Chapter 118: (Not) A Natural Fighter

“Ack!” Jason reflexively threw his hands in front of his face. He was not a trained fighter. He wasn’t even an untrained fighter, and faced with instant, overwhelming aggression, his first instinct was to turtle up.

Jason felt his arms and legs get something wrapped around them and an instant later his entire body lurched violently to the side, nearly knocking the wind out of him.

Jason unscrunched his eyes and saw the spear-wielder whipping the spear around, aiming the hook at Jason’s ribcage.

Jason flinched again, trying to interpose his arm between himself and the attack, intuitively understanding that a wounded arm was better than a perforated lung.

The snakes wrapped around his arms and legs yanked him forward, putting him inside the spear’s range.

“Oof!” Jason groaned as the spear haft nearly doubled him over.

SHING!

“Eh?”

Jason glanced up and spotted a knife flashing past his cheek. The snakes were riding the strange man’s arm, fangs buried in his flesh and wrenching his stab off to the side.

Suddenly his crotch exploded in pain as a leather shoe impacted the center of Jason’s body with enough force to send him flying.

What the Abyss did I do? Jason thought, curling into a ball as roots of pain spread through his lungs.

The attacker shook the snakes off his arm with a nonchalance that spoke volumes, stalking towards Jason with unearthly grace, as though he had to hold onto the earth with his toes or he’d fly off.

He’s poisoned right? RIGHT?

Jason’s eyes twitched as he realized that it hadn’t been Withering repudiation that killed the kobolds, it was the Psychic Venom effect from the tomahawk.

…The tomahawk over there, that he’d dropped when he got folded over by the second attack.

Withering Repudiation

4->3 Charge remaining.

“You. Suck.” Jason rasped out, directing one of the snakes to deliver Withering Repudiation. It shot towards his enemy like an arrow, aiming to wrap around his limb.

The man flicked his spear and bisected the ivory snake, which evaporated into nothing, creating a phantom pain in Jason’s left ring finger that nearly eclipsed the pain in his balls.

“Easier to feel those things when they got Charge in ‘em.” The man muttered, raising the spear above Jason.

Withering Repudiation

3->2 Charge remaining.

“Killing a kid, huh?” Jason groaned.

The man wobbled in place as the Ability washed over him, paralyzing his limbs.

Jason felt a thin thread connect the two of them. It felt like a strand of spider-silk that was slowly being stretched and twisted. Sooner or later it would snap, and the only way that Jason could slow it down was to continue talking.

“I can’t say I’m surprised.” Jason continued, resisting the urge to whimper as he dragged himself toward the tomahawk with his forearm. “From the moment we met, you’ve been trying to stab a child, so obviously your priorities are a bit fucked u-”

SNAP.

Withering Repudiation snapped, and the spearhead came flashing down.

A blur of red scales slammed into the side of the attacker, causing the spearhead to bury itself in the ground an inch away from Jason’s stomach.

A dozen more kobold and jibleya dogpiled the thin man, thrusting madly with their makeshift spears.

POOF!

The attacker exploded into a cloud of black feathers and reappeared some thirty feet away, plucking a dagger out of a dead kobold’s chest.

When did THAT happen!? Jason thought, the panic cutting through the pain, sending him scrambling forward and lunging for the tomahawk.

Jason got the tomahawk an inch off the ground before a foot slammed down on it, crushing his thumb against the gravelly dirt.

Jason hissed and rolled away, clutching his hand.

“Huh. Oh. WOW!” a young woman’s melodious voice entered Jason’s ears as he tried to blink the tears out of his eyes.

“Yep, it’s a Set. Wooow…can I keep it? It’s pretty badass.”

Jason blinked the tears out and spotted a young woman holding the tomahawk, her fine-boned face at odds with her attire, which was a mere handful of hardened leather straps dyed a ruddy brown.

“You know what he’ll say about that.” The raven-feathered man replied, sprinting towards Jason.

Withering Repudiation

2->1 Charge remaining.

“CUNT!”

SNAP!

The charging man only lost control of his body for a second, tumbling forward for an instant before catching himself with his fingertips, springing up and sailing over Jason’s head.

“BAHAHAHAHA!” the woman said, doubling over with laughter, pointing at the raven-feathered man. “He-he called-he called you a-“

“I heard. Are you gonna help or what?” The raven-man asked, landing lightly on his feet.

“Do you need help?” The woman asked, a strange undercurrent of menace in her words as she rested Will’s tomahawk on her shoulder.

“Not really.” The feather-man mused, tensing, hand reaching behind himself.

“That’s not yours,” Jason gasped, drawing himself to his feet, a trembling finger pointing at Will’s tomahawk.

The woman glanced at the tomahawk resting on her shoulder before shrugging. “Sure ain’t.” Her gaze scanned Jason from head to toe before holding out her hand. “Cough up the rest.”

“You can have Will’s Set when you peel it off my dead body.” Jason muttered. They were gonna kill him either way. Might as well have some balls.

“…Your proposal is acceptable.” The woman said. The straps covering her body began reddening like sponges plunged into a pool of blood. A red stain spread from the straps as they began to ooze blood, covering her exposed skin in a layer of shiny crimson.

You should probably run, a little voice in Jason’s head urged him to flee, but the more rational part of him knew that these people were much faster than he was, so he was stuck there, in the center of the cluster of kobolds, facing two monsters who could disassemble them in a matter of seconds.

He felt the rough-hewn haft of a kobold spear placed in his hand, and glanced up, spotting a jibleya handing it to him. The spearhead was made of glassy stone and tentatively held together with poorly cured leather straps.

It would shatter on contact.

Jason sighed, holding the flimsy wooden stick in front of himself.

It was better than nothing, but they were still all going to die.

The raven-feathered man whipped his hand forward, unleashing one throwing knife for each of them.

Jason scrunched his eyes shut and swung at the dagger flying towards him.

Again: not a natural fighter.

POOF!

His spear hit nothing, and nothing hit him, but an instant later a line of fire travelled through his side accompanied by an ache in his pinky finger.

Jason hissed and stumbled away, spotting the raven-feathered man standing behind him, frowning accusingly at his hooked spear, which had a snake wrapped around the head.

The man whipped his spear backwards and flicked it down with the speed of lightning, bisecting the snake wrapped around it.

He just teleported and tried to stab me in the back!

Jason glanced around and saw that most of the kobolds were wounded, with knives in nonlethal areas. The jibleya were worse off, their pressurized innards trying to force out the knives.

Unless that’s normal for them. Jason didn’t know.

Now surrounded, Jason turned sideways and started backing up, trying to keep both of them in sight.

There was a flicker on his right-hand side accompanied by a jolt of force and extreme pain as Jason flew away from where he’d been standing.

The snakes softened his landing, preventing him from smashing his head open on the rocky outcropping he slammed into.

When Jason raised his head with a gasp, he felt a growing pain in his cheek where it had been dragged across the stone.

Jason raised his hand to his cheek.

No mask?

He jerked his head up and spotted the woman donning the feathered snake mask. A ripple spread through the blood covering her body, gaining a scale-like pattern and a slightly metallic hue.

“Yes. I could get used to this.” She said, nodding, turning to regard him with the mask’s emotionless eyes. “Now do I have to beat the rest out of you?”

Jason raised a trembling finger.

“Will’s gonna…kick your ass.”

“Don’t play with him,” the feathered man said, the ground crunching as he stood above Jason, spear raised.

Jason closed his eyes. He really didn’t wanna watch himself get stabbed.

Pang! A deep, concussive release of force, as though the entire earth had shifted, rang through the ground beneath him.

Jason pried an eye open and peeked up at the feathered man.

He was nowhere to be seen.

POOF!

“Son of a bitch!” the feathered man shouted as he appeared beside one of his knives, shaking pain out of his fingers, a thin line carved into his neck.

“Good afternoon,” Loth’s raspy voice emanated from the direction of the kobold’s leather tents.

A set of black claws brushed the tent flap aside before she emerged into the sun. A black kobold, at least four inches taller than the tallest example of their species. Her gaze landed on the blood-covered woman, eyes narrowing.

She’s here to save me!

“Kill the child if you must, but the set belongs to my Party leader.” Loth said, stalking towards them.

“Really?”  Jason demanded.

“Dibs on the kid!” the blood covered woman shouted, charging towards Jason.

The feathered man rolled his eyes, throwing a knife at Loth.

Jason couldn’t quite make out what happened next.

There were explosions, the earth itself flipped over and tried to swallow them up, stone shrapnel flew everywhere, and Jason was forced to shield his eyes to prevent them from being shredded.

This lasted for quite some time until a pair of hands helped him up and brushed his shoulders off in the midst of it.

“Thanks.” Jason muttered, lowering his palm and blinking the dust out of his eyes, trying and failing to make out his savior against the omnipresent dust obscuring the sun.

“Don’t mention it,” the woman’s voice sent a chill through his skin an instant before a fist caught him in the stomach, and Jason felt something pop before he flew backwards, slamming into unforgiving stone.

“Uuugh…” Jason slammed into a boulder and collapsed to the ground. Somehow everything hurt WAY more than it had just a few minutes ago. Like rock had gotten harder.

Gotta get the healing potion before I go into shock… Jason’s rational mind cut through the pain in his stomach and reached his trembling hand into his vest, plucking out the healing potion that Will had slipped in his bag.

He barely had the strength to tug the cork out with his teeth and both hands, spilling a bit with a jerk before before downing the remainder of the potion.

The ominous pain in his torso faded quickly, leaving the external bruising largely untouched.

“Rogue Archetype!?” the woman screamed, looking down at the key-shaped stone dagger with obvious frustration.

Jason patted himself down, realizing his cloak and sidearm were missing.

“Well, whatever,” She muttered, tossing aside Will’s cloak and replacing a bone dagger on her belt with the glassy stone key.

“Hey, what’s that amulet do?” she asked, pointing at the silver scales around his neck.

“Jason, take-“ Loth’s words were interrupted by a flurry of feathers as the feathered man appeared behind her, stabbing her in the back to little effect, dodging out of the way of a retaliatory trap.

She flickered forward faster than Jason could process, her hand clutching the top of his head in an iron grip.

Her other hand seized the amulet and hauled up.

Jason’s hands and ears lost a bit of skin as the silvery scales were dragged ruthlessly up over his head.

“Wow.” She said as she released Jason, dropping him into the dirt. “Yes. Very nice.”

As she lowered the amulet over her neck, the blood coating her body rippled again, and five arm-length crimson snakes emerged and began floating around her, slithering lazily through the air.

“I wonder if it’ll hang around even without the Marrow-leather,” She mused before glancing at Jason. “Alright kid, you know the drill by now. Pants and shoes. Off.”

“Screw you.” Jason coughed.

“The only reason I’m not killing you right now is because it’s easier for someone to take their own pants off, rather than a corpse, but if you insist…”

The snakes that had worked for him less than a minute ago flickered forward in the blink of an eye, one wrapping around Jason’s neck and lifting him into the air, two more restraining his arms.

“Oh, cool!” she cooed as two snakes ripped his boots off, seemingly of their own accord.

“They can drain blood too!?” She exclaimed, her eyes flickering, seemingly re-reading the set description. “At range!?”

“I wonder how that works,” She mused, studying Jason with lethal dispassion. A moment later, Jason felt a stab of pain in his neck and immediately felt a wave of weakness spreading across his entire body.

“Way more efficient. Lacks a certain something…Maybe I can get a crafter to tweak a few affixes, then I could wear the full set…” her voice seemed to fade as Jason’s vision darkened.

Just before he lost consciousness, Jason thought he heard a familiar voice.

“…Drop him.”