"It's my duty." His jaw was set, and his eyes were firm. "Go with the others. I'll hold the line."
"Not going to happen."
Ignoring me, he said, "I'll stay—"
I stepped away from the staircase leading to the Depths. "You have people to help. I'm staying.
"Alex, don't argue—"
"No," I cut him off. "These people need you. people need you. And you're stronger than I am. If anyone should be going into the Depths with them, it's you."
A crash from the entrance made us all turn. pieces of stone bounced across the room. The corner of the door had cracked.
"Alex, I can't let you..." We both knew what the end of that sentence was. He didn't need to say it.
"You can, and you will." I looked Ro directly in the eyes. "This is why I'm here. I can feel it."
"You don't know that."
"I do." I could feel it. This is why the Goddess brought me to this world. If I weren't here, they would all die. "Get them out of here. Get Lady Varga somewhere safe. I'll seal the door behind you all, and I'll hold them off until..." Until I was dead.
"Alex—"
"We both know you're the better choice. These people need your light."
Ro's face hardened. "You won't survive."
"You don't know that." I gave his words back to him and watched him deflate.
I heard someone walk up behind me. Turning, I saw a familiar hand fall onto my shoulder. "Are you certain, child?" Lady Varga's voice was soft.
Pushing away every ounce of self-preservation left in me, I said, "Yes."
"Then it is not our place to stand in your, or the Goddess's, path." She wobbled. Bracing on my shoulder, she steadied herself, but it was clear she was exhausted.
"Mother, don't encourage this idiot to—"
"Have faith, my child. We don't know what will come."
Ro looked like he wanted to argue, but before he could, a wave of light washed over her. The light coalesced into her hand and channeled into me. It felt... good... Really good. As the light dissipated, she doubled over in pain, but after a few deep breaths, she stood back up. Looking me over with the saddest look I'd ever seen on her face, she whispered, "Thank you, Alex."
I lowered my head. "No, thank you. For everything."
Placing a hand on my cheek, she stroked my face before dropping her hand. "Go in the light, child." Turning, she said, "My children, we must go. Please, gather your things, and quickly. Leave anything that you don't need." She walked away from us and began helping the others.
Within minutes, the crypt began to empty. Nearly everything was carried down into the Depths, and the few things that could be carried were set in a pile in the corner, and the three bodies that had been resting in the corner were lowered into sarcophagi. As the others worked, Ro and I remained still in the chaos. Neither of us moved, nor did we say anything. We simply watched as the survivors readied themselves.
Around ten minutes later, everyone was packed and ready, and some of the Templars had already begun the trek down the staircase and into the Depths. When a group of villagers hesitated to follow, Grund nodded to me, walked to the opening, and said, "Everyone, here are the rules: No one breaks away. No one goes off alone. If you need a break, make sure to notify a priest or a Templar. It will be a long journey to the nearest outpost, so speak up and speak often."
Dozens of heads nodded in response. With a nod of his own, Grund, along with Ivhar and Elonie, disappeared down the steps, followed by a large group of people. Once they were gone, there were only a few Templars and some injured folks left. The Templars were just finishing crafting stretchers out of cloaks. A minute later, the few people who hadn't been healed enough to walk were placed onto them.
As they descended the stairs, a Templar walked up to me. It was Maven. "I don't care what any of them say. I know you'll survive." She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me into a hug. When she pulled away, she pointed to the corner of the room. "Everything we couldn't bring with us is over there. Use whatever you think you'll need. You'll need it more than we will."
I nodded. "Thank you, maven."
Her brown eyes lingered on me for a long moment. "I'll let her know how brave you were." As the last word left her lips, her eyes swam, and she swatted my arm. "Not that I'll need to! You'll tell her yourself soon enough."
In that moment, I realized where Tristan had picked up that little habit. "I sure will. Travel well, okay?"
She nodded. "I will." Placing a hand on me, she patted my chest and smiled. "Go in the light."
"And you."
With a final look, she descended the stairs.
Another crash sounded from the entrance. Looking backward, I saw that the Templars had stacked six or seven sarcophagi on top of one another, barring the door.
A wave of gratitude hit me. They bought me some time.
Soon, the crypt was empty except for Ro and me. He still hadn't moved.
"You don't have to do this."
"We're past that point, my friend." I laughed. As scared as I was, I could feel the fear beginning to melt away. In its place was certainty. It was the same feeling I felt when I went skydiving that one time. When the plane's door opened, there wasn't any room for fear anymore. It was go time. I looked him in the eye. "Take care of them, Ro. Get them to safety."
He frowned. "What will I say when I see..."
I swallowed hard. "When you see her, tell Tristan I love her."
His golden eyes held mine for a long moment. Then he nodded once, his expression solemn. "I will. May the Goddess light your path, brother." He held his arm out to me.
"And yours." I took his arm in mine. "Now go. Go be a hero."
"There's only one hero here today." He turned away from me and wiped his eyes with his free hand. "Goodbye, my friend." Without another word, he turned away and disappeared into the darkness.
Following him, I looked down the tunnel to see small dots of light far, far below. The sounds of sobs, prayers, and words of hope floated back up to me. I stayed there, soaking them all in, until I couldn't see them anymore.
Gritting my teeth, I reached up and touched the rune. A small wave of energy tickled my fingertips, and the stone walls began ripping inward. It made far less sound than I'd expected considering the earth was literally moving in front of me. In seconds, the stairwell was nothing more than a small opening in the stone. Then, with a final, soft thud, the stone sealed back into a smooth wall.
I was alone.
You have completed the quest [A Horde of Misshapen Things]
Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
You reach level 17.
You receive the quest [Hold the Line].
[Hold the Line]: After heroically sacrificing yourself for the greater good, you are left with an impossible task: to survive.
Reward: Gain a level.
"I guess that proves it, then," I said to no one.
Turning back to the crypt, I took a deep breath and decided to get to work. Rushing to the pile of equipment, I poked my way through it all, doing my best to find anything I could use. Luckily, there was a lot there. Armor. Weapons. Bows. Arrows. A couple of potions. Even if I wasn't going to survive, I had a few ideas about how I'd make this hurt for the creatures outside.
Pulling a set of armor out of the pile, I stripped my ruined, bloodied shirt and the few remaining scraps of armor on my body off. I froze as the door shuddered right when I was butt ass naked, but, luckily, the sarcophagi the Templars stacked up seemed to be doing its job.
I began dressing by pulling on some leather breeches, then strapping some greaves and cuisses over them. Small dots of blood covered one of the greaves. I did my best not to think about how it got there. Next, after pulling on a somewhat fresh tunic I found in the pile, I pulled a gambeson on over that, then strapped a breastplate on top of it.
When it was secured, I noticed that the eight-pointed sun of the temple was painted on the front. That gave me some hope. Pulling some spaulders and new bracers out, I finished strapping on my armor and began digging through the weapons. None of the melee weapons held a candle to Embermist, but a bow and a couple of quivers, one belt quiver and one back quiver, caught my eye. An idea started shaping in my mind. I strapped both quivers on and threw the bow over my shoulder.
As I did, I pulled up my equipment page in the system.
Equipment
- [Embermist]
- Enchantments
- [Blood Drinker III]
- [Devouring Flames IV]
- [Heart Seeker III]
- [Swift Killer III]
- Enchantments
I'd never been able to see all of Embermist's effects before. I wondered if that meant it had accepted me fully as its wielder? Looking the list over more closely, I noticed the [Drained]
There was no voice in my head this time. Looking down at the sword on my hip, I saw that the pommel gem's light was almost gone. "Rest up, Embermist. I've got it this time." Reaching down, I picked up the best-looking spear out of the bunch and pulled it aside, then belted a second sword to my belt. Following that, I started throwing the rest of the equipment into the front room.
As each piece of gear clattered to the ground, my idea began to take shape more and more. Once the equipment was scattered around the front room, I walked up to the nearest sarcophagus, slid it in front of the doorway to the room I was in, and reached into my belt pouch for the three [Tanglefoot Pouches]
***
I knocked an arrow and waited as the door in the front room shuddered. The sarcophagi blocking it had been pushed a good six inches forward, and I could see the creature's clawed fingers poking out from every side of the now-open door. When the sarcophagi slid another couple of inches forward, I pulled the arrow tight and waited.
I didn't have to wait long.
A wave of roars sounded from behind the door. The door shuddered, cracked, then exploded in a rain of rock. The first monster, a twisted cat-thing, leapt forward. Its jump was too short, causing it to land directly in the thick sticky webbing that covered everything in the front room. Its momentum carrying it forward, it faceplanted directly into the thick goop. Behind it, two more creatures rushed in, oblivious to their comrade's predicament. They too became stuck, their struggles only working them deeper into the mess.
As one of the monsters looked at me, I let loose my arrow. The shaft buried itself in the creature's eye up to the fletching. It fell backward and snagged a strand of goo, ending up stuck half-standing like a horrifying marionette doll.
I let loose a second arrow.
A second kill.
The cat monster looked up.
I buried an arrow in its skull.
I didn't let up as more creatures poured into the room. As they surged forward, I settled into a rhythm. Draw. Aim. Loose. A creature would fall, becoming another sticky barrier for its fellows to navigate around. Another would take its place, seemingly unaware of the fate awaiting it.
Some of the things were smarter than others. After watching a half-dozen of their fellows get stuck and killed, a few began trying to edge along the walls. But that made them easy targets. One by one, I took them down.
"Come on," I muttered as I loosed another arrow. "There's plenty for all of you nasty fucks."
My arrows found their marks again and again. The creatures' bodies began to pile up, creating small islands in the sea of sticky goop. Some of the newcomers decided to try using them as stepping stones to cross the room. I shot them down until a corpse island formed in the middle of the room. When I ran out of arrows in my belt quiver, I switched to my back quiver and kept firing.
Draw. Aim. Loose.
But for every monster I killed, two more seemed to take its place. Worse, I watched as they learned and adapted. Instead of charging blindly one by one, they began teaming up, rushing two directions at the same time, then three. One of them nearly got to me before I buried an arrow in its throat.
One of the larger ones, a twisted wolfman, pulled a lid off a sarcophagus and used it as a shield. He made it halfway across the room before stepping on one of the swords I'd propped as a makeshift caltrop and falling forward, but the lid formed a bridge. Half a dozen of the monsters rushed over him to get to me.
"Shit!"
I grabbed the final [Tanglefoot Bag]
Reaching for another arrow, I realized I was nearly out.
The movements of the dangling creatures slowed as the goo filled their lungs. Just as the first fell still, a particularly massive creature, something between a man and a bear, burst through the entrance. Its hide was thick with matted fur, and its jaws were large enough to take my head off in one bite. With a roar, it challenged me from across the room before looking around. I smiled when I saw what looked like doubt cross its eyes.
"What now, fucker?" I draw an arrow and let it fly. The shaft buried into the thing's chest, but it didn't seem to care.
Instead, the bearman cocked its head as a couple of its fellows snaked around it into the room. It grunted, then it did something I couldn't have anticipated. It grabbed one of its smaller comrades in both of its hands, roared, and threw it across the room at me.
The smaller creature sailed through the air. Snagging several of the dangling bodies in front of me, it and its dead fellows tumbled to the ground no more than a yard in front of me.
"Didn't expect that," I muttered before putting an arrow through the bear-thing's throat before it could repeat the maneuver. However, again, it hardly seemed to care. It didn't even bother to pull the arrow out. Instead, it picked up another of its squealing allies and threw it, this one flying wide and sticking to the wall like a nasty wall decoration.
I drew another arrow, aimed, and fired. This one struck the bearman in the eye. It let out a final whimper before it collapsed to the ground, dead. Reaching for another arrow, my fingers didn't find anything.
"How many more of you fuckers are there?!"
I threw the bow over my shoulder as more of the creatures entered the crypt. One managed to leap from body to body, almost making it to the sarcophagus before mistepping and falling into the goo. Reaching down, I picked up the spear, and by the time I readied myself, the next monster was leaping over the sarcophagus.
Thrusting upward, I caught the thing in the chest. Instead of sticking, its torso exploded into blood and gore, black blood spilling out of its misshapen chest and raining down on the floor in front of me. Its ruined body dangled from the end of the spear, dragging it to the ground as another monster jumped past.
Throwing the spear down, I drew the other sword I'd belted on and readied my shield. Just as a monster jumped down on me. I drove the sword into its chest and twisted. It gurgled as another monster fell on me.
[Iron Skin]
I felt my skin harden as the newest monster slashed at my arm. Its claws scraped against my hardened skin and bounced off harmlessly. The beastman attacked again, but Ennel's shield seemed to move without any input from me, deflecting a strike that would have taken my throat out. The sensation was strange—like someone was guiding my arm, making minute adjustments to my stance. Wherever a blow came, the shield was there to meet it.
"Thanks, Ennel." The beastman went wide, opening itself up. Ennel's shield shoved it backward, and my sword found its neck.
But there were too many now. They had crossed the sticky barrier, using their own dead as bridges. They swarmed over the sarcophagus, coming at me from all sides. This was it. It was going to be my final stand. I was going to die here.
"Bring it on, bitches." I put my back up against the rear wall where the staircase to the depths was hidden. Raising Ennel's shield in front of me, I waved my sword at each monster as it tried to dart in, ensuring it knew I'd cut it down if it tried. "You know how many of you bastard's I just killed? Go ahead. Try me." I couldn't take them all, but I'd kill as many as I could.
One darted forward, only to get its ear cut off for the attempt. Another went low, but I severed its arm at the shoulder. Two rushed me at the same time, splitting my attention. The others followed. Something clawed at my leg, tearing at the armor covering my shin. Another hit my side. A slash across my neck. A cut on my cheek. They weren't fatal, but they were adding up.
Still, I carved through them. One by one, they fell to my blade. They weren't strong like the bearman. They were horrible, misshapen things. Unlike the others, most barely even resembled animals. They were human-ish, but horribly disfigured. Their ribs stood out, exposed. Their skulls were misshapen. Some were missing whole limbs. Their gangly asses stood no chance against me. This was my moment.
I was a fucking hero.