Chapter 27: Water, Fall (1/2)

“It’s pretty slow,” Jason said. “If we get back behind the fence, is it strong enough to hold it?”

“Not sure,” Hiram said. “It’s mostly to keep out people. The magic is just to stop the water from ruining it, not make it any stronger.”

“I guess we fight, then,” Jason said reluctantly.

“I guess so,” Hiram said, equally lacking in enthusiasm.

The creature was moving up the tunnel, but at a lethargic pace. Its crab legs were better suited to sideways movement than forwards, so it was shuffling side to side as it approached. The back and forth motion was hampered by the curved sides of the pipe-like tunnel.

“You have any essences?” Jason asked. “Is that what I’ve been feeling in your aura, there?”

“One,” Hiram said. “You’re an adventurer? I thought the people with you were the adventurers.”

“They are,” Jason said. “I have the essences, but they’re very new.”

“You can try them out here then,” Hiram said. “I guess you’re in luck.” Hiram said, causing Jason to chuckle.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Jason said. “How lucky I am to be here.”

The creature continued moving closer, its legs tapping on the stone as it slowly zigzagged up the tunnel.

“Any idea on how we should do it?” Jason asked.

“I have a might essence,” Hiram said. “It makes me strong. If I tie up those pincers, think you can get around them and kill it?”

Jason looked at the creature. His knife wouldn’t do much to the hard shell, but was just right for digging into the segmented joints.

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Hiram looked at the knife in his hand and shoved it back into it’s sheath before striding down the tunnel. Jason followed behind, his own knife at the ready.

As they drew closer, one of the pincers shot out and Hiram caught it in one hand. The stocky man and the creature struggled back and forth, but Hiram didn’t employ his second hand. He waited for the second pincer and grabbed that one too.

Hiram stood with hands over his head, a pincer gripped in each one. His arms swayed like branches in a storm, but his body was the tree’s unmoving trunk.

Seeing Hiram and the monster in a stand-off, Jason knew it was time to act. The sides of the round tunnel curved up, wet and smooth. Closest to flat was the middle of the tunnel, which was unfortunately full of monster.

Jason had two options for getting behind it. One was trying to slip past on the outside, risking the slippery walls. The other, more terrifying option was to crawl underneath the monster’s body. It’s crab legs emerged from either side of the body, leaving the a large open space underneath.

He ruled out crawling under the monster because it would involve crawling under a monster. Instead he rushed forward, trying to half-slide along the pipe to get past the creature’s legs.

He failed immediately. His feet slipped out from under him and he slid down into the creature’s legs. It raised one of them, which Jason realised tapered into a point as it came down and stabbed into him.

Jason cried out with pain, but he still held a death-grip on his dagger. He slid the blade across the monster’s leg, skittering over the hard shell until it found a vulnerable joint. The knife slotted right in between the plates of shell and he sliced the edge across the cartilage.

As the dagger cut into flesh, he used one of his abilities. He felt power surge out from deep inside his body, electric and exhilarating. It passed through his arm and into the dagger, filling the weapon with magic.

Ability: [Leech Bite] (Blood)

Special attack (melee, drain, wounding, blood)Cost: Low stamina.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)Effect (iron): Inflicts or refreshes the [Bleeding] condition. Drains a small amount of health and stamina when refreshing the [Bleeding] condition.[Bleeding] (affliction, wounding, blood): Deals ongoing damage by causing or increasing blood loss. As a wounding effect, this condition absorbs and negates an amount of incoming healing, after which this affliction immediately ends.

As Jason yanked the knife free, blood sprayed out of the joint. The monster raised its leg sharply, pulling it free of Jason while releasing a high-pitched, alien shriek. Along with Jason’s power, the magic of his snake-tooth dagger did its own work.

Weapon [Night Fang] has inflicted [Umbral Snake Venom] on [Shab].

Jason scrambled to escape its legs as one of them rose up, poised to stab him again. He found himself directly underneath the creature, laying on his back. In front of him was the creature’s underbelly, which turned out to be fleshy and unprotected by shell. Jason called up the power within him again, raking the vulnerable underside with his dagger.

Ability: [Punish] (Sin)

Special attack (melee, curse)Cost: Low mana.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)Effect (iron): Inflicts necrotic damage and the [Sin] affliction.[Sin] (affliction, curse, stacking): All necrotic damage taken is increased. Additional instances have a cumulative effect.

Blood and other fluids splashed over Jason from long wound, leaving him spluttering salty fluid as he shimmied on his back out behind the creature. The monster itself went wild at the wound to its underside, breaking it’s pincers out of Hiram’s grip and flailing about with more high-pitched shrieking.

One of the monster’s legs impaled one of Jason’s by accident as the creature thrashed about. It didn’t seem to notice, yanking its leg back out again. Jason turned himself over and crawled painfully away, still spitting out monster juice.

After getting free of the maddened monster, Jason looked back to see Hiram doing his best to hold the creature’s attention, both arms wrapped around one of the pincers. Without getting up Jason held a hand out toward the creature and chanted out a spell.

“Your fate is to suffer.”

There was no visible effect, but Jason felt the power surge out of him to enact itself upon the creature.

Ability: [Inexorable Doom] (Doom)

Spell (curse)Cost: Moderate mana.Cooldown: None.Current rank: Iron 0 (00%)Effect (iron): Periodically applies an additional instance of each stacking curse, disease, poison or unholy affliction the target is suffering from. This is a curse effect. This effect cannot be cleansed while any other curse or any disease, poison or unholy affliction is in effect.

Jason forced himself to his feet, ignoring the pain from his stabbed leg and abdomen as he limped further from the creature.

“Hiram!” Jason yelled past the creature. “Let it go and back off. It’ll die on its own.”

On the long wagon ride through the desert, Jason had spent hours going over his abilities, discussing with the others how to use them. Except Anisa, who refused to help him use his ‘unclean powers.’ The time spent strategising proved its worth now as he knew to withdraw and let the afflictions to do their work. It was obvious when considering things calmly beforehand, but in the heat of the moment he may well have kept attacking, putting himself and Hiram at unnecessary risk.

Jason’s first special attack had inflicted the bleeding affliction. This was effectively a powerful anticoagulant, making blood loss all the worse. The second special attack inflicted a curse called sin that increased any necrotic damage that was suffered. The dagger inflicted a necrotic poison, which was amplified by the curse. Finally, Jason’s spell would continually stack up both the poison and curse, increasing their effect. The result of all this was an exponentially escalating necrosis that would inevitably overcome the creature. All they had to do was wait.