(Vol 2) Chapter 65: Lasers and Giants

Immediately upon entry into the dusty zone, Sammy summoned Athos, who polymorphed into a hulking muscular minotaur to help get everyone unpinned. Her, Bast, and others were no slouches working together, either, moving wooden beams and brick chunks out of the way.

Under the influence of Samantha’s aura buff ‘The Dawn Will Rise’ and her commanding direction, everyone moved with more zeal than usual. They were more determined, stronger, quicker — whatever their task needed, inspiration provided.

Constance was finally able to let her burden slowly collapse out of the way, then moved to lighten the strain on Dart.

And so it came time to carve a way out — as Athos threw shit out of the way and had smaller collapses fall down around him, Michael on the other side was doing the same until finally there was ‘daylight’ peeking. It was nighttime technically, but everyone cheered when they could see the face of a giant, dusty bruiser looking in and smiling.

Michael suddenly cried out then, as a flash of light, heat, and fire erupted behind him. Acting quickly, Sammy had everyone back up under the protection of the treants. She used her Light Manipulation ability to create an explosion to blow out the last of the debris, which pelted those protecting in the front with bits of rock.

She succeeded in making a hole to pour out of — what awaited them wasn’t welcoming, however.

In the street facing them were a clutch of masked men and generic hired thugs, and also five things she could only describe as stone golems — or possibly earth elementals. Rocks and bricks and cement chunks formed into loosely humanoid shapes with powerful, oversized arms. One was bigger than the rest — a giant taller and wider than Michael — with two star-like eyes in its misshapen head.

Everyone was there on her side. Canmore brandishing his sword, Tashome slinking around in his armor, Orswyth being helped by one of his men. Bast, Azure, Galynth, Bamm.

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The quest “Trouble Brewing?” has failed. Partial credit for survival incorporated into new quest.

New Quest unlocked: “Mettle of the Tin Chicken” — Resolve the encounter or escape.

● Rewards: +40-100 FE, +2-7 exp in [Goddess], +2 exp in [Wizard], +2-7 exp credit to one of two most relevant sub-classes used during quest; over 66% reward grade only: [Tin Chicken Memorial Statuette] magical item.

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Dart and Constance were the last to file out, the little tunnel mostly collapsing behind them. Meanwhile, Michael was picking himself up. Though the illusion just had his back smoking, in reality his wings had been ruined by a fireball. He looked pissed more than hurt as he brandished his shield and sword.

The spellcaster, who had some protective bubble around him, was right then dropping another spell, but it was no fireball — instead a spherical pulse erupted around them with a mild chime. She knew immediately that it was a Dispel at level 6.

Numerous persisting magics died to the effect, including all spell illusions such as Michael’s disguise, though Sammy’s powers were not vulnerable to it. Worst of it was her three Fairie Dragons, who were de-shapeshifted into their glittering natural dragon forms — Dart was about man-sized but the other two maybe two-thirds that. Instinctively, they hid behind cover, hissing in unison.

“We’re locked out for 10 minutes!” Dart complained immediately. “This fucking sucks!”

Before all hell broke loose, the black-clad, masked mage held up a placating hand. “Hold! Everyone!” When it was clear everyone held themselves poised, he continued, “Give up the old geezer and the rest of you… strange, unknown creatures and otherwise… can live. Go free.”

In immediate answer, Orswyth called out in a hoarse voice, “Alright! I’ll come-”

“No way!” Samantha cried. “Unless you can guarantee he’ll be treated fairly. Alive. Give me your word. What the hell do you want with him, anyway?”

It was a dumb demand and question. She was simply stalling for time… Her REX buffs were unfortunately tapped out. She surreptitiously prepared her Create Illusion field, while also summoning every Resemblant aside from Belvedere, to begin invisibly casting buffs. She also had Aramis, who she’d summon as soon as everyone was primed. Comparatively weak, but he could still shapeshift.

She still had her aura up, of course, boosting largely everyone in its 15-meter radius around her. It was sure to assist their efforts in combat.

The masked mage nodded sagely. “You have my word he will live. We’ll get paid more, yeah? Delivering him safely to our confidential client.”

Sammy staunched any surly response from her side by mentally sending to the whole lot, “Say nothing! Pick your targets and strike on my mark. Orswyth, Sanctuary and run for it. Now… be ready…”

Invoking [Bard] for the bluffing, pretending to deliberate with her hands on her hips, Samantha sighed grandly. “Better one than all, right? If he has a chance. Okay. Go ahead, old man. Your sacrifice will be-”

“Everyone: attack!”

Her first illusion was simply everyone staying calm, not moving, her continuing a little more with the words, Orswyth appearing to give up and walk over to them. Meanwhile, she blasted the wizard with a laser, making it appear as a weak Firebolt. Michael did the same thing (though his was a true laser) and numerous other ranged attacks went in the mage’s direction too. The shield of his was strong protection, but under the hail, it went down.

The illusion effectively bought them all that half-a-step advantage, but murderous ranged fire was soon blossoming from both sides while a mutual charge began. Several among the thugs were the first to fall. Fortunately, the stone golems were a bit slower to respond, as if distant or distracted, though the eyes of the large one were certainly measuring targets.

We have to figure out how to deal with it. And keep it away from Orswyth.

She screened Orswyth’s retreat as much as she could, but she had to focus primarily on the wizard. He was beginning a spell, backpedaling, obviously panicking from the sudden collapse of his defenses…

Sammy’s speed with the lasers was supreme, though, effectively like swinging a sword. She could easily fire two of them in the span the wizard could cast something. So she aimed and fired from a finger, a precision strike at the short range, going for a killing shot at his head — specifically his eye socket for a wounding upgrade.

She took a gamble and dropped Hoping For Daylight into it, adding +2 to the whole shebang, believing she had him for a grievous wound at that point.

The thing was, she had guessed right that he would discount the small firebolt she fired — he was way more worried about Michael and physical projectiles, inclined to soak what he must’ve guessed would be a minimum magic wound less than his resistance.

Instead, Sammy’s beam caught him right in the eye and seared his brain, ‘fire’ even flashing out of the back of his skull. He crumpled to the street like a sack of bricks, dead.

Shit! A fatal wound. Accuracy plus an eye shot is no joke. Devero would be proud. A grim thought, but she’d done what he had once before: quickly eliminated one of the primary threats. This time, however, there were multiple big threats present.

The two sides clashed into melee. One of the masked men with a shield and mace roared as he charged, which echoed and made the entire group glow with a reddish aura. Another — almost his twin but with a one-handed warhammer — clashed with Canmore.

With the sword Bloodletter in hand, Canmore struck down a thug casually on his way to meet his warhammer-swinging foe, who was soon exposed as overmatched. Almost immediately a shield was gashed twice and the fighter was backpedaling away from that terrible sword.

Tashome utilized the illusion cover to lie in wait, then move in behind a masked figure — one who was trying to finish off a soldier he had already wounded from initial exchanges. Tashome dashed in and executed his foe with a dagger through an armor gap — the skill Assassinate at play, an advanced rogue-like opportunistic skill.

The smaller golems split up — two went super wide aiming for the rubble, sprinting at a speed easily surpassing a man. The other two flanked the thugs, soon dishing nasty wounds with their powerful fists. Her Followers’ bones were broken and men dropped, though the damage was not immediately fatal.

Under the cover of shield-men, Azure moved in to heal.

Resemblants ran support with healing as well as buffs where they could, never seen or paid attention to by the enemy. Some ran right through the ghost-like spirits, spooked but unharmed by the act.

Bast stalled one golem by catching it in the radius of his AoE sound blast — it took heavy damage with part of an arm blown off and half of its head missing, but only stumbled a bit before pressing forward.

Sammy had the shapeshifting Aramis cover Orswyth and Galynth’s retreat — he took the form of a big troll to aid the task. Orswyth, by her orders to flee, was making for their horses. While most had run from the ruin of the inn, many that they’d purchased were the cream of the crop: koskee breeds that kept their distance but stood firm, waiting for their owners, unconcerned by anything other than direct threats.

The giant golem, at least, strangely had no interest in Orswyth — it looked at the more immediate foes almost hungrily. It flung a spray of debris and one big boulder, missing for the most part but tagging multiple targets with the spray, only slightly more foes than friends. But it was also lumbering forward.

Michael was charging it, while Dragon-Dart flew in its direction too, trying to taunt it. Dart had his own damaging light spell, so he hit it with that, to little effect.

Sammy tried her own blast just as Michael was meeting it, mostly to gauge strength and see if the eyes were vulnerable. They were not. Her blast just exploded a bit of rock and effectively passed right through where its star-like eyes were. They were immaterial.

Michael shield-charged it successfully, which splintered a bunch of stone and made it stumble. But it came right back with a fist that dented the shield, crushing the top of it and driving the bottom into the ground, forcing Michael to abandon it and back up.

I can’t get much out of Fate, here. One measly wound isn’t going to drop it. This enemy is a serious fucking problem for us. We have to try attrition.

“I need to help Orswyth, too!” Constance sent her. “Those two other golems are trying to counter his escape.” Sammy just sent an acknowledgment. She had to trust them to get it done.

Sammy went to her Create Illusion, updating it with ‘new bullshit’ to protect her greater forces, though she knew that the two masked leaders were ignoring them very effectively. They were busy trying to double-team Canmore to give themselves a shot against him and make him play it defensively.

She made the largest illusion she could of a stone golem giant, then utilized Hard Light to turn it into a physical crystalline latticework. That made it… a giant towering over everyone at 14 meters tall. The sheer weight of the titan sank in the ground at its feet.

Holy fucking shit! I didn’t even realize I could… it’s hard to move, though. So much fucking material, and I don’t have skill at this…

Warning Canmore to back up, she had it move to awkwardly stomp on the masked warrior who’d buffed everyone. It was painfully slow compared to normal attacks, but the thing was, the man was ignoring such ridiculous things. Everyone else got clear, but the scoffing man only realized his mistake right before the foot was coming down on his head, and that was too late.

One cut-off scream issued from him, and then he was crushed by a giant crystalline foot like a grape. The ground shook, and the giant itself vibrated from the impact and teetered. She barely kept it from falling, which might’ve been quite disastrous.

The real stone golem definitely took notice of Big Daddy Golem. Ignoring the others around it, it picked up a huge chunk of building brick and hurled it right at Big Daddy’s center mass.

Sammy had absolutely no chance of getting it out of the way. She barely could make it flinch before the rock passed through with effortless ease, bursting in the crystal and momentum carrying it out into the street, thankfully out of range of any of her men.

The Hard Light giant shattered into a billion little shards, which soon turned to glitter, light, then nothing.

“You fucking little bitch!” Sammy cried out loud, annoyed to lose her new friend. The brief life of her first giant construct of light had been a glorious one, at least.

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Comment: I wonder how many of these thugs have balls of steel...