Chapter 89: The Fall

Somewhere deep in the giant snake’s instincts, it had a slow-and-cautious mode that kicked in once its poison found its mark. As Sean backed away, it let him, maintaining a medium distance from its poisoned prey.

Over the next few moments, Sean started to realize why. He didn’t feel nauseous, or even especially sick. Where once the wound had burned, it was now almost entirely numb. And his whole body was starting to feel heavier, slower, and overall less responsive.

It’s a sedative. I’m slowing down. There’s no way I can attack it directly now, Sean thought. He had already been working with a razor-thin margin in terms of being able to get close enough to the snake to hit it without being steamrolled by its sheer mass. Now that margin was gone, probably more than once over and he had no idea how he was going to fight this thing.

And that’s assuming the poison doesn’t get any worse. The way it’s waiting, I’m guessing it will.

It wasn’t fair, as far as Sean was concerned. This thing had speed, strength, and unbelievable defense. It was big in a way that had no real downsides for it, besides being slightly easier to hit with attacks it was mostly immune to. The poison was one weapon too many to even pretend at a halfway fair sort of balance.

The snake was pressing him back steadily, and the wall of the arena loomed high behind him, much closer than he liked. If he was pressed against it, the snake would… what? Coil around him? Bite him to death? Charge him and smash him into the wall with its body directly this time?

He wasn’t fast enough to do anything about it. In the confines of the arena, the snake was king now.

“Uh-oh! Looks like Shawn’s deficient red-head cardio has caught up with him! He’s slowed down against something fierce, friends.” The announcer’s voice boomed out in glee, as the audience laughed happily along. “Looks like we will finally see blood of a different color spilled on the sand. Sorry, Shawn! But be proud. It’s been a great run.”

Oh, fuck that. Fuck every simulated part of this guy.

And right then he realized what he needed, really needed, was a distraction, something that would slow the snake down whether it wanted to or not, something that would let him sneak in his own shots while it was occupied. He needed a team, basically. With an entire team of people working together to stop this thing long enough for him to hit it a bunch, he’d have a chance.

Even several hundred normal people would do, since all I need is for it to hold still for a bit, Sean thought. Luckily, I know just where to get that.

Keeping his back to the wall and his face to the snake, Sean unwrapped the Sticky Hand from around his waist. The snake eyed it warily, not knowing what this new weapon was or could do. Sean brandished it threateningly, then turned, sprinted towards the wall, and planted the Sticky Hand several feet above the highest point he could have reached just by jumping.

Crouching down, Sean gathered all the strength he could in his legs, then leaped, pulling hard on the Sticky Hand as he did. When he reached the top of his leap, he dug the Mystereamer and the Spectral Sticker into the wall, using them as portable handholds to climb. With his STR still largely unaffected by the poison and the semi-magical, system-enhanced nature of the weapons, crossing the last several feet of wall was easy.

“Oops! Looks like our challenger has forgotten the rules of this arena. Competitors are to stay inside the bounds of the walls at all times. Straying into the spectator area is a real no-no,” the announcer said, not a hint of concern in his voice, but shifting slowly into a stern word of warning that hadn’t been there before.

“The competitor is advised to return to the arena proper immediate, or else face… wonderful consequences that I’m sure we all want to see! Isn’t that right, friends? Would you be pleased to find an incineration on the viewing menu today?”

Sean didn’t buy it for a second. The system was chaotic, yes, but he had read the majority of the villager’s guide. The apocalypse system was bound by rules, even if they were largely self-imposed. It made those rules known when they were relevant. It wasn’t a person, everyone said, but if it had been, Sean would have said it was actually afraid of being unfair.

And it always, always spoke for itself. Now Sean was supposed to believe that some rule that he couldn’t climb into the audience existed, when the Apocalypse System had never mentioned it, and was being as quiet as a church mouse while he broke it? No chance.

The Apocalypse System could have put up a force field around the audience if it cared that much or just not included them in the first place. Its silence and the absence of those choices meant one thing and one thing only. The audience was fair play.

The snake seemed to agree. Seeing its prey escape enraged it, and it launched into another scaly tantrum at the sight, rearing up and hissing before setting itself down and charging straight into the wall. It didn’t seem able to climb, but climbing was really a strictly optional thing for a tens-of-tons armor snake having a bad day. The wall crumbled almost immediately under its attention, a whole section of it breaking apart and crumbling down into a rough ramp it used to slither up into the stands.

Sean was already way out in front, having run through the crowd and separated himself from the snake with dozens and dozens of simulated arena audience members. The snake, for its part, didn’t hesitate. It charged directly forwards. Sean had been able to slip through the audience, who had mostly let him get past them with few problems. The snake was not as subtle. The audience screamed as it crushed, bashed, and bit its way through them.

There was no chance that any amount of relatively weak non-combatants would stop the snake, but Sean didn’t need them to. He just hoped they would slow it down a bit, and look human enough that the snake had a hard time finding him. He slipped into the chaos of the running, fighting, and dying audience members. Then, he jumped out and stabbed the snake before fading back into the crowds and watched it decimate dozens of Shawn-lovers as he waited for his next shot.

“Evacuate, friends! Clear yourselves from the arena! Give the snake a target he can hit!” The announcer yelled. “Get out of the way so he can find Shawn!”

There was no way that was happening. Sean didn’t even have to stop it. Whatever template this arena was built from, it was definitely from the pre-fire-marshall-and-illuminated-exit-sign era of history. The crowd couldn’t have evacuated in an orderly way even if they had wanted to. There just wasn’t enough space for them to all leave at once while panicked and in danger of being eaten by a giant pissed-off snake.

For Sean, things were easier. If people were in his way, a stat-assisted shoulder shove would move them quick enough. Slowly, he led the snake in one particular direction, stabbing it and fading back into the crowd. And after only a few minutes, he had done it.

The snake, attempting to follow him, was now aimed directly at the announcer’s booth.

“No! Shawn! What have you done?” The announcer yelled. “I created your legend! I built your brand from the ground up! I thought we were friends!”

And then, with a mighty smash, the announcer’s booth was gone, announcer and all. As it tumbled down on the snake, Sean braved the falling debris and general confusion to stab the monster again and again. It was finally beginning to show some signs of wear. Not on the outside, of course. It was still all shiny steel scales and sleek. But it was sluggish now. Confused. It even looked like it was pained as it moved around.

And that was an opportunity. In the last few minutes, Sean had healed up enough that his mind had been cleared of the distractions of pain and he had been able to think a bit. In terms of killing very large animals, there was one acknowledged champion, something mightier than any sword, mace, or ax could ever be.

That was fall damage. And not just in the video game rules sense, but in the acknowledged physics sense. Sean had once read a popular scientific essay on size, one that he still thought had the best quote he had ever read in an educational context.

You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away. A rat is killed, a man is broken, and a horse splashes.

He’d never forget that exact wording. Well, bless you, J.B.S Haldane, for writing it so well. It’s going to come in handy now.

The hurt behavior of the snake wasn’t the only thing Sean had noticed. Over time, the snake had also proved smart enough to begin to fear the Spectral Sticker. It understood it wasn’t a normal weapon, or at least got that it was the source of the foreign feelings of pain it was experiencing. More than once, Sean had seen it wince back from the weapon when it appeared unexpected out of the crowd, with that reaction only growing the more injured the worm became.

Now, he had baited it to the very edge of the coliseum, to the place the announcer sat to get a clear view of all the proceedings below. He had manipulated it into slicking the floor with the blood of pretend humans, and made the terrain even triciker by getting the worm to cover it in debris.

When Sean appeared out of the darkness a moment later, holding the spear as visibly as possible and shouting, there was really only one way it could go. The worm reared back in anticipation, then started struggling as the debris beneath it shifted and its sheer weight started to tear out the top bricks of the wall. As it desperately tried to regain its balance, Sean jumped in, pounding it with the Spectral Sticker and the only instance of the Spectral Darts he had managed to keep with him after the climb.

The worm couldn’t help it. It pulled away from the pain, and in doing so, robbed itself of any chance of regaining its balance. It hissed loudly as it slid over the edge, powerless to stop it from happening.

The scientific paper Sean loved had said a horse splattered after a long fall. This wasn’t a long fall, really, maybe just 20 or 25 feet. But this snake was much, much bigger than a horse. It was much bigger than an elephant, for that matter, and that was before you considered that elephants weren’t clad in ultra-heavy armor.

It was able to survive bashing into things like walls because the walls crumbled when it hit them, taking the force of the impact with them. Packed sand would cushion the fall a little, but only so much. When it hit the ground, it didn’t explode, but Sean heard it crack.

He was never sure if the fall killed it, if it exacerbated the internal injuries it already had, or if it was simply stunned for long enough that Sean’s attacks finally bore fruit. But somewhere around the fortieth hit Sean delivered to its neck after jumping off the wall onto its back, it finally died. He had won.