by S. R. Witt
With their work completed, the Scavlings who’d been tending to the clockwork boss now had a new mission: kill Osmark and Karzic with extreme prejudice.
“Keep moving,” Osmark commanded the dwarf. “If you have to replenish the shield with your Health, do it. I’ll keep the Scavlings off of us, but you have to keep moving.”
He reloaded his repeater and fired a three-shot burst into the scorpions charging at Karzic’s defensive shield. There were no easy belly shots with these, but Robert had anticipated that. He aimed low, and the tactic paid off.
The repeater’s powerful bullets either ripped legs free from steel bodies or ricocheted off the metal floor and punched up through the softer layer of armor on their bellies. Two more of the creatures squealed and rolled onto their backs, damaged legs twitching in the air like dying roaches. Flickers of fire appeared through the holes in their bodies, and Osmark knew it was only a matter of time before they exploded.
They were closing in on Targ and Sandra, but the duo was bogged down by a swarm of scorpion-tailed Scavlings, which seemed to grow larger by the second. Robert’s allies were putting up a good fight, but he knew if they didn’t reach them soon, it was all over for the Bonecrusher and his assistant.
The Goliath’s shoulder mounted cannon fired, boom-boom-boom, denting the floor and walls as it tried to draw a bead on Sandra. Reluctantly, the stalker abandoned her attack on the Scavlings, focusing every ounce of energy and skill she had on evading the relentless barrage pouring from the oversized weapon. Osmark prayed her Stamina would hold out until he could turn the tide, but his confidence was flagging.
This was supposed to be an easy dungeon—a cakewalk that would net him a Faction Seal, some epic gear, a small mountain of gold, and enough EXP to transform him into one of the most formidable players in V.G.O. Instead, he was facing an increasingly difficult series of challenges that seemed to anticipate his advantages, then nullify them before they could be fully exploited. Between this turn of events and the presence of a trio of ColdSkull assassins, Osmark knew something had gone very, very wrong.
He just didn’t have time to worry about that while a two-story-tall automaton tried to murder him and his entire party.
Targ feinted left, then hooked right, dodging the golem’s saw blade, but he didn’t get away clean. The spinning edge of the weapon clipped the Bonecrusher’s left pauldron, cutting through its straps, then digging into the Risi’s meaty shoulder. The warrior howled in agony as blood, shredded flesh, and chips of glistening bone sprayed from the grisly wound. The sight was sickening, but there was nothing Osmark could do.
Besides, Targ was the enemy, he reminded himself.
The golem followed through with the momentum of its swing, pivoting 180 degrees at its waist, bringing its flamethrower to bear on Osmark and Karzic. The dwarf turned to face the attack and raised his hammer higher, thrusting it forward in defiance. The chanter’s voice boomed like thunder and echoed with divine strength. Robert couldn’t help but admire the dwarf’s faith in his god’s power.
Karzic stood, resolute, and stared down the flamethrower’s flickering barrel, wreathed in a glimmering halo of holy light.
Flames roared around Karzic and Osmark, a cloud of orange-and-black death. Despite the shield, Robert felt the skin on his face grow tight as a furnace-blast of heat seeped bit by bit through the magic barrier.
In that second, Robert made a choice. He leaped, throwing himself into a tight roll that carried him away from the shield; he gained his feet a second later and sprinted toward Targ and Sandra with all the speed he could muster. Behind him, the flames smashed through Karzic’s shield, and the dwarf’s faith was rewarded with an inferno.
Karzic screamed and staggered through the fire, hammer still held high even as licking tongues of flame wriggled beneath his armor to melt his flesh. Osmark watched in horror as the dwarf soldiered on, walking out the other side of the flames with molten fat dripping through the seams of his armor. His luxurious gray beard had burned away to stubble, and his face was a black mask of charred flesh.
But still the dwarf staggered toward Targ and Sandra, determination etched into the lines of his burned face.
Osmark couldn’t help but feel a pang of sympathy. Even if the priest had been nothing more than an assassin sent to capture him, it was a hell of a way to go.
And unless he wanted to go out the same way, he needed to act fast. He abandoned his plan to regroup with the rest of his team—they were surrounded by Scavlings and would make ripe targets for another blast from the clockwork boss’s flamethrower. Regrouping meant death. No, the only chance any of them had of getting out of here alive lay in Osmark’s hands.
“Get its attention!” he shouted at Sandra, jabbing his repeater at the Goliath. The creature was much more powerful thanks to the work the Scavlings had done, but Osmark saw something in the hasty engineering changes he could exploit. A small opening, but he’d take what he could get.
Unfortunately, that meant getting very, very close to the hulking monstrosity.
Targ bellowed, and Sandra shouted at the towering golem. It shifted its position, turning toward them and away from Osmark.
Robert’s Health was dangerously low, and the Scavlings he charged past chipped away at it even more. Nicks and cuts and bruises didn’t do much damage individually, but their cumulative effect was wearing him down slowly. If he didn’t end this fight soon, they were all dead.
The Goliath’s new, makeshift armor was effective, but it wasn’t smooth or finished and offered plenty of hand and footholds. Osmark fired at another Scavling, shearing one of its mandibles off where it connected to its head, holstered his pistol, then leaped at the back of the golem’s leg.
Sandra screamed in agony—the sound hit Robert like a sucker punch to the solar plexus. His heart ached, and his stomach clenched, but he didn’t have time to worry about her. If she died, she died. It would be painful, true, but she’d respawn in eight hours—a minor inconvenience at most. His death, however, would be catastrophic. He needed his allies for a distraction, and if that meant they needed to burn? So be it.
As Osmark dragged himself up the creature’s jury-rigged body, the sounds of combat grew more intense, and the pained cries of his allies became more distracting. He couldn’t tell if they were winning or losing, and he had to constantly remind himself to stop worrying about what they were doing. All that mattered was what he was doing.
Any chance of success lay in Osmark’s hands alone.
The way it should be.
An unarmored Scavling scampered over the Goliath’s broad, armored shoulder and down its back, snapping its mandibles inches from Robert’s face. Startled, Osmark nearly lost his grip on the golem. He dug the fingers of his left hand over a protruding steel ridge, drew his repeater, and fired a single shell through the bot’s gaping jaws. Gears and oil splashed in every direction, and the mortally wounded Scavling toppled with an ear-rending screech.
Eldred shouted at Osmark from where she hovered above him. “Whatever you’re doing, do it fast. Targ is almost down, and your stalker is out of the fight. Not dead, but close. Karzic can’t keep them alive much longer.”
Shit.
He was supremely impressed that the dwarf was still alive, but knew that couldn’t last for long. He inched his way upward, finally reaching the first of the steam hoses, but that was where his work started, not ended. “Then get this thing’s attention off of them,” he yelled up at her. “Summon a creature. Fly into its face. Do something. Anything.”
Eldred snorted and flew away, the gusts of her flapping wings ruffling Osmark’s hair. “No promises,” she shouted.
Worthless.
Osmark pulled his toolkit out of his inventory and went to work. He focused his attention on the problem at hand, taking deep, even breaths to hold anxiety and fear at bay. He couldn’t control what anyone else was doing, and he couldn’t save anyone but himself. All that mattered was the work and the man doing it.
<
br /> He fished out a wrench and slipped it around the steam fitting’s nut. The nut budged a hair, just as he’d hoped. The Scavlings had tightened the fasteners, but they’d been in a hurry—there simply hadn’t been time to wrench them down so tight a puny human couldn’t pull them apart. Ten seconds later, the nut fell away from the fitting and rattled down the outside of the golem’s body like a pachinko ball.
“Here goes nothing,” Osmark muttered to himself.
Robert clambered above the steam pipe, clinging tight to the Goliath’s back with both hands, then stomped down on the loose fitting with both feet. The metal collar spun once and popped loose with a clang as a blast of steam washed over Osmark’s lower legs, chipping away at more of his precious Health. The hose abruptly retracted into the ceiling with a mechanical squeal, leaving an unprotected, and very vulnerable, steam shaft exposed.
Perfect.
Karzic’s voice rolled through the chamber like a bomb blast, shaking dust loose from the ceiling and rattling Robert’s teeth. Osmark took a quick peek under the golem’s left arm, and his eyes widened in surprise.
The dwarf stood over the fallen bodies of Targ and Sandra, his hammer brandished in front of them like a shield. One of his eyes was missing, burned from his skull, and half his face was melted into a blackened scab. His hair and beard were gone, and Robert was amazed he could speak through his scorched lips. Despite it all, a golden glow flooded from Karzic’s hammer, protecting those within its aura.
But the dwarf’s defense came at a terrible cost:
Maintaining the shield against the golem’s swinging buzzsaw and rattling cannon burned away Karzic’s remaining Health faster than the flamethrower had. Assassin or not, the dwarf was giving his all to this fight.
It was going to be hard to kill him when the time came.
Osmark would kill him, though. He didn’t abide traitors.
Have to survive for that to happen, Osmark thought. He took a deep breath and pulled the last of the caltrop grenades from his inventory. He wasn’t sure this would work, but it was the only shot he had of surviving this unholy debacle. Robert reached down and slipped the gray orb into the steam port he’d opened, listening to it clink and clack as it dropped.
THIRTY:
Traitor’s Fate
The caltrop burst inside the golem with a sound like a hailstorm in an aluminum siding factory. An impressive cacophony of ricochets, whines, and metallic pings rattled through the clockwork boss’s body as the monster shuddered, lurched, and grew still. Finally, the last of the clanging died down. Then—taking everyone by surprise—it threw its head back and unleashed an anguished roar, a plume of greasy black smoke drifting from its yawning mouth.
Osmark’s hunch had paid off, far beyond his wildest imaginings. The deployed caltrop had plowed through something vital inside the golem, and at least one of the sharpened metal spikes had critically damaged the power core. The red light leaking out of the narrow slits in the Goliath’s armor blazed so bright Osmark had to shield his eyes from its glare.
An ominous rumble followed the golem’s pained roar, and its torso shook like a skyscraper in an earthquake. Three of the steam fittings burst and sprayed superheated vapor in every direction, scorching Robert through his armor and covering the automaton’s back in a slick sheen of oily water.
Time to move, Osmark thought, slipping down the golem’s vibrating torso. Though there were hand and footholds galore, the creature’s thrashing and stumbling made every step potentially deadly. Whenever the hulking automaton moved, it took every ounce of his strength just to hang tight. Climbing quickly became a series of short, controlled falls, but even that wasn’t fast enough to get Robert to safety before the damage took its toll on the Goliath.
The crimson light pouring out of the power core grew so bright Osmark could see it with his eyes closed, and feel the tremendous heat even through the tough metal armor. It flashed once, twice, and then the clockwork’s torso came apart with a thunderous explosion that sent pieces of golem soaring in every direction. One of those pieces was its upper thigh, which tore loose from the hip joint and carried Osmark across the room, flipping topsy-turvy.
Robert pressed his eyes shut, and a moment later the leg slammed into the ground with a dull boom, kicking up bits of dust and scattering dead Scavlings. The terrible jolt threw Osmark from the detached leg, hurling him across the floor like a ragdoll—arms and legs splayed out—until his shoulders plowed into a wall with breathtaking force. His ears rang, his pulse pounded like the throbbing of distant war drums, and his brain rattled inside his skull like a lonely ice cube in a shaken cocktail.
His Health was well below 15%, deep in the Critical Zone, and there was something terribly wrong with his left leg. It lay at an unnatural angle, a piece of shin bone popping through the skin. Robert lay back against the cold metal and frantically pulled a Health Regen potion from his belt, downing the cinnamon-sweet elixir as pieces of the golem continued raining down around him. For a time, Osmark just lay there, letting the potion do its work, praying some piece of jagged debris didn’t smack him in the face.
Finally, with a groan, he pushed himself onto his elbows.
Even with the potion, his Health was still below 75%, but at least his left leg felt more or less back to normal. A PM from Sandra flashed across his vision:
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
Sitrep?
<<<>>>
Situation Report. She always had a tendency to slip back into quasi military vernacular whenever things got tense. Osmark responded:
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
Glad you’re alive. I used a Health Regen Potion. Still only at 75%, but doing much better. You?
<<<>>>
He waited anxiously, feeling the tension mount and build in the air. They’d taken out the Brand-Forged monstrosities, true, but there were still plenty of dangers lurking around the corner—like the three traitorous Coldskulls. Now that the Goliath was out of the picture, it was only a matter of time before they made their move. Sandra’s returned message pinged in his ear.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
Recovering, but banged up. Nothing a handful of Healing Potions won’t fix. Eldred and Karzic are still alive, but the dwarf is tap-dancing on Death’s door—he’s got little chance, given the extent of his wounds and the mountain of debuffs he’s currently buried under. Even better news, Targ is KIA. One less threat to worry about.
<<<>>>
Time to finish this.
With a wince and a grunt, Robert pushed himself to his feet, testing his legs experimentally as he scanned the room. The whole chamber looked like the site of a train wreck. Twisted metal lay everywhere, covered in crimson blood, sticky black oil, and viscous green motor fluid. The Goliath was a deformed wreck of steel and pipes, while the floor was a thick blanket of Scavling corpses.
Osmark spotted the remainder of his crew near the alcove with the pedestal and his coveted treasure chest. Good. The alcove would provide some scant cover from Eldred’s summonings, if it came to that, and they could use the narrow doorway to keep Karzic from rushing in with his hammer or pinning them down with his shield. It was a long shot, but lately, that seemed like the only kind of shot Robert was getting.
He dusted his hands off, hastily checked his repeater—reloading it in seconds—then set out. Crossing the chamber was harder than Robert could’ve imagined. The Scavlings had powered down the second the Goliath exploded, and the metal floor was littered with their inert bodies. Extended mandibles and opened pincers lay hidden beneath broken carapaces and scattered armor plates, threatening to trip Robert with every step he took.
Eventually, though, Osmark reached Sandra and the Coldskulls, surveying the state of things for himself.
Sandra looked at least as bad as he felt—dirty, bloody, and sweat-caked—but she was alive, and her HP hovered around 60%. Eldred looked untouched, which made sense. She’d spent the ma
jority of the battle flying around and avoiding combat. Briefly, Robert wondered if he’d made a poor choice in class because summoning other creatures to do your fighting seemed a hell of a lot easier and less painful than what he’d just endured.
Karzic, on the other hand, appeared more beat up than the rest of them combined. His lower face was a sticky mask of drying blood, and his remaining eye was stained crimson from the burst vessels around his pupil. He nodded at Osmark and winced as if the gesture had cost him dearly. For a moment, Robert felt pity for the battered dwarf, and then the ugly truth lit a fire of rage in his belly. These people weren’t really his allies, at all.
They were Sizemore’s people, and they had to die for Robert to live.
He shuffled over and dropped to a knee, placing a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said, voice brimming with warm reassurance. “We’ll get you all patched up. I’ll even make sure you get a bonus for your efforts.” Lies, all lies. He slipped a gray steel vial from his pack. “This is a specialty brew,” he said, “crafted by Master Artificer Rozak. It’ll take care of your Health and eliminate all status debuffs.” More lies.
He’d taken this vial from the other group of Coldskulls, and the only thing it held was a powerful paralytic, which would immobilize the dwarf and make him easy prey.
“Make sure to patch him up,” he said to Sandra, handing her the vial. He sent her a private message as he stood.
<<<>>>
Personal Message:
It’ll paralyze him and make him weak as a newborn kitten. As soon as I get into the alcove with Eldred, slit his throat. And make it noisy.
<<<>>>
“Shame about Targ,” Osmark said, trying to put as much pity as he could into his voice. The Bonecrusher’s body was a catalog of horrific injuries, and most of his face was an unrecognizable purple mass. It looked like he’d taken a direct hit across the jaw from the golem’s fist.
Eldred shrugged. “More loot for us, right?”
