Author Frank Morin
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Ch 51 - Warning Signs Are For Suckers
🕑 Added 2024-10-15 16:00:12 +0000 UTC"Oh no you don't," I growled and took off after it. In my inventory, Switchblade still showed as recharging with the timer of two minutes, so I ran.
With my current stats boosted, I felt like I could outrun a car. I drew deep and accelerated, flashing across the meadow, legs churning the grasses as I gave chase. I hit at least 40 miles per hour and found I hadn’t even come close to my fastest speed, so I accelerated more.
My Endurance was also boosted, so I should be able to outlast the monster, even if I couldn't outpace it. Besides, it couldn't get too far with the steep hills hemming us in on every side.
That idea proved to be false when the hog-taur reached the the steep slope on the north side of the meadow. Barely slowing, it charged straight up the hillside that had to be at least a 45 degree slope, if not more. In seconds, it ascended to the top and disappeared over the edge.
Stinking coward. Definitely smarter than most monsters if it was wise enough to flee, but it was wasting my time.
The thing climbed with the alacrity of an elk back on Earth. Pigs weren't supposed to be that agile. When I reached the slope, I raced up it at full speed, still accelerating. It felt like my speed was approaching more like that kid Dash from the movie The Incredibles and I laughed aloud as I tore up the slope.
By the time I reached the top of that first steep slope, I was gaining on the hog-taur. It was disappearing into some trees clustered at the mouth of a gully even more narrow than the one I had followed earlier. I sprinted after and found a game trail cutting through the brush and winding up the steep gully as it cut higher into the next mountain.
Ahead of me, the hog-taur grunted, its breathing loud and labored. So I’d guessed right. It was super fast over short distances, but could not keep up the pace.
I pursued, but didn't catch up before the gully opened up onto another small high-mountain clearing, this one rockier and covered in loose dirt. A near-vertical slope rose from the far side of the clearing and the hog-taur was already nearly at the top, riding some kind of pulley lift.
“Does this thing have a short-term teleport ability?” I growled as I paused to gape. I hadn’t been this far behind just a moment ago.
The lift was an interesting twist. None of the other monsters on this stage had used any kind of technology, even though some had carried weapons. As I studied the simple wooden platform, I noticed new details about the steep slope.
It was actually made out of enormous stones, squared and stacked atop each other like a giant wall. Since when did monsters build giant buildings? Scanning farther, I couldn’t see any other indication for what the wall might be.
It didn’t matter. I had to catch that hog-taur. It was proving challenging enough that it had to give a lot of experience. It was the first monster on stage 1 I’d found at level 25 since Tecton, the bull herd boss.
The hog-taur reached the top and trotted off the lift after making a hand gesture that had to be the monster equivalent of flipping me off. It did not send the lift back down.
It would take way too long to try climbing that wall, but luckily I didn't have to. I’d picked up the perfect potion a while ago.
"Ground Walker potion. Walk with confidence on any earthen surface or slope. Duration: 60 seconds."
I quaffed the potion, which tasted like stale dishwater filled with grit. I should have just moved it to a hotlist spot and triggered it.
A sense of superhuman surefootedness flowed into my feet. Kind of a weird effect, but totally worth the nasty taste. I rushed forward to the vertical wall. My foot landed with even more grip than if I was standing on perfectly flat ground. Some magic was just so cool!
Grinning like a little boy at Christmas, I ran up the stone wall, my body horizontal but not bothered by gravity. In seconds I reached the top. From there, I could see the next part of the mountain, which had been hidden by the steep slope before.
A surprisingly well-manicured lawn spread out in front of me, leading to another slope. The hog-taur was trotting up a switchback trail carved into that slope. It was steep, but not nearly as bad as the one I’d just climbed.
Even more interesting, the trail was paved with flat stones, while flowering trees stood at each corner. A gentle fragrance wafted across the little meadow, as if someone was burning a few of those scented candles my mother always gave to her friends at Christmas.
“This is getting weird,” I muttered as I trotted toward the path.
Eva surprised me by saying, “Congratulations, Lucas! You have found the hidden sacred valley of the Peakstone boars.”
“Boars have sacred valleys?” Weirder and weirder.
The slope with the fancy path was several hundred yards high, topping out in what I suspected was a much larger valley. If I was lucky, that was the creature's home and I could finally corner the agile coward. I didn't bother with the switchbacks, but ran straight up the slope, surefooted all the way as if I jogged on perfectly flat ground.
“Ooh, bold move,” Cyrus said. “Even on your world, ignoring well-marked paths in sacred places is a sign of poor upbringing.”
“Why is this important now? I’m coming to kill that thing, remember?”
“Doesn’t mean you have to insult its home.”
“Is this place affecting you too? Why are you acting weird, and why would monsters have sacred places?”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Cyrus said, but his voice sounded almost teasing.
For a moment, I considered just turning around and getting out of there. Was Cyrus setting me up? Sacred valleys and odd warnings did not bode well. Then again, I had my sights on a monster powerful enough to maybe get me a level and I didn’t have time to waste.
So I pushed my worries aside and increased my pace, running straight up the slope. The potion wore off just as I reached the top.
My suspicion prove correct. I’d reached a beautiful, high-mountain meadow. Behind me on the east side, higher mountains pierced the sky, while to the north, the mountain I was climbing rose several thousand feet higher above the meadow. The mountaintop was weird though. It rose in stepped tiers of stone that looked somehow familiar. I stared at it for a few seconds, then realized what I was looking at.
“Is the rest of this mountain based on Q’Bert?” I hadn’t played the retro game in years. I guess Intelligence stats helped with old memories. Up at the top of the mountain, a small stone building stood, ringed with brightly colored flags, like some kind of Tibetan temple.
“You’re the first to spot the similarity, although you’ve missed other game references, so I’m not giving you another title,” Cyrus said.
“I had no idea that was a thing.”
“The perceptive mind notices patterns others fail to grasp. This one’s not too over-the-top, is it?”
I wanted to say, “Nah,” but took a moment to scan the area more closely. To my left, the southern edge of the valley ended in a steep slope, and the boundary was lined with standing stones. The rough bases of black rock were smoothed near the top and capped with half-finished statues. The rough work gave the impressions of monsters struggling to break free of the stone.
On the far western side opposite from me, about 200 yards away across the waving grasses, a huge boulder rose at the edge of where the valley abruptly ended. Beyond, the land spread out in a magnificent view overlooking the grassland of the first stage. Even from where I stood, I could glimpse the rolling expanse of the plain and the steep cliff on the western side rising up toward stage 2 miles away. The view was breathtaking.
Too bad I didn’t have a camera. With the two moons high in the sky and the brilliant stars filling the canopy of the heavens like sparkling jewels, it was a sight that would've won any photography competition back on Earth.
The idyllic sight felt wrong, though. An intangible energy filled the open valley and my skin crawled. Eva had said this was a sacred place, but despite the statues and that shrine up on the mountain above, it looked like a pretty, high-mountain valley.
I didn’t trust it. No time to dawdle. The hog-taur had slowed to a walk and was barely 30 yards away, heading toward the opposite side of the meadow and that solitary bolder hill.
Switchblade was mostly recharged, so I called it out of my inventory and hopped on. The bike purred to life as good as ever, and I gunned the throttle, aiming straight for the hog-taur.
It spun at the sound, hefted his huge club, and bellowed a deep-throated roar. I triggered the Shattercore Ballista that had also recharged. It flashed across the distance and detonated against the hog-taur's chest, staggering him back in a spray of blood and gore.
He grunted, coughing up blood, trying to lift his club. Weird. I’d hit him dead on, just like I had the other one. My ballista should have killed him. He was only one level higher than the other one.
It didn’t matter. The ballista had hurt it badly, and before the monster could recover, I reached it and leaped off Switchblade, banishing the bike as I soared past the monster’s head. It tried to hit me, but reacted half a second too late. Soulrend cut through its head and it dropped to the ground as a kill notification flashed in my vision.
I summoned Switchblade back, landing on the bike even as I accepted the prompt to loot. Easy peasy. Time to go.
Even as I started leaning to bank my hover bike, a much louder roar echoed from the opposite side of the clearing. The sound sent a shiver of nervous fear skittering down my back. I leveled out to look around and asked, “Do sacred valleys have sacred guardians?”
Should have thought of that sooner.
Cyrus laughed with delight. “Excellent guess! This one does.”
Of course it did. I should have saved that ballista for a different target. I hadn’t expected more monsters.
The huge boulder hill on the other side of the clearing turned out to be a cave because the older brother to the hog-taur I just killed trotted out of the dark opening in the center. For a second, all I could do was stare and gulp.
He was enormous, his boar body the size of a moving van, his thick, powerful legs seeming too short for the huge, muscled expanse of black boar. His thick fur gleamed with magical power.
His humanoid shape rising from the front of the boar torso had the bulging muscles of a power lifter, if that power lifter ate other power lifters. The monster had to stand at least 15 feet tall, and on his oversized human-shape head, he had a boar snout with tusks that glinted in the starlight. His aura hit me, and even across the meadow, he radiated a sense of danger that rivaled the werewolf alpha on the second stage.
"Bristleback. Level 50 boar-tar mystic champion. Legendary. Peakstone boars evolve as they level, and the pinnacle most reach is the mighty hog-taur. Few reach the final evolution, the epic boar-tar. Bristleback has evolved further and become the spiritual guide for all hog-taurs. As the Priest of Storms, he rules his sacred valley with unrivaled power. This apex guardian of the herd is smart, cunning, and has developed arcane powers far beyond any of his kind. If you're reading this, it's probably the last thing you're ever going to do."
“Level 50?” I whispered, my mouth suddenly dry.
That was insane. Horror more intense than anything I’d felt up on stage 2 chilled my soul. Tecton, the stage-1 boss, had only been level 25.
“Sacred places are no joke,” Cyrus said in a cheery, conversational tone.
I could not be there. I had been an idiot to ignore the warnings. This thing was way beyond anything I could handle. It radiated more power than a full pack of werewolves.
Crouching low over Switchblade, I threw my bike over and gunned it, spinning the machine around in a quick 180 and tearing for the slope I’d just climbed. A second bellowing roar echoed from the distant boar-tar, shaking the night air and sending shivers of dread down my spine.
I glanced back and my fear spiked to whole new levels. The monster was charging after me and even though I cranked open the throttle all the way, he was gaining. He'd drawn an enormous silver bow from somewhere.
It was like a sci-fi version of a compound bow, with powerful metal arms and pulley wheels on either end. The string glowed with golden light, and as he drew it back, a silver arrow appeared, blazing with power. It was longer than the ballista Switchblade fired.
I did not want to get hit by that. I was only seconds away from escape, but I wasn't going to make it. So I leaned hard to the left, triggered all the directional thrusters, and banked into a tight turn, racing across the meadow toward the Q’Bert stepped peak.
Through my growing panic, I tried to plan. If I could dodge his first arrow, I could spin back the other way and get to the descent. Once I was out of his sight, I could escape into the narrow gullies and hills where he wouldn't have a good shot.
Bristleback released the arrow, and it changed direction mid-flight like a homing missile. I didn’t even have time to curse as I slammed on the brakes, hoping the abrupt change might make the arrow overshoot.
No chance in hell. It blasted into my side like a lightning bolt straight from Zeus. I couldn't even scream as electricity tore through me, shaking every muscle and locking me in place. Switchblade sputtered and died again as its systems overloaded.
Even though Soul Feed automatically triggered and stole a fraction of that power to feed back into my health, it wasn't nearly enough. My health bar was draining fast. I gritted my teeth, waiting for the power to dissipate. As soon as it did, I’d drink a potion and figure out a way to escape.
Except the lightning bolt did not stop. The torture dragged on as I shook and rattled, jolted by levels of electricity that would have instantly crisped me back on Earth. Through my racking spasms of pain, I managed to focus enough to realize what happened.
The silver lightning bolt arrow still impaled my side, but the end had extended down to the ground, tethering me in place. No no no no! This was bad.
And getting worse. Bristleback closed like a freight train, his bow disappearing and he replaced it with an enormous polearm capped with a heavy-bladed scimitar like those Japanese naginatas.
I couldn’t move, couldn’t break the lightning tether. My health and mana were draining too fast. Energy Ward materialized around me, also fueled by Soul Feed, but that would never stop the charging monster.
The merciless truth settled into my mind like a coffin. I couldn’t escape this blow.
I wouldn’t just let him skewer me, though.
Mustering the scattered remnants of my will, I threw Soulrend and Switchblade back into my inventory. Dropping to the ground didn’t break the tether, like I hoped.
As Bristleback closed like an avalanche, I extracted my Roman shield, screaming from the effort as my muscles protested. At least my hands locked around the handles to hold the shield in place. I also triggered two hotlist items: a scroll of Earth armor and a full regeneration potion.
I looked up and tried to shout my defiance, but my lightning-locked jaw distorted the sound into a grunting whine. Bristleback struck like a runaway freight train, his scimitar spear flashing forward in a double-handed blow driven by the full weight of his charge. I tried moving, but could barely twitch with the lightning freezing my muscles. I tried to scream, but only managed a weak gurgling sound.
The blow landed and blasted me to oblivion.
