“I AM INVINCIBLE!” she audibly chanted, as she swung her now sparkling sword at the creature's appendage.
Jacobs’ hand on my shoulder stopped me, just as I was about to move. Goldenfist dashed in, his two-handed blade swung in a huge rising arc, coming down hard on the tentacle. His cut sliced into it deeply.
“We do not fear the night, for we are light!” Damian spoke, his voice taking on an ethereal tone. In his hand, he was wielding an épee, which was making rapid strikes. With each word he spoke, I felt a reassuring feeling, which I just knew was coming from him, but at the same time, I could see Peachy moving just that little bit quicker, intercepting the wiggling appendage when it tried to lash out at the others.
I looked at Jacobs and met his eyes. Right, I was supposed to stay near him and watch them fight. He nodded at me and took his hand away. I took a few steps to the right and moved to see into the pool and where the tentacle was coming from. The creature had been buried in the dirt, but now it was exposed. Its second tentacle swung at the trio that was wreaking havoc on the first. Between the two tentacles, there was a huge mouth of sharp teeth, and eyes, way, way too many eyes. Whatever this creature was, all I could see was teeth, eyes and those two rapidly moving tentacles…
Something primal twinged in me, I could feel my heart beat faster, fear…I was feeling fear…
"NO ONE CAN WITHSTAND A BLOW FROM ME!”
The fear disappeared. Gone as quickly as it came upon me. I swung my staff around. Anger, now replacing it. Fuck this eldritch piece of shit.
The dark clouds condensed immediately over the pool. A loud rumble preceded the first flash, and then my Storm version of
The four of them didn’t say anything aloud as I sat in meditation, but I could feel their eyes on me all the same. Eventually, I think the silence got to them.
“What the living fuck, dude?” Jacobs finally exclaimed.
“Fucker feared me,” I said with some petulance. “Though I gotta ask, what is with the chanting?”
“Warden Skills,” Damian said, “Mine is an aura skill which boosts the party's morale and focus.”
“We think it boosts damage, but it definitely feels like we are that little bit better at what we do…” said Jacobs. “I’m sure my heals heal just that little bit more…”
“Mine gives a morale and defence boost,” Peachy grinned.
“That second line definitely broke the fear effect on me. Looking into its eyes froze me for a second,” I said.
“Now enough about that…What the fuck, dude? We’re wailing on this tentacle, and you go and blow up the pool!” G demanded.
“In my defence…” I started and got four scowls. “I didn’t know sending a ball of lightning into its guts would trigger that…” I said, indicating the now destroyed pool.
When the Ball Lightning expanded in the creature's throat, sparks bounced off its teeth and then seemed to cascade down through the creature as the shocks arced off of other teeth. There had been some kind of reaction inside; it shook, and then another huge bang occurred, and a column of fire, twenty feet tall, burst out of the creature. Its tentacles went crazy for about 30 seconds, but stopped moving long before the column calmed down and disappeared.
“Three spells…that first one?” Damian asked
“Rank 5, Hail Storm from the Storm school,” I said.
“Then Fireball? And Ball Lightning? Both threes?” Damian continued.
“Yeah.”
“So, more important question than just how broken Vax is in this game…What the hell was that thing?” Peachy asked.
“Really good question,” I responded. “Anyone loot the corpse while I was meditating?” I stared at my loot whore friends, somewhat disappointed that none of them had taken care of the most important part of fighting esoteric monsters. G and Damian looked at each other. Sighed. They bounced their right fist on their left hand three times, then G showed scissors, and Damian showed a fist.
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“Bollocks,” said the loser as he headed over to the pool’s edge and jumped in.
“I’d use the ladder, don’t know how stable the ground is,” suggested Jacobs, a moment too late.
“Fucksake,” came from the man knee deep in loose soil. “Now you tell me!”
“That used a lot of mana, didn’t it?” Darksider asked me as we watched G fall for the third time in the loose dirt.
“Rank fives burn about twenty per cent of my pool, a second at the moment.”
“Doesn’t seem like much,” he commented. “My rank ones use about ten per cent.”
“Not sure if it’s spell casting efficiency or bigger pool, but mine are using about one now and my three’s use around five per cent.”
“That is costly then. Still…it froze the tentacle…”
“It did?” I said, taking my eyes off our looter. “First time I used it in combat…” I looked over at the remains of the monster. G had taken advantage of its slow movement and severed it with his long blade. The end of the tentacle that had been sliced off was seeping on the side of the pool. The other end had fallen back in and was showing signs of extensive bleeding, splurts having gone the full length of the pool, before the creature died.
“You know…I don’t think I’m the one who killed it…” I said, staring at the mess.
“What?” Jacobs blurted out with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s a lot of blood to lose…”
“Well… now you say it…” the doctor of the group said, considering the ramifications.
“We don’t tell him?” suggested Darksider.
“Yeah…not worth smugness…” agreed Jacobs.
“It’s called a Maw,” G shouted out. “And we each got a ‘Maw tooth.’ Some kind of crafting material. There are also some weird orb thingy.”
“Weird orb thingy?” Jacobs asked.
“It doesn’t identify…”
G got back to us and distributed the loot. He wasn’t wrong about the orb either. My HUD just called it an ‘Unknown Orb’.
“Party loot? Until we find a use for it, or we get enough unknown crap to split it?” I suggested.
“Seems fair,” I got in response with agreeing nods from everyone else.
The back door of the building wasn’t locked. It opened up into a grandiose open-plan kitchen and entertaining area. The sort of thing a person who loves to socialise and cook puts together so they can stay part of the conversation and fun, while still preparing the meal. Gorgeous black marble countertops. Matching oven, hob, airfryer and microwave, all built into the cabinets. It was also absolutely spotless. Not a spec of dirt to be found.
The dining area had a huge table with matching chairs that could comfortably sit 16 people. It looked like some kind of blackwood, but so exquisitely perfect that it looked like it had just been delivered from the factory, not sitting here for thousands of years. An open door led to a large pantry, which didn’t even have some abandoned unwanted cans of food.
The first door from the kitchen we entered was a hall with doors leading off to both sides. The first turned out to be a downstairs toilet. Opposite it, and in the centre of the house, was a large indoor theatre. Easily sitting 16 people in the seats curved onto the large wall-dominating screen.
At the other end of the corridor, the front half of the house was one large open-plan seating area, with a couple of columns supporting the balcony overlooking the space. The walls in one corner once held a decent-sized library, and although the shelves themselves seemed in good condition, their contents were largely dust, except some kind of book made of metal sheets, with some indecipherable text on them, and a couple of manuals made out of some kind of enduring plastic. I stored them in my inventory, on the off chance we ever came across a hovercar or hoverbike and wanted to know how they work. Something to start our guild library with, I suggested.
We found the rugs didn’t take kindly to being walked on after all this time, and after our steps disintegrated a couple, we avoided walking on the ones that were left. Opposite the movie theatre there was an office laid out for two people. Computer terminals facing away from each other, so people sitting at the back-to-back desk could stare at each other. Empty bookshelves covered the remaining walls, with what looked like a fake window next to the desks. Like the computers, it was unpowered and just seemed like a blank screen behind some glass. Two filing cabinets had been left intentionally open, revealing their lack of contents.
The last door on the floor led to a flight of stairs down. Peachy, as the tank, made the executive decision, and we headed down into the basement instead of heading upstairs. She and Darksider pulled out a couple of lanterns, lighting up the dark basement. Apparently, we had gotten really lucky the day before in not getting any of the more maze-like floors.
The first room was for storage. Floor-to-ceiling racks sat waiting for things to be put on them. It led into a second one, which had a power junction box on the outer wall.
Darksider walked over to it and looked inside. “Looks like something tripped the lighting circuit, and most of the normal power lines.”
“Most?” Jacobs asked.
“Maintenance System and AIC are on.”
“Bring the lights back on? I don’t think we need anything else and it might trip everything if there is a fault,” I thought out loud.
“Sounds good to me,” Peachy agreed.
“Yeah, makes sense,” G added. Jacobs nodded.
A moment later, we heard a buzzing noise, the light strips built into the ceiling flickered a couple of times, and then the rooms were lit up.
I heard a loud clunk, clunk, clunk come from further into the cellar, a red light flashing from various spots.
“Intruders detected!” a digitised voice reported through speakers. “Intruders detected!” it repeated.
“Looks like we might have tripped something,” Jacobs’ deadpan voice declared. Accompanied by a loud thud, then another.
“At least that doesn’t sound like a Roomba,” I muttered as I equipped my staff and readied myself.