“Binesi. I knew the storm in your blood wouldn’t let you rest. The Biiwide give us such fun toys, so easy to bend. Shadows and ice will tear you apart. I will taste your flesh, oh, scion of the Storm Wind. To devour the child of my greatest foe—what a victory that will be.” The Wendigo’s voice was arrogant and full of malevolent glee. It howled and hissed with the sound of a winter gale.
Char could feel his twisted influence growing stronger as he poured his blue-black mana into the orb. The shadow creatures that assailed them took on more horrific forms, no longer recreating the predators of Earth, but becoming elongated, twisted nightmare parodies. The ice that armored them thickened, and their icicle claws and teeth grew longer and sharper.
A chill of fear ran down Char’s spine. They were already hard-pressed. Now the creatures came at them with greater ferocity, throwing themselves at the trio with wild abandon. Char redoubled her efforts, using every ounce of her improved strength and speed, her skill with the sword, and her awakened instincts to dispatch shadow beast after shadow beast. She broke them apart with the crunch of shattering ice and the crackle of lightning.
Their wild fury made them more vicious, but it also took away any cunning in their attacks. The shadows no longer timed their blows or sought out weak spots; they simply threw themselves into the fight. Declan guarded her back, and Lulu the flanks. Char powered forward, her lightning-wreathed blade shredding the creatures faster than they could reform.
Foot by foot, they fought their way closer to the orb and the Wendigo, but they couldn’t sustain that momentum for long. Declan was flagging; he had already taken too many hits. Char risked a little more mana on a quick heal to stem his bleeding, but she was getting low. She had enough for one Arc spell left, and the last orb had needed two before it was destroyed.
She sent Lulu an image of her breathing fire on the Wendigo to force it away from the Orb. It was a risk. Lulu was keeping the shadows thinned out on their flank, and the onslaught would increase without her there, but the shadows would only keep coming if they couldn’t destroy the source. Lulu sent back a feeling of understanding and an eagerness to tear into the real enemy.
Char shaped her Arc spell, then told Lulu to go. She fired off the spell. A blast of lightning slammed into the orb, crackling across it and overflowing into the Wendigo. The orb shuddered, but held together. The Wendigo howled and snarled, pulling its hands away from the orb.
Lulu bounded through the hoard of shadows, her flames burning bright, and leapt for the Wendigo like a four-legged comet. Her paws hit his chest, making him stagger back as she redirected herself to the side. Then she breathed. A blowtorch of flame washed over the Wendigo.
The attacking shadows flickered, and their shapes started to return to what they had been before. The wild fury of the attack slowed. Char grabbed Declan by the back of his shirt and ran, bulling through the disoriented shadows with a strength and momentum that would have seemed miraculous for such a petite woman, if the world hadn’t gone mad.
While Lulu danced around the Wendigo, keeping him distracted and off balance, Char forced her way to the orb. She took hits from the shadows. Her health was down to less than half, and she was bleeding from a hundred shallow cuts and deeper gouges. Fear squeezed her throat and turned her belly to ice. She ruthlessly squashed the fear until all that was left was fuel for her anger.
She steadied Declan on his feet with her left hand and slashed out with the sword in her right to fend off the swiping claws of a shadow cat the size of a mountain lion. Then, she poured all of that anger and fear into one mighty blow and brought the sword down on the orb, flaring the last dregs of her mana through it to imbue it with lightning.
The orb cracked. A spiderweb of fissures spread from the point where her sword struck it. The reverberations of the blow echoed up her arms, leaving them tingling and numb. The cracks spread, but the orb didn’t shatter. The shadows flickered in and out of solidity, losing their shapes.
The Wendigo howled in outrage. Lulu darted in again, meaning to breathe fire once more, but the Wendigo kicked out at her. Where before it had been willing to toy with the dog and let its shadows do the dirty work, now the possibility of failure had pierced its arrogance. The kick landed. Lulu’s flames did damage, but the kick sent her sprawling backward with a yelp.
Claws extended, the Wendigo raced for Char. She brought her sword up, but her arms still felt numb. Her legs wobbled as she planted her feet.
“I’ve got the orb,” Declan said, his voice ragged, weary but determined. Blood ran down his arms and dripped from the tips of his daggers. His breathing was harsh, and his face was tight with pain, but there was grim focus in his eyes.
Char trusted him and put her full attention on the Wendigo.
It came in like a freight train. Gales of ice crystals billowed from him and swirled like tiny knives driven by harsh winter wind, slicing into her skin even before he reached her. She stood firm, letting him come. At the last second, just as her Foresight started to twinge, she stepped to the side, swaying away from the slashing claws. She brought her sword around into the Wendigo’s back as his momentum carried him past her.
The sword bit deep, laying open the frostbitten flesh beneath the blood-soaked hospital robe he still wore. The Wendigo staggered as the blow increased the momentum of his missed charge, and he flailed to keep his balance, but where a human might have fallen, he caught his stumble and turned with supernatural speed.
Wicked claws lashed out at Char. She parried one hand, but the other got through, laying her open from collarbone to belly. She screamed with the frozen pain of it, but she fought on. Her Resist Pain skill didn’t take away the pain, but it let her keep going despite the agony that would have dropped her to her knees without it. She wasn’t about to roll over and die. If she was going out, she was going to take this bastard with her.
She ducked under another swing and brought her sword from low to high as she stood, cutting an upward gash from the Wendigo’s thigh and across his abdomen. Ice crystals formed across the wound and coated her blade where the Wendigo’s blood touched it. Backpedaling, she avoided another swipe.
The Wendigo rocked to the side as Lulu hit him, a bloom of flame raking across him and melting the icy scabs that sealed his wounds. Char rushed in to capitalize on the opening, but the Wendigo rolled away from her blow and Lulu’s raking claws.
The clang of Declan’s daggers on the orb rang out across the clearing. He struck the orb again and again, widening the cracks that Char had begun with her strike. Shadow beasts flickered in and out of reality. They swiped at Declan and Char, but with their magic interrupted, they were insubstantial, passing through like smoke.
Char chased the Wendigo as it rolled, never letting up with her sword strikes, not giving it a chance to get back to its feet. But it didn’t need to. Ice flowed out from it, turning the ground slick. Char’s foot went out from under her, setting her flailing for balance.
Quick as a striking snake, the Wendigo was there. Striking from the ground, its claws tore across the meat of her thigh, taking her leg from under her and sending her sprawling. Flat on her back, she barely got the sword up in time to block the next blow, the one that would have put claws through her chest.
She stared up into the deformed face of Royce Harrow. His eyes glowed blue-black with eldritch flames. Freezing drool dripped from his distended maw to crystallize into ice on her cheek.
Clang, clang. Declan hammered on the orb, one dagger after the other. His strength was bleeding out of him, but he persevered. The sound of it echoed around the clearing like a drumbeat.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Lulu lunged for the Wendigo, but it slashed out a clawed hand and forced her to dart back. Char held him off with her sword and the waning strength of her arms. He smiled a twisted smile just before his open maw darted for Char’s face.
Clang. Crack! The orb shattered into a million shards of shadow. It sent a shockwave of mana through the clearing that threw all of them away.
Char, flat on her back already, was the least affected. Declan was pushed backward into a tree and slid to the forest floor. Lulu, low to the ground, was staggered but recovered quickly. The Wendigo was rolled off of Char, but not far. It recovered and lunged with preternatural speed, but this time, Char was faster. Primal Grace let her swing herself to her knees and brace the sword with a smooth economy of movement. The sword was in line for the Wendigo’s heart even as it lunged for her face.
The blade plunged in. The heart of ice shattered. The blue-black light in Royce Harrow’s eyes went out. The Wendigo’s icy claws slid out of her shoulders as the body dropped to the ground.
Breathing hard, her mind was blank as she stared down into the face of the boy who had been twisted and used by the Wendigo. She wondered briefly how much of his psychosis had been his, and how much had been the Wendigo worming its way into him.
She shook off the thought and tried to stand, but her leg wouldn’t cooperate. The muscles and tendons had been shredded, and all the willpower in the world wasn’t going to power through that.
Lulu licked her face, whining. Char rubbed her ears and told her she was a good girl. She checked the dog over and found plenty of cuts, but none of them were life-threatening. Lulu was limping, but she’d be OK. “Go check on Declan. Please, Lu. See if he’s still alive.”
Lulu huffed and raced off to where Declan lay in a heap at the base of a tree. Char let herself fall back onto her butt and sat there, catching her breath and letting her mana pool refill. A moment later, Lulu sent her a wave of relief and joy, and an image of Declan’s chest rising and falling. She let out a sigh of relief, and the tightness in her chest eased.
Char steadied her breathing, pushed away the pain of her wounds, and slipped into meditation. It wasn’t easy to find the calm she needed with the aftermath of adrenaline making her shake. She only found the edges of it as her breathing evened out and her heart beat slowed. Hovering there, halfway in her trance, and half aware of the world around her, she noticed that her health and mana bars were ticking upward faster than normal. Not as fast as if she were sitting on her beach in her inner sanctuary, but it was good to know that she could speed her recovery without losing all awareness of the world around her.
When her bars were half full, she cast Mend Flesh on her leg, wincing as the mana made the muscles and tendons writhe back into place. When the leg was functional, she limped over to Declan. He was still unconscious and had a large purple lump forming on his temple. She dropped to a knee next to him and cast Mend Other, focusing the healing on his head first. His other wounds had already begun to close on their own, but he was pale from blood loss.
Worry, doubt, and self-recriminations all floated through her mind as she cast Mend Other over and over until her mana bottomed out, but she pushed them all away. He was young, but he wasn’t a child. She’d given him plenty of chances to back out and stay with the others. He’d made his choice to stick with her, and she wouldn’t disrespect him by treating him as if he wasn’t able to think for himself. If it hurt to see him battered and half dead, then she would just have to make better choices about the danger they found themselves in. Besides, it was nice to have someone she could trust to watch her back.
While she waited for her mana to come back, she checked her notifications.
Special Challenge progress made:
Destroy the sentinel orbs.
3/3 destroyed.
————————————————————
Second wave defeated.
Experience gained.
———————————————————
Defeat the Zone Boss
to complete the Challenge.
———————————————————
You have killed
Winter’s Maw
Level 32
Experience gained
___________________
Quest Complete:
In Pursuit of Winter
Follow Winter’s Maw and destroy it.
Reward: Experience, Weapon Enhancement Gem, Random Magical Item
——————————————————-
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 25.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
All of your stats have increased by 1.
You have gained +1 Strength, +2 Speed,
+1 Dexterity, +3 Endurance, +1 Intelligence
+2 Spirit
She had three levels' worth of free points to spend, but she was more excited to see the rewards from the quest. She opened her inventory and pulled them out. One was a blue gem about the size of a marble. A faint mote of light shone in its center. The other was a brass compass. She examined them both and read the system-provided information.
[Weapon Enhancement Gem]
Apply to the pommel or haft of a system
created weapon to add a magical effect.
Choose one when applying:
(Note: any enhancement will increase the durability of the weapon.)
Sharpness
Minor Flame Enchantment
Minor Ice Enchantment
Self Repair
————————————————————
[Delver’s Compass]
Channeling mana into this compass
will cause it to point to the
nearest dungeon.
Without mana, it acts as a regular compass.
The Weapon Enhancement Gem was nice, but the compass was a bit of a disappointment. She tossed the compass back into her inventory and pulled out her sword. It was starting to look a little battered. The edge was nicked from hitting the orb. She didn’t need the fire or ice enchantments, since she could use her lightning. Sharpness might be nice, but it was useless if the sword broke. She pressed the gem to the pommel of the sword and trickled a little mana in to activate it. When the options came up, she chose Self-Repair.
The gem flashed briefly, then the mote of light grew and spread down the length of the handle and into the blade. When it winked out, the gem was embedded in the pommel, and a faint line of runes glowed down the length of the sword.
Declan’s voice croaked out, “Did you just make your sword magic, or am I hallucinating from the blow to my head?”
“Quest reward. It’s good to see you awake.” She considered telling him he’d been sleeping for a week, but thought that might be too cruel a joke to play. She tucked the idea aside for the next time he got knocked out. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I got backed over by a cement truck. You didn’t happen to get its license plate by any chance?”
“Actually, I did. It said ‘Tree.’” She pointed to the tree behind him. “Give me a few more minutes and I’ll hit you with another heal.”
“I take it we won?” He tried to turn on his side, but groaned and gave it up as a bad idea.
“That blast from the orb was perfect timing. Let me get my sword into the right spot. Check your notifications, you probably got another level.”
Declan’s eyes went vague, and a moment later, he grunted. “Two levels. I hit twenty. It says I need to absorb a Domain Affinity Core to create my personal Mana Core.”
“Well, then, I guess we need to find you one of those. Anything about bloodlines?”
He shook his head and then winced. “Ow. No, nothing about that. The original scan did say it detected dormant bloodlines, so I’m pretty sure I have at least one. Maybe it’ll wake up when I get my Core.”
He was in obvious pain, and Char didn’t have enough mana back yet, so she decided to keep him distracted. “I’m curious to see what you’ve got. I’m a mutt: Mom’s mom was Native American, her husband was an immigrant from Mexico with mestizo blood, and my Dad’s side of the family was Scottish and Irish, so I can pretty much trace where all of my bloodlines came from. Ojibwe, Aztec, Irish, and probably a Norse raider back in the day. What about you? What sort of mythical creatures might be lurking in your genes?”
“Irish, some Scandinavian. My Dad’s family was from Minnesota, so probably a lot of Scandinavian. I don’t know about my Mom’s side, so that could be anything. She never talked about her family, and I never met them. I always got the feeling there was some animosity there. Knowing my mom, they probably cut her off because they didn’t want to deal with her.” Declan stared up at the branches of the tree as he spoke, but she had the feeling he was really seeing memories.
“It sucks that you never got to meet them.”
“Yeah. I mean, it might be for the best. Mom had to have gotten her awfulness from somewhere, but it still leaves a lot of questions.”
“I’ve got enough juice for another healing spell. Brace yourself.” She put a hand on his arm and cast. Declan was a tough kid. He’d had it rough, but he kept going. He was a little quieter, a little more serious after Ravenmoor, and it probably wasn’t fair of her to keep thinking of him as a kid, but he was resilient. She was pretty sure he was going to be as alright as it was possible to be in this messed-up new world.
“So, what next?” he asked.
“Well, we’re three-quarters of the way through this challenge. Do you want to see how tough the Zone Boss is?”
