by Charles Dean
Lee’s heart skipped a beat as he watched three of his spears sail through the air. He needed their placement to be absolutely perfect since any slight deviation from the plan could result in either his or one of his friends being killed. He forced himself to swallow down the lump that had formed in his throat and willed the knots in his stomach to relax, but his body refused to cooperate, and he remained as tense as ever. There was a certain level of stress that came with any fight that promised to be as intense as this one, and until he knew whether or not his gambit was going to pay off, his heart was going to hang suspended in his chest.
Come on . . . Come on . . . Come on . . . Lee’s first spear nailed its target right in the side, but then it just bounced off as harmlessly as if it were nothing more than a foam bullet striking a man in chainmail. The Cragaboom wasn’t even bothered by it. The giant, spherical beast had countless rows of razor-sharp teeth, four thin, metallic-looking, spider-like legs, two actual rock cannons mounted on its forehead, and since it was nothing but living rock, it was far more durable than his spear was damaging. The second and the third spears struck one after the other, but they too careened off of the creature’s craggy exterior without dealing any damage.
“We’re under attack!” a voice yelled. One of the numerous cultists present who worshiped the beast had finally realized what was going on. The clansmen cared for the Cragaboom in the same way that a modern-day American might a cat: they provided all of its necessities and took care of its needs in return for some sort of imagined benefit and a very real sense of security when they slept. The beast had already proven itself useful many times over by protecting them from the town’s militia and other law-bringing forces, but there was one very real problem with the relationship that posed a problem for everyone involved and many who weren’t: the Cragaboom had a very real taste for flesh, and it seemed to treat any humanoid as an especially tasty treat--a treat that the cultists were more than happy to provide.
“To victory, brothers! Come on! Let’s show these bastards what we got!” another one of the cultists shouted in return. With that, the group charged in the direction from which the spears had been launched.
The Cragaboom turned as well, and a large, cylinder-like drill shot out underneath it and plunged into the earth beneath its feet just as two more spears were launched toward the creature. The first missed entirely, flying off wide, but the second struck it in one of its four large eyes, drawing out a long, loud and pained cry.
Come on . . . Come on, you bastards . . . Lee waited anxiously with bated breath, watching as the cultists surged ahead and followed the flow of spears back to their source. Time crept by slowly as he waited for the exact right moment to spring his trap. That’s it . . . a little closer . . .
“Where is he?” one of the cultists shouted in confusion. They had reached the spot the spears had been flung from, but no one was there.
The beast recovered from its wounded eye and twisted about while looking for any sign of its attacker, clearly prepared to fire off the tightly-packed chunks of earth from the twin cannons on its head at a moment's notice.
“I don’t know, but what in the heck is this?” another one asked, spying the ballista Lee had set up there. He had fashioned a rather large crossbow-like mechanism and secured it to a tripod which he then planted into the ground and rigged to function with the cutting of a string rather than the actual pulling of a trigger.
“It’s a trap!” the man behind him yelled, finally realizing what was going on.
But it was too late. The words hadn’t even left his mouth when a log fell behind them, and a series of long, heavy ropes with spikes threaded through them sprang up from the ground. The weight of the fallen tree snapped the barbed rope against the trees all around the group and then pulled it tight, effectively trapping the nine cultists who were closest to the ballista inside a makeshift cage. One unfortunate man who was too far to the side was caught up in the ropes, impaled by the barbs and hoisted into the air, where he hung suspended, unable to move.
“Crap! Cut through them!” someone yelled. The same man rushed over and began hacking away at the nearest set of ropes, but it wasn’t going to do him very much good. Each strand was thick enough that it would have taken minutes of hard work to hack through alone, but the hardened barbs made it doubly impossible to get a good swing at the actual rope. To make matters even worse for the cultists, Lee had spared no expense in planning the trap: he had wired up dozens of ropes and strung them together to ensure that no one would ever be able to climb over or under and escape.
You can come back now, Lee thought to his telepathically-connected golem and constant companion, Ethan. He let out the breath that he had been holding and felt his heart finally start up again as a bit of relief flooded into him at the first sign of a flawlessly-executed plan. Now, Lee only had one thing left to wait for.
“Those traps better not steal my glory!” Miller boomed in warning from beside him. Lee’s Firbolg friend was vehemently against this type of sneaky, underhanded behavior, and he chose that exact moment to not only voice his complained but also charge the Cragaboom with his spear in hand.
The creature immediately turned to face the Firbolg warrior and fired off the giant clumps of dirt it had prepared from the twin cannons affixed to its forehead. As soon as the first two shots were discharged, it pushed the huge drill on its underbelly into the earth again, quickly pulling up massive quantities of dirt before reaching down, scooping it up, and reloading its weapons. If it weren’t for Miller’s reflexes, which were abnormally quick for someone so large, he likely would have been smeared across the ground by the two-foot-wide projectiles. As he was, however, Miller was nimbly able to dodge the speeding cannonballs of dirt and easily avoid them.
This was the final cue that Lee had been watching and waiting for. He popped out of the woods, a dagger in each hand, and charged forward side by side with Amber.
“Come on, you bastard! Is that the best you can do?” Miller laughed, taunting the Cragaboom as he slammed his spear into the ground and let out his infamous Drunken Shout. The inebriating war cry had originally done nothing more than make everyone within its area of effect drunk for ten seconds, but it had grown in strength until it was an almost-permanent debuff. He couldn’t cast it as often as before since the timer between uses had grown in conjunction with the duration of its effect, but it was much more useful now--especially against monsters. Most creatures had little-to-no tolerance for alcohol, and the Cragaboom was no exception. It began wobbling on its metallic legs as soon as the debuff hit and automatically retracted its dirt drill as it struggled to remain standing.
“Let’s go, you filthy rock! Show me your strength! Drink in the fresh taste of my justice and prepare yourself for death!” Miller’s taunts rang out as he closed in on the beast from in front, and Amber and Lee rushed in from behind. They weren’t as bold as the brash Firbolg, and they weren’t as strong, but they were much faster.
The trio didn’t even make it halfway to the beast before the fourth member of their party made her appearance. Like Lee, Ling had waited until the creature was afflicted by Miller’s Drunken Shout before making her move. She stepped out from behind cover and unleashed a string of arrows, firing them off one after another in rapid succession. Most of them bounced off of its craggy exterior the same as Lee’s spears had, but three well-placed shots struck their intended targets. One by one, the arrows whizzed into the creature’s remaining three eyes and rendered it blind.
“I’ve got your cover!” she called out. “The rest is up to you!” She then turned and concentrated her fire on the cultists after that, leaving her friends to finish off the beast on their own.
Lee didn’t have time to see if she actually hit any of them, but he knew that the foolish zealots wouldn’t likely make it out of his trap alive. They were completely unarmored, they weren’t carrying shields, and they didn’t have any sort of ranged weapons of their own to fire back with. Lee already k
new from experience that they were far too reliant upon the ranged abilities of the Cragaboom to take archers as a serious threat. It was magically more accurate the further away its target was, and they had likely never even given thought to a contingency plan in the case they weren’t able to depend on its defensive capabilities.
“Thanks,” Lee mouthed in Ling’s direction as they reached the beast. It was squirming in place, twisting back and forth in agony as it desperately tried to cope with being stricken both blind and terribly drunk.
“Ready?” Amber asked.
Lee nodded, stashing away his daggers as he ran up to the creature and cupped his hands together. “Go get ’em!” he shouted encouragingly.
She placed one foot into his cupped and locked hands, and he used all of his strength to boost her up on top of the ten-foot-tall stone behemoth.
“Got it!” Amber shouted back. She sheathed her daggers as soon as she was aboard, dropped down onto her stomach and began crawling across the beast.
Her job was simple and straightforward: get on top of the creature, make her way to its forehead, and cut away the cannons that were mounted there. The artillery worked using a weird suction system, and they were the only fleshy part of the beast’s body that was vulnerable aside from its eyes and mouth. The brute didn’t have arms or any other way to touch its own head, so as long as nothing interrupted her, the creature was as good as dead at this point. Lee knew that there wasn’t a chance of it surviving Amber’s meticulous cutting, so he just pulled out his dagger and turned toward the incoming cultists.
“I can’t believe you’re letting her get all the credit for the kill!” Miller grumbled loudly, slamming the butt of his spear into the ground. “And we’re going about it in such a cheap way! We should be fighting it fair and square, mano-a-mano.”
“There are still enemies behind us,” Lee began impatiently. “Do you want to argue while Ling gets all the kills, or do you want to come with me?” He laughed at the rhetorical question since he knew that Miller wouldn’t argue so long as he had something to fight, and he had something to fight fairly.
“Fine!” Miller may not have been fully satisfied with Lee’s answer, but he clutched his spear, turned around, and charged the cultists anyway.
“What are you doing?!” one of the cultists cried when he spied Amber, who was already working away at removing the turrets.
“Get away from the sacre--!” another one of the cultists protested, crying out and raising his sword as he yelled, only to be instantly silenced by an arrow. Another series of arrows suppressed the people on his right and left too before either Miller or Lee could make it to the first person.
Seeing the pattern, Miller finally lost his cool. “NO! I WILL NOT BE CHEATED!” He hurled his spear so hard that it pierced through the last living person and transfixed him to a tree six feet behind where he had been standing. The force of the blow was so powerful that a crack formed in the tree’s trunk.
You have killed the Cultists and the Cragaboom. Your party has been awarded 1 gold, 74 silver, 19 copper, 1 Eye of the Cragaboom, 1 rock gut, and 2763 Experience. Your share is 43 silver, 55 copper, 1 rock gut, and 690 Experience.
“That was well done, team,” Lee said as he turned and started walking back to Ling, both Ethans swooping down from the air to land on his shoulders. Despite occupying two separate bodies, the two shared a single collective consciousness that was closely linked to Lee’s own--likely since they had been crafted from his spirit--and they seemed to have been influenced by his quirks. His shoulders were his golems’ favorite perch, and they often returned to alight there after a hard-won fight. Old school Japanese RPG-style victory music routinely ran through his head at the finish of every fight, and the little flying mice often performed matching victory dances to go along with it.
“Well done? Team? I didn’t get to do anything!” Miller raged, his face turning red enough to match his hair. “Where is the glory in distracting something?! I want to fight another! We need to hunt another one! I won’t let this be how it ends!”
Lee glanced over to check on Amber and found her still lying atop the now-dead Cragaboom. She was covered in blood, her chest heaving up and down as she sucked in air, and she looked exhausted.
Well, we do need the gold from the bounties these things and their cultists give . . . The loot drops aren’t bad, and the EXP is good . . . “I think that’s possible,” he responded.
“Without your stupid traps and cheats!” Miller demanded. “Justice should not be delivered through such foul means. It sours the effect and spoils any earned righteousness!”
“I actually agree with Miller,” Ling said. “They aren’t really needed. They helped at first, and they were absolutely necessary two days ago when we started using them, but we can handle this without them now. I think it’d be quicker if we just located a camp and cleared it out on our own. I can easily suppress most of the weak cultists without help.”
She was right: they didn’t actually need the traps anymore. But Lee needed them. He needed to perfect them and to understand them. Intricately-planned and thoroughly-prepared traps might not be as efficient as just bashing enemies into the dirt one after another, and they were a waste of time for someone who was already plenty strong, but they were a godsend for someone who was as weak as he still was. Ramon, the traitorous bartender that Lee had stopped during his first major quest, had taught him just how deadly the right trap could be if it was in the right person’s hands.
Augustus, the God of Alcohol and Crafts, had told him that he was over two months behind every other Herald in terms of progress and growth. He wouldn’t come straight out and tell Lee where the others were in terms of power or levels, but he had plainly hinted at the fact that they were likely snowballing in strength. If Lee was going to stop the other Heralds, he needed something that he could use to catch them off guard. He needed to kill them as quickly and mercilessly as Ramon had killed David--instantly knocking him out of the fight with the opening of a single door.
The sound of clapping echoed out from behind one of the trees along the border of the encampment, silencing their conversation and pulling Lee away from his thoughts.
“Very good! Not even a single scratch on your group! Very good indeed,” a man called as he emerged from the woods. He and the four others with him were all grinning broadly as they walked out of the shadows to greet Lee and his gang. “I have to say: we almost couldn’t have done it better ourselves.”
“Almost,” the man on his right, a purple-haired, black-toothed humanoid that Lee didn’t recognize, said.
What in the heck is he? Lee asked his tutorial prompt.
He is a variant of the Human race. While his particular branch of Humans comes from a separate universe than yours, they have no significant genetic differences. The current changes in his appearance and dental deformities were established recently.
I see. Lee nodded along to the tutorial as he read the giant, blue prompt that appeared.
“That’s right. Even your leader knows we’d do it better,” the purple-haired man pressed, mistaking Lee’s nodding along with the system notes for an acquiescence to his group’s braggadocios claim. He flashed a smile, showing a wicked-looking, tooth-filled mouth, and then laughed. “Which is why we’re going to have to get you to hand over the core: so that we can turn in the bounty.”
“I see.” Lee verbalized his thoughts this time, his head still nodding along as he sized up the group. He was uncomfortable with the fact that his pair of golems hadn’t detected them. That meant that their Sneak skill had to be even stronger than his.
When he had reached the Novice tier of sneak, it had given him a unique bonus: Harder to Notice if People Aren’t Paying Attention. It was as if their senses magically overlooked his existence.
It was a small change, but it was the only thing that would have allowed every one of them to navigate around his mices’ vastly superior vision and sense of hearing. Their feat also gave him a
rough idea of how they stacked up. They’re probably our level if not higher, he concluded. He wanted to give the others a warning not to act impolitely, but when he turned his head to try and signal them, he realized that Miller was already breathing deeply, red-faced, and smiling broadly.
Crap, Lee thought, backing up a step.
“Easy there,” the one who had clapped said. “We’re not trying to start anything. All we’re saying is that you should hand over the bounty and walk away, boy. Otherwise, we’ll kill you and your friend and then have a little fun with those two girls of yours.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lee shook his head and took another step back, quietly using his inventory to put away his daggers and pull out his tower shield and sword. “You really think that it’ll go exactly how you want it to?”
“I don’t think it’ll go that way,” the Firbolg in front said boastfully. “I know it will, boy. It always does. And what’s a Human like you going to do about it? You’re just going to have to take it--just like those pretty little things next to you will once you’re dead,” he said snidely. “Now, come on, boy. Don’t make me soil my hands by killing one of your stinking kind. Just hand over the bounty before things get ugly.”
“Miller,” Lee started as he shifted another inch backward. “What do you think about having a drink with them?”
Miller was clearly ready to burst, and a quick glance at both of the girls told him that they were having trouble maintaining their calm as well. Each looked as if she were ready to vomit, but their worried expressions eased a bit when they heard Lee.
“I think a drink is perfect,” Miller answered.
“I might have shared a drink with you,” the leader said, looking at Miller pointedly, “if you weren’t hanging around their kind. I’m not about to throw away my dignity like you have. Look, we’ve talked enough. You’ve got ten seconds until we start shedding blood. Ten . . . Nine . . .”
“Buy them a round, Miller,” Lee insisted. He hefted the sword and shield that had gotten him through so many fights and prepared himself as best as he could on such short notice.
