by DoctorHepa
By healing it, I’d killed the worms. The bear let out a howl, mournful and afraid. She sat down and lowered herself painfully to the ground. The last of the boiling custard sizzled away. The bear looked at me, all of the fight out of her. This was Heather, the real Heather. Free of the parasites that’d been controlling her. She looked at me with her newly-formed eyes.
End it, those bitter eyes said. I should never have lived this long. She made a quick, pained whimper, and her eyes closed.
I approached the bear. I kept a wary eye on her claws, looking for any sign of a trick. The bear sighed heavily as I approached. Her health bar, which had moved to the top was now falling again on its own. Without the worms and mold or whatever the hell magic was keeping this thing alive, her body was breaking down fast. This elderly bear, Heather, was not who I’d just fought. Not really. She was just the shell.
I was tempted to just her die on her own. But only for a moment. I formed a fist, and I smashed her head in with two quick punches. Then I stood, and I finished her off by pressing my foot against her skull and crushing. Her skull caved in easily.
Winner! Appeared in my interface. That was the only indication I’d just finished a boss battle. A few achievements came and went into the folder. I’d gone up to level 15. I was pushing 16 already. Donut was going to be pissed.
The bear’s body shuddered. A line of red rose from the corpse, even through the flames. The blood flew through the air, angling upward toward Signet’s now-glowing body.
* * *
Mordecai: Congrats. You just won your first solo boss battle.
A black, crackling shell of smoke surrounded the building where Signet cast her spell. Mordecai said he knew exactly what spell this was, and it’d likely take a good ten minutes for it to finish. In the meantime, I better stay the hell away and just let it happen.
Carl: Not gonna lie. I’m surprised. I thought for sure she wanted me to die and that she’d cast that sacrifice spell on me again.
Mordecai: She probably did. Like I said, the system lets them fudge with reality when you’re dealing with elites. Which is why we stay away from them. Have you heard back from Zev yet?
Carl: No. Donut is still okay?
Mordecai: Yes. I get a warning when her health is down to 20 percent, but that’s all I have. Her status hasn’t changed.
Carl: Did you learn anything for me?
Mordecai: I visited my old friend Eklund. He’s the only game guide in this town I know. He’s too smart for his own good, unfortunately. I couldn’t get him to look up the cure for the Water Lily curse, but I am headed to the town alchemist now to see if he has a clue. Eklund did, however, tell me the name of the program.
Carl: And?
Mordecai: I think your hunch is correct. It’s called Vengeance of the Daughter.
Carl: Oh thank god. Okay. Thanks, Mordecai. Keep looking.
I looted the remains of the dead, bloodless bear. Like with any other neighborhood boss, I received a map upgrade. I grabbed it, and the neighborhood came alive with dots.
At this distance, I couldn’t see Mongo and Donut, but I could see the entirety of the circus a few streets over. Hundreds of red dots surrounded the edges of the circus like before, waiting. In addition, dozens of other red dots spread around the map, some of them moving, some sitting still. These were the night denizens of the ruins, and I needed to stay away from them all.
A group of white dots centered around Signet. As I watched, another appeared. Then another.
I felt a stab of concern. While it was a lot—there had to be at least thirty of them—it wasn’t nearly enough to take on the sheer numbers of that circus.
The smoke cleared, and just as it faded, Signet appeared, followed by her summoned minions.
“Wow,” I said, taking in the sight. I took a step back, almost tripping over the splattered remains of the dead bear. I didn’t know whether to be in awe, to laugh, or to cry. I am so fucked.
The smallest of the monsters, a floating head thing, was about ten feet tall. The largest, a twisting, undulating sea serpent, was as tall as a three-story building. The three-headed ogre was the second largest of the motley collection, wielding his enormous saber. He stood behind Signet as she approached me. The ogre crossed his arms, and his saber caught the wind, flapping.
The others crowded into the intersection and flowed into the streets around us. A hammerhead shark floated in the air above me.
“Can these things actually fight?” I asked as Signet came to stand before me.
The tattoos were all gone from her skin. Her white flesh glowed, her nakedness more stark now that her only adornment was the thong. Her face, without the constant, swirling lines, was easier to discern. While still strange-looking, Signet wasn’t nearly as repugnant as usual. I could see now the half sea creature that she was.
But I only had a moment to ruminate over her appearance. My attention was focused on the “army” that towered behind her.
While all the tattoo monsters were huge and fearsome, they were not what I expected. Not at all. They were still… tattoos. Drawings. While absolutely huge, the monsters were barely three dimensional. Reverse Shrinky Dinks. Each one was like a paper cutout of a monster, blown up to massive proportions and then cut out with scissors and left to flap in the wind.
Every one of them was a deep, red outline, with a white, translucent substance between the lines, like wax paper or maybe onion skin. The backside of the paper monsters were blank. I had the sense I could easily punch through each one. If I looked upon them at any direction other than straight on, I could see them for what they were. A paper army. The monsters moved and blinked and roared, but all of it was confined to the plane on which they were drawn.
I examined the three-headed ogre:
Blood and Ink Elemental – Summoned Minion of Tsarina Signet – Level 50
Created by a combination of sacrificial blood magic and an artist’s imagination, these short-lived elementals vary wildly in their strength and abilities. Their potential relies heavily on too many factors to list here. Kind of like humans. So if you have to guess, odds are good the one you’re looking at right now is probably hot garbage.
“Of course they can fight,” Signet said. “Do you think Grimaldi would prepare such a defense each night for something other than a real threat? Now we must hurry. Heather’s blood was powerful indeed. I have summoned my entire retinue, but I decreased their longevity in exchange for more strength. We have but a short amount of time.”
How can paper fight? I wanted to say, but Signet strode forward before I could ask. As she walked away, I caught sight of one last tattoo on her shoulder blade. It was of a tiny figure, too small for me to see clearly. It was a fish of some kind. The tattoo faded away, like a sea creature diving under the waves.
The monsters rustled past me, marching and floating toward the circus. The long, sea-serpent monsters floated sideways, so they always faced the circus. I remained, gawking up at the menagerie. The three-headed ogre turned, his entire body folding over as he glared down at me. “Follow or you get the smash,” the middle head said in a deep, rumbly voice.
“You can talk!” I said.
“I can smash, too,” he said.
I followed. I ran to catch up to Signet, who strolled toward the circus as if she didn’t have a care in the world.
“I honestly don’t know what the hell you want me to do here,” I said. “I’ve never participated in anything like this. I have shitty armor and all I do is punch stuff.”
“You are more than that. I believe you actually freed Heather tonight. For two centuries, she’s been caught in that loop, and you freed her. She was a grumpy old bear, and I told Grimaldi more than once that she was going to snap and try to eat a spectator if we didn’t retire her soon. But she was family, and you freed her. Thank you.”
“Yeah, thanks for the warning by the way,” I said. “That was a one-on-one fight. I won’t be able to pull any fancy tricks in a giant battle.
”
“Just don’t die,” she said. “We usually push through the defenders, and this is the strongest we’ve been in a while. It’s the final defense I need help with.”
“There’s like a thousand of them!” I said.
I pinged Mordecai, telling him everything. I told him I didn’t think these elemental things were a real threat.
Mordecai: Don’t worry about that. If they’re as big and as numerous as you describe, it means her skill in that spell is likely over 15. They can fight. They’re gonna put on a hell of a show.
Carl: What is that spell anyway?
Mordecai: Ink Marauder. You draw something on paper, cast the blood sacrifice, and it animates the drawings. Certain classes can tattoo the monsters upon themselves. By doing it that way, her own blood powers the minions, keeping them alive on her flesh. They can leave her body when she casts the sacrifice spell. They take on the 2D appearance, but it’s been long rumored that certain sacrifices can lead to the minions being complete, fully-realized renditions of the monsters they depict. Assuming that is her most powerful spell, I don’t see the producers allowing her to blow that wad this early in the story.
A distant cry filled the night, followed by the thwump of a magical mortar. The projectile sailed into the night sky, bouncing off the ceiling into a neighborhood one street over. More mortars started raining down. I tried to stick as close to Mrs. Plot Armor as possible.
The floating head and several dragons circled around us, moving ahead. One of the elementals—an octopus—caught a mortar round directly in the chest and burst into flames. If Signet was controlling these things, she wasn’t doing it out loud. Dark shadows filled the air. Lemurs, I realized, seeing the dots on the minimap. They were being flung by the artillery giraffes. I could hear the distinctive roar of mold lions as well. They moved fast, streaking down one street over as paper monsters moved to intercept.
We were only one block over from the circus now. The haunting calliope music rose into the night, mixing in with the roar of the lemurs and clowns. More lemurs burst into the air, this time aimed directly at us.
The ogre leaped forward, sailing over the top of me and Signet, and landing on the ground. All I could now see was the back of the flat elemental. He swung his paper saber in the air at the line of lemurs.
Dozens of the skull-headed monsters screamed as they were flung away. But a moment later, I heard the thwap, thwap thwap of knives embedding themselves into the giant ogre. Despite the paper appearance, the knives slammed into the elemental like he was made of plywood. He took no heed of the damage. He swung again. And by swing, I mean his paper arm folded over on its own and kind of waved at the mobs.
There was something I was missing about the ogre’s attacks. He’d swing, clearly miss, and dozens of lemurs would fly away anyway, He had some sort of area attack. I couldn’t see what was happening from behind.
I did, however, see the eel’s lightning attack. A pair of long moray eel-like creatures swept down and shot lighting from their mouths, turning the red dots of mold lions into X’s.
Next to me, Signet fired a yellow bolt into the air from the palm of her hand. It arced over the shoulder of the ogre and hit something distant. Dozens of voices cried out in pain. Behind me, an entire building exploded as the mortar fire resumed.
“Jesus Christ, lady,” I said, ducking. “You do this shit every night?”
She fired two more of the arcing, yellow bolts. “This is what you do for family,” she said.
Mordecai: I know the recipe now. It’s just Satch Toad extract mixed with a standard healing potion. I should have known. Negates all naiad sleep effects and curses. Simple.
Carl: Do you have any of that stuff?
Mordecai: Not in this town. But it’s common enough. I can buy it at the alchemical market in a medium or large town.
Fuck. That wasn’t going to help us now.
Carl: Okay. Plan B it is.
I dove to the ground as another building exploded. We were only fifty meters from the picket, and the clowns were starting to throw rocks at us. The largest of the serpents swept down and exhaled a stream of water, blasting hundreds of clowns and lemurs in all directions. I dove behind a low wall as more mortar fire sailed overhead. A shark twisted through the air above me, howling as it burned.
Carl: Zev. You talk to them yet?
Zev: I messaged the producer, but he didn’t want to speak with me. He’s waiting to see how this plays out I think. My boss made me run your request by the Syndicate AI referee, and it said they’ll only allow this under very strict circumstances. I can’t and they can’t give you any help whatsoever. Believe it or not, though, this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. In fact…
Carl: Later, Zev. Stay tuned. I’ll need you in a bit.
Despite my earlier reservations, the clowns and circus creatures were no match for the tattoo monsters. The defenders soon fled, falling back to the massive, triple tent.
The ogre elemental swiped his saber, and the defensive wall shattered. Hundreds of lemurs and clowns and the thin mortar acrobats lay dead. It’d happened so fast. My entire map was awash in X’s.
There were still hundreds of the monsters left, but they were all now inside the main tent. The paper army flapped their way onto the circus ground, pushing through the barbed wire fortifications like they were nothing, surrounding the massive pavilions. All of the secondary tents, including the freak show tent soon fell. I noted the elementals were simply pushing the small tents over, as if they were being careful not to tear the fabric. All that remained was the big top. Only a few of the elementals had been destroyed. An octopus tattoo had returned to Signet’s skin, along with a few of the sharks. They swished about angrily.
The music was coming from a large, coach-sized contraption sitting just outside the big top. Steam rose from the humming, spitting instrument. The long, brass tubes hissed out the slow-motion music. The ogre moved to smash the machine, but Signet raised her hand.
“This music hurts my heads,” the knife-riddled monster groused.
“I know,” Signet said. “We go over this every time.” She stepped forward and turned a dial on the machine. It wheezed once, and the music stopped, plunging the night into silence. She lovingly stroked the fire-scorched wood.
Signet then pointed up at the giant sea serpent, which floated in the sky above the brightly-lit tent. The circus’s spotlights remained lit, and they arced back and forth, adding to the surreal vision. The behemoth was almost as large as the center big top. The tattoo monster folded back on itself and then fired a blue water spout. I cringed in anticipation, but the water dissipated before it could touch the colorful top. The world around me filled with a fine mist, and I suddenly found myself soaked.
Signet hung her head low. “Damn,” she said. “Damn, damn, damn. I hoped with the power of Heather’s blood, we could overcome the protection this time.”
“Why didn’t that work?” I asked. In the distance, something howled in the night.
“This is where our fight usually ends,” Signet said, indicating the tent. “There is magic here, protecting the exterior. Ancient magic. I have been banished, so I can’t go inside. My minions can’t go inside. The outside is impenetrable, but not the interior. If we break down the tents, the spell will disperse, and we can finish this.” She pointed at the piles of dead bodies. “Some of these clowns will carry big top tickets. Find one and brandish it. It will allow you to go inside. The tickets are magical. They will promise you safe passage within the tent, as long as you don’t enter one of the three rings. You need to go in there and collapse the tent. There are three poles. You must break each one in turn.”
I looked at the tent dubiously. “I take it these three poles are in the middle of the rings?”
“That’s right,” she said.
“What about the vine thing?” I asked.
“Also in the ring. The center ring.”
This setup was designed to be comp
leted by a group of at least three crawlers, not a solo player. There was no feasible way I could do this. Not with a straight-up fight.
I pulled one of the tickets I already had from my inventory. I’d already examined it, but I looked at it again.
Big Top Ticket.
Lucky you! This ticket admits one adult into the Grimaldi’s Traveling Circus Big Top Show.
The holder of this ticket is guaranteed Safe Passage through the public areas only. Grimaldi reserves the right to rescind this safe passage guarantee to drunks and purveyors of violence.
Guaranteed good time or your money back!
Something told me I wasn’t going to be having a good time.
A note from DoctorHepa
As always, thanks for reading! I hope ya'll are hanging in there. I had to make an emergency, quarantine trip to Home Depot yesterday. That was fun. The place was filled with old dudes hacking up their lungs all over each other.
Chapter 57
I held the circus ticket tightly in my hand as I approached the main entrance. This close to the big top tent, I could see the effects of time on the fabric and the rest of the circus. The red carpet below my feet was threadbare and stained with blood. The tent sidewalls were also stained and filled with tiny holes. Another few years, and Signet wouldn’t need a magical army to knock this place down.
“You must hurry,” Signet said. “We only have thirty minutes before the battle squad fades.”
“If I die, you need to promise to let Donut free,” I said.
“It will be done,” she said.
The entranceway was shaped like a giant clown face, and I had to walk straight into the clown’s mouth. Time had faded the clown’s pupils, making the eyes completely white. I hate clowns, I thought. I really hate clowns. Whoever invented these things needs to be punched in the face.
I had to proceed through a short, curving tunnel. Music once again rose, coming from deep within the tent. This music was faster and happier, more inline with a traditional circus. My minimap was a sea of red dots, including one right around the corner. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I kept thinking as I inched my way forward. I held the ticket out in front of me.
