With no more notifications or windows demanding my attention, I stretched out my awareness with Keen Senses and listened to the night.
Crickets chirped and frogs croaked while other unidentified creatures bubbled and splashed in the surrounding rivers. It sounded like the fullness of nature that might be found in the depths of the wilderness and not at all the usual nighttime sounds for the heart of a city with three hundred thousand residents—though I imagined that population would be significantly reduced after today.
I leaned back and looked up, surprised to find the night sky remarkably clear. The advent of the System had killed anything with electricity, so the light pollution from the city was a thing of the past. I enjoyed the view as a shooting star streaked overhead—probably a satellite unable to maintain orbit without electrical systems to sustain it. Idly, I wondered what had happened to the astronauts on the International Space Station. I imagined if they were able to survive somehow, they would have quite the story to tell.
I closed my eyes and rested, still alert but allowing the stress of the day to fade. Tomorrow would bring new challenges soon enough.
Chapter 11
A warbling voice from within the walls of the fort jerked me back to the present from my relaxed state, and I leapt to my feet with the concern that I had somehow allowed a threat to slip past. The moon still sat high in the sky, though its light was shuttered by thick clouds. I felt as though I hadn’t rested long at all.
I quickly located the source of the noise and headed toward two young women who were sitting alone, as far from any other groups as they could get. I kicked Zeke’s foot as I jogged by where he slept next to the two rangers.
“Trouble,” I said in response to his grumbling question.
As I grew closer to the girls, I heard that the murmuring voice was coming from a girl who sat with her back to me, clutching her knees to her chest while she rocked back and forth in time with her strange incantation. Her companion was facing me, pressing herself back against the wall, and terror was etched across her face as she stared at the chanting woman.
I knelt next to the rocking woman and looked at her friend. “What’s going on?”
The terrified friend shook herself at my question, then seemed to see me for the first time. “She does this, this”—she visibly struggled to find an explanation—“thing.”
“What does this thing do?”
“I don’t know,” the woman said, sounding frustrated. “But bad things always happen right after.” She grabbed my arm. “Always!”
The chanting woman continued, the words twisting through my ears in a language not of this world. The tones were discordant and listening was almost painful.
Then her tone shifted, and I could almost understand the words pouring from her mouth.
“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves,” she murmured.
“Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
“All mimsy were the borogoves,
“And the mome raths outgrabe.”
The rocking girl suddenly stilled, and her voice stopped as she turned her head toward me. Her clenched eyelids opened, but I could only see the whites of her eyes, glowing faintly and bathing the area with ethereal light. A chill ran down my spine as the woman focused her attention on me.
“And, as in uffish thought he stood,” the woman chanted in a singsong voice.
“The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
“Came wiffling through the tulgey wood,
“And burbled as it came!”
Her arm flashed out and clutched at my shoulder. Her face twisted, desperately imploring me to understand her words.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
“The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
“Naught vorpal forged, lays under this sun,
“Solely rouged, the manxome foe dispatch!”
With the final word, the ghostly radiance surrounding the girl faded, and she went limp. I lunged forward, catching her before she collapsed completely, and lowered her gently to the ground.
“What the hell was that?” Zeke asked, having caught up to me while everything was going on.
“I have no idea.” I nodded toward the other woman. “But her friend says that bad things tend to happen afterward.”
The woman nodded, her eyes wide. “She’s an Oracle. One of her Class Skills lets her see the outcomes of potential futures.”
“And how long do we have before these potential futures come into being?” I asked.
“Not long,” said the woman, looking around nervously.
A soft blue light suddenly bathed us in illumination from above. The fort was lit up, and I saw that several people around us had been disturbed by the Oracle’s rambling proclamation.
I looked up then over toward the city, searching for the origin of the light. To the east, far above the tallest buildings of downtown Pittsburgh, I found the source. A rectangular glowing field shimmered in the sky, parallel to the ground. From here, I could only tell that it was massive, hundreds of feet in length and width.
The field rippled violently and a long, dark shape snaked through the center of the disturbance, curling and twisting back around its own body. The thing hovered in the air below the portal as if unbound by gravity. The portal’s blue light glinted metallically off the sinuous shape as if reflecting from scales that covered the worm-like creature, but it was too dark and distant to make out any more details.
The shadowy shape drifted lower and continued circling until it finally finished emerging from the portal. An instant later, the portal snapped closed, returning the world to darkness.
I sat stunned for a moment and looked at the others around me. The rangers had joined Zeke, and we all shared wide-eyed glances.
“I’m going out on a limb here,” I said slowly, “but I’m guessing that was our jabberwock.”
Zeke shook his head. “Shit.”
The rangers remained mute.
“How do we fight that?” Zeke asked.
I snorted. “I don’t think we do. That seems like a whole lot of nasty best avoided.”
The big man blinked at me, then pointedly glanced at the unconscious Oracle before looking back at me. “I get the feeling we’re not going to get much of a choice.”
A loud crash from the distance interrupted our conversation, and I turned back toward downtown. At first I couldn’t see anything besides the usual city skyline, but after a moment, the moon finally emerged from behind the clouds, and I froze. With my enhanced perception, I could finally see the buildings of downtown clearly, and I saw a massive creature of nightmare perched on the top of the U.S. Steel Tower.
The creature had an ungainly large head with red glowing eyes. Just below the eyes were a pair of tentacles that hung down like whiskers along either side of a short, stubby nose and a tall, fang-filled maw that slowly gnashed open and closed. A line of spiked scales stuck up along a ridge running down the back of the creature’s slender neck, a neck that took up nearly a third of the creature’s overall length. The spiked ridge continued onto a thicker, four-limbed torso, then continued along a narrow tail that made up the final third of the lengthy creature. Each of the creature’s lanky arms ended in spidery, three-fingered claws. Atop the shoulders for the first set of spindly limbs were a pair of bat-like wings that fluttered sedately as it perched at the edge of the tallest building in Pittsburgh, just above the giant UPMC sign at the top of the building.
The jabberwock threw back its head and let out a warbling screech. The noise pierced my ears, and I dropped to my knees in agony, cupping my hands over my ears in a futile attempt to block the sound. Around me, the others had also fallen to the ground, writhing in pain as the deafening shriek reverberated around us.
Fear Effect Resisted
The notification popped into the corner of my vision as I forced myself back to my feet, and the pain seemed to lessen significantly. I felt moisture trickle from my ears and wiped it away, finding my hands slick wi
th blood. Finally, the horrific noise trailed off, and I watched the jabberwock crawl forward over the building’s edge, knocking away the giant M from the UPMC sign. The white letter tumbled out of sight behind the other tall buildings as the creature climbed down the face of the tower. The creature’s claws crumbled the structure’s surface to dust as they tore gaping rents into the building before it disappeared from view.
The others around me slowly recovered, but it still took several minutes before everyone regained their feet.
“Where did it go?”
“Into the city,” I replied.
Distant gunshots echoed rapidly, then a faint scream that suddenly cut off.
Our group moved to the gap in the fort walls and looked out toward downtown. The damage and the fear effect had awakened all of the refugees. I stepped outside the fort to keep watch and avoid their panicked clamoring, but the rangers were eventually able to calm everyone and put people to work strengthening the fort's defenses. That included Carl, who looked haggard but channeled his Mana into the walls again anyways.
Over the next several hours, more gunshots, massive crashes, flashes of red light, and periodic screams broke through the formerly still night as the jabberwock rampaged through the city. In the meantime, the fort's walls rose another two feet and had gained crenellations at regular intervals where there were firing positions from within the walls.
As the sun peeked over the horizon, our respite ended.
A group of a half dozen people broke free from the buildings of the heart of the city, running in our direction. The emerald-scaled jabberwock pursued almost casually out from behind the downtown Wyndham hotel. Bounding forward while standing on its hind legs to glide with its undersized bat wings, the monster stood nearly to the height of the hotel’s three-story conference center as it batted the last runner in the group into the air and devoured them with a single chomping bite.
The people screamed, sprinting faster. The creature only chuffed and wiffled, seemingly laughing at the terror it inspired before lunging forward to consume another victim.
An energy beam lanced out from the fort’s automated turret and smacked the jabberwork at the base of its neck. The creature drew up short in surprise, forgetting about its victims as it looked around for its attacker. Spotting the turret, the beast’s crimson eyes glowed brighter for a second before rays of fire shot from each eye. The beams swept across the corner of the fort and the turret exploded in a massive blast as the walls evaporated under the energy of the attack.
Though I was half a length of the walls away, the explosion picked me up and flung me twenty feet. Even while airborne, my amped perception noted that the jabberwock’s attack had a two-part effect. The fiery beams seared through the turret, wall, and the ground as they swept across the area. Then the explosive eruption from wherever the rays touched was a secondary effect that fired in the wake of the primary attack.
Mental note, don’t get touched by the rays.
I rolled as my body tumbled into the ground. The movement spread the force of the impact as my body flipped up over my shoulders, and I pushed off, flinging my torso upright as I landed on my feet.
I wiped my dew-slicked hands on my pants before pulling the pistols from the holsters at my hips, then I ran to the northeast. I hoped to get some distance between myself and the fort before making an attempt to lure the beast away. I looked over and saw that the monster was charging after the people again, the runners continuing to flee toward the fort.
The jabberwock hopped onto the Fort Pitt blockhouse with one leg, preparing to use the building’s height to push itself up into another gliding bound. Instead, the last remaining structure of the colonial era fort collapsed under the monster’s weight, and its leg plunged through the roof of the old building. The creature's momentum instantly stalled as it fell.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, with the jabberwock caught in place, I stopped running and carefully aimed at the beast. Most of the creature's body was protected by dark green scales, but there was one obvious place where I could hurt it. I fired the projectile pistol first, then squeezed the trigger on the beam pistol.
Both attacks landed on target simultaneously, and the jabberwock howled as its right eye exploded from the combined damage. I almost celebrated the creature’s cry of pain, but the green health bar above the monster only dropped the barest amount from the attacks.
At least with it half-blinded, maybe we had a chance.
I fired again. This time, my shots glanced off the scales around the hole that had been its eye, failing to cause real damage, though the shots grabbed the beast’s attention.
Its ugly head turned toward me as it regarded me with a baleful gaze. Then the sole eye grew bright, and I sprinted as fast as I could. Heat flashed behind me, and I desperately dove forward, expecting the fiery beam to sweep across me any moment.
Instead, the burning sensation at my back cut off suddenly as the jabberwock gave another cry, and I looked back to find that others had taken advantage of my distraction.
The ranger Jared fired his pistol up at the creature from close range, his shots impacting around its face as he aimed for the monster’s remaining eye. The jabberwock twisted its head up and away from the attack, protecting the eye but exposing the underside of its neck, where the scales were smaller and more yellow than the larger emerald scales that protected most of the creature.
Zeke had ascended the rubble of the blockhouse, and his giant hammer smacked into the finer scales at the base of the creature’s neck, just above where the torso flared out into the wider shoulders that supported the wings and the forward set of arms. The big man drummed his weapon into the same spot several times without seeming to have much effect; then he hesitated, and the head of his hammer glowed.
He spun the glowing weapon in a complete circle overhead before slamming the strike home. Several scales shattered beneath the blow, and shards of shattered scale sprayed out from the impact. The jabberwock howled again, flinching as the two men continued their attacks.
Then Jared’s weapon ran out of ammo.
When the pistol stopped firing, the jabberwock cautiously canted its head to the side. Finding the ranger fumbling the reload, the creature looked down and batted Zeke away with a casual swipe of its claws. Blood sprayed in a crimson arc as the giant man was flung several hundred feet by the power of the blow. He impacted with the granite wall of Fort Duquesne before crumpling limply to the ground.
Before Zeke had even landed, the jabberwock bent its long neck and chomped down on the ranger so quickly that the man never got the chance to scream. The jabberwock swallowed then threw back its ungainly head, launching into the piercing screech that had been so debilitating when it first arrived.
Fear Effect Resisted
I resisted the effect again, but I saw those left at the fort were once again prone on the ground as the jabberwock finally managed to free its leg from the wreckage of the blockhouse.
I fired at the creature, emptying both pistols as quickly as I could shoot. The jabberwock turned and advanced toward me with a limp. Far slower than its earlier rush toward the fort, the monster clearly favored the limb that had been caught in the blockhouse.
Taking advantage of the extra time, I stowed both pistols in my Inventory and retrieved my fully loaded and charged backups. Instead of firing right away, I holstered the weapons and pulled out the hybrid rifle. I braced myself into a steady shooting position and pulled the stock of the weapon tight to my shoulder. As I lined up the weapon with the damaged area on the jabberwock’s neck, I gently squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened for a split second, and I almost lowered the weapon to figure out what was wrong.
Before I could react, the weapon whined loudly. Power built over the span of a second, as the coils around the length of the rifled barrel were flooded with Mana. Each ring lit up brightly as it accumulated a full charge. When all the coils were lit, the weapon vibrated in my hands.
/> The stock kicked firmly back into my shoulder as a brilliant column of silver light streaked from the end of the weapon’s barrel to split the air. Within the column of white light swirled a bolt of lightning that carried the hybrid weapon’s projectile. The lightning and projectile slammed into the base of the monster’s neck, at the center of the section where Zeke’s ability had shattered the scales. The creature staggered and whined in pain.
I blinked from the afterimage of the weapon’s radiant light and looked up at the jabberwock. The damaged area of shattered scales looked larger than it had been. The impact site smoked faintly, and some green ichor dripped from the wound. Hopefully, I glanced above the monster to look at its status.
The green health bar above the creature had only dropped by a finger.
Snarling, I raised the weapon back to my shoulder. Over and over, the hybrid weapon whined and flashed, until the magazine finally ran dry and the rifle clicked on an empty chamber.
I ejected the depleted magazine and stuffed it into my Inventory. I summoned a fully loaded magazine into my open palm and jammed it into the open mag well. Then I cocked the rifle to chamber a new round.
The jabberwock shook itself while I reloaded, and it took advantage of the slack in my attacks to crawl forward once again. It was definitely hurt. The health bar had dropped by about a quarter.
But as I watched, the green health bar floating above the monster ticked back upward as the creature’s natural regeneration kicked in.
I glanced at the counter below the hybrid rifle’s sights. Only fifteen energy charges remained. I might have nearly a hundred rounds of ammunition, but without energy charges, the weapon wouldn’t fire.
Fist Full of Credits: A New Apocalyptic LitRPG Series (System Apocalypse - Relentless Book 1) Page 10
