(Vol 2) Chapter 51: Sacrificing Too Much

Everyone in the vicinity was frozen like ice by that pronouncement. The only exceptions were those who’d been standing close to the exit — they’d disappeared like roaches when the light switch was turned on. This included one of the goons Dax had brought with her.

So much for loyalty. Fuck! We’re really in the mud this time. This is bad no matter which way it goes. It’s from the shit I pulled in Restwater, isn’t it? Damn it…

Sammy, despite her dread and the pounding of her faux heart, prepared buffs, ready to drop them along with her relic use at a moment’s notice. They would not be without support, and if the Inquisitor thought things were going to be easy, he was mistaken. She was a veteran already at this shit.

This motherfucker just expects to be obeyed without question. Boy, does he have another thing coming!

She tried to ‘bang’ on Merril’s closed-off connection to open it up, but he didn’t seem to notice. Idiot!

A merchant sitting and sweating profusely at a table cleared his throat. In a high-pitched tone, he said, “May we go? Th-the innocent? We can just-”

“Sure, run you dogshits!” said the other goon of Dax’s, scowling balefully. “Show the Wizzies what the fat and the rich are made of!”

Well, I guess he’s loyal, at least. Or stupid.

The inquisitor did not so much as look at the man, nor did he address the crowd. “Merril and Daxerris Stoneboro!” he called out in command. “Stand and present your hands behind your back for shackles immediately!”

Two of the men pulled such shackles from their belts and slowly walked closer to the two accused.

“Get the old fuck’s eyes looking into a mirror pronto!” Sammy sent to her Followers. “At the least, I can make him helpless for 30 seconds, maybe longer.”

Dax took a final swig of ale and stood, jaw clenched. She opened her mouth-

Like lightning, Merril’s hand flashed out, well-cloaked by the now-encased harp in his hands. A dagger took the man approaching him with the shackles, right through the forehead and burying to the hilt. He dropped immediately.

Screams and all hell broke loose at the onset of that violence. Many of those trying to draw swords (their backs turned to what happened) found it difficult with the mass exodus of frightened people moving for the exit.

Dax quick-drew a dagger and went for the man with the shackles scoring a gash on his arm. Merril made for an open doorway into another adjoining room, being on the opposite side of the exit. Unfortunately, it was not really immediate to him.

Sammy dropped her REX buffs on everyone, activated her relic use, sent Dart in, and began with a simple illusion layered in, making an apparent black wall of void block off vision to Merril, while creating smaller voids around the heads of her enemies to buy a little time.

This of course drew the immediate attention of the inquisitor, whose eyes glowed white as his head snapped right at the source: the mask wielder, Estara, who otherwise was casting support buffs.

Shit — here’s the bad thing about her having it.

Meanwhile, the guard near the inquisitor summoned some sort of huge glowing tower shield to his hand, obviously intent on protecting the sage.

Dart appeared as a thick, 7-foot-tall lumberjack with rippling muscles, immediately barreling in and making way with great strength. He knocked over merchants on his way to just up and grabbing a guard still pulling out his blade — the guard’s head was soon cracked on a table in a fight-ending impact.

The inquisitor was not fooled by her illusions, which wasn’t surprising — he was chanting something while looking at Estara, which Samantha understood was something psychic. His eyes met the mirror of the mask, though, and Sammy crossed her fingers as she activated Mirror Maze, aiming to make him auto-fail it through Alter Fate.

But when she used it… there was nothing. No resistance, no recognition, nothing, as if he wasn’t even there. He was not a valid target.

Holy fu-

Meanwhile, some mental malus effect was assailing Estara’s mind — Samantha scrambled to react in time, using Alter Fate instead on that contest to make him fail. The look on his ugly face was certainly priceless when he did fail, like calculations done a thousand times by rote suddenly not adding up. It was its own special kind of stunning effect for the bastard.

Now what? I have to disable him some way or we’re fucked! Icebolt won’t cut it. Is he immune to Dazzling Spectrum, too? Does he have some kind of Truesight or can he just ignore illusions? Fuck it, I have to try!

“Dax, we have to take down the inquisitor!” she sent even as she prepared.

“I’m busy!” she sent back, indeed right as she was jamming her dagger into the wounded guard’s ribs after fighting off his half-blind grapple. But there was another guard waiting as Dax drew her sword.

Everyone had ducked down under her void effects. Bob and Brynn both fought in stalemates with capable guards, though wounds had been dealt…

Five were down in total (Bob had dropped one), but six guards still stood, as mostly all the fleeing, screaming inn goers had cleared out of the way. The goon that had been with Dax was dead on the floor, his bluster apparently not backed up with skill.

The skilled versus the skilled left, for the most part.

After the briefest pause, they all clashed again. Just as the now-sneering inquisitor went for his next move, which no doubt was something nasty, Samantha went all in on her Dazzling Spectrum, hoping for the best — because it was an AoE she could warp around allies, she dropped it on the whole lot, paying close attention to whether she was getting a contest on the old sage.

Everything balanced on a fucking razor’s edge — come on! Please!

The array of flashing lights arced through the foes of Samantha like fireworks — and like salvation shining, she felt the little sense of resistance that was a contest on the inquisitor too. She immediately used Alter Fate to force her success, stunning and blinding him.

Yes!

She quickly sent the update to her Followers as the old bastard cried out and his hands went to his eyes, but they were all rather engaged right then. The blinding effect took hold on two other enemies — the man Brynn was dealing with got ran-through after being stunned, and one of the men on the ‘lumberjack’ got hammer-fisted hard in the face and dropped, as Dart barreled past him, aiming for the shieldbearer.

The man on Dax had ‘tied’ the contest — as such he was temporarily distracted, forcing him on the defensive, but he merely backpedaled under Dax’s assault, avoiding any serious wounds.

Meanwhile, the inquisitor literally screamed. “I’m blind! I can’t see!” He spoke it in abject terror; like a matter he could not fathom or believe, while trying to ‘feel’ — by touch — his way to some kind of retreat. Clearly, he was panicking.

Sammy scowled in disgust. You’re a real badass, aren’t you? Used to everything going your way, precious little resistance, barking orders at henchmen — fat and easy times of dominance…

‘Such creatures get no better no matter how long they ply their trade. This one is no more than a rogue puppet on a long, taut string, sacrificing too much to be — yet still — nothing.’

Dart suddenly bellowed, “Bunch of bitches — come on, you little BITCH!” His face was an exaggerated expression of ridicule directed at the shieldbearer as he moved closer, gesturing cockily with his hands.

He’d taken a scoring wound from the guard he’d thrown himself past, but Estara had given him some sort of toughness buff, making the wound next to nothing on top of his other ‘natural’ layers. “You gonna come at me or let me make you my BITCH right here like the little BITCH you are?!”

His Taunt skill in effect. Very jock-like.

And effective it was — jock-to-jock, such language could not be tolerated without response — the shield-wielder gave a guttural warcry as he shield-charged right into the lumberjack… who took it on the chin with a grunt that soon turned into exultant, almost-diabolical laughter.

My Idiot-hammer striking another nail!

Meanwhile, Bob dashed in to cover his flank to keep a guard from taking advantage of the vulnerability presented.

Samantha quickly carved her illusions in support, adding sudden ambushers behind, making her Followers appear further away than they were, and so on. Subtle but damning, especially as they had not yet been hit with such things.

Dax utilized the space created for a feint (Samantha made the feint even more effective by appearing not to be), then turned and hopped up on a table. “This one’s for the old man,” she muttered as her body began to glow, then the energy concentrated into the dagger in her hand. She hurled it right at the inquisitor’s back, the glowing metal streaking like a bolt over tables and chairs and the half-eaten meals of fled merchants.

The inquisitor had no awareness or defense to this, though a magical resistance still pulsed, as the dagger only somewhat buried itself in his shoulder blade. He reacted to it with a pained grunt — far less of a response than the blinding, oddly.

But then Dax carefully, perfectly, spoke a word she’d practiced and practiced and practiced. “Snghnoffidoghreh.”

The dagger blade exploded into a ball of fire, already half-buried into the body of the inquisitor. It blew a massive chunk of his body out as he dropped to the floor unconscious or dead, his cloak and inner robes set on fire. He spilled no blood, exactly — instead, it was a brownish-red ichor.

What the fuck was he?

Dart was already flinging the shieldbearer by his shield, up and over and into a wall with a nasty crunch, crashing down a chandelier in the process as it got knocked by armored legs.

Two more guards died simultaneously with the fall of their master, as Bob and Brynn took advantage of their goddess’s illusionary deceptions to cut down the bewildered and the overwhelmed before they could even register they had lost.

Only one was left — the man that had fended off Dax — who quickly tossed his weapon down and put his hands up, terrified enough that he didn’t even dare to run. Meanwhile, the vicinity was quickly catching on fire in multiple places from the very flammable and rapidly burning body of the inquisitor as well as the oil-lamp chandelier lighting up a table and chairs. Smoke was building.

Dart-the-lumberjack laughed triumphantly and threw his hands up, even bleeding from multiple wounds. “Fuck yeah!”

But Samantha felt a terrible, terrible dread despite the win, and it was not because the stupid inn was inevitably going to burn down.

“Merril, damn it! Get to Merril!” she sent to her Followers, and dropped the wall of black void that had been obscuring the way. Dax, Estara, and Bob rushed in the direction he’d gone, while Dart and Brynn shackled their prisoner and otherwise escaped from the growing fire. Dart did grab the glowing tower shield before exiting, however, loot-grabbing murderhobo that he was.

The three sped into another room, a private hall of sorts shrouded in darkness — until Samantha lit it up. Merril had not made it to the far side and another exit, perhaps to a hallway and a way out, eventually. He lay on the floor bleeding from multiple stab wounds, the culprits not in evidence though blood did trail off to the exit.

His harp case was clutched in his hands in a death grip as if it were the thing his last conscious thoughts focused on.

Dax and Estara both dropped down to him without pause, going for their healing powers even in their shock and distress. Samantha knew it wouldn’t be enough, as his wounds were mortal and he was dying.

But what about the damned Tarot effect?!

“Botched job,” Bob said grimly as he looked down and around at everything. “Tried to grab him, got more than they bargained for, then came the angry rejoinders. Probably knew they fucked up and ran…”

The tiny connection point between Samantha and Merril was weakening as his life began to fade. Fortunately, it also made pushing through it easier, so that’s what she did — slipped through and grabbed ahold of his psyche.

Instantly she could see — could understand the problem. Merril had his restoration, his rise from the ashes right on the cusp of reality — if he accepted it. If he wanted it.

But it wasn’t clear that he did.

____________________________________________________________

« (Vol 2) Chapter 50 | Table of Contents | *Dart is a lumberjack and he's okay~ »

____________________________________________________________