Rise of a Monster

The main problem one creates for themselves by drawing a dagger after abandoning their weapon is that, in order to use it, one now has to get even closer into melee than before. Daggers are not reach weapons. They can be effective against armored opponents, but only when those opponents have vital weak areas – arteries or eyes, perhaps – that a quick stab can puncture into.

Geladins have no such weaknesses. A fact that was probably quite surprising for the two lower ranked paladins now rapidly melting away inside crimson liquid. They had tried attacking from behind to distract Sean – who had simply ignored them in favor of defending Saren against the knight-captain. Once their daggers were caught inside crimson armor, Gel had emerged to feast. The brightmaiden had tried to heal both men through the acid – much to the hungry slime's delight – but as both were effectively stuck they'd had nowhere to go.

Sean had no empathy for their fates. Not with Saren bleeding out underfoot. He was a little surprised the owlen was alive at all given his twin impalement, but with how quickly Saren's pulse was fading, he knew it couldn't be long.

He can heal, but what does magic do when you're impaled? Shove it out? Sean didn't know.

Across from them, the knight-captain was shouting through angry tears at them and the geladin had to admit he didn't really care what the man had to say. He wouldn't be alive long, anyway.

"Ohh, that was your cousin!" Gel exclaimed aloud, translating privately for Sean. "That explains the taste. Similar, but with subtle differentiating notes. Hey, just out of curiosity, would the rest of your family be open to seasoning themselves before fighting us? Maybe stuffing a side-salad in your helmets? I could use some variety."

The knight-captain's eyes bulged and he shouted at them while Gel cackled. Sean kept his attention focused on their final opponent– but then a resounding boom echoed across the battlefield followed by a thudding splat. Sean flicked his orbs over to look only to grit his teeth.

Off in the distance, the Cadeijo's crumpled form laid unmoving at the base of the Spire. Radiant light faded from its upper floors, and Sean knew the clock was now ticking before more reinforcements arrived.

"Commander Derald." Saren gasped out, pointing a bloodied finger up at the tower. To Sean's relief, a pale golden light now surrounded the entry and exit points of his injuries, though the weapons themselves remained lodged where they were. "Has to be him… last one… left."

"What?" Gel and Sean asked at the same time.

"Oracle's plans… Shouldn't be… anyone else… in tower."

"Well, that's reassuring." Gel said brightly. "With the dog down that makes it two on two! Or three on two, I suppose, with bright-lady over there. Wait, does the book count? It does have teeth, so–"

"No."

"Two on three then!" Gel said, just as a chorus of angry bleating echoed across the courtyard.

Half a dozen goats the size of mountain cats and with roughly the same amount of muscle raced towards them. Thick metal collars with spikes ringed each of their necks, and their long, curved horns glowed with lantern-like light that left trails behind them in the night. The knight captain grinned as he leveled his weapon at them, shouting a command that no doubt meant "attack!"

"You just had to count them, didn't you?" Sean deadpanned. "We need a 'don't tempt fate' rule."

"What do you mean?" Gel shot back as Sean re-engaged the knight-captain, hoping to finish him off before the Spire's goat-cavalry arrived. "Fate just handed us six slime-sized goat platters! We should tempt her more often!"

Sean cut a line across the knight captain's chest, spraying blood into the air as the man staggered back. He pressed the attack with a quick series of stabs with his midnight blade, aiming for the man's heart as he forced him back and trusting in his armor to defend them against counter attacks. The knight-captain's hand glowed, but apart from that did little to defend himself as he danced backwards with his shield. By the time Sean caught up to him the foot-long gash in his chest had already healed and he had only managed another shallow wound to his opponent's shoulder. Even so, the man's still-present grin only grew, giving the geladin a bad feeling.

"Uhh, Sean? New barrier right behind us." Gel reported.

"Shit." Sean swore, turning immediately back around only to find a half-circle wall of the same shimmering barrier that still protected the brightmaiden. At ten feet tall it was far too high to jump, and unlike the last barrier this one looked to be roughly half a hundred feet across.

They were trapped.

There was no way for Sean to defend the owlen against seven different foes. The knight captain would take his full attention to finish off and the owlen would never last that long with six roided out goats tearing into him. Saren was barely clinging to life as is. Which meant it was time to play one of their final cards.

"Gel? It's MOB time."

"Woo!" Gel enthused, then his tone grew suspicious. "Wait, why?"

"Bait." Sean said, turning and battering aside the blow he had known was coming even as he reached for the feather duster once more with his off hand. "Sandstorm, then MOB. I'm betting they'll go for the meat first, which will buy us the time we need."

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"Wh– but– that's my meat!"

"Now, Gel!" Sean shouted, raising the feather duster and sucking in all the accumulated debris from the battlefield once more. "I'll make you another one!"

"Fine, but Feathers owes us for every bite they take!" Gel shouted back, fumbling with their locket in his chest and sticking it out of the neck portion of their armor. "Double for any bits they digest before we eat them!"

The knight captain had wisely retreated when Sean pulled out his duster, but the goats had no idea what it meant. So when the cloud of sand erupted just before they arrived they barrelled headlong into it right as Gel summoned MOB and commanded the meat golem to protect the downed owlen with its deliciously tender bulk.

MOB immediately obeyed… by flopping onto Saren and wrapping him in a tight hug. Sean winced internally, both at the damage that had probably done to the owlen's injuries and because he had more than one memory of how it felt to be smothered in meat like that.

Ridiculous as it was, their plan worked. Two of the goats tore into the meat golem while the other rest flailed about hap-hazardly, with one even stumbling into the side of another who kicked it in the head with its back leg.

Sean capitalized on the precious seconds MOB had bought them as best he could. His midnight blade made quick work of two of the goats and the geladin even managed to bury his previously discarded crimson axe between the horns of a third. When the cloud of dust finally fell, only three remained – two of which were still focused on rending their beloved meat golem to shreds.

Its great bulk quivered as chunks went flying beneath angry hooves and horns, and Gel roared in a half-frenzy half-panicked defiance as the slime lashed out with his crimson whip.

"Stop. Beating. My. MEAT!"

Sean nearly choked on his non-existent throat as he charged at the goats, slashing with his sword and forcing them to retreat from MOBs ravaged form. Gel appeared to take the response as distress, trying to reassure him.

"Don't worry, MOB can do this. Look at him, he's huge! Taking on two horny goats like they are nothing! They aren't even stripping that much off him. Not much at all–" The slime sounded like he was trying to reassure himself now more than Sean. As if their opponents had heard him however, the goat on the far side of MOB ripped off an entire flank of the golem and flung it carelessly into the air. Gel gasped, offended straight to his core.

"They're not even eating it! Scoundrels. Thieves! Fur-sacks! I'll melt your horns for this!"

Sean was about to question what the point of shouting at muscle-goat cavalry was when something slammed into his shoulder, piercing their crimson armor plating for the first time.

You have been struck by a Penetrating Spear of Light for 8 damage! (8 total, 50 base halved by light resistance, minus 17 due to damage resistance)

Cold, implacable rage seeped up from Sean's core as he stared numbly down at the brilliant golden spear that had shot straight through their armor. His vision narrowed until only the spear remained. The spear, and the network of pulsing red veins running through the body of the one who had thrown it.

Abandoning both MOB and Saren to their fates, Sean ripped the spear of light out with one hand as he turned on the knight captain. Distantly, he felt his other half shouting at him – but there was no room in him for words right now. He had been hurt. Someone had struck him – and so they would die, or he would.

There was no other option.

Sean charged directly at the spear-thrower, taking another through his gut as the price of closing the gap. His enemy summoned a third, but when that arm was suddenly severed it vanished. Taking the lesson for what it was, the geladin quickly tried to do the same for the spear-thrower's remaining limbs. When they began quickly reappearing in flashes of light and preventing his final blow from landing, Sean simply severed them again.

Something tried to dissuade him, latching onto his sword arm with a powerful bite. When the creature's glowing teeth failed to penetrate his armor however, Sean simply switched the sword to his other hand and resumed his work. He could make do with one arm, and as far as he was concerned so long as he could still attack the spear-thrower, nothing else mattered. Nothing else could.

Eventually, the limbs stopped reappearing.

"Definitely the most dramatic point you've made." Gel quipped when the fog over Sean's mind finally retreated. "If the rest of Gold Spire hadn't already run off, they definitely would have after that!"

"Huh?"

Sean looked around at the rather disturbingly large 'mess' his battle with the knight captain had made, before shaking his head to try and clear it. That act revealed that there was another golden spear in his lower abdomen, so he quickly pulled it all the way through. He had been hoping to make it through this battle without succumbing to the fugue-state again, but it looked like despite his preparation, it had happened anyway.

At least we're all still alive. Even Saren. The owlen's pulse was definitely fainter than before, but his heart was still beating so that was a win. Did MOB make it? I can't sense him…

"How long was I out?" He checked his health and winced, noting that fight had cost him 16 precious health. At 35 total, he was now down to only 19. Need to be more careful, a couple more spears and that could've been it.

"Long enough for the last of those goat things to take itself off the menu and run." Gel replied cheerily. "No sign of the commander though, so I sent MOB to go check out the Spire for some early warning. He's uh… not fast."

A trail of torn bits of meat with the occasional streak of rather expensive seasonings caught up with the meat golem about halfway between them and the Spire. Since they had already agreed to use MOB as bait, Sean approved of the tactic.

Looking around for the only one unaccounted for, Sean found the Brightmaiden had moved closer. She was still behind a barrier – it apparently moved with her – but she was now only two dozen yards from where Saren lay. Given she appeared to be made of light it was hard to read any sort of expression, but Sean could tell she was staring hard at where the owlen was. He almost thought he saw pain in her glowing eyes, but it was hard to tell if he was just imagining it.

Picking up his midnight blade, Sean settled in to feed Gel the slime's rightful banquet and heal up when he heard another resounding boom rumble across the field. This time, it was accompanied by a small shockwave as the bricks underfoot trembled from a nearby impact. A second later, the pair were splattered with small, shredded pieces of meat.

"MOB!" Gel cried. "NOOOO!!!"

Where the meat golem had been shambling not a moment before, now knelt a tall, deeply tanned man with sky-blue eyes and armor gleaming with gold. A strange blackened metal contraption that looked almost like a birdcage hung off his belt, the only non-golden parts of his attire save for the commander's pristine white boots. His fist and knee had cracked the bricks where MOB had once been, forming a small crater that spiderwebbed out for several feet.

A brilliant white-steel sword nearly as tall and wide as he was, emblazoned with Gold Spire's symbol on its hilt, shone like a miniature sun in his left hand. The commander stood slowly, brushing dust from his shoulders with his free hand. Sharp, piercing eyes met Sean's blazing orbs as the man's fallen comrade melted away inside Gel's mass. There was no anger in his gaze, despite the bodies of his comrades liberally strewn about the area.

No, in those eyes Sean felt something akin to his own instincts. Cold, rational calculation.

Nothing more, nothing less.

"So, these are the oracle's pawns?" Derald asked, sounding faintly amused as Gel translated the man's words. "A sewer dog, a mere skeleton wrapped in rotting slime, and a fallen bird that should have known better than to raise its beak against those who raised it to the sky in the first place."

The commander of Gold Spire's Dervash contingent snorted in derision as he strode almost casually forward. For a moment it looked like he wanted to say more, but when his eyes fell on Saren it was obvious to everyone that the owlen was unlikely to register his words no matter how sharp his hearing was. Bent in the fetal position and surrounded by a widening pool of his own blood, the owlen didn't appear able to even notice the rest of him.

Shaking his head, Derald lifted his all-too-big sword in one hand to point at Sean. Faintly glowing script covered the visible portions of his neck, wrist, and hands.

"Come then, monster." The commander ordered in a voice that sounded born and bred for his position. "Entertain me before I hunt down your master and execute him for his crimes."