Maleena shot a bolt of ice at the leftmost head, the icicle lodging itself with a meaty THWUNK into the multi-domed monster between the eyes.
The head slumped forward, but the creature kept coming… five putrid reanimated mouths still roaring with an otherworldly timbre.
Benji stepped up and aimed a lightning bolt at the icicle, it’s frozen shard of water acting as a conduit for the shock spell.
The lightning coursed through the hideous amalgamation of corpses, causing one of its legs to go limp and get dragged along as it sprinted. It lost a little speed, but not much.
The monster was closing in fast and headed straight for Maleena, who was near the front of the group. She fired off another few ice bolts, two going wide and clipping one of several shoulders.
The third careened off a nearby tree and sent wood scattering. And then it was on her. One arm gripped her around the throat and squeezed.
But she didn’t drop.
Her muscles were magically enhanced by her bolster spell and she just hung there screaming. She tried to get an arm up to wrench the hand from her throat, but another one came to its aid.
Two out of twelve hands held Maleena aloft and her face was getting redder by the minute.
Dane, who was furthest from the hulking monstrosity a moment ago, was suddenly in the most tactically advantageous spot next to Maleena with his giant mace in hand.
With an animalistic roar, he slammed his black mace down… obliterating the two arms and sending them flying.
Maleena dropped to the forest floor, clutching at her neck for a brief moment catching her breath. A leg came down to crush her skull, but she rolled to the side and slashed out with her short sword.
Blood sprayed out and splattered all over Dane’s face as he wound up for another mace shot to the monster’s appendages. His swing was aimed, incalculably well, for the leg that had just missed Maleena.
Only about ten seconds had passed and I was just catching up. This level of battle was not something I had seen before, nor anything I had been planning for.
But the hulking monster was not slowing down and two out of four of us were already engaged at close proximity.
I let my hammer fly, burning as it went, until it connected with the right most head.
My mark had red hair and a scar on it’s face. I recognized that mug from the grave I dug a few days prior.
Just a few instances after that recognition, the face exploded and what was left of it caught fire with the collision of my hammer.
You have damaged a Diak Hresh, inflicting burning with your Furnace enhanced Summoned Sledgehammer. Burning, stacking. Critical damage exacted.
Two heads down, four to go.
The other four all turned and looked at me. Unfortunately, my attack had only seemed to anger the Diak Hresh.
It charged.
On it’s headlong sprint towards my burning ass, Dane crunched its back with a massive blow with his mace. His hits seemed to get stronger and bigger, the more he swung.
Gore sprayed amongst the trees, and I could have sworn I saw a spine fly out and lodge into a trunk.
Maleena, now back on her feet, clapped her hands together and sent a wave of force towards the Diak Hresh. A piece missing from it’s multi-spinal-system and Maleena’s spell sent it flying off course from it’s headlong dash towards me.
It smacked into a boulder to my right and tipped over.
The monster fell towards Benji, toppling over him and enveloping him in a putrid hug.
Benji, who had been casting lighting bolts, threw his hands up and was barely able to get a frosty shield in place as one of the heads came down for a savage bite.
The shield held for a moment, but then another bite came, and another. Three out of four heads gnashed at his barrier.
But one set of teeth got through, biting down on Benji’s neck.
Dane was there in an instant, linebacker tackling the monster despite it being four times his size. The thing crashed into a tree trunk, but six arms caught him by the waist and four delivered a coordinated punch to his chest.
He doubled over, and went limp in the Diak Hresh’s grasp. Maleena sent an ice lance into the back of one of its heads, crumpling that one too.
But it kept punching Dane.
Benji lay bleeding on the forest floor, hand clutching his neck as he struggled to maintain consciousness.
The Diak Hresh, unamused with Dane’s limp body chucked it at Benji and their skull’s collided resulting in a sickening crunch.
Both lay still as Maleena and I screamed out in anger. I conjured another sledgehammer and threw it directly into the Diak Hresh’s chest, just as it was about to lash out with another attack on the two downed men.
The hammer hit true and the corpse monster erupted in flames.
Summon Sledgehammer: [Active] [Conjuration] [Domain: Metallurgy] Conjure a 3 lbs high-carbon steel hammer that swings like a war hammer. (Mana cost: low). see character sheet for full description
The Diak Hresh let out a guttural roar, only softened by the three remaining heads and accompanying screams from Maleena and I.
The nightmare fuel didn’t fall. Instead, it turned its attention back to me. Maleena, seeing an opening ran for Benji and Dane… seemingly to cast Bolster and stabilize their wounds.
I would need to tank and soak the damage while she got our companions back up and fighting. Seeing no other options, and sledgehammer still lodged in the monster’s chest, I cast Spirit Avatar.
Spirit Avatar: [Active] [Transmogrification Spell] [Domain: Fauna] Transform into your spirit animal for a short time. Your avatar has its own health pool and if destroyed, you automatically revert to your original form (Mana cost: moderate). see character sheet for full description.
My body erupted with golden light as I transformed into a gleaming white gazelle.
With Furnace still active, my form immediately reignited and I charged directly at the Diak Hresh. Dane and Benji were still down, Maleena still a few dozen feet away.
The monster, with no apparently leftover intelligence, didn’t even stagger as I changed form right in front of it. It was coming my way, no matter what.
We clashed and there was nothing pretty about it. The bodies that this thing was made up from were strengthened by magic, but were still several day-old corpses.
My flaming form caught the rest of it ablaze as I rammed it up against the boulder. Kicking it over and over with my burning hooves, the Diak Hresh’s defense was faltering.
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It kicked and screamed and thrashed about, not able to decide if it should fight or try to dampen the flames that licked its dead skin.
The monster grappled, trying to hold my head down. I bucked backwards, goring it with my horns as I brought my skull up and back into its torso.
It let out a mournful scream as I severed another two spinal cords.
I was covered in black, gooey, ichor that wasn’t burning up fast enough with Furnace active. But it still wasn’t down. I chanced a look back towards my fallen companions and saw Maleena had made it to their side.
She had her hand over Benji’s neck and red light was flooding into him. This caught the attention of the Diak Hresh, and it fought to free itself from my horns.
Several of its arms grabbed at me, and managed to push me up and away from its body. It was about to free itself and I didn’t have much left in the tank.
My mana reserves were low, my bandolier was on my human form, and my three companions were all incapacitated or occupied. I had an idea.
Squishy body go squish, right?
I looked up into the tree tops, just as the monster was crawling off me. About a two hundred feet in the air was a relatively thick branch.
I focused on it, and then cast Mirror Door.
Mirror Door: [Active] [Conjuration/Escape Spell] [Domain: Mirror] Conjure two 12 ft tall mirrors that you can jump through. (Mana cost: low). see character sheet for full description.
Exit door summoned, my entry point materialized next to me and the Diak Hresh. But rather than horizontal and upright on the forest floor, it obeyed my thought command and appeared on the ground just under the monster.
I kicked hard and down, sending the Diak Hresh into the portal and out the other side a second later.
It appeared flailing in mid-air, too large to have found footing on the branch I summoned the exit door.
And gravity sent it hurdling down.
The Diak Hresh was tough, but thankfully no match for gravity.
When it hit the ground, limbs and spines and rotted brains and ichor splashed everywhere. All six of the heads destroyed and nothing left to be animated, the monster lay still… save for some extremely unpleasant looking cadaveric spasms.
Congratulations! You have defeated an uncommon Diak Hresh! A reward has been deposited into your inventory.
I let my Spirit Avatar form resolve and unsummoned Furnace, rushing over to the Dane, Maleena, and Benji. All three were bleeding, though Dane was still unconscious.
“Are you guys alright?!”
Maleena looked up at me with a mixture of incredulity and exhaustion. She just shook her head and then looked down at Benji.
Benji was just staring, blankly, at the splattered corpse pile that was already starting to emit the black smoke of a looting in progress.
His gaze was transfixed on one of the faces in particular— a redhaired, heavily scarred face, marred by gore.
I just looked from Benji, to the squished head, to Benji.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck is right! How could you do that?” Maleena rounded on me.
“Maleena, he didn’t know…” Benji said, eyes not moving from their target.
“Holy...I'm just... I’m so sorry,” was all I could say.
Dane stirred, opened his eyes, and slurred, “You should be fucking sorry. This is why we don’t bury things!"
“Hell, Dane… I’m glad you’re alright. I swear I’m not trying to be obtuse. Will someone tell me what just happened?” I asked, genuinely.
“You really don’t know?” Maleena said with narrowed eyes.
“Know what?” Why’d that thing have Benji’s…..uhh…. please don’t let that have been his….”
“My cousin.” Benji finished.
“Oh.”
“And his wife.” Benji continued.
Benji kept talking, “And her brother. And… I think that was Steve the blacksmith? Maybe Wanda from next-door? I didn’t see them all. Gods it doesn’t matter. They’re all dead now… again. They’re all dead and they were all here for me. To get me out. Some hairbrained idea from Willam, I’m sure,” Benji said.
“Get you out?” I asked.
“Aye, to pay off the debt to Hoarfrost. I can’t be sure. But that’s what the letter said. When Willam…” he trailed off.
Everyone gave him space to finish the sentence.
After about a minute, I prompted, “Willam? Your cousin? What about him?”
“Yeah,” He said sadly, “Willam, in the letter, said he had gotten together some valuables and was going to trade them. For my freedom, such as it were.”
“Would that have worked?” I directed the question at the group.
“No,” Dane said.
“Ah.”
“This is all because I buried them?”
“Stupid fucker,” Dane mumbled.
Maleena smacked him.
"Yes," Benji said.
“Well that's fucked up. I didn’t want anything to eat the bodies. There were some frog pig things there, when I found them. I thought they’d help themselves and…”
Benji was absently nodding along and then looked over at me for the first time and asked, “Greg… who is Jesus?”
“What?”
“Jesus.”
“Oh he’s just this sort of… God. Or I guess you’d call him a hero or something where I come from? I just got used to saying his name as a swear word, because… well I don’t know why,” I said.
“And where you come from… how is it they don’t know not to bury bodies?” Dane asked, skeptically.
“We bury almost everybody, except those that want to be cremated,” I said.
“And they don’t come back to life?” Maleena asked.
“—What? No. This,” I said gesturing at the whole gory scene, “This is all new to me,” I turned to Benji and said, “Listen, I had no idea. But are you guys seriously saying this happens with every single body you put in the earth?”
“What is earth?” Dane asked.
“Soil?” I ventured, looking for a better word.
“Yes.”
“How?!” I asked.
“The magic in the lay lines. It reanimates anything that’s once contained a soul in 48 hours. That’s just how things work here,” Maleena said.
“Uhh okay. That’s super fucked up,” I said.
“Again. How do you not know about this?” Dane said, finally standing up. While we were talking, he had brushed himself off and downed a health potion. Now looking much more like himself, he was starting to really dig into the whole ‘what is up with Greg, thing.’
“I told you. I’m not from around here. I fell through a….” I mumbled the last bit.
“A what now?” Maleena asked.
“I fell through a mirror. Guys. Listen, I’m super fucking sorry. That was some absolutely crazy shit. Benji, I feel terrible. How can I make it up to you?” I asked.
Benji looked up at me and was beginning to say something but Dane cut in.
“You fell through a mirror?”
“Yeah, it was kind of a bad day,” I said.
Benji met my eyes and said, “Let’s talk about this more later. I don’t like what happened, but it sounds like maybe there’s more to the story? Listen I don’t blame you. I guess. I mean what you did was reckless and almost got us all killed. But, I don’t know."
Benji scratched his head and moved to down a health potion and then continued, “I guess I owe you one. Two, really after that thing with Hoarfrost,” then he looked at his two companions, meaningfully, and said the next words seriously, “we all do.”
“Okay, let’s drop it before another one of those things comes tromping around? I’ve got a few things to pick up around the camp that I didn’t get last time. We can grab those, and Benji you can grab what I left on top of the grave… if it’s still there. And then we can head back to the treehouse and talk about this more. I promise I’ll tell you what I can."
I continued, "That was some real Halloween, nightmare fuel."
“What’s Halloween?” Dane asked.
“Right. We’ll get to that, too… I guess. So, you guys staying another night, then? You’re welcome to.” I said.
There were murmurs of assent and we all kept trudging along.
Grabbing the Noctua Horn and the Fire Whisky was not very hard, considering the mini map pointed me right to them. The horn was in a tree hollow not too far from the camp and the whisky was thankfully still intact back at the gravesite.
If it was still in the coat pocket of the man who had died, then it would have been absolutely obliterated.
But seeing as how the dead had all seemingly magically disrobed themselves before congealing into one mass of ugly monster flesh, the clothes and their contents were back at the camp.
The whisky had tumbled out of the coat at some point during that process and was resting on a little patch of mud, label facing up.
Strange.
Benji, knowing the whole camp’s unfortunate souls, picked up the gold inlayed dagger, the pipe, and a few of the other bits and bobs in case he saw his extended family again.
The locket went around his neck for safe keeping.
He said something about it being the only magically enhanced item his family had, and he intended to use it until he could get back to his village.
Apparently, it gave him more control over his lightening, allowing him to chain his bolts instead of being a one shot.
-
When we got back to the treehouse I took a minute to collect myself in my newly acquired room. I took a deep pull of the adult spiced cider that Trelain liked to stock.
Unsatisfied with my current state of grime, I chased it with a common hygiene drink, magically removing all traces of the foul smelling ichor that had covered me in the fight.
I really needed to start carrying some of it around in the bandolier, or at least my inventory. Getting this befouled wasn’t even common when I was working 911 nights in the city.
Now thirst quenched and clean, I took a look in my inventory for my previously received reward for killing the Diak Hresh.
I mentally focused on the question mark that took up the third space in my inventory and identified it.
Using your inherent skill, identify, you have identified one uncommon set of:
Bracers of Dead Wrath [Offensive] [Uncommon] [Exponential item] (see glossary for more details). When equipped, spells that require a physical condition (ie: throwing, swinging, punching) will hit for double the potential damage once every six hits.
I looked up Exponential Item in the glossary.
Exponential Item: An item that gets strong as you rank up. An item at Initiate has the potential to evolve, unlocking new and additional powers and passives as it ranks from Initiate to Acolyte to Adherent to Apostle. Do not throw this item away! Incredibly rare.
Recognizing the significance of the item that just popped up in my inventory and my lack of current physical prowess, I immediately considered giving it to one of my new companions.
Though I didn’t exactly know any of their full power suites, I did have an idea that this item would be particularly good for Dane.
Who didn’t want their friend and ally to be stronger when they had your back?
Drop the in text skill descriptions for powers like Furnace and Ice Lance?
