NOVEL FROG 043, A flight of stairs (Part 2)
We keep our steady stalking pace moving forward, all of us on high alert, so when Garn shouts, “DAWN- DODGE!” We’re already primed to leap out of the way.
Making sure to put myself between the giant elk corpse leaping down from the trees and my more fragile and less mobile party members, I’m able to bear witness to the horrific collision of meat and earth, axe and hide, and also antler and chest. Thankful that while he didn’t have enough time to avoid the charge completely, with his swing obliterating one of the leading legs there wasn’t any follow through. The beast collapses into the ground and its forceful gore loses its crushing momentum and so rapidly shifts to add a secondary swipe.
The next moment there is a large black arrow lodged in an eye socket and the creature falters for a moment while it was picking itself up. Though directly after there is some cursing from Wildfire behind me as I too notice the extra ornamentation amongst the bleeding ragged hunks of velvet disguising the birds using them as a perch. The shadow drinker zips onto the arrow in a blink and the black fades from it almost as quickly before flying back behind its cover.
The elk stands back up and unleashes that burgle once more, and even with my holy light shining forth and bracing me, I shudder. When I see the horde of mice pour out of the corpse’s gaping side wounds, all of which are also sporting missing chunks of flesh and sickly patches of rotting fur, I stumble.
But when the passing of that tide whip cracks the severed leg back into place and the horde and its vile transporter continue their charge at my beloved, I scream out my defiance and Flash Step and strike at the lead of the crowd. My aura of light shining brightly and being quickly drained by the holy drinkers riding the elk. This is the worst sort of fight for me, an unavoidably powerful controller, backed by a tide of weak but deadly adds and magic syphons keyed to our elements.
As I begin my Dervish Dance, my twin swords flash through the air, cutting apart leaping and crawling zombified rodents while I taunt the elk into keeping its attention on me. It’s our usual strategy for hard encounters, but the situation is made far worse by the mana drinkers. Typically, I can maintain the dance for a half hour or more, using the light to both taunt and refresh my stamina as I hurl myself across the battlefield.
This fight is on a harsh timer however, because a huge portion of my taunting light is being drained away by tiny targets perched on a violently thrashing undying monstrosity. The initial arrow that would have felled or at least blinded a different opponent was pulled out of the socket by a scrambling rat rider. Shortly after the empty pit coalesced a pale light that tracks me even as I draw it away from our magically focused members.
Garn yells and snarls as he unleashes devastating swings of his axe, absorbs bone-shattering hoof kicks, and acts as a secondary beacon for drawing away the swarm of undead. His massive resilience prevents most of the smaller creatures from being able to even injure him at all, sparing him their toxic afflictions. Also allowing himself to be repeatedly blasted by Wildfire as she and Sid work to draw away the flame drinkers.
When enough are sniped during their flights between the elk and the rat swarm that surges out to cover Garn, the next stage can begin. I just need to hold out long enough to give her the opportunity to scour the flesh cage of the holy and shadow birds so our full attention can finally be plied to bringing down the bull.
Meanwhile, Bond is weaving incredibly complex spell forms, shaping momentary boosts while sharing talents between us to allow Sid’s stealth and my taunts to better direct the seemingly endless tide of rodents.
As the fight drags on and fewer birds leave their nest while enough have remained behind to stop Wildfire from purging the others Bond calls out, “Spread them farther apart! They’re recycling their dead to keep spawning more. Burn off the supply and birds won’t matter!”
I share a glance with Garn and we switch places. His brawn roaring out and meeting the challenge of the elk while I flex my more intricate Threatening Aura to gather a large wave of the rodents and draw them further away. Sid working with Garn to distract the beast so its full might can’t be brought to bear and seriously maim the larger but more susceptible fighter.
Though when both holy and flame drinkers flock together to protect the swarm, the shadows gain dominance and make Sid’s efforts ineffective on the larger creature. Bond shouts, “Going Nova on everyone! Kill these pests before I run out!”
The sudden deluge of strength and speed allow my blades to strike out and reach enough of the remaining flame birds that Wildfire is able to highlight the rest. With her unleashing enough flame to slow the holies, Sid manages to snipe them out of the conflagration. Now that I have less of my amp being drained away I manage to finish off the rest that were holding back the Tempest.
There is a moment of worry as my world turns to nothing but fire, but the outpouring of strength and shielding from Bond allows my light to blend with the flames, drawing more and more of the swarm into their cremation.
The flames around me cut off after several moments as that damnable bugle rips through the air once more. Seeing the festering wounds adorning Garn’s torso and him hold his axe with only one hand, as his other is limp and flayed at his side, I draw on the last reservoir of Bond’s Nova.
I Flash Step and deflect the charging elk away from Garns heaving form, his offhanded strike still managing horrendous damage to the beast, even though it ignores its many wounds. As I take the next moment to unleash a surge of healing and the Elk is engulfed in an inferno, Garn manages to grunt out, “Rats gone. Wounds stay.”
Sparing a glance at the rancid flaming carcass as it turns back to us, I notice that the various gouges that would ordinarily fade back into its macabre ‘healthy’ state are still present, even as its hide blackens, and it lowers its rack to charge again. I push more power into healing while I continue to also deflect the mindless menace, as what Garn said resonates two-fold. The afflictions soaked into his ragged torn flesh are resisting my magic.
We stay like that, a pillar of light reaching out and slapping away a grand burning effigy for a few passes before I hear Sid say, “Finally. All gone.” The flames sputter out and die after that and as the elk finally manages to break away from my taunting effect as its whole body shudders. A massively shadow infused arrow suddenly lodged itself deep into the skull of the beast.
The fletching on the arrow pulses and I stab forward a spike of my own holy light as a grand whirling whip of flame each find an empty eye socket to burrow into. Wildfire and I screaming in unison as we hold the beams even as the beast merely wobbles but doesn’t actually fall.
If not for the surety I feel through Bond’s connection between us, my flagging strength and the echo of mana exhaustion I feel from Sid might have brought me to despair. But then, there is a great warcry from behind me and a tremor in the earth. All of my focus on maintaining my assault on the elk I only catch the final moment, where Garn’s axe descends alongside his leap as he clears not only the distance between us, but the antlers as well.
Seeing him land on the monster’s hindquarters as he unleashes a swing with every bit of his strength that beheads the beast as I fall to my knee. My magic nearly drained I can only watch as Garn jumps off the collapsing body of the elk as another conflagration consumes the now unmoving torso.
I allow myself only four breaths before I push myself back to my feet, “Sid, help Bond over to me. He soaked up a nasty fucking plague to let Garn land that blow.” As Bond falters at Sid’s touch and Wildfire’s focus falters momentarily, “No! Wildfire, keep up the burn. Garn’s right, there’s too much magic to trust that an undead will stay down. In the state we’re in we couldn’t even run. I’ll heal Bond, fire is what you need to do.”
When I reach Bond and Garn, the latter waves me away from tending to the still bleeding wounds on his own form, “Just flesh. Bond ate curse. Priority.”
Having experience with this affliction now, I can see how it is attacking his entire system, physically and magically. As I work to unravel its hold on him, “You’re in luck Bond. This is a nasty piece of work, but with you being uninjured, it’s not anchored to you as well. You undoubtedly feel like a sack of shit, but all of your soul work and that heart of yours are already working with me to purge this.”
As the bonfire on the corpse dies down with the dwindling supply of flesh to consume, Garn walks over and stomps on it for good measure, “Hey Sid, just an fyi. Don’t get yourself hit by this nasty piece of work, but if you do, don’t try and tough it out like Garn. It latches onto magical connections absurdly easily, only way Bond managed to rip it out of him in the first place.”
We share a look as I leave the rest unsaid, his half-blinded wife getting slapped with an invasive curse that latches onto existing injuries and exasperates them is something none of us want.
There is a chime as I breach what feels like the last hurdle in excising the curse and some light clapping fills the little patch of clearing we’ve set up camp in.
“
As Bond rises from where he was lying down for treatment, there is a note of confusion in his voice, “Cutest? Is that you. You sound so different.”
There is a disturbance in the {Charm} at the far side of the clearing from us, close to the patch of scorched land where the somehow still pristine skull has been placed as a marker over the blackened twigs of shattered bones.
---
I blink awake. Messenger is sitting atop the pile of burnt elk, its former ornament, the pristine skull of which our might and magic failed to harm is no longer there.
I shake my head. Something happened, I was working on Bond’s curse when… I check my logs.
Encounter with “Unclean” cleared! Additional rewards available for being the first to slay the Boss and cleanse its curse. Rewards redeemable after reaching Life, Thing, or Cutest.
You have redeemed your First Clear bonus reward from Cutest: I want to forget encountering Cutest’s new form until I’m strong enough that the memories won’t break who I would be without them and Cutest shall remained veiled in future encounters until the prior condition is fulfilled. The {Contract} is valid and complete.
My eyes snap to Messenger’s form and she meets my eyes before looking away in shame, “”
Bond is holding his head, “What? What happened… My head is killing me.”
I project a stream of healing to everyone still wincing under the stress of whatever happened when Cutest apparently appeared, “Check your logs. Mine says we cleared a boss encounter and then I swore a {Contract} to protect myself from having witnessed Cutest in person.”
Even with my healing, there is groaning and grumbling from everyone except Wildfire as they wrestle with the pain. I turn back to Messenger, “Why is everyone else affected so much worse than me? I didn’t even have a headache when I woke up, just confusion.”
Another shame response from the mouse before Wildfire speaks up, “You had to use Rust to seal our memories, didn’t you?”
I look over at her, “Rust? What’s that, and why is it Capitalized when I say it?”
She looks between us at the men all pushing through the pain as my healing steadily works to clear out the aftereffects. I can tell that she doesn’t want to talk about it but considering how debilitating it is, I’m about to insist she speak when DNA steps into the clearing, “(It’s fine. It was my doing, I’ll explain.)”