Chapter 94: Golem Grip, Armor Flip

Tyr: FYI there have been some continuity changes made to chapter 92! If something doesn't make sense, its probably due to that.

And my chapter naming sense is awesome! I absolutely do not have a problem. Nope.

Enjoy!

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Sean was too off-balance to react to the golem’s chain-yank in time and yelped as he flew off his feet towards it. He saw what was happening perfectly clear, but had no options to actually stop it. Unable to fly or affect his own movement in the air at all, Sean continued on towards the golem, yanking the Mystereamer out and readying it for one big strike as he did.

The strike landed, penetrated the golem’s head, and surged with elemental energy, but it wasn’t enough. Before he could react or do anything to get distance, the golem had Sean in a heavy bear hug, squeezing him with all its substantial strength.

Sean’s armor was no joke at this point, and his body was buffed with much more VIT than ever before. The golem couldn’t immediately kill him by just squeezing. That didn’t mean that it wasn’t doing a lot of damage while trying. He could feel his ribs straining and cracking under the pressure as his whole body burned with pain. He wasn’t able to breathe, not that he immediately needed to.

If there was one bright light in the trouble, it was that the arm holding the Mystereamer was partially up when the golem went for its grab, and thus was partially free. Sean had just enough leverage to make repeated weak strikes at the golem, watching as it barely penetrated the metal, doing minimal physical damage but sometimes procing and surging damages of other types.

He could tell it wasn’t going to be enough, though. The golem didn’t seem bothered, and he was slowly deforming under its squeeze. There didn’t seem to be a lot he could do about that, and it seemed sure the golem would win. Luckily, he had friends.

“Hold on!” Spike said. “I’m going to get you out.”

Spike reared back and let loose some class talent or power, and his spearhead glowed white as he thrust it towards the golem’s shoulder joint. Sean felt the arm holding him momentarily slack, just long enough for him to activate Stitch Up’s active mode and grab some healing. He was also able to take a quick breath, feeling the sweet psychological satisfaction of simply being able to breathe for a split second before the golem clamped back down.

A dozen weak stabs later, Brendan’s ace-in-the-hole attacks started pouring out, rocking the legs and shoulders of the golem from relatively close range and giving Sean just enough slack to pull his arm completely free. He was able to get in some more powerful stabs, now, at least as far as his leverage and freedom of motion were concerned. He was doing real damage, and hoping desperately it was adding up.

But the damage from the golem was still accumulating. He could feel his own strikes getting weaker and weaker, and his vision was beginning to swim.

“Sean.” He could hear Brady nearby, probably right behind him. “I need you to focus. Look at the golem’s head. Find the spot.”

The spot? I don’t know what she’s talking about. Sean scanned the golem’s head desperately, before finally seeing one particular part of its skull that was glowing a bit brighter than the surrounding metal.

“You see it? Good,” Brady said. “I’m weakening that spot. It’s not something that lasts very long. I need you to stab it, okay?”

Sean couldn’t respond. He tried to nod and found he couldn’t even do that.

“It’s okay. Don’t talk. Just stab when I say.” Brady said. “In three, two, one…. NOW. Now, Sean.”

Sean couldn’t see anymore, but he still thought he could hit the spot. He remembered where it was, and the golem’s head didn’t seem to move relative to its body. He gathered all his strength up, which wasn’t much at all, and raised the dagger into the air.

He plunged it down, feeling momentary satisfaction as the dagger sunk pretty deep into something he couldn’t see. Then he passed out.

“Sean. Sean. Wake up, Sean.”

Sean blinked his eyes open and saw Jason above him, looking well and truly worried.

“I’m up. I think.” Sean grimaced as he sat up, several bones clicking back into place with the position change. It was just the last bit of healing, though. Apparently, Stitch Up had been hard at work while he was out.

The others were gathered around him, looking relieved that he was back into consciousness. A few feet away, the corpse of the golem was laying face up, motionless, and apparently dead.

“Shit. Shit. That was close,” Sean said. “I have bad luck with golems, guys. Every time I fight one, I almost die. I swear I’m not making this up.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t good. I guess we should have known, given how easy the rest of dungeon was. Sorry you took the brunt of it,” Spike said.

“I just can’t believe it actually went down. It didn’t seem to care about any of the damage,” Sean said.

“I’ve seen enemies like that before,” Brendan said. “They fail after a certain amount of damage, not before. They don’t slow down when you hurt them, either. I hate them.”

Sean shrugged his shoulders. “I’m glad it worked. Good job on guiding that last hit, Brady. I don’t think I could have done it otherwise.”

Everyone suddenly looked awkward. Sean wasn’t the best people-reader in the world, but he knew something was up. It would have been impossible to miss.

“What?” He said. “It stayed up after that last hit?”

“Well…” Jason said. “So, it only took one more hit. But it wasn’t you that delivered it. You were pretty gone by then. But the golem had almost completely forgotten about me. I had been taking pot shots out of stealth the whole fight, they just weren’t doing much. I couldn’t get through the armor.”

“But then Brady weakened it in that spot…” Sean said.

“And I thought I could probably get through. You looked bad enough that I decided to take the shot instead. It worked.”

“Well, good job,” Sean said. “It’s weird, though. I felt the dagger go in. I could have sworn I did.”

Spike snorted. “You stabbed him, Sean. Jason. Got him right in the elbow.”

Sean saw Jason’s hand come up and rub a red spot on his arm, apparently remembering the pain, and winced.

“Oof, man, I’m sorry. I couldn’t really see by then.”

“It’s fine.” Jason waved his good arm, dismissing the fault. “Just don’t, you know, stab me again. Whatever energy you put into me made me want to puke for about five minutes. I’d rather not go through that again.”

Everyone paused for a moment before Brady lost control and started laughing. It was contagious, and for the next little bit the quiet forest rang with laughter.

—

Sean found Brett before hitting up the noodle stand, eager to show him the loot he had brought back. The dungeon had been pretty stingy with tangible rewards, throwing a handful of village credits at him and otherwise not giving him much. It had been stronger on the intangible side in balance, though.

Blackout Strike

You delivered a devastating blow when you couldn’t see, hear, or otherwise sense what you were doing. Was it on an enemy? No. Did it help you? No. Did it almost ruin everything? Sure. But it was a great shot, all things considered. It did a lot of damage. Jason didn’t feel right for like an hour afterwards.

As a reward, you get a new capability. Blackout Strike is a passive ability that kicks into action when at least one of your senses is at least 50% compromised. It grants you vague knowledge of the location and actions of your enemy as it does, allowing you to counteract some of the sense-deadening debuffs afflicting you.

You also get a buff to damage on strikes you manage to land during this period. At the most basic level, you do 50% more damage, with a general increase that increases in proportion to your most disabled sense’s disability. This increase tops out at 200% damage on top of your norm.

“That’s a good ability,” Brett said. “It may not seem like it now, but anything that counteracts debuffs is great. Especially against system beasts. If they deal debuffs as a regular thing, usually they aren’t all that tough otherwise.”

“So it does nothing most of the time, but when it works, it does a lot?” Sean asked. “I can deal with that.”

“It’s really not bad. But you said you had something else.”

“Yeah. Check this out.” Sean reached into his magic pouch and pulled out a couple of big metal plates, clanking each on the noodle counter between their bowls. Brett reached out and lifted one slightly, then pinged it with his finger.

“Seems like pretty good stuff. Where’d you get it?”

“I pried them off the robot. Figured they’d probably be pretty good. I wanted to do the same thing with the snake, but it disappeared right after I killed it.” Sean slurped up the last of his noodles, then gulped the broth down. “Any ideas for what we can do with it?”

Brett considered it for a second as he finished off his meal.

“I think you’re pretty set for weapons right now.” Brett said. “That leaves armor. But your armor is about as good as I can make it right now. I’m stumped.”

“I guess I could just glue it on the front of the armor,” Sean said. “I have enough plug mud.”

“Huh. Maybe. Does your shank skill work on armor?”

“No idea. I don’t think so. Would it ruin it it doesn’t?”

“Probably not. Worst case scenario, we can scrape it off after.” Brett stood up and stretched. “Lets get to it. No telling when the next piece of shit is gonna hit the fan.”

—

It didn’t take long to finish the armor. Brett helped Sean trim off some rough edges and shape the plates a bit, then they glued them on. Plug mud and Adhesives Mastery did the rest, and after a few minutes to let the glue cure, Sean and Brett both got a notification.

“Hell, Sean,” Brett said. “I guess we aren’t scraping it off.”

“No, we are not.”

Deus Ex Machina (Zeutsuit Improvement, Maxed, No Further Improvements Allowed)

Listen, man. You keep coming down right on the edge of shankiness. Testing the limits. It’s getting to be a problem. Everyone’s starting to get worried about how the story of Shanky Sean and his random substance usage problem will turn out. Get some help.

This gets a pass for a couple of reasons. First, your Shankmaster skill got stretched out a bit when you made all those shields, just enough that you’ve basically earned an expansion to the skill that now lets you make improvements to armor. Congrats on that. Second, you are using salvaged parts from a rusted-out battledroid, which is about as shanky a material as you can get. Third, plug mud. The apocalypse system just likes it.

The Deus Ex Machina armor is a shining example of why people pay good money to get into apocalypse events. It has a little bit of everything. It now blocks all forms of damage significantly better on the parts of the armor that the robot plates cover, but that’s not all. Since the robot distributed damage throughout itself, now you do, too. Every strike that hits you blocks for the full amount the armor would have blocked in that spot, plus 20% of the blocking power of all of the rest of the parts of the suit that didn’t get hit.

It’s overpowered as shit and you shouldn’t have it. Enjoy!

“Do you know what it means, Sean, when the system calls something overpowered?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Keep the armor. And thank whoever you pray to that you got it.”