The sky darkened as something massive blocked the sun for a moment. At first, my mind couldn’t comprehend what I saw, but the lack of forelegs and the partial glimpse of the thing’s face formed a clear picture of it.
It is amazing how much of the world a kid is exposed to in big enough cities. I found zoos to be incredibly useful in getting experiences with wild animals from all over the world. The Como Park Zoo had these African fruit bats that were absolute units. They were also pretty cute, in a ‘I’m going to suck your blood, but not really unless you’re a papaya’ way.
Imagine one of those, but the size of a 747 airliner. Oh, and it wasn’t a frugivore. If it ate fruit, it was part of a balanced diet of ‘eating a bunch of meat and oops, banana!’ Fortunately, it was too big to get at us through the tree cover, and it likely didn’t spot us.
Except it had.
I cried out as the massive bat creature broke through the trees and landed before us on the path. The damned thing was not quite a bat, with much more musculature in ratio to the ones back home. And its snout was more elongated than a fruit bat’s with teeth made for rending flesh. The smell of rot and musk rolled over us before the dust had even settled, causing all of us to gag. Then the beast screamed at us.
The scream barely registered in my hearing, but it caused me to double over in pain and nausea. My ears rang as my stomach emptied itself forcefully, which prevented the concentration needed to use my spells. The building sized bat scrambled forward on its fore and back legs, wings draped and mouth slavering. Its claws tore up the path and hillside, causing the entire area to shift.
My stomach eased as it rushed toward us and I cast several poison bolts and Ice shards at the massive beast. I did not want it to chomp down on me at all. “Oh fuck! It’s coming right for me!” I yelled and scrambled back, falling on my ass.
The bat thing snapped at me, almost getting my right foot. I kept moving back on my hands and heals. Crack! My head rammed into a tree behind me and I slumped, dazed. Bemused, I watched the bat creature stalk forward, eying me like I was the last piece of pizza in the box. It turned its head to eat me, like I was a taco, and then reared back, screaming.
Harper had done one of her special, nasty attacks on the thing’s ass, and it snapped its wings out and back. This created a shockwave, pushing me against and past the tree in a rag doll fashion. Almost as if in afterthought, I cast some Firebolts at it, missing the main body, but burning a small patch of the massive bat’s wing membrane.
I didn’t see what happened next as I used the tree to pull myself up on to my wobbly legs. But the ground tremor and boom threw me back to the ground. I looked up, seeing a massive, glowing fist pulling back to hit the fallen bat. It must have been Jerseil. I had a sudden memory of my little brother Sean waking me up to show me a cartoon clip on his phone of some little man riding a glowing hand singing like a classic hair rocker. I think he called it Scramblin’ Hand or something. Scranton Hand? I didn’t remember.
But it made sense that it was Jerseil as he played his glittern like it owed him money. The dazed and sliding batzilla made a confused noise before being pummeled again. It may have been the head injury, but I thought it was god-damned hilarious.
Harper appeared beside me, checking the back of my head. “Finn, are you okay? Can you fight?”
I put my hand where hers just left and felt a sticky wetness. “I think so, just a head wound,” I said, chuckling. “Are you seeing this shit? Kiaju Kilroy the Batzilla is getting pummeled by the Scategory Hand!” Realizing I just spouted nonsense, I laughed even harder.
“Do you have a health potion?” she asked.
“Of course!” I exclaimed. I pulled one out and handed it to her. “Here you go.”
Harper took the health potion, opened it up, and poured some on my head before she handed it back. “Drink the rest of this.”
I took the bottle from her and drank it down. It wasn’t long before I was back to normal, and horrified by the situation. The massive bat thing was still not back on its feet and seemed as out of it as I was. “How long can Jerseil keep this up?”
“Not much longer. The two of us need to step in soon and take this thing out. And that’s going to take a lot more. Jerseil likely will need a moment, so what can you do to slow it down?”
“Hmm, maybe I can pin it down with some Ice Shards through its wing membranes,” I said. “We’ll see how high its pain tolerance is.”
I checked my mana, and saw that I could do three, maybe four Ice Shards. If this worked, I wouldn’t need to drink too many mana potions. I looked to the dazed, gigantic bat creature. One wing of the bat creature stretched out up the hill. I cast two spears of ice into the wing, stapling it to the ground. It screamed, pulled out of its stupor. Its other wing slammed against the ground. More of the hillside cracked, the earth sliding and a couple of pine trees leaned downhill with audible creaks.
I emptied a mana potion just in case and cast more spears of ice into the free wing of the beast at different angles to better hold it. The bat thing howled in pain and rage, not pulling much at its pinned wings. And for good measure, I fired off several more of the poisonous bolts. With the bat being stationary and the level 2 greenish bolts being target-seeking, none of them missed. Not for the first time, I wished I could tell if my targets were poisoned.
I didn’t see Harper move, but with a slap on my shoulder, she was gone. A few moments later she was laying into the monster with her rapier. Every stroke left deep gashes in the creature’s flesh. It was horrifying and strangely comforting to watch her almost teleport around the monstrous bat and take apart its flesh a pound at a time.
But the bat thing finally had enough. The skin of the wing membranes tore as it pulled itself free in ferocious jolts of movement. It’s torn, bloody membranes maddened it and it raged against the ground and trees near it. The ground shook as I hugged the nearest pine. Rocks ranging in size from golf balls to Volkswagens rolled and bounced past.
Harper helped a wide-eyed Jerseil away from the rampaging beast. I surge-cast Chain Lightning at the gigantic wet-market reject, causing it to seize with the voltage of my spell. Few things can deal with that level of electric shock. Smoke arose from its mouth and ears, but the torpor was only temporary as it shook it off to attack Jerseil and Harper.
Jerseil, in a fit of heroism, pushed Harper out of the way, taking the full brunt of the creature’s swipe. He flew somewhere uphill and behind me, his yelled “Fuck!” getting the Doppler treatment.
My dumbass ran towards the injured Bat of Unusual Size, ready to do something. The maddened eyes of the monstrous being focused on me. The thing roared, spittle flying from its mouth. I got the feeling that it no longer wanted to eat me and now wanted to rip me to shreds and use my pulp to ease the pain of its wings. Or put me on a hotdog. Either way, I was fucked.
I drank another mana potion. “Bring it, you piece of shit bird knock-off! I will burn your ugly ass!” I shouted defiantly. There was no fucking way I was going to let this thing hurt my friends anymore. A small voice in the back of my mind cried out in alarm about the danger I was putting myself in.
In a surprising burst of speed, the bat rushed me with its mouth opened wide and screeching. I cast my new shield spell, Phantom fucking Wing. The spectral wings formed outward from my wrist. The resulting shield form extended about a foot past my fist and half a foot past my elbow, its oval shape formed of opaque, glowing feathers. I screamed in fear and rage as the bat thing’s teeth slammed into the shield, glancing up and to the left. The blow sent me sliding back several feet. I tottered and almost fell. I’m proud to say I kept my feet at that moment.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Then I did yet another stupid, idiotic thing. I charged the bat. That part of me that was smarter than the rest cringed at the action and wondered at what I could do this close up to that massive, building sized beast. But there was a desire upon me to end it, and I needed to do it up close. All the anger, all the despair and loss I felt commanded it. I had to do this in the most visceral way. I had no pity for this monster, standing in for all my pain. It had to die by my hand.
I blasted it with a barrage of surged Poisonous Shot, followed by a surged Chain Lightning. Drinking another mana potion, I leapt, throwing the empty bottle at the monster’s eyes and slamming the still active shield into its muzzle. The impact broke a couple of its teeth, and I blasted surged Firebolts through its open jaws and down its throat. Harper and Jerseil were beside me, hacking and piercing the beast, their voices merging with my raging scream.
I sobbed as we killed it, hating myself for the barbaric actions I took. And accepting that I had to kill it before the beast killed us. Despite my mindset of doing as little harm as possible, a part of me gloried in the victory. Is this all we were? Killers? We had destroyed a monster with excessive violence. But I still felt horrible. Horrid. This place was hell. And I wasn’t sure who the monsters were anymore.
***************************
We took some time to recover from the fight before looting the massive beast. When I cut it open, it had a surprising amount of gold in it. I gave my share to Jerseil, reducing my debt to him by 2300 gold. There were also some items, including knives, arrows, some health potions and a few potions I had never seen before. There was also an enchanted sword that needed to be identified. We split the potions, and I examined the new potion. It was a muffle potion, which Jerseil said reduces or nullifies sound-based attacks.
“Well, I don’t want the sword,” Jerseil said. “Finn can have it if you don’t want it.”
“It looks like a nice sword, but at first glance it likely is not as good as my rapier. Yeah, Finn, you take the sword,” Harper agreed.
I picked it up, and the viscous blood and bile from the beast’s stomach still covered the sword. Just like everything else we had pulled out.
“Is it too much to ask that looting be less gross?” I asked.
Harper and Jerseil laughed.
“It’s been this way since I got here. I’ve always thought that it was part of earning the gold and items. You get used to it. Juan used to say something about a broken system,” Harper said. She went quiet for a moment. “I guess he really is gone. I’m talking about him in the past tense.” She sniffled and turned away.
Jerseil reached out to comfort her. “Harper.”
“I’m fine, it’s just—I hadn’t really accepted it. You know?”
She stepped away from us and panned over the devastation wrought by our battle with the bat monster. The sword in my hands was very gaudy, with jewels in the hand guard and the bottom of the hilt. The blade part was a little wider than Harper’s rapier, and a little longer. With my arms, I would have some reach. I’m a mage, though. I can do more damage with my magic than with a blade.
At least it might be worth something, especially after I got it appraised. I pulled out a scrap of cloth and wiped the offal off the blade. Into the pack it went. Along with the potions after I wiped them off, too. Everything else was junk and not worth our time. I threw the used cloth on the pile.
We made it down the mountain with no more encounters, likely because the bat thing had killed or chased off everything that had the gumption to attack us. We stopped for lunch by a stream so that we could wash up.
The rinsed-off blood and other bodily fluids colored the water as it flowed downstream. I watched it go, imagining it was the guilt and anger I had been harboring the past few days. I knew it wasn’t, but it was a calming thought. The fight with the bat had given me more than enough experience energy to level up, and I distributed my points. I put 1 point into stamina, another into endurance, and the 3rd into intelligence. This brought my stamina up to 21, endurance to 23, and intelligence to 36. My health went from 358 to 364, and my mana went up to 276. Just a little closer.
“Hey Finn, we’re burning daylight. Got yourself pretty? Cause I’d like to sleep in a bed tonight,” Harper called.
“Yeah, let’s go. I know how you old folks need your sleep.”
“Hey,” Jerseil said indignantly. “It has nothing to do with age. Whippersnapper.”
Harper sighed and walked off briskly. Jerseil and I followed her. The day had gotten warmer as we had come down out of the mountains, and when the trail was not among the trees, it was sweltering.
“Is she okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She hasn’t told me what’s going on and I’m not prying. Likely, she’ll tell us when it’s time,” he replied.
“Yeah. Losing Juan really hit her hard. And Harper got quiet after the whole speaking about him in the past tense.”
I found myself anxious at the moment and tried to focus on the birds chirping and the random squirrels in the trees. It helped, but I almost missed Jerseil’s question.
“… Okay? I’ve never seen you rush in like that. Do you need to talk about it?” Jerseil asked.
The concern was plain in his voice. But I really didn’t want to talk about it. There is a point where you know you should be cautious, but you really want to hurt someone or something. Just to chip away at your own pain. You become reckless and do stupid shit. Like charging a monster the size of a two-story house in anything short of a tank. And you don’t care if you get hurt or die, you just care if you can get a chance to hurt them. And I really couldn’t say any of that out loud. “Nah, dude. I’m good for now.”
“Okay Finn. If you need to talk.”
“Thanks man.” I replied. The path smoothed out, and we came to a clearing. It made me think of the first clearing I woke up in. How long ago was that? Was I even the same person? There was a rabbit sitting on a rock, contrary to usual rabbit behavior. I didn’t see any hawks, but the thing was very visible.
I stopped. “Uh, Jerseil?”
“Yeah, Finn?”
“Do rabbits here usually act so blatant and without fear?” I asked, gesturing to the rabbit on the rock. “Or does it have a quest for us?”
He looked at the rabbit, now totally focused on us watching it. “That is odd. I’ve never seen this type of behavior. I wonder what it is doing.”
“What’s taking you two so long?” Harper asked, walking back to us.
“That rabbit is acting weird,” I said, pointing at the rabbit. The brown rabbit cocked its head as if it was listening to us and waiting for us to continue. Suddenly, it stamped its foot rapidly against the rock and jumped away into some bushes.
“Don’t know what you are talking about,” said Harper. “Just looked and acted like a rabbit. Stop messing around and let’s go.” She turned and walked away, and we looked at each other in confusion.
“It was weird, right?” I asked.
“Yes, yes, it was. I have to wonder if we’re being watched by something,” Jerseil replied. “Like that demon or a god. The more I think about it, the less strange it seems taking that into consideration. I’ve just never seen anything like that.”
We started walking, and the path brought us back into the sun-dappled shade of the forest. More leafy than the forest on the mountain, the trees were a mix of pines and oaks, elms, and maybe cottonwood. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure, as they weren’t exactly like the ones from earth. The similarities were striking, though.
“Ah, shade!” I said. I frowned then, not happy about being spied on. “Now that you mention it, there was also the mountain lion, and I don’t know what else. Maybe we should pay more attention to the behavior of the animals around us.”
“That, my friend, is a good plan. Then we can compare notes. Hmmm. I think we need more than notes,” he exclaimed, pulling out his gitten or whatever it was called. “We need music!”
He started strumming a few cords and adjusting the pegs while we followed the annoyed purple cambion. And though she said nothing and didn’t turn around, she relaxed the more he played.
“There once was a girl who lived down the lane, a beauty whose smile would drive men insane. She wore a blue dress with frills and lace, her golden hair framed her face. And when men told her of their love, she smiled sweetly and gave them a shove.”
“But she only had eyes for me. For me! Jane! You dance like the wind and laugh like the stream. Jane! Your eyes sparkle when I hold your hand, and your kisses are a dream.”
“On feast days she wears a white apron, to show that she is pure. But on those very nights it flies through the air, as I make the door secure! And men do grumble and mutter, as you turn them away with a twirl. Their frowns and clenched fists as they see you on my arm, let me know I’ll pay for having you as my girl!”
“But she only had eyes for me. For me! Jane! I dance out of town with the wind, your laughter a memory and eyes full of tears. And those men will not find me, nor take their revenge. Jane! You dance like the wind and laugh like the stream. And I’ll see you again, when I can dream!”
Jerseil ended the song with laughter and just strummed for a while before singing a lewd song about a woman who left the house without clothes, because her drunk husband was wearing them down at the inn.
Harper laughed at that one and let us catch up to her. The bard continued to entertain us for several miles. I’m pretty sure that he continued just to distract her from her grief and anger.
We spotted the ‘mining camp’ near dinner time, according to my stomach. “How long does it take for a mining camp to be considered a town?” I asked. There were no tents in sight, just one to three-story buildings and houses.
“Does it really matter? All I know is if there are buildings, then there are beds. Maybe even bathing facilities. Bath, food, then bed,” Harper said with finality. “Gods help them if they don’t have baths and clean sheets.”
Should the new spell for Finn poll be on the specific spells instead of the categories?
