The doors opened outwards, and all the people streamed in. Our party was Copperbeard - Bard, Ayerelia - Healer, Rositilda - Necromancer, Barry - Assassin, and of course Dekka the hellhound.
We stayed as a loose group as we ran in. The temperature dropped, and the air was humid, heavy and smelled of age and decay. We all slowed once we were in. I wasn’t sure why we had run in, maybe the fear the door would close and we wouldn’t get all in. Now that we were in, we slowed. No one wanted to get killed in the first five minutes.
We were in a long hallway that led straight into the side of the hill where it faded into darkness. The ceiling was far above, as high as the door was tall.
“Let’s get some light.” A voice called from up ahead.
Ayerelia and lit her orb and lofted it up. Other mages around joined in, and various colours glowed, flickered and shone down. I noticed Aubie. He had a glass bottle with a little handle. He shook it and then hooked it over a long pole and held it high.
“That’s cool.” I said to Rose. “What’s his class?”
“He’s an alchemist. While he specializes in food buffs, he has some cool tricks up his sleeves.”
“That is kind of awesome.” I wished he were on our squad.
I unhooked my club and held it at the ready. Copperbeard had his instrument ready and was already strumming. Rose’s hands started to glow with an eerie green light.
I was looking down the hall when I noticed the light behind me was growing fainter. Turning, I saw the heavy door swing closed and felt the finality of the ‘thud’ in my bones. There were only two ways to leave now.
I was about to turn to Rose and say something like, “Victory or death.” When Pallidaddy, party C’s paladin, yelled, “Look up!”
Dark shapes flitted overhead. It was hard to tell what was happening. There were high-pitched chittering noises and the sound of leathery wings. “BATS!!” someone yelled to my left, just as I came to the same conclusion. I looked up. Even tall as I was, there wasn’t much I was going to be able to do unless they came down to me.
People with ranged attacks started shooting at the bats. The ceiling was so high that the winged rodents had lots of room to dodge out of the way. I looked for Dekka to make sure she was out of the way if she was still small.
There she was, vibrating with sheer terrier delight. Flying rats! Gigantic flying rats, I bet she couldn’t think of anything better. As excited as she was, she too couldn’t reach them.
One bat swooped low, trying to attack a mage who had hit it with an electrical attack. I was too far away to do much, and I was also going to need to be careful with my club in close quarters.
Dekka ran at the bat, growing to full hellhound size in three strides. She leapt onto the back of a person ducking away from the bat attack and launched herself into the air.
The bat was not expecting that. And to be fair to the bat, it likely wasn’t programmed to deal with a flying hellhound missile piloted by a small terrier. Dekka latched onto a wing and brought the bat to the ground. This caused a lot of screaming, only a bit from the bat.
Other bats above seemed angry that one of their brethren had been downed. The players around the bat were now being battered by its one unencumbered wing, and though they all had heard that my dog could transform, seeing it was another matter.
“Move aside” I yelled at a few people, and as soon as I had space, I used [Hit] on the bat’s head. I got lucky, and it landed solidly with its skull.
5XP!
What the fuck? Only 5? And no loot? Stingy fucking game.
That pissed me off, and I saw red. Not literally, but my vision locked onto the next bat diving towards the people chittering with its high-pitched cries. I could see its mouth open to show a double row of sharp, fine, needle-like teeth. Screaming, I launched myself at it. There wasn’t enough room to swing my club, so I grabbed it by a dangling leg and smashed it against the wall. The creature screamed louder, now in panic.
Well, if it didn’t want to die, then it shouldn’t have attacked us. I lifted it up and swung it at the wall again.
5XP!
I looked around for my next target. It was then I noticed I had a lot of free space around me. People were still fighting, but a good number were looking at me with equal amounts of horror and admiration.
“Shit, remind me not to get on your bad side,” Barry said.
I just grinned at him and let the rage sweep over me. There was a scream behind me, player not beast. Spinning, I spared only a moment to make sure no one was in my way and I used [Targeted Hit] so I wouldn’t hit the person whose arm the bat was shredding.
I crushed one of its wings. It was far from a fatal blow, but it was painful enough that the bat stopped biting the half elf and focused on me. Again, I locked into the swing and things just felt right. I swung like I were in the major leagues, and its skull exploded. Brains and bits of skull flew like shrapnel on the bat’s victim. They weren’t very grateful; now they were crying.
Not my problem. I couldn’t heal them. That wasn’t my job. My job was to keep the bats from biting and eating my fellow squad mates. It was their job not to die.
5XP!
5XP!
Other people were killing the bats, but there were still a lot up there, moving like shattered darkness come alive.
Dekka had another one; she was latched onto its body, her shadow teeth sinking deep into its belly. It was shrieking so loudly my ears were hurting. In one fluid movement, I turned my club around and used the smaller end to smash in its face and shut it up.
5XP!
“Hey, hey!”
I looked down to see this child, no small humanoid pulling at me. I blinked. No, wait, that was Rose. How had I not noticed?
“Can you stop that!?”
She sounded irritated. Was she mad at me? I looked at her confused.
“If you keep smashing their heads in, I can’t do anything with them.” She said with exasperation.
I still wasn’t following. I shrugged.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Necromancy can’t work on a creature if its head is obliterated. That’s the one thing that can stop the undead.”
Oh. “I can do that.” I said.
My job was to stop the bats from biting people but not to harm their heads. This was not a disappointment. I laughed. This was a challenge!
Just at that moment a bat dropped out of the sky, the delicate leather of its one wing holed by a fire bold, the edges still smouldering. Before I could pick a non cranial spot to aim for, Dekka leapt in and ripped its throat out.
0.05XP!
I rolled my eyes at that pitiful amount.
Pain!
White hot pain burst in my leg. I looked down and there was a fuzzy brown head, its little ears swiveling as it chomped down on my calf.
Fucker!
I dropped my club and grabbed the bat’s head. One head grabbed a handful of fur on the top of its head, the other its lower jaw. I pulled its mouth open slowly, inexorably, and unclamped it from my leg. When my leg was clear I lifted it up and smashed its head into the floor repeatedly until its head was a broken, gooey mess.
5XP!
Small friend would have to find another bat to reanimate. Biting me was rude.
5XP!
5XP!
I slipped as I tried to dodge a spearman who had a bat skewered that was still coming at the man down his weapon. My leg wasn't working right. Where was that sparky elf? Fixing me was her job. Looking around all I saw was chaos. Chaos I should be participating in.
Growling, I decided I would yell at the elf when I saw her next.
Where the fuck was my club? I looked around but couldn’t see it on the blood and viscera soaked floor. A bat was swooping low to the ground. Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed it by an ear as it glided past.
I didn’t need a weapon. I was the weapon.
This time I carefully bashed the bat until its ribs were mush.
5XP!
Small friend should be happy. I smiled.
5XP!
5XP!
5XP!
Good people were doing their jobs.
There was a mass of people and bats in the centre of the space. Lots of blood and noise as the downed bats sliced people with their teeth and bashed them with non-broken wings. I thought I heard someone calling for help.
No killing the people. Bad bats. I waded in, throwing bats out of the way, stepping over and around the fighting people, trying to find the person calling for help.
5XP!
Dekka came bounding out of the darkness, her face a canine grin of joy. I grinned back at her and then turned to heave the body of a dead bat off the person who was calling for help.
It was the cook. The nice man who made the good food. Aubie, my foggy mind dug up. Oh shit. He looked bad. His chest looked caved in on one side, and his face had been nearly bitten off by a bat.
“Healer” I roared out.
Nothing happened for a moment, and I was contemplating if I should hunt one down and drag them over here to heal the nice food man when a cool wash of energy enveloped us. A glowing blue dome formed around us. My leg started to hurt less, not that the pain had mattered; it was a nice side effect.
Another healer, not the sparkly elf, showed up and laid a glowing hand on Aubie’s chest. The flesh began to knit and his face became … more face shaped.
Now that he was in good hands, I looked up to see how many bats were left.
5XP!
0.05XP!
There were none left in the air. Only a few struggled on the ground. I watched as Rose, her hands glowing green, directed one of the bat corpses to block a bat that was trying to bite an elf. The bat just bit the corpse, and every time it tried to deke around the corpse interposed itself. A swordsman came by and sliced the bat’s throat. The live bat.
5XP!
Not alive anymore.
5XP!
The rest of the bats weren’t much more alive. They were all down and surrounded. Oh hey there was my club. I walked over to retrieve it.
5XP!
5XP!
That was the last of the bats.
My club was covered in gore. Not a speck of clean wood showed anywhere. Now that the fight was over, the threat eliminated, I started to notice things. My skin was slick with blood. The stench of blood, viscera and opened intestines was overpowering. People were throwing up, adding to the miasma.
I almost joined them, but after a few moments my stomach settled. I didn’t reach down and pick up my club though either. The healers had gone around and fixed everyone up. We hadn’t lost anyone, so that was good. But the healers had gone through a lot of manna keeping everyone alive.
“Holy shit, Elizabeth.” Barry walked up beside me. “You are terrifying. I am very glad you fight for our side.” He slapped me on the back, his hand making a wet squelching sound.
“Um, yuck.” He said, shaking his hand.
“Do any of the mages have a cleaning spell?” I asked, glancing at his hand and then back down at my club.
“I don’t think so. But I bet people will be searching when this is over to find out if there is a skill tree with it on there.”
I sighed and stooped to pick up my weapon.
“Ok Everyone let’s regroup!” One of the other squad leaders, Prolly Satan, was yelling over the crowd. “Find out whose team is low on mana”
Barry and I stayed put. I was an easy beacon to find in the crowd. Ayerelia and Copperbeard joined us, followed shortly by Rose.
“That new class of yours is quite something.” Ayerelia said, her voice sounded like it was trying to sneer but was too tired.
“Quite impressive.” Rose agreed.
“Ayerelia,” said Barry. “You are the only one of us that uses mana. How are your stores?”
“Down to less than a quarter.” She said, her exhaustion obvious.
Barry waved his hand in the air. Aubie, who was now completely healed, came over.
“How many you be needin?” The alchemist asked.
“Two if you can spare them.” Barry said.
Aubie grinned at Ayerelia. “Two is no problem for one of the healers who kept me alive.” He opened his HUD. “Would you like lemon flavoured or vanilla?”
Ayerelia blinked a few times. “You have flavour options.”
“But of course! What is the point of a disgusting tasting potion?” He gave a good-natured laugh. “A healing or mana potion should be as good on the tongue as it is for your body.”
“Uh, I’ll take one of each then.”
“Excellent,” he said, drawing two round glass flasks out of his inventory, one a creamy swirl with sparkles, the other a bright sunshine yellow that emitted a faint glow.
They looked delicious. My mouth watered as Ayerelia popped the cork on the vanilla one and drank it down.
She looked at the bottle and then back to the alchemist. “That is … that is actually incredible.”
He smiled and moved on to the next party’s mage.
Ayerelia popped open the lemon one and sipped slowly as if she wanted to savour it and not just waste the taste experience by downing it like she had the last.
The colour started returning to her cheeks.
“Lass, that was … disturbing. Impressive but disturbing,” Copperbeard said to me quietly as we waited for everyone who needed it to get topped up.
I swallowed. I had been trying not to think about how my mind had … changed during the fight. How my thinking simplified, everything narrowing down until only the battle had mattered. That I had even forgotten the names of my friends and the way I hadn’t cared at all about my own safety.
I shuddered thinking about that last one. “I know. It must be my new barbarian class.” I looked around at the bodies. “It’s very effective, though.”
“Aye,” he agreed.
“If anyone needs a bit of a wash, I can help you over here.” It was one of the water mages in one of the other squads. Or maybe our only water mage now that I thought back to the mage target practice.
I eagerly went forward. Many people were splattered with unidentifiable bat parts and fluids, but if there had been a contest for the grossest, it would have been me. Dekka had been padding along beside me, still in hellhound form. The moment she realised I was going to take a shower, she abandoned me in case it was catching.
I got the worst of it sluiced off me and a quick rinse of my club, particularly the grip, and was good to go.
“Anything else I should know about corpses?” I asked Rose.
“Other than don’t smash the head it, that is the main thing. If you could leave the limbs intact, it takes less mana to animate and the more intact their functional bones are. Really, what I control are the bones.”
“That’s good to know.”
“But don’t get hurt trying to not break bones. Particularly with that weapon of yours.”
“Yeah, sorry about some of them.”
“Your hands are also lethal,” she said with a laugh.
“That surprised me. I don’t even have any levels in unarmed combat.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t know if that makes you more terrifying that you don’t or more terrifying to imagine you with it.”
I simply nodded. I agreed with her wholeheartedly.
“Looks like we are ready to go.” I could see the people at the end of the room starting to move out. “I wonder what will be next.”
“Me too; that was basically just the front hall.”
Should I delete the editorial help comments after the text has been fixed? I found conflicting thoughts with other rr writers. And because I deeply appreciate all the assistance I don't want to make a decision that upsets our little community.
