James A. Hunter
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Vigil's Balance: Six – Sucker Punch
🕑 Added 2022-11-24 18:00:04 +0000 UTCI yanked on Darksilver’s reins.
The horse nickered and danced back a few steps, clearly agitated.
“We’ve got company!” Cal called.
A crystalline spear zipped through the space I’d occupied a second before and thudded, quivering, into the knobby trunk of a nearby tree. The entire shaft was made of clear stone that glittered in an errant moonbeam. I thrust a hand out and pulled from the well of energy inside my chest. Arcana surged outward, forming a dome of golden light, covered in an intricate pattern of cosmic crimson sigils. The Warded Shield snapped into place just in time to deflect a second spear, hurled from my right, and a flurry of crystal-tipped arrows fired from my left.
Fuck me. That assmunch, Elduin, had led us right into an ambush.
“Contact, left! Contact, right!” I yelled, already scanning the twisted, unearthly trees for any sign of the enemy. There was a brief shimmer to the air but no obvious threat, despite the fact that something—or a bunch of somethings—were hurling weapons at us. My shield deflected more arrows, which ricocheted harmlessly to the ground. But every hit sent snaking cracks sprinting across my conjured barrier. The arcane defense was formidable but could only absorb so much damage before failing. It was also draining my Arcana gauge, so I couldn’t just sit here all day.
Renholm let out a shrieking wail and charged forward on Jacob Francis. “To battle!” The cat leapt onto a time-worn boulder jutting from the ground and slammed into… nothing. The feline seemed to hang in midair, his claws scratching at some unseen assailant, while Renholm lashed out with his tiny sword and hurled bolts of black entropy magic.
Darksilver reared back and wheeled sharply right, attacking with a razor-edged front hoof. Even though I couldn’t see what we were tangling with, I felt the impact as the horse’s foot caught something unyielding. There was a rocky grunt and a chip of stone the size of my fist flipped through the air and landed in the grass.
It didn’t take me long to piece together that our attackers were employing a glamor to conceal their presence. Somehow, the animals were able to see through their magic, even though my enhanced senses couldn’t. Human beings tended to rely most heavily on sight, while many animals—including cats and horses—tended to favor things like scent or hearing. Chances were, these chucklefucks had masked their presence from my vision, but had failed to obscure anything else.
Good thing I had a spell to take care of pesky little illusions like this one.
Darksilver spun like a top, this time mule kicking something with bone-breaking force. I dropped my shield at the same moment and slammed my hands together in a loud slap that sent unseen power rippling outward from me in a circle as I activated Peirce Veil. Time seemed to grind to a halt for a long moment as my wave of power hit resistance. Suddenly, I found myself engaged in what I could only call a battle of wills. When a caster used a glamor, they were essentially imposing their vision of the world on others.
See what I want you to see…
Hear what I want you to hear…
Feel what I want you to feel…
Pierce Veil allowed me to contest that vision. To break the spell disguising the truth of the world. But it wasn’t a straightforward thing. It was my magic—my will, my vision, my determination—pitted directly against theirs. My will was stronger and so was my magic. The spell held for all of half a second then fractured like a fragile mirror. Everywhere my power touched, the glamor guttered and faded.
The clearing looked exactly as it had before, but now there were ten stout golem-like figures surrounding our party in a loose circle. Each stood around five feet tall but were built like proverbial shit brick houses. They were androgynous, neither male nor female, and made entirely from pale quartz, flecked with gold. They carried no discernable weapons, which made me wonder where in the hell the arrows and spears were coming from.
I got my answer a second later when one of the quartz elementals flung one arm forward and it detached, sailing through the air toward me like a rocket.
Another one stuck both hands forward and proceeded to launch its goddamned fingers at me. They literally broke away from its body, lengthening and sharpening as they carved through the air. The missing limbs didn’t stay gone for long either. The Mortka drew strength from the ground itself, replacing their missing appendages with fresh dirt and rock. I canted my body and let the arrows sail past me while simultaneously plucking the spear from the air with one hand. I twirled the conjured weapon and hurled it back at the quartz golem with a flick of my wrist.
The weapon slammed into the creature’s chest with explosive force. The blow did little more than leave a small divot in its torso, which quickly refilled. I urged Darksilver forward with my heels, riding down one of the golems standing directly in our path like a moron waiting to get sideswiped by a train. My mount plowed into the Mortka, knocking it to the ground in a sprawl of earthen limbs. Darsilver didn’t stop. Its huge body tap-danced across the creature in a clop of hooves and a constant crunch of broken stone.
Cal was likewise engaging with one of the golems. He’d kept the body of a centaur, but his fists had transformed into huge sledgehammer heads, that pummeled anything unlucky enough to get in range.
I turned on another one of the creatures, which was charging toward me with an arm raised—ready to launch another deadly spear, no doubt. I hit the sumbitch with a white-hot arc of lightning so bright it left a purple afterimage tattooed against my retinas. The bolt of electricity fizzled on contact and didn’t faze the creature for a moment. This thing was made of stone and seemed utterly impervious to the attack.
Because of course it was.
With a throaty roar, the golem leapt, showcasing a surprising display of agility for something so blocky and heavy. I called up a Warded Shield once again, but I was too slow by half. The monster slammed into me with a stony shoulder, knocking me from the back of my horse. I landed on the ground with a wheeze, the air rushing out from my lungs. The blocky creature came right down on top of me. Its weight made it impossible to move. It raised an arm, its hand forming into a sharpened spear tip, and brought it straight down toward my heart.
I was currently wearing my reinforced Basilisk Scale Mail. At this range, with my back pinned against the ground, that spear would punch through the armor like a piston. I triggered Armor Evocation, swapping out to my Stone Spider Plate Mail, then bucked my hips and jerked my shoulders to one side. The spear tip came down with tremendous, inhuman force and still managed to pierce my armor despite my best efforts. But because of my wriggling, the tip sliced into the meat of my left shoulder instead of skewering something vital. Like my heart or lungs.
A dark bolt of entropy hit the creature and black spider veins started to quickly spread across its stony exterior.
Renholm’s attack bought me time to retaliate.
I grit my teeth and pushed both palms against the creature’s chest, even though doing so drove the tip of the spear deeper into my shoulder. My blue Arcana gauge flashed as I triggered Kinetic Blast. A battering ram of pure, magical force ripped the creature’s arms from its torso and violently hurled it away from me. It landed in a heap ten feet away—alive, but barely. I quickly stumbled to my feet, the wound in my shoulder already knitting itself closed. With a thought, I reached through the ether and conjured my M4.
I tucked the rifle into my shoulder pocket, targeted the prone, armless golem, and let loose with a hail of pure Arcana rounds. The bullets chewed into the creature’s rocky shoulders and face, sending a flurry of rock chips flying up in a geyser. But the rounds didn’t have the power to penetrate the golem’s rigid exterior or do any real, lasting damage.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our two tour guides watching the ambush from the safety of an elevated hillside. They made no move to help, and the rocky creatures likewise made no move to engage them. Instead, that shithead elf, Elduin, simply smirked as my rounds pinged and whined off ineffectually from the target. There was no doubt in my mind that he’d orchestrated this whole encounter and he’d picked an enemy that was perfectly tailored to my weaknesses.
The golems were immune to my Electro-Arc spell and Festering Wounds—my primary DPS attack—wouldn’t do jack shit, because these things weren’t made of flesh and blood. There was simply nothing to infect. As for my axe, though it was technically a blunt weapon, there was no way it was going to do much damage against these things. The Queen had obviously been studying me, assessing which skills I was most likely to have equipped. Arturo had warned me that the Fae were a crafty bunch, and I was learning that lesson firsthand.
I wasn’t completely helpless, however.
With a growl, I raised a hand toward the sky. The ground beneath the sprawled out golem rumbled and huge, writhing roots covered in spindly spines erupted from the dirt and grass. They wrapped around the creature’s stony legs and blocky waist, pinning it in place. My Arcana Gauge barely even flickered and I noticed that conjuring the roots here was far easier than it had ever been in the Material Realm. I stowed that bit of information away for later, then let out a piercing whistle. Darksilver wheeled about, bucking back and caving in another creature’s head.
I pointed at the trapped creature and Darksilver obeyed without further instruction.
The horse rampaged forward, stomping at the ground, and turning the trapped golem into a heap of glittering rubble.
None of my own spells or abilities were especially effective, but I always had one ace in the hole, tucked away for emergencies. Totem Transformation. What I needed right now was blunt weapon superiority, and I had a Token in the leather pouch at my hip that would do the trick. With steady hands, I pulled out a perfectly smooth glass marble shot through with pulsing veins of red and silver. I wrapped my fingers around the marble and drew the potent energy within down into my palm.
The stone cracked and disappeared into fine motes of dust while feral, chaotic energy rampaged through my body, ripping apart my muscles, twisting and distorting my limbs, snapping bones only to reform them into new configurations. My arms stretched and lengthened packing on pounds of muscle at the same time. A tail, capped with a spikey-studded club of bone, ripped its way from my spine. A huge, rhino-like horn erupted from my newly-formed snout.
The Ku-Rodur was a rare and dangerous breed of highly intelligent Mortka that hailed from the deep caverns that dotted the mountains around the cursed Sapphire City—fortress of the long-dead Warlock, Isabella the Ghostblood. They were huge creatures that looked like the unholy love child of a Komodo Dragon, a silverback Gorilla, and a goddamned Rhino. If anything could bludgeon these sons of bitches into submission it was a Ku-Rodur.
According to Kerra, Isabella had somehow managed to form a pact with the wild beasts and had used them as enforcers during the Hundred-Years’ War. I’d picked up close to fifty rare Transformation Tokens after looting Kol’s body, including a couple of these bad boys. Kol had been a Vigil of Balance and a master shapeshifter. He’d also been around the block a few times and, during his younger years, he’d even fought against Isabella and her army of Mortka.
Transforming was never a pleasant process and consuming Transformation Tokens was costly because the only way to get new ones was to kill Mortka and pray they dropped one of the coveted tokens. But there was no point in hoarding them, especially when riding through a shit storm like this.
The transformation happened in the span of a heartbeat, but seemed to drag on and on forever. When the shift had finally run its course, I blinked open reptilian eyes and froze at the beauty around me. The landscape had been magical and captivating before, but in this form I could see so much more. Currents of Essence drifted on the air like streamers. A wide array of new and interesting smells assaulted my nostrils, carrying with them a host of new sensory inputs. I could taste the aroma of tightly-controlled fear radiating off Elduin and a mixture of annoyance and disproval emanating from his partner.
There were so many sensations screaming for my attention that it threatened to overwhelm me. If I let them, I’d die. The need to survive outweighed my innate curiosity and I focused on the task at hand. Although Cal and Darksilver had managed to take down two of these creatures each, I was still zero for ten. Time to change that.
I dropped my shoulders and barreled forward, using my powerful rear legs and my lanky gorilla arms to eat up the distance. I lowered my head at the last moment and felt something click into place inside my neck. A boney column, built to protect my spine from the direct damage of a head on collision. I crashed into the crystal golem and a vibration shivered through my body as my horn punched a hole through the top of its chest and sent the creature flying as though it were a stuffed animal.
Its head tore away in the process and golden light leaked out from the jagged stump, filling my nostrils with Essence.
[You have killed a Lesser Crystalline Elemental! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 650 Essence!]
Not too shabby, I thought, circling around and locking in on my next target. Jacob Francis had scurried up a tree trunk and was hissing at one of the creatures below. Renholm was frantically launching magic at the golem, alternating between dizzying light displays, meant to disorient, and dark bolts of Chaotic power. Neither seemed to be working especially well. But with my newly enhanced senses, I could feel the Hex Aura wrapped around the fairy like a cloak. The way I figured it, the shithead elemental at the base of tree was due for a little bad luck.
I decided Bad Luck was what I would call my shiny new murder horn from now on.
I charged again, the ground quaking beneath every footfall. One of the crystal golems tried to intercept me—I shoulder checked the stupid son of a bitch into oblivion. The monster bounced off me like a rubber ball, falling beneath my trampling feet in the process. Glass and rock crunched beneath my immense weight and more golden Essence flowed into my body.
[You have killed a Lesser Crystalline Elemental! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 650 Essence!]
Like all Mortka, these things were killable so long as you had the right tools for the job. Turned out the Ku-Rodur was the right tool.
I kept steamrolling forward and drove my horn into the elemental at the base of the tree. It broke through the monster’s stomach and I reared back, lifting the creature into the air; its arms and legs thrashed wildly as it tried fruitless to free itself. No dice. I reached up with my hug ape arms and grabbed its head in one simian hand and one leg in the other. I cranked downward, using my horn as the point of leverage, and ripped the fucker in two. I tossed the upper half away whole sucking up more life-giving Essence.
[You have killed a Lesser Crystalline Elemental! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 650 Essence!]
“Yes!” Renholm shrieked from above. “Behold the power of my champion! All shall fall before us!” He took to wing and landed lightly on my shoulder. “Let us advance. Let us make our enemies pay for their transgressions!”
For once, I couldn’t agree more.
Darksilver had taken down another elemental in his berserker horse rage, and Cal had one more on the ropes. His stony fists of justice landed like hammer blows, sending more and more chips of stone summersaulting away.
Only one left—not counting the elvish dickface responsible for this ambush.
I stomped at the ground and sent a wave of power coursing down into the soil. Thick vines exploded upward, snaring my target in unbreakable roots. I narrowed my eyes and charged again, building unstoppable momentum with every step. The creature hacked frantically at the conjured roots with a jagged machete arm, but there were just too many of the damned things. When I was in range, I lifted the lower half of the last elemental I’d killed above my head and brought it down in a ferocious overhand blow.
There was a thunderclap as stone clashed with stone, followed by an explosion that sent rocky shrapnel flying out in every direction. Jagged chunks of crystal pelted my chest and face but failed to penetrate my pebbly hide.
[You have killed a Lesser Crystalline Elemental! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 650 Essence!]
Intoxicating power circulated through my veins and the distant sound of a heavenly orchestra filled my head as golden light leaked from my pours like steam. I’d done it. Ascended to the Master ranks. I felt a distant surge of excitement, but it was quickly overtaken by an all-consuming sense of rage. I turned, pawing at the ground, teeth bared in a snarl.
None of the elementals remained, but I instantly spotted the elf smirking at me with his arms folded across his chest. His Sasquatch buddy had wisely moved a few paces away as though he knew what was coming. All I could see was red. A small voice screamed in the back of my mind that attacking an emissary of the Queen was probably a bad idea, but that voice couldn’t compete with the animal fury bubbling up like a wellspring.
My blood was hot, my hackles were up, and logic wasn’t the order of the day.
Death was all that mattered.
I snorted and barreled toward the navigator, ready to rip that douche canoe a new asshole, and consequences be damned.
