Chapter 5

  The battle was practically over before it began. With my dominant dexterity and the overwhelming awesomeness of Parkour! I made quick work of the hordes of creatures. Joan didn't even need to get her clothes dirty, as I flew back and forth, slaying the foul beasts. I could almost hear her heart pounding with desire over my impressive manly performance. After everything was finished I...

  "What the hell are you doing? Zoning out like that as soon as you say we're surrounded? Are you serious?" The familiar voice of reason snapped me out of my fantasy and brought me back to reality. The red highlighted figures stalked us from the shadows, nearly invisible to a person if they didn't know where to look.

  One of the benefits of Read the Room's highlighting feature was that it not only allowed me to keep track of the different hostile targets, but get a general idea of their size and shape. In regards to the creatures surrounding Joan and I, they were roughly the size of a Funko Pop figure, and generally in the shape of some sort of rat-shaped Funko Pop figure. Their movements, however, were not at all like any Funko Pops that I was familiar with, especially since Funko Pops don't really move. So I guess maybe it would be better to say they were the size of large rats, shaped like large rats, and moved like large rats... Mostly because that's essentially what they were.

  With the sun completely buried behind the Western horizon, the street was covered in a Snuggy of darkness... You know, those things that are like a blanket but with sleeves. Only a few candle-lit street lamps cut into the utter abyssal darkness of the the Snuggy-cloaked streets. Stacy got me a Snuggy last year for Christmas. It had the logo of a team I wasn't a big fan of, but one that Kyle absolutely loved. I hadn't seen that Snuggy for a while. Did Stacy regift it to Kyle when I wasn't looking? Or maybe the gift had been intended for him the whole time, and she gave it to me out of pity because I'd gotten her that nice charm bracelet and she realized she hadn't gotten me anything. I miss that Snuggy. It was so warm. I didn't mind that I hated the team that was printed on it. The Cowboys? Honestly I couldn't even remember, my mind was to filled with other thoughts, making it impossible to remember. I couldn't help but wonder what Stacy and Kyle were doing at that exact moment. Probably not fighting for their lives against a horde of...

  Oh shit!

  A sharp pain seared through my shoulder as one of the little rat-thing's bit down on me, drawing more blood that I'm used to (which is zero).

  "Focus! Don't tell me you were getting all emo again, Clay." Joan heroically fought off rat-things with her trusty pen, making my display look even more pitiful in comparison. She was slaying them with a single shot, using the pen to pierce expertly through their eye.

  Meanwhile, I was busy flailing my arms and legs, while gripping the rat-thing that had made its home on my shoulder. From this intimate distance, I could tell that these creatures were not, in fact, normal rats. I could also tell that I didn't really appreciate them being this close. While they were generally rat-shaped, these things had paws that resembled elongated human hands with sharp claws. They also didn't have those cute little faces that make rats look so adorable, instead these rat-things had a head shaped like a deformed human skull, containing a mouth full of sharp teeth and flesh from my shoulder. Well, the one on my shoulder had my shoulder flesh in its mouth, the other ones most likely didn't... Yet.

  With a move that was significantly less impressive than I would have liked, I ripped the rat-thing from my shoulder, threw it on the ground and stomped on it like a person who's terrified of spiders might completely overkill a spider in order to make sure it will never come back. The problem with that tactic was that it was significantly better suited for when there was only a single foe, not an entire torrent of them. During the time I had taken to repeatedly stomp the life out of the already deceased rat-thing, a handful of others had joined the growing number that were feasting on the buffet of my ramen-infused flesh. The +5 buff from Joan's ramen was insufficient at completely dulling the attacks from these ferocious rodents, at least in regards to my underwhelming combat performance. I really needed to step up, or things would just keep getting worse.

  One benefit of my combat style of inflatable tube guy was that it seemed effective in luring the creatures away from Joan. Possibly it had less to do with my style, and more to do with the intelligence of the creatures. They saw Joan committing rat-thing genocide with her trusty pen like some sort of action hero, and then they see me flailing around as if my only purpose is to attract customers to a used car lot. It seemed fairly obvious anything with even the remotest sliver of intelligence would choose the inflatable tube guy. But for the sake of my already struggling ego, I convinced myself that I was helping in my own special way.

  The reality of the situation, however, was that no matter how much I deluded myself, I couldn't continue this method for long without losing my life. The pain was already unbearable, and it was growing with each new misshapen human-like head chomping away at my soon-to-be corpse. My brain immediately went into business mode, shirking away my memories of Snuggies and Funko Pops. I needed a strategy.

  My abilities:

  1) Read the Room

  2) Pathfinder

  3) Parkour!

  4) Superhuman dexterity

  My opponents abilities:

  1) High agility

  2) Razor sharp teeth

  3) Hunger for human flesh

  4) No long distance attacks

  5) Large numbers

  Conclusion:

  Run you idiot!

  Wasting no time, my flailing stopped and I turned my focus to a nearby second story rooftop. Pathfinder did its job, creating a yellow line for me to follow. My body moved to follow the path without hesitation.

  "Come get me you rat bastards!" The words were meant to draw attention away from Joan so they would chase me.

  Breaking into a sprint that would put Olympic champions to shame, my feet quickly used a bench to launch myself along the top of a chain link fence around eight feet in the air. Running along the top of the fence, I shifted my weight to leap slightly to the side, catching the pole holding the sign for The Gene. The moment my hands grasped the pole, I immediately ripped the large wooden sign from its hooks and put it into my inventory. As if I had years of parallel bar experience, I lacheed to a flagpole hanging over a nearby storefront. My body turned 180 degrees, lacheing back to the pole holding the sign, this time landing on top of it with my feet. Barely letting my feet touch the sign pole, I leapt to the awning above the tavern, before turning 90 degrees and running up the wall, grasping the edge of the roof and effortlessly climbing on top.

  Any rat-things that had been attached to me had been shaken off from the intense movements along the way. There were still quite a few bloody bite marks along my legs, and the impressive wound on my shoulder reminding me how poorly my battle started.

  Directly below me, rat-things were pooling along the side of the building, trying to catch hold to climb the building in hopes of reaching their target. What had to be one hundred rats were all working together in one place to make this night my last.

  I pulled the large wooden tavern sign from my inventory placing it in front of me, directly over the growing pile of rats. With very little regard for my future safety, I leapt from the edge of the roof, placing the sign under my feet as I fell straight down, the edge of the sign barely scraped the edge of the tavern wall as I made my descent.

  "I'm gonna squish you!"

  My failed attempt at an impressive battle cry was thankfully overshadowed by the sheer carnage of what occurred as soon as the sign met the ground with the entire rat-thing horde underneath.

  The sound of thousands of bones being crushed combined with the most horrific sound of guts being flattened filled the street as buckets of rat-thing viscera exploded from all sides of the sign. The rat-thing viscera coated everything in a ten foot radius like an overzealous wet t-shirt contest MC with a super soaker filled with rat-thing guts.

  Luckily, Joan happened to be about fifteen feet away, so she remained completely untouched by our attackers and their gore.

  From my new position, standing on a wooden sign on the rat-gut coated ground and rubbing my shins to feel for broken bones, I could see that all red highlighted attackers had disappeared from my range. Either we had finished them off, or the survivors had fled in fear.

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  Watching me from outside of the splash zone, Joan had a look of confusion.

  "What happened?" She gestured to the obvious war-crime-like atmosphere of my general vicinity, "Last I saw you were drowning in those things... I turn around for a few seconds and this."

  "Parkour happened, Joan. The awe inspiring art of parkour happened... All over this place."

  "I almost gave you a compliment, then you pulled a Clay."

  "A Clay? Like I impressed you so much that you're at a loss for words?"

  "A Clay. Like you say something that makes me question my poor life choices that brought me to this moment."

  As my wobbly legs put me in arm's reach of Joan, she immediately grabbed the hem of my graphic tee and used it to wipe off her pen. The act itself was likely unnecessary since she immediately unsummoned her pen, which probably automatically cleaned it off.

  I felt so used.

  Before either of us was able to say anything, a crashing noise erupted from an alley less than a block away. Both of our attentions were pulled to the new noise, raising the obvious question of what we should do next.

  Perhaps it was the adrenaline of the moment, or maybe just a moment of temporary insanity, but my heightened dexterity aided my legs as they quickly pursued the source of the noise. It felt more like my body being on auto-pilot than making a rational decision.

  Regardless of the reasoning, I found myself standing at the entrance to an alley, watching a shadowy figure attempt to flee to the opposite side of the alley on all fours like a human-sized beast. Unfortunately for the figure, or maybe unfortunately for me, my heightened dexterity made pursuit completely trivial. My mind was so focused on the chase that it didn't even wander into a Trivial Pursuit tangent, although I really really wanted to.

  Following the new yellow path before me, I leapt over some trash bins, running along the wall and landing directly in front of the figure blocking their path. Up until that point, the figure did not have a red highlight, however the act of blocking their path immediately changed that.

  No longer running, the figure stood up to its full height. Since it was as tall as me, it was exactly five eleven and a half feet tall.

  "What is it? It's almost five and a half feet tall." Joan's voice echoes from behind the creature, clearly inaccurately gauging the creature's height.

  The creature caught just enough light as it stood for my eyes to make out the details inside the red highlighted shape. Its legs were incredibly thin, jutting behind the thin legs was a tail that had enough length to touch the ground. A thin body led to an inhuman head, resembling something like a fish or lizard. Ridges along their back and arms added to the inhuman nature of this creature. Even with limited knowledge, I quickly understood what I was looking at.

  "A Deep One."

  One of the more popular Lovecraftian creatures, Deep Ones were an amphibious race that took a main role in The Shadow over Innsmouth. If I remembered correctly, Deep Ones are usually connected to underwater cities, so its presence inside the town limits was a mystery in itself. Unfortunately, with so little to go on at the moment it was hard to say if this creature followed the same lore of the Lovecraftian beast, or if this game treated them differently.

  The more pressing issue, however, was that Deep Ones are a completely different level from the rat-things they'd just faced. With the red highlight exposing this Deep One's violent intent, Joan and I would likely be severely outmatched in regards to combat ability.

  The being stiffened, preparing to launch an attack, letting out odd croaking noises. My mind did its best to determine the best course of action. With my speed, I would easily be able to to flee. Direct combat would not be so easy, even if Joan and I combined our abilities. It was also very likely that this creature had something to do with the disappearances, so letting it escape would hurt the investigation.

  My indecisiveness was cut short as something appeared behind the terrifying eldritch being. A shadow leapt up, arm raised and moving impressively fast. In a moment, the shadow plunged something deep into the neck of the Deep One, causing no shortage of surprise from the beast.

  "Don't just stand there, Clay. Focus!" The shadow, the owner of the voice, Joan, reached out to me with her words. My questions were answered instantly. Why would I run? This might be our only chance for answers. Joan moved forward with no hesitation, but I thought I could just turn and run. My speed would only have resulted in leaving Joan to fend with the Deep One by herself. On the other hand, she wanted to stand tall and fight. More so than any time since I met Joan, I had never felt more ashamed of my cowardice.

  "I have a fever, and the only prescription is more Parkour!" The familiar yellow line appeared in front of me as my feet moved into action, knowing exactly where I needed to go.

  "On second thought, please run. I don't know how I keep forgetting how you are literally the worst." As she berated me, she masterfully dodges a swipe from the Deep One's tail, stabbing the creature another time on the other side of its neck. "If I ever wrote a character as annoying as you, nobody would produce my play. I'd probably be blacklisted."

  Launching myself off of the wall after a short wall run, my foot connected with the side of the creature's head as she simultaneously jammed her pen into its neck deep enough that the entire length of the pen nearly disappeared. A horrendous croaking noise filled the air and our opponent lashed out with its arms and tail, luckily it failed to find purchase.

  "I brought this up before, but I'm not convinced what you're describing isn't your current status as a playwright. Are you honestly telling me you currently have people producing your plays in actual theaters... Like with a stage, props, and actors?"

  I threw my weight backwards at the last second, barely managing to dodge the Deep One's tail. Unfortunately, it also meant my impact with the ground was awkward and much more intense than I had anticipated. My shoulder and head snapped off the cobblestone ground, and my body flipped and rolled uncontrollably. I only stopped when I smashed full force into the same group of trash bins that I had used as a vault during my pursuit of the creature. All credibility in my snarky back and forth with Joan drained away like my HP bar which now teetered at a little less than half. Between the rat-thing bites and my own self inflicted clumsiness, I was nearing death's door without any knowledge of a way to heal wounds in this world. I had no potions. I had no healing spell, nor did Joan. In the time between the battle with the rat-things and this confrontation, I had not taken the time to pay attention to see if my health regenerated over time. I definitely didn't have that luxury now, especially since Joan was hovering within our opponent's striking distance while she continued her attack.

  Wincing, I pulled myself to my feet. As my hand pressed into the ground to stand, I felt something unsettling beneath my palm. In the moment, I immediately perceived the texture as loose flesh. Surprisingly, when I turned my attention to the mass under my palm, I found that my initial guess was correct. There was little time to celebrate my impressive deduction since I was too busy freaking out. Gripped in my left hand was the human flesh equivalent of when a snake sheds its skin. The clothes were still attached and everything.

  A sickening thud down the alley drew my attention from the horrors gripped in my hand. The limp body of Joan slumped against the wall as our foe towered over her, prepared to deliver the finishing blow.

  My shoulder screamed in pain. The creature flew directly into the side of a dumpster, leaving a massive dent in the side. My impact with the amphibious being had been strong enough to inflict that much damage to a dumpster, imagine the damage it had inflicted on my shoulder. I had been taking into account the fragility of my body compared to my massive speed increase, which was why my attacks were specifically avoiding head on collisions. Unfortunately, being halfway down the alley while the Deep One was mid-swing on Joan's death blow didn't leave me with too many options. Instinctively I threw away my own body in order to launch myself full speed and full force into a tackle that would make... I was going to reference a football player, but awkwardly the pain made it hard to pull up my pointless trivia at that moment. For the sake of naming a player, let's just say Shane Falco, Keanu Reeve's character from the Replacements although that is a horrible example. Anyway, it would make Shane Falco... You know what, it wasn't the time for references.

  "Hey Joan, can you hear me? We have to go." I pleaded with the limp form of the strongest person I knew. A quick glance showed slight signs of our deadly foe twitching, which likely meant it would wake up soon. My health bar also flashed red at the bottom of my vision. At this point, a mosquito bite would likely have finished me off, let alone an attack from a Deep One.

  Joan didn't move. Her chest was rising and falling, so I could see that she was unconscious and not dead, but that didn't help. My shoulder was either broken or dislocated, leaving my entire right arm useless for the time being. I'd have to carry her with just my left arm, and hopefully her ramen boost gave me enough strength to complete the task.

  Her limp body draped over my shoulder as I used whatever strength I had left to stand at full height. The world was already spinning as my life literally flashed before my eyes... That's the downside of health bars, they were a constant reminder of approaching death. My feet struggled to balance my body as I prepared to run.

  "Self... defense..." An inhuman voice croaked behind me. Barely understandable, but undeniably English.

  No longer feeling any strength in my legs, I hobbled down the alley toward the street. With each step, our salvation seemed further and further away. My Pathfinder line no longer had fun detours including wall runs and vaults, it was simply walking only on the flattest areas of the alley toward the street. I refused to look behind me.

  "It was... self... defense..." The haunting voice continued.

  The ringing in my ears grew with each passing moment. My vision blurred and the edges of my vision started to fade. So the voice spouting half-baked legal defenses at my back barely registered. I couldn't tell if it was getting closer, or further away.

  My legs gave out, causing me to tumble forward. I did my best to cushion the impact for Joan, but her body still hit the ground hard. My only good hand desperately grasped at my partner, trying to drag her to safety, but I couldn't even drag myself.

  The ringing was so loud.

  The pain didn't feel so bad anymore.

  Maybe if I just rested my eyes...

  ...

  ...

  ... ...

  Get up!

  ...

  ...

  My eyes flickered open.

  I was standing in just inside the door of an inn. My left hand dragged Joan's unconscious body behind me. I didn't know how I got there.

  I blinked.

  Then I was in some sort of bedroom. There were two beds and Joan occupied one. Her body was beautiful, her sunflower dress seemed to light up the room, her blonde hair flowed across the pillow, she looked like a goddess.

  I couldn't see myself, and I didn't want to. I knew I looked even worse than normal. I wouldn't survive a battle looking as picture perfect as Joan.

  I didn't belong. That god said as much. I shouldn't be here.

  Who am I?

  I should go.

  My hand gripped the doorknob, my body felt empty but also impossibly heavy.

  "Joan... Do you hate me?"

  A warmth spread across my wrist. It tugged me back from the door. It pulled me back into the room.

  "No Clay. I could never hate you. Come back to where you belong."

  The voice of a goddess. The voice of the one person I could trust.

  Was it real? Or was it just a dream?

  The yellow line appeared in my near pitch black clouded vision. It led to the figure holding my wrist. It always led to her.

  I blinked.

  My bed was so soft.

  This was a nice dream.