by James Hunter
They were far too slow, or maybe I was just far too powerful at this point.
A lost cause either way.
While they struggled so fruitlessly to extract themselves, I tapped the most devastating AoE spell in my arsenal: Plague Burst. Pound for pound, with DPS over time factored in, Plague Burst actually did even more damage than Night Cyclone. 275% spell power on contact, plus all exposed combatants suffered additional disease damage for 5% of spell power per second for a solid minute. With my current Spell Strength at 211, that meant I dealt just over 1,200 points of raw damage over one minute. More than enough to lay most enemies out flat, plus, the cooldown time was half the length of Night Cyclone.
There were strings attached, though.
The biggest problem was Plague Burst didn’t discriminate between friends and foes, making it a wildly impractical skill in most party situations. But for a solo runner it was a peerless weapon, and right now it was just me, all by my lonesome.
My left hand soared through a complex series of gestures that I knew as instinctively as writing my own name: flick, twirl, snap, fingers splayed out, hand curling into a fist as raw power trickled into my palm. A nauseating yellow fog bled from the air, swirling around the Vogthar, who started clawing ferociously at their script-covered flesh. The gas burrowed into their lipless mouths and dug at matte-black eyes. The trapped Vogthar fought even harder against the dark tendrils of Umbra power rooting them in place, desperate to get away from the choking fog. They might as well have been trying to fly to the moon.
They were dead in seconds. Not a trace of life left by the time I was through.
Pulling my warhammer free once more, I turned and stalked toward the next room. A gong sounded somewhere deeper in the keep—a sharp klaxon that screamed its shrill warning to anyone inside of a mile.
Up ahead, a stream of elite Eloyte Knights tore around a corner, coming into view with their weapons drawn, sprinting toward the room I’d just left behind. It was nearly impossible to read the Vogthar, but for a split second, I could’ve sworn their inhuman faces registered something close to shock as they saw me stalking toward them. The Dread ability taking hold, maybe? By then, it was too late to do anything. I was in their midst before anyone could cry out a warning, dancing through their ranks like Death incarnate. My warhammer carved a bloody swath through the hallway, caving in heads like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. A violet glow—Shadow Forge—encased my body, granting extra Umbra damage to every attack.
I twirled and spun, lashing out with fists, elbows, and feet, using the razors running along the outside of my vambraces to slash throats.
My left hand flashed as I moved, working in tandem with my ever-moving warhammer.
I hurled bursts of Umbra Flame, charbroiling skin, and opened Shadow-Warp Portals with uncanny precision. An incoming dagger disappeared in a blink, reappearing just in time to hack into an exposed Vogthar face. It was hard to count in the heat and chaos of the battle, but at a guess there were at least a dozen. I could recall a time, not so long ago, when facing off against twelve Vogthar Knights in heavy plate armor would’ve been a terrifying prospect. Those days were long gone. These days, I was the World Boss handing out TPKs like candy on Halloween.
I reached the end of the hallway and glanced back over my shoulder, staring at all the bodies littering the floor in gory heaps.
The hallway ran on for ten feet before doglegging to the left, connecting to a short hallway that ended at an enormous circular room—no doubt one of the gatehouse turrets I’d seen from the air. Narrow windows, adorning the far side of the room, peeked out onto the battlefield unfolding along Idruz’s formidable walls, and rough-hewn rafters, thick as telephone poles, ran across the ceiling. Dangling from those rafters were loops of chain and lengths of weathered rope strung through a complicated series of pulleys and winches. A rough wooden platform, set into the floor, connected to one such winch—a makeshift service elevator, from the look of things, clearly meant to hoist siege equipment up from the ground floor.
The real prize, though, was an oversized chain wrapped around a thick wooden beam, which shot down and disappeared through a large hole in the floor. Although I wasn’t an engineer by trade, I’d been in enough keeps, castles, and fortresses to recognize a gate mechanism when I saw one. I’d found it. The gate room. Although the gatehouse served a number of different functions and had a wide array of rooms—everything from living quarters to an armory—this room was the real heart of the place.
Its true purpose.
From here, the Vogthar could raise and lower the iron portcullis and close the heavy stone doors, barring the way into Idruz proper.
We still needed to clear this place of the rest of its defenders, but we’d mostly come to take this room. Bad news was, this place was occupied...
Gatehouse Horror
THE ROOM WAS OCCUPIED, and not by any of the run-of-the-mill Vogthar we’d cut our way through so far. This was something new, something I’d never seen before, and for the first time since entering the gatehouse, a flash of worry wormed its way through my gut.
This thing was built like a silverback gorilla, but only if a gorilla were also the size of a full-grown elephant.
Matted purple fur covered its heavily muscled frame, swelling around its face like a lion’s mane. Black porcupine-like spikes—each one the length of a short sword—bristled from its back, while black iron plates covered its forearms and legs. More of the heavy plate armor covered its shoulders and ribs, presumably protecting its vitals. Its head was strangely small, at least in comparison to the rest of its bulky form, and strangely featureless. No nose or ears, just a crude slash for a mouth and a single red compound eye, no larger than a silver dollar, set in the middle of its inhuman face.
Jutting up from its shoulder blades was an extra pair of appendages that looked like the hooked forelimbs of a praying mantis—though these were riddled with a legion of glistening black barbs, which looked both sharp and poisonous. And, continuing with the poisonous insectoid motif, a swaying scorpion tail covered with more barbs protruded up from its hindquarters. That tail alone was as thick as my thigh and capped with a curved stinger two feet long and oozing black goop.
[Idruz Gatehouse Horror]
Appropriately named, at least, since this was easily one of the more horrific monsters I’d encounter since coming to V.G.O.
The Horror moved incredibly fast for a creature of its size, surging forward on all fours, making the stone floor tremble beneath me. With a roar, it let loose a wild haymaker, its fist like a battering ram ready and happy to cave in my chest. I dove, the tire-sized hand sailing right over me with a whoosh that rustled my hair in passing. Rolling back to my feet, I darted in, slamming my hammer into its plate-covered ribs, activating Savage Blow, Crush Armor, Black Caress, and Champion’s Strike in a cocktail of force that should’ve punched a hole in a M1A1 tank.
My warhammer landed with a metallic clang that reverberated up into my arms, rattling my teeth. The creature’s Health bar—which was enormous—flashed above its head, but as far as I could tell, my strike had done absolutely nothing. Zip. So that was great.
I backpedaled, putting some distance between me and the Horror. I lined up an Umbra Bolt, a ball of twisting violet light forming in my hand, then launched the spell at the creature’s head, hoping its tiny red eye was its point of vulnerability. The spell landed with a fizzle of angry light, biting through a thin sliver of the creature’s HP this time, but I simultaneously earned a fail notification:
<<<>>>
Umbra Bolt failed! Because of Idruz Gatehouse Horror’s Umbral Nature and its singular dedication to duty, it cannot be swayed or confused!
<<<>>>
This just got better and better. And what exactly did the message mean by its “Umbral Nature”? This thing didn’t look like a Void Terror.
Didn’t matter.
The point was, this thing was custom built to stop people like me from taking the ga
tehouse and letting our forces flow freely into the city. And it seemed shockingly proficient at its job.
The creature roared and charged, eating up the distance between us with frightening speed, lashing out with another fist. My back was already against the wall with little room to maneuver, so I conjured Dark Shield, my Spirit gauge dipping as the half dome of energy formed in front of me with a shimmer. The wrecking-ball fist connected, and much to my surprise, the thin layer of protection between us cracked on impact then shattered before my mind could fully comprehend what was happening. The fist sailed right on through, as though it’d just punched through wet paper towel.
Knuckles bigger than semi-truck lug nuts slammed into my chest with-bone breaking force. Literally.
<<<>>>
Debuffs Added
Punctured Lung: You have broken a rib and suffered a punctured lung; Stamina regeneration reduced by 15% for 5 minutes.
Stunning Blow: You have sustained a stunning blow! Attack damage -15%; Stamina regeneration reduced by 30%; movement speed reduced by 35%; duration, 1 minute.
<<<>>>
The ferocious punch slammed me back into the wall, head bouncing off the dark stone with a sharp crack.
If not for the Crown of the Benevolent protecting my oh-so-delicate skull, the hit probably would’ve killed me outright or, at the very least, knocked me unconscious. Which was as good as a deathblow in a fight like this. My Health dropped by over a third, plunging from 1,305 to just over 800 points—and my Dark Shield had absorbed a huge chunk of the damage before exploding. I slid down the wall and landed on my side with a groan, spots of white dancing in front of my eyes, air coming in short, painful gasps as the creature spun, driving its swaying scorpion tail toward me.
Panicked, I rolled right, the stinger smashing into the stone flooring I’d been occupying a moment before.
It stabbed again, and I rolled left, once more narrowly avoiding a stinger through the neck.
Still down, I thrust my free hand out and triggered a gout of Umbra Flame, angling the attack so I could drench the creature’s unprotected stomach with preternatural fire. The Horror howled in rage as purple-black flame licked across its fur-covered belly, but it didn’t seem to hurt the creature. Not that I could tell, anyway. Its HP remained totally unaffected. But the attack did serve to make the Horror very, very angry. It counterattacked with its tail for a third time, but I was ready and waiting. Instead of rolling away—which is what every instinct in my body demanded—I rolled into the brutal strike, bringing my hands up at the last instant, conjuring a two-foot-by-two-foot Shadow-Warp Portal directly above my chest.
The scorpion tail shot through the mini black hole.
A second portal opened in the air directly above the Horror’s tiny head; the stinger stabbed down with destructive force, skewering the creature through the skull. I snapped the portal closed, amputating the appendage two-thirds of the way down. Blue blood sprayed from the wound, and the creature shrieked, scrambling away from me as it pawed at the stinger, now lodged deep in its head. Its HP dropped by a quarter, but the damage stopped the second the Horror managed to wiggle the stinger free with one of its simian hands. Worse, its HP started to climb—this thing had some serious active regeneration at play.
If I was going to win, I’d need to deal a massive amount of damage all at once in order to put this thing down for good. Bad news. Though the fact that the tail wasn’t regrowing itself was a small silver lining.
“Holy shite!” came Cutter’s voice. I glanced toward the sound and saw the man standing in the entryway along with Amara and a handful of the other Bastards. “What in the bloody hell is that thing!”
“Trouble,” I said, gaining my feet while the Horror was momentarily distracted. “Thing has nearly impenetrable plate armor, a crazy amount of Health, and a very fast regen rate. Plus, it hits like a freight train. We need to find its weak spot.”
“You heard him, boys,” Cutter yelled, springing into action as the Horror locked onto the thief and engaged with the dual scythe-blade limbs sticking out from its shoulders. Those limbs scissored in and out, but Cutter deftly avoided each strike, artfully spinning and twirling while shadowy blades exploded from his hands, ricocheting harmlessly off the creature. “Spread out. Make it bleed!”
Thieves, Cutthroats, and Nightblades leapt into action, breaking off left and right to encircle the monster. They weren’t tanks, so none of them could individually go toe-to-toe with something like this, which is why they attacked like wolves. Each one bolted in for a thin moment, jabbing or slicing, before disappearing while someone else harried the creature from another angle. Amara had entered the fray as well, but instead of fighting the creature up close and personal with one of her conjured spears, she’d quickly scaled the walls and was now perched in the wooden rafters, raining down arrows from above.
They were as ineffectual as the rest of our attacks, though. It seemed the spikey quills covering the Horror’s back were as protective as the armor running along its arms and legs.
Warhammer in hand, I called forth a fresh bout of Umbra Bog. Curling black tentacles sprang from the floor to ensnare its arms and legs, but as with Umbra Bolt, I received a rather nasty surprise in the form of another failure notification:
<<<>>>
Umbra Bog failed! Idruz Gatehouse Horror resisted Umbra Bog thanks to its Umbral Nature!
<<<>>>
Not only had my spell failed—again—but the black tendrils disappeared from the floor, almost as though the creature were absorbing them, using my Umbral Magic to fuel both its regeneration and its rage. Its quills pulsed with a violet light, reedy at first, but throbbing brighter by the second.
“Watch out,” Amara called. “It is preparing to attack! Everyone on guard!”
As the words left her mouth, the light emanating from the quills pulsed one last time with blinding fury, then the spikes exploded out from the creature in a ring. Those too slow or too unlucky were skewered, the spikes slicing through armor and flesh like a hot knife through a pat of butter. Wet gurgles and cries for help rang out around the room, but there was nothing I could do for anyone. I needed to focus of surviving. I’d already seen how tough this thing could hit, so instead of summoning a Dark Shield, I immediately sidestepped into the Shadowverse, the deadly quills halting in midair all around me.
I didn’t have long to think though, because the Shadowverse wasn’t the usual quiet place of solitude I’d been expecting.
Somehow, I’d just stepped into a different version of the same nightmare. The color had drained from the world, taking with it the screams and cries of the wounded, but a shadowy black version of the Gatehouse Horror existed in this place as well. No, not a version, I quickly realized, but its actual shadow. A freakish Peter Pan doppelganger come to life. The Shadowverse Horror locked onto me with an eyeless gaze that carried vicious, deadly intent.
Great. So not even the Shadowverse was safe, which wasn’t a coincidence.
This creature seemed custom designed to stop someone with my exact power set, which meant Thanatos had been preparing for our arrival. Heck, this might as well have been his calling card—a not-so-friendly taunt letting me know he was ready to tangle with me if push came to shove. It was also a reminder that he knew my moves and was already anticipating them. Which meant none of my regular tricks were going to work against this thing. I wouldn’t be able to clobber it with my warhammer or burn it down with Umbra Flame. If I was going to walk out of this battle the victor, I needed to outthink this thing, not outfight it.
The shadowy version turned toward me, its hands flashing out, each tire-sized palm releasing a torrent of Umbra Flame that would melt the skin from my bones.
With more than fifty seconds remaining on my countdown clock, I quickly positioned myself to avoid death-by-quill, then reluctantly retreated from the Shadowverse, returning to the Material Realm.
A couple of Cutter’s Bastards were injured, but most had managed to dodge the qui
ll onslaught—including both Amara and Cutter, who continued to rain ineffectual blows down on the beast.
None of that was going to work. This thing was a tank, designed to take a beating indefinitely.
I caught sight of the rafters covered with pulleys and chains, and an idea occurred to me. This monster was big and unreasonably powerful, but maybe there was a way to use that against it. Wasting no time, I turned toward the wall and began climbing upward, just as Amara had done. I wasn’t nearly as skilled or dexterous as she was, but thankfully the quills that hadn’t found a living target had lodged themselves in the walls, creating a number of handholds for me to use. In the span of a few of seconds, I was up with Amara.
“This is not going well, Jack,” she said somberly, still firing a ceaseless barrage of summoned arrows. The quills that had been covering the creature’s back were gone, but her conjured shafts didn’t seem any more effective than before. “This thing, nothing will pierce its skin, and your magic seems ineffectual.”
“You’re not wrong,” I said, eyeing the pulley system, then scanning a bank of brass levers, odd switches, and a pair of crank wheels positioned along the far wall. Those would control the various lifts and gate switches. The larger of the crank wheels likely opened and closed the portcullis, while the smaller one appeared to connect to the gatehouse service elevator. That was the one I needed. “But I have a plan. Need a little help, though. You game?”
Her lips pursed into a thin line, but she nodded. “There is no task too great. Tell me how to kill this beast and it will be done.”
Spoils of War
WORKING AS QUICKLY as possible, I scooted over a few paces and grabbed a length of chain looped over a wooden beam, which connected in turn to the service lift set into the floor. The links were thick iron, industrial strength, and designed to hold a lot of weight before giving up the ghost. The Horror probably weighed half a ton or more, but that was nothing compared to many of the siege weapons that adorned the walls. The only problem was, the chain was still connected to the lift, and I’d need to change that for my plan to work.
