Chapter 96 (1/2)

Randidly and the Yeti looked at each other. Randidly glanced down at the broken shaft of his spear, and then shrugged.

Almost disappointed, the Yeti nodded slowly. “It was… as good of a match as could be expected in a place like this.”

“Fighting… is fun,” Randidly said, almost to himself, causing the Yeti to burst into a fit of low chuckles, blood dripping from his mouth.

“Yes… it really is…If you insist on walking down this path… we will meet again. I look forward...to…..it…..” The Yeti muttered, slowly falling backwards, the top half of Randidly’s spear buried into its chest. The shattered armor fell to pieces, slowly melting. His broken hammers of ice dropped to the ground with a dull thump.

Randidly, regretfully, turned away, and looked towards the fake Yeti, which had split into 4  human sized Yetis, which waved their hammers at him. Randidly simply raised a stamina potion to his lips, considering.

“Perhaps it’s best to just hurry back…?” Randidly muttered.

“As if I’d let you,” The Yetis spat, rushing towards him. Randidly shrugged, leaning down and removing the top half of the spear from the Yeti’s chest, placing it into his satchel. Then he used Phantom Half step to move past the Yeti’s towards a random scout sent by Franksburg, and immediately began sprinting North.

****

Lyra was always beautiful. And her parents always complimented her on it. Her father was a screenwriter turned amateur director, and her mother was just pretty enough to be arm candy in b-rank flicks. But from the day Lyra was born, the pair of them both were seized by a shared delusion; that their daughter would be the what they never could be.

A star.

Perhaps god had felt sorry for them for a life of mediocrity, because they turned out to be right.

Acting lessons, singing lessons, dancing lessons… Lyra’s life was a merry go round of lessons, preparing her to be an actress. And at every lesson, Lyra excelled.

It was when she was 7 that this finally paid off, and Lyra was recommended by her acting teacher. It was only a role as an understudy, but her parents were ecstatic.

And then, when on the first day, the original girl for the part was sick, Lyra stepped forward and performed the scenes, with her own unique twist. The director, slightly nonplussed, had looked at Lyra and said. “That was really good, but I’m not sure if this is what the producers had in mind.”

Lyra simply shrugged. “That’s how the character would have done it.” For several minutes, the two just stared at each other, the director struggling with how he should view this tiny actress, Lyra profoundly sure she was right.

Helpless, the director showed the producers the first day’s footage. They fell in love with Lyra’s Jen, and needless to say, even after she had recovered, the original girl was told very politely that her services were no longer required.

Because when you looked at Lyra, it was very hard to look away.

Later that year, late at night, when the resounding success of Lyra’s movie became public, and her having no small role in that success, Lyra found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror.

She reached out and dragged her fingers across the smooth surface of the mirror, not admiringly, but wonderingly.

“Is this… what it means to be beautiful?” The 7 year old asked the hard mirror with a soft voice.

****

Donny looked on at the blood soaked ground, shock clear on his face. Even the Raid Boss lay dead and groaning on the ground. Like hollow eyed ghosts, Decklan’s squad walked among the bodies, slicing larger gashes in some cyclopses, removing projectile weapons from others.

All the while, the seemingly infinite vines of Thorn moved, picking up and squeezing bodies dry.

“Uh… Decklan…” Donny said, unsure of how to proceed. He had come to reinforce them, but when he’d arrived, the cyclopses had already been practically bled to death…

“Oh?” Decklan looked up, blinking. Then he raised a hand to his mouth and shouted. “No rest for the wicked boys, looks like there are more monsters to kill.”

Donny took several steps backwards, because not 3 seconds later, he was surrounded by Decklan’s squad, all of them covered in blood, most cradling broken arms, drinking health or stamina potions.

“Another day in the life,” Terra muttered, producing an apple and biting into it.

“The…. the next order of business is moving to reinforce Dozer’s division against the Tier II Raid Boss.” Donny said, recovering from the shock. He grinned at the tired looking squad and turned and walked away. “We’ll head over now, but… just show up after you shower, alright? We have standards, in Donnyton.”

****

Annie had worked frantically the past hour keeping Dozer and his little friends alive, not even bothering to tease Dozer. She just darted from rampart to rampart, using her height and archery to control the number of beetle things that could come towards the squad at once. Even so, they seemed endless.

But Dozer showed no signs of slowing, even getting himself worked into a fever pitch, green ichor covering his club and part of his body.

Annie wrinkled her nose. She would definitely make him shower before giving him his reward tonight.

Well, probably.

Annie allowed herself to admire his shoulders and arms for a second. Normally she would carefully control herself about such things. It would do no good if he knew how strongly he could influence her. But now was a safe time for two reasons: One, Dozer seemed quite distracted, and two, it appeared the cavalry had arrived.

“Aegis!” Donny’s familiar shout sounded out, and a group began ripping into the back of the beetle formation, cutting swiftly forward to alleviate some of the pressure from Dozer’s squad. Decklan’s squad moved like hungry ghosts, stabbing their sharp weapons around the hard shells, aiming for the soft fleshy joints.