“Oh, shit!” said Howie. “We’re fucked!”
Cole looked around and then up to the canopy. “Howie, please tell me you have another ice charge left.”
“Last one,” said Howie, holding up his hands. His fingertips started to glow blue and he pointed his hand ahead of them. Cole grabbed his wrist.
“Not there, up there,” he said, pointing to the canopy. He felt to make sure he had both his ability charges before he wrapped both arms around Howie and pulled the man down into a crouch.
“W-what are you doing, Cole?!”
Cole burned both charges of Meteoric Leap and jumped with everything he had.
Howie screamed—his pitch climbing in lockstep with their altitude—and held his hands out above them, spraying frost ahead of their parabolic path. The canopy above them hardened just in time for them to punch a hole through it, rather than sticking fast to the webs. There was a weird pull on Cole’s leg, and he looked down to see that one of the crabs had managed to web him at the last second and was being pulled along for the ride.
“Ohshitthisiswhyididn’tgoairbooooorne!” screamed Howie as they reached the apex of the jump and started plummeting. Cole wrapped him tight, despite the man’s struggling. He wasn’t sure if the fall protection would work if Howie somehow wriggled out of his grip. Below them, Cole could already see Roxy, Morganstern, and Besson had made it out of the forest and were staring up at the two dumbasses falling from the sky with their stowaway web-crab. Cole tucked their heads as the ground rushed up to meet them, choking off Howie’s scream. The last thing he needed was for the kid to bite off his own tongue or crack all his teeth apart. They hit the ground with a small explosion of dirt and debris, though it felt like Cole had just jumped on a downy feather mattress.
The impact protection did not apply to stowaways, because the web-crab hit the forest floor with a sickening crack of shell and broken limbs, chirping in distress—at least until Roxy put her shotgun barrel against the thing and pumped its guts full of buckshot. Cole felt the ice wash over him, a sure sign that he had leveled up. He untangled himself from the still-freaking-out Howie and sat up.
Roxy jogged over to him, eyes about as wide as dinner plates. “That’s your ability you thought was so lame?” she demanded. “That was fucking awesome!”
“That’s three times it’s saved my ass,” said Cole, considering. Maybe it was more useful than he’d thought. The ice in his veins faded, replaced by a burning sensation. He hissed. “I think I might be poisoned.”
Roxy dropped to the ground next to him and burned her ability, sending a flood of relief through his body. The burning sensation of the bites dulled to a mild ache. But the corpsman didn’t stop there; she took Cole’s AIFAK from his kit and pulled out one of the anti-venom injectors, plunging it into each of the bitten areas she could find.
“I’m pretty sure Jefferson put extra neutralizers in our kits specifically for those things,” she said as she worked. “They knew what kinds of threats we’d face here.” She hesitated. “Well, most of them.”
“Remind me to thank him when we get back,” said Cole.
Howie groaned as he pulled himself to his feet. The man was drenched in sweat. “Just, never do that to me again, please. Jesus fuck. That was the scariest thing I’ve ever done—and I’m including cutting through the forest full of man-eating crab-spiders!”
Cole checked to make sure none of the monsters were following them from the forest and then fell back to stare at the sickly green sky for a minute. His heart hammered in his chest, and his hands shook from the adrenaline. This whole thing, this whole place, was nuts. But he could beat it. Even as Curahee challenged him, he could feel himself adapting, growing stronger. This was the mountain he’d been craving all his life.
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But he couldn’t afford to rest. Not yet. They had a few hours of daylight left, and then more travel by NODs—and all of it uphill. But they’d reached the base of the mountain, and Cole could see the walls of a fortress looming high above them. Was this where humanity had made their last stand in this world? What was left up there? More monsters?
Despite his exhaustion and the lingering sting of bites, Cole pushed himself to his feet and dusted the forest filth off his battle rattle.
“Hey Cole, I think this one’s for you,” said Roxy, from where she stood over the sublimating web-crab’s body. She tossed over a rifle with the same pale luster as the crab shells. Cole caught it and looked it over. In terms of size and weight, it was a little heavier than his borrowed AR-10. It looked very similar to the one Jeff had lent him, other than the spiky enamel shell. Though it did have an underbarrel device and no scope. He pulled out his analyzer and tapped it.
Lesser webbed automatic rifle of the careful predator — Increase damage and recoil of ammunition by 2%-5%. Observing an enemy through the sights of this rifle for more than five seconds will add a 25% damage bonus and recoil to the next shot, increasing 2% per second thereafter until fired. Once per day, this rifle can launch a cable of spider silk up to 25 meters, pulling an object towards the operator.>
A rifle that hit harder the longer you aimed it at something? The analyzer hadn’t said there was an upward limit to the damage modifier, either. If he caught Ram-head taking a shit, could he aim at him for ten minutes and hit him with 1,000% extra damage? That might be enough to punch through his armor. Though since recoil also increased, that was likely to break his shoulder and send the rifle into the stratosphere.
“Ten-minute breather,” he called, taking off his pack and rifle sling. He’d been putting otherworld weapon components into Jeff’s AR-10, but now he had an otherworld weapon to fuse them with. He unloaded the AR-10 and started taking the parts out, replacing them with the originals. The bolt carrier group and recoil spring went into his new rifle, though melting the second piece in started to become a struggle. He couldn’t decide if it was his exhaustion or if the rifle had been resistant to having more parts jammed inside. He checked it again.
2%-5% chance to cause rapid fungal growth to a target with each shot
2%-5% reduction in recoil when using an elemental bolt (active)>
Well that answered his question as to whether fungus was considered an elemental effect. He wondered if he could have broken down the rifle and gotten the underbarrel web launcher as a part to add to something else, or whatever part caused the stacking damage bonus and instead used it to continue Frankensteining Jeff’s AR-10. But that was a loaner rifle, and eventually it would have to go back to Jeff.
Roxy came over and sat next to him while he was tinkering. She watched him for a few minutes, smoothly putting Jeff’s original parts back into his AR-10 and closing it up before checking the action on it. The rifle had served him well, but now he had one that was pulled from the corpse of an alien spider-crab that wanted to eat him. So it had sentimental value.
“How’s Morganstern?” asked Cole, breaking the silence.
“Hanging in there. I just gave her another dose of my mojo. Woke her up for a few seconds, and she looked relieved that we’d made it this far. She’s over level twenty-five, so my healing is more of a boost to her already-impressive resilience that’s doing the lion’s share of fighting the curse. It’s her highest enhancement after strength. She’s a tough customer.”
“So are you,” said Cole. He fitted Jeff’s rifle into the straps on the side of his bag and cinched it down. “You’ve been carrying her this whole time.”
Roxy grinned. “Well, Howie tried. But she weighs a ton, too.” She sat back and looked at the sky, which had at least stopped raining for a while. “How did you know they were setting a trap for us?” she asked, nodding back toward the forest.
“Actually, it was something Howie said,” said Cole. “Sharp kid. Realized something was off before I did. He questioned whether my compass was working, and that made me realize that if we weren’t attacked by anything big, and my land nav was off, they were probably somewhere up ahead, and we were being herded toward them.”
“Ugh.” Roxy shuddered. “That makes it sound like they were smart enough to work together. I don’t even want that thought in my head. I’ll tell Howie what you said, though. I think his confidence could use a pick-me-up.”
Cole nodded. He was pretty sure they all could. But he couldn’t be the one to give it. Not right now. While he relished the challenge, physically, he was barely holding himself together. After taking a deep breath, he forced himself back to his feet.
“Alright, people. Let’s keep moving.”
Howie helped get Morganstern onto Roxy’s back while Besson recalled Nutmeg from where she had ranged north of them. The hound master nodded to him, which Cole took to mean no immediate threats. Cole picked up his new rifle, loaded a magazine into it, and looked up the slope toward the mountain. He didn’t know what fresh dangers waited at the top. But at least he couldn’t see any more fucking spiderwebs.