(Vol 2) Chapter 66: One on One Matters

Sammy maintained the illusion of the giant despite the destruction, pretending it looked down at a hole in itself and regrew. She knew this was not going to fool the golem — which was ignoring her illusions — but as for the rest?

The thugs and masked men screamed for mercy and backed away, then took off running down the street. Whatever preponderance of gold they were after for Orswyth, fighting a 14-meter-tall giant regenerating golem was not worth it.

This left only the golems, which were bad enough. Orswyth and the others — though she only spared a glance through the staff — were struggling, indeed intercepted by the speedy pair of the other two stone constructs. Orswyth’s Sanctuary spell had saved his ass, but they were stuck. As soon as they would get close to the horses, the golems would probably kill them or wound them easily.

She had Dart break away to fly over and help. As he soared overhead she called, “You got this, Dart! The Great Hero Dragon!” She pumped her Inspire Ally into the words, to bolster his efforts.

It was unfortunate that his size wouldn’t support anything but a child’s weight, or perhaps he could simply fly the old man away. But that was the rub. She knew they could do it, working together: defeat them. Canmore, Tashome, Bast, and the rest unwounded could definitely handle the two other small golems, which were tough foes but already damaged.

Meanwhile, she and Michael had to keep the giant occupied. Eventually Canmore would assist, though it made her nervous. The thing was insanely dangerous.

Warning Michael to dodge out of the way, Sammy had her illusion ‘charge’ the great golem at tremendous speed, then she formed the Hard Light construct right at the last moment, hopefully transferring momentum into a kick, possibly punting the bastard.

She succeeded in hitting it hard — unfortunately, the target was even harder, and the foot shattered on impact, blowing apart her construct just like that with its absurd fragility. Nonetheless, it caused a rather explosive impact, knocking the golem over onto its back with a crash.

Michael was quick to rush in to take advantage, taking his sword up to try and drive it into the golem’s heart. It was a logical gamble — maybe there was a weakness there to end the fight.

But the golem grabbed the blade just as it entered, halting any further penetration. It flung the sword to one side, pulling Michael off-balance — right into its own vicious head punch.

The impact caused a terrible crunch of stone as it dented the metal of the helmet inward and carried through — a crystalline neck completely shattered as the head flew off the body in a prismatic spray of hard light, and Michael’s body flopped down limp. A helmeted head rolled across the ground.

Samantha found herself running forward, frantic. “Michael!”

But she felt him in her demiplane, his perspective bounced there immediately after ‘physical destruction’. He was dropped to his knees at the foot of her throne. She mostly felt him because he was screaming nonverbally in anger and frustration — at losing and dying. At failing his goddess.

Just you and me, huh, golem? Fine.

Getting a hold of herself, Sammy created another giant illusion, this time of a giant humanoid with a huge swinging two-handed warhammer to drop down on the still-prone target, which had just thrown the body of Michael off of it.

As the spike came down, Sammy solidified the warhammer at the last moment, hoping to utilize the ‘simulated’ momentum again.

The force was there, but any attack was still subject to her own awkward skills accuracy-wise. With tragic ease, the golem half parried it aside, half shifted to the side and dodged. The spike drove itself partway into the ground and rubble, the blunt impact making the beginning of a crater with a tremendous impact… and then it shattered.

As the golem lifted up to a knee, its eyes were dead-locked on her. It lifted its hand.

Shit.

Only Split Prediction saved her. She felt a kind of vibration or rumble at her feet, which was of course irregular stone and brick. She dove away immediately, and an explosion erupted where she was an instant later. It pelted her armor with nasty shrapnel and the concussion threw her a little further than her jump would have. She felt a kind of wave pulverize through her.

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You have suffered a full-body concussive Major wound. Due to immunity to pain, this does not penalize you. Your muscles and bones are stressed. Minor wounds now penalize normally. Additional major wounds will penalize normally due to dysfunction.

Your armor has been damaged at every location. -1 Armor.

You have suffered slight body shock. -1 penalty to actions for 5 seconds only.

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As she landed and rolled, not quite stunned enough to lose any consciousness, she could definitely feel the malus. But she pushed as hard as she could to keep moving to present a more difficult target.

She knew what was coming. She focused on her defense, waiting for the next explosion, determined not to get hit.

The golem tracked her with a fat stone finger. She could see what he was doing. Predict it. He was leading her, trying to gauge her speed…

At the last moment, she pivoted and cut in the other direction, hoping to juke him.

Its blast erupted well away from her, and she kept herself out of the AoE. She responded with a laser in its face, though this time she did the ‘pulse’ effect, causing a surface explosion, hoping the AoE worked better against the rocky giant. She didn’t bother waiting to see the effect either, she just stacked another blast right after the first to cram attacks into the timeframe she knew was ticking down.

The blasts blew apart the stone and were enough to make it stagger backward, almost falling again. It tried to aim at her again as it recovered, but she refused to let up. She aimed a blast at its arm and let loose before it could fire. This time, she enhanced it with Fate, reducing its resistance.

Its arm lost massive chunks from the explosive force and it reeled in confusion briefly. She blasted the same spot again, weakening it further.

Attrition! If I can blow an arm off, maybe a leg? The head seemed irrelevant. The eyes were already floating in the air, without real attachment to the stone.

It was a brief ranged battle, as she continued her attack for several blasts, and the golem tried to quick-sling explosions to no effect. It was obvious it had to aim to match her reflexes, and she was not letting it do that. Its counterattacks failed to do much more than pelt her with shrapnel for superficial wounding.

After multiple hits in the same spot, the golem's arm cracked and broke off to crash to the ground. Sammy gave a victorious cry, as it was something. It was progress!

The golem seemed unperturbed by the development, however. It looked down and grabbed its oversized, gorilla-like rocky arm…

Sammy started blasting its other arm, unsure of what it was planning, but it didn’t stop the golem’s action, which was to hurl the arm at her, presented length-wise. It hit the ground in front of her and slid in her direction, much akin to a derailed train, though not quite so big.

Laughing hysterically, she leapt clear over it, still trying to keep the heat on with laser fire midair. But it was perhaps not the best play overall, as the prediction for ‘where she’d be’ had suddenly gotten much easier — because she had to land…

She dropped right into an explosion, with little more time to react than to shield her head and take the hit. Any other clever things would take time she didn’t have.

But I can’t take it dead-on! I can’t!

She had no choice but to use Alter Fate and force a success as a veritable bomb went off right in her face. On the plus side, she landed and rolled completely unscathed by the blast. On the bad side, it still threw her and blinded her temporarily in a cloud of dust.

When she came out of it, she found the golem seemingly just standing there, perhaps expecting her dead afterward. Smiling a bit to herself, she blasted it in the kneecap with another explosive pulse, hoping she could reduce its mobility and leverage.

Maybe I can force myself to miss and recharge Alter Fate? That should count fine…

Even as she prepared to, she felt a sudden force like a vise close around her body with a terrible force — thick stone fingers pinned her completely, arms and all.

The hand had flopped or shifted itself somehow and grappled her from behind!

No-

Her immediate instinct was to resist — to push back with all her might, which may have actually saved her, at least temporarily. Because the squeezing force became tremendous, crushing her armor in and breaking bones. Without any countering resistance, it would’ve been worse.

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You have suffered a Major Wound to the torso and a Minor Wound to the arms, including multiple fractures and broken ribs. -1 Effective Levels to all actions involving the torso (note: this is to most physical actions) until healed. -1 Effective Levels to anything involving the arms until healed. These can stack depending on the circumstances.

Full Major Wound stunning penalty enforced. No actions for 5 seconds (reactions possible).

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She didn’t need to be told it, since she could feel it by the weakness in her body, but it still flashed through her head.

Did I lose?! I can’t lose!

She mentally shouted to all her Followers and Servitors, “Help!?”

But Jeeves was already there, dropping a heal just as she shouted, his body passing right through the stone hand to touch her body and restore her arms, wiping out the Minor Wound. “Keep fighting, Madam!”

Canmore had been moving that direction too, the other golems downed. “Hrrah! For the Seeress!” His balefully glowing blade flared out and sliced into the thumb of the stone arm, weakening it, though unable to sever it enough to free her.

The squeezing force was greatly weakened and didn’t crush the life out of her thanks to the combined efforts. She realized in a vague way, in the back of her mind, that Michael had taken over all of the tactical coordination. He’d directed them to help her.

Orswyth and Galynth were limping their way to the horses, the golems on their end defeated. Two men and Constance were heavily wounded, one man completely unconscious. But they’d won.

We’re almost home… but this… this enemy, have we even come close to stopping it?

The rest of the golem had not just been standing there, unfortunately. It charged forward back to its arm with furious airs, kicking rubble everywhere. It snatched it up from the ground and spun, flinging it like a sling, and the world became a high-speed blur.

At the end of the great swinging force, it let go of the burden at the end of the second hand. Samantha.

A vicious and powerful throw, but its aim was slightly spoiled and mitigated by a Forcebolt slamming into its elbow at the last moment by a certain wizard…

She nonetheless went crashing high speed into the rubble, burying into it, and the last thing she remembered before a concussive blackout was a bunch of system messages telling her how fucked up she was.

And of course, the Fortuneteller, as if waiting in the blackness. ‘So the Light is allowed to be quenched. What is untested cheer but innocence awaiting corruption? The test has not even begun. Do you think it made of matter? How do you not grasp what is right in front of you? Stop rolling dice. Cheat.’

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