and as we crashed into the enemy flanks, the arrows, bolts, and gore began to fly.

  Dozens of skreel and marcids fell beneath the horses and wheels of the chariot. Still more were cut apart by the wheel blades as I steered the chariot through their ranks.

  Kjara and Mika both stowed their missile weapons and began laying into the enemy with their blades. I set the team on course to drive through to the far side of the Kchil force and pulled out my Sunspear, using its longer length to deal with any enemies that tried to assault the horses.

  Suddenly one of the horses screamed out in pain and its health plummet as a marcid raked its claws along the beast’s flank.

  I paused my offense and cast a healing spell at the injured creature and actually hit. Unlike the previous time, the horse’s panic bar didn’t drop, and the team began fighting against my control, pulling towards the closest break in the enemy lines and taking us along for the ride.

  We broke through the side of the enemy formation leaving the dead and dying scattered in our wake as I tried to regain control of the team. Using the reining techniques that rank five had granted me started the process, and healing them the rest of the way dropped their panic down far enough to regain full control.

  All the while Kjara was picking off the remaining skreel that had somehow squeaked out from under our wheels with her bow.

  I wheeled us back around to see that the majority of the Kchil were dead, but so were far too many elven troops.

  The fallen elves had taken more than three times their number with them to the grave, and those still standing were holding their own.

  An older moon elven woman dressed in dark greens and brown was locked in some sort of arcane duel with the arothrok caster. Her face was tight with concentration as her silvery white magic clashed with the Kchil’s inky darkness.

  As we reached the battle, the elven warriors finished off the remaining arothrok elite but made no move to interfere with the caster’s duel, and as we got closer, I could see why.

  Traced on the ground in what looked like the blood of his fellow fishmen was a circle of intricate runes that gave me a headache as soon as I laid eyes up on them.

  *** Arothrok Void Priest uses Grip of the Void! ***

  The runes flared with a blackness reminiscent of the boss from Asah’s tomb, and the concentration on the elven druid’s face shattered as inky blackness crawled up her body and burrowed into her eyes, snuffing out her life force in an instant.

  The rune etched circle disappeared at the end of the fishman’s spell.

  Kjara must have seen it too as seconds later one of her arrows was standing out of the enemy’s flesh.

  Instead of a painful cry, the creature turned towards us and let out a warbling that must have been its laughter, which continued even as the remaining elves arrived and drove their spears into its body.

  Its health bar was completely empty but it didn’t fall. Instead, a wave of black energy exploded outwards, sending the elves flying and smashing into the chariot. The power of the hit took a good chunk out of all of our health bars, and the damage indicators for the chariot itself dropped from green to yellow on the side closest to the blast.

  *** Arothrok Void Priest uses Void Transformation! ***

  When the wave cleared, instead of an arothrok caster, standing in our midst was a massive lopholith covered in the same bones and fetishes that had formerly adorned the caster.

  In place of a glaive, the giant lobsterman wielded a massive maul capped in what looked like a shark’s head in its claws, which it brought down with extreme prejudice on the horses pulling the chariot as we attempted to pass.

  I heard the double snap of both horses’ backs breaking a second before I was catapulted through the air. The broken chariot flew over head and crashed down, narrowly missing a pair of fallen elves.

  I came down soon after, skidding along the ground to come to a rest near where Kjara and Mika were pulling themselves to their feet.

  *** Your advanced vehicle [Chariot] has been badly damaged. Repairs and a replacement team will be required before it can be used again. ***

  “No shit,” I muttered as I scrambled to my feet and looked back to where the elven survivors were slowly circling the massive beast.

  My health was in the red, so I grabbed the best healing potion from my belt and chugged it, sighing as the lingering pain from the wave of dark energy, and my ejection from the chariot, was washed away, bringing me up to seventy percent.

  Kjara and Mika quaffed potions as well while I used Analyze on our latest foe.

  *** Arothrok Void Shaman (Lopholith Form), Level 20 (Elite) - ***

  *** HP: 100%, MP: 0% SP: 43% ***

  *** Conditions: Void Transformation ***

  *** Active Spells/Abilities: Kiss of the Deep, ***

  *** Strengths: Armored Shell ***

  *** Weakness: Fire, Light ***

  *** Highest Statistics: Presence, Intelligence ***

  I groaned as I read through the results. “Level twenty elite.”

  Kjara just sighed and picked up her bow from where it had fallen nearby. “Get your shield and let’s get to work. Momma’s having surf and turf for dinner tonight.”

  Mika just looked at me quizzically. “She isn’t really going to eat that… is she?” he asked, which just made me laugh even more as I rushed to the remains of the chariot to retrieve my shield.

  …

  40

  I retrieved my shield from the ruined chariot and slid it onto my arm as we rushed towards the massive creature that was attempting to play whack-a-mole with the remaining elven soldiers. The elves dipped and dived and flipped their way over and past the creature’s lumbering swings. But while their agility was great at keeping them alive, their strength was insufficient to do more than inflict minor damage through the lopholith’s thick shell.

  Kjara let fly a continuous stream of arrows as she charged forward, not even pausing as she yelled out to her moon elven cousins, “Aim for its underside!”

  Instead of arrows, I was a machine gun of healing energy, Cure Wounds spells splashing over my party members and the elven soldiers to undo the lingering effects of the creature’s transformation.

  Mika vanished into stealth as we closed with the enemy, doing his ninja thing while I paused at the maximum range of my healing spell and started casting Summon Legionnaire.

  What felt like an eternity later, Amenhotep appeared out of the swirling vortex and looked around, immediately locking his glowing golden eyes onto the lopholith’s goth bedazzled form.

  “Let us end this vile creature,” he broadcast into my mind and charged.

  The look on the first of the elven soldier’s face was priceless as they spotted the tank rushing in to combat the enemy creature. That shock almost cost the elf his life, as the brief pause delayed him just long enough for the void shaman’s kick to make contact, sending the elf sprawling and an easy target for the massive maul that was even then coming around to deliver the final blow.

  But instead of tender elf flesh, the maul met Amenhotep’s spiritually reinforced shield. The mighty legionnaire was driven to his knees by the blow and lost a chunk of hit points as the force of the attack traveled through his body, but the elf would live to continue the fight.

  Amenhotep surged back to his feet and triggered his Shockwave skill, failing to stagger or stun the massive opponent but gaining its full attention and freeing the elves to work on the creature’s flanks.

  Kjara arrived a short time later, finishing her prayer to Anpu mid leap. Her blades burst into golden flame as she lashed them across the lopholith’s midsection, leaving streaks of golden light in the air and streams of dark blood flowing down the creature’s body.

  She kicked off the creature’s leg joint, deftly flipping over the backhand attack aimed her way and even
managed to claim two of the creature’s talon-like fingers with a sweeping blow of her imbued khopesh as she dodged the attack and landed safely on the ground outside of its reach.

  The elven soldiers, meanwhile, continued to harry the creature with hit-and-run attacks, their spears finding the joints and weaker points of the creature’s armor with precision that made me a bit jealous.

  I really wanted to pop my Aspect of Light ability and go to town on the creature, but with the ability bugged I didn’t want to handicap my healing spells, especially with the additional elves to contend with.

  Amenhotep was fully on the defensive, using his shield and khopesh together to ward off the creature’s attacks. Each blow of its massive maul was so powerful that he had to deflect instead of absorb the blows, else he would be in danger of being overwhelmed by the beast’s sheer strength.

  I was just thankful that the “void shaman” wasn’t slinging the same kind of magic around that had taken out the older woman, but that could be more due to its empty mana bar than any lack of ability.

  Kjara and the other elves were doing their best to take the thing apart, and as I readied my spear to join the fray, I spotted the telltale shimmer of Mika exiting stealth mode below the lopholith as he sank his daggers into the creature’s soft underbelly.

  The lopholith reared up with an ear-piercing shriek as its health plummeted by a smidge over twenty percent, leaving the lobsterman with just under fifty percent health remaining.

  Mika dove under the raised legs and rolled to a stop close by before ducking back into stealth mode once again.

  Taking advantage of its exposed tender bits, I activated Precision Strike and elongated my spear to its maximum size. A segment of softer chitin right below where its humanoid and crustacean bits merged started to glow, and I struck.

  My spear broke through the chitin with a crunch and slid a good foot into the beast’s flesh. A bleeding icon appeared next to the creature’s health bar and a flood of energy surged into me as my Combat Caster boon triggered on the critical hit.

  I shunted that extra power into a Sunstrike and sent it surging through my spear and into the lopholith’s soft insides.