Chapter 26 — Shelly and Erik (Patreon)

Shelly used her sleeve to wipe sweat off her forehead, she had managed to climb up to the top of building, but the bay breeze wasn’t quite enough to cool her down after such an exertion. She paused, going silent as she activated mental scan, searching for sign of her prey. Dressed in the thick black leather armor she had stolen from one of the horde, whatever it was made of it managed to stay clean despite the copious amount of green blood it had been soaked in.

The scan extended outwards slowing now that it was so far away from her, it took another two minutes for them to catch up to her, they were slowly walking up Florida street, she was crouched near the roof of three buildings that had been joined as one decades ago, leaving the strange three roofs up top while the outer edge was flat, a perfect place to lay an ambush. She stretched slightly getting ready for the attack. 

From the stories, she would have assumed gnomes would be better at the stalking thing. After all, the ugly things were supposed to be part beast. She couldn’t see their shape, not with mental scan, but she knew there were three of them. All that was left of the two dozen strong patrol she had been slowly tearing chunks off for the past three hours. It had been a good chase, throughout a large portion of the mission district she had used her skills and xatherite to take out the stragglers and the weak. 

These last three were the strongest, one stood about four and a half feet tall, his bright pink hair looked silly but the strange wickedly curved khopesh blades it dual wielded were no laughing matter. The other two were a few inches shorter, the blue haired one carried a shield and short spear while the green haired gripped a glaive in both hands, he had almost killed her with it earlier.

Shelly was saving that one for last, his death was going to be slow. They finally got to the intersection of Florida and 20th St and stopped, looking around. The blue one had some sort of scent ability. He’d been the one tracking her most of the night but he didn’t seem to understand how her trail had just disappeared. When the pink one started shouting at the blue one she activated her drake jump xatherite. She spun through the air, reveling in the freedom of movement as she fell the three stories to the street below.

She landed on the blue haired one her foot braced against the nape of his neck and she could feel the snap of his spine as the skill transferred the force of her fall to her target, he smashed into the asphalt with an audible crunch, she wasn’t sure how many bones he had just broken, but she knew from experience it was enough to take him out of the fight. She grinned at the other two, who were stunned by her sudden entrance. She flicked her wrist and the pink one sprouted a dagger four inches into his skull via his left eye, she didn’t even need to activate a skill to kill him.

The green one screamed as he tried to swing the glaive at her, she stepped into the weapon, one arm raised the strange bone growing along her forearm sent grated against the pole of the weapon causing it to go further off target. She flipped the grip on her other dagger and activating power thrust, stabbed it into his stomach, he was wearing armor, but the xatherite enhanced strike parted the leather like a hot knife in butter. She only stopped when the blade cracked against his vertebrae, severing the nerves and causing him to fall to the ground, the lower half of his body no longer responding to any commands.

His bigger than life eyes went even wider, blood came out of his mouth as he tried to open it. Shelly flipped off of him, rolling away incase he still had some fight in him. She came up in a combat pose and smiled down at the dying gnome. “Fucking gnome horde comes to my town? Kills my boyfriend and expects me to just take it in stride?”

Kicking the glaive away from him, even if his hands were more focused on trying to keep his innards inside him. She circled around to the side, then kicked his torso, driving the blade deeper inside him. She then activated blade call, and all of her weapons returned to their sheathes, sparkling clean. “Now I’d really like to just let you bleed out, but there is a chance you have a xatherite behind those big fucking eyes. So sadly this is going to be faster than I’d like. She pushed her foot against his windpipe and slowly pressed down. 

“You motherfuckers invaded the wrong goddamn town.” His hands feebly tried to push Shelly’s leg away, but he was powerless and already dying. The celery crunch of his windpipe breaking was enough, and she turned from him to look at the other two. “Oh look, your friend already gave me some. Guess that means you won’t have any on you and I can let you die slow!” She touched the red crystal that had grown between the eyes of the pink haired gnome. The street was littered with green blood and viscera glowed red briefly and she smiled as the notification blinked into reality in the corner of her vision. With a shrug she left the gnome to slowly suffocate, she activated shadow of death and disappeared into the darkening gloom.

The fog was rolling in, and she had plenty of hunting time left before the sun came up. She wouldn’t rest until she had killed every single one of the green horde. 

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Erik looked down the ridge, he could see a town there, it had been called Edwards a week ago, there probably wasn't anyone still alive down there. But he had to check, his armor kept him warm, and it took on a strangely reflective quality from the snow around him. It was still early April in Colorado and this late in the day it was getting back down to the mid 40’s, he looked behind him, at the nineteen people he had managed to convince to follow him.

All of them had been through a harrowing six days. He frowned, at this rate he wouldn’t make Denver for months. Advent had started while he was overnighting in Gypsum just a few miles to the west of here along I-70, he was grateful that God had given him the xatherite he needed to save as many people as he had, but he had left far too many graves along the trail. He gestured everyone forward, his hand resting on the handle of his war hammer. 

Cutting a far more imposing figure than the rest of the group, Erik was dressed in his conjured armor. It resembled that of the old knights templar, it wasn’t anywhere near as heavy as their suits had been however, he could barely feel its weight and it didn’t restrict his movement at all. It still did a fine job at stopping attacks though. The massive, demon possesed bears, rabbits, elk and wolves that had attacked the weary travelers had enabled him to put that to the test. 

Picking up the heavy war hammer, whose head glowed with an inner light, and throwing it over one shoulder he began to walk down the road to Edwards. His people followed him. The three children he had managed to save that first day were riding the summoned horse, the godsent reward he had received after he gathered the crystal formed in the skull of the biggest bear he had ever seen. He glanced back at the kids and waved, they didn’t respond. He didn’t expect them too, he hadn’t been quite quick enough to save their parents from the wolves, and none of the three had said a word since.

The rest of the group was just as ragtag, most of them were young, under 20, and all had lost someone they loved.  The only one older than 25 was a former diner waitress who had taken to caring for the kids after he had pulled her out of the burned remnants of her diner back in Eagle three days ago.

It was only a couple miles to Edwards, but it would probably wouldn’t make it until midday tomorrow, he’d have to have Ross dig them another tunnel to sleep for the night. Realizing that light of faith’s cooldown was probably up he activated that prayer, and yellow light surrounded all twenty of them, the shivering stopped immediately and everyone picked up the pace, wanting to make as much distance as they could while the buff was in place. 

They made it halfway down the hill before they heard the howling. It originated from further down the road but Erik immediately swung his hammer up, “Defensive positions!” It was a well practiced maneuver at this point. Ross dug a pit and they began putting all the unawakened children into it. Then he shifted the earth around them, creating a slope as steep as his powers would allow. Meanwhile Rose used her xatherite to create long forks along the top of the ridge, Ross buried them until just their razor sharp tines were visible.

Erik had the horse move towards him as soon as the children were off of it. At 21 hands it was a massive beast. Without the strength enhancement of his armor he doubted he would have even been able to mount the charger. He patted the beasts flanks to comfort it. It was a worthless gesture, the conjured horse had no feelings, but it felt right to him. He watched the preparations as he circled the fortification. As he circled he thanked God that they had the right abilities and the people to keep so many alive despite the growing difficulty in doing so.

When the entire bulwark had been created he nodded to Rose and Ross, then tilted his visor down and hefting the hammer into a readied combat position he nudged the charger forward. The wolves would be here any moment now, it never took long. He took this chance to pray, his deep voice reverberated throughout the canyon, echoing into the wilderness around him.

“O Lord, we ask for a boundless confidence and trust in Your divine mercy,

and the courage to accept the crosses and sufferings

which bring immense goodness to our souls and that of Your Church.”

The wolves appeared before he could finish the prayer, but he merely raised his hammer the light within its head glowed brighter as he activated his divine light xatherite. It was his only red skill, the hammer flashed red and the wolves cried out as they were blinded by the Lord’s grace. He motioned the charger forward, and shouted, “For God and Freedom!”

With the battle joined the charger used its heavy hooves to crush wolves while he swung the war hammer with far more ease than the heavy weapon should have allowed. The wolves did manage to pull the horse to the ground, but it disappeared in a blink of blue light as Erik jumped from it’s back, sending two wolves flying with the impact of his landing, he managed to keep his feet. He began swinging the hammer around him in wide arcs the wolves tried to nip at him, but aside form the force and weight of their attacks throwing him off balance occasionally they didn’t seem to be doing any damage to his holy armor.

Nine wolves were dead from the combination of his hammer and the charger before he managed to kill the alpha, the hammer connecting solidly with its head sending brain matter flying. The remaining five wolves turned and fled, their sense of self preservation reasserting itself over the Satanic corruption that had caused them to show such growth and aggression.

Looking back to the fortification to ensure that they had suffered no damage while he dealt with the demon beasts. Seeing Rose and Ross standing atop the embankment unharmed he knelt down among the bodies of the slain wolves, praying to St Michael for his safe deliverance through the battle. 

When he was done he stood up, calling out to the others, “Lets just make camp here for the night, the light is almost gone anyway.”