Chapter 11: Fighting Retreat (Patreon)

William Oh once killed a dozen kaith without moving a muscle. – Jason Salazar.

What, with like, a trap? – Onlooker.

With his very gaze. - Jason Salazer

Case file 8934: Ashwood

“RUN!”

They all knew they didn’t have a chance if the kaith bogged them down. They would be dragged down one by one, their biomass added to the ‘supplies’ the kaith were transporting to their central hive.

June bolted down the narrow ledge back the way they came, bounding out in front of them like a startled deer.

Mason followed shortly after, all pretense of noble bearing lost as he scrambled forward, dipping down to his hands and knees where he needed extra grip, without losing any of the desperate speed.

Reggie tried to follow close behind, his ostentatious heavy armor causing more harm than help as his oversized pauldrons caught a jutting piece of rock, sending him teetering over the edge.

Will set his feet, reached out and slammed Reggie back up against the wall as hard as he could, barely righting the Tanker.

“Keep moving!” Loth shouted, climbing over the both of them and hopping across the tanker’s shoulders to continue on ahead, flinging sticky glowbugs in every direction like confetti to bring the battle into focus, heedless of the risk of being seen now that they had already engaged.

Meanwhile, buzzing insects with wicked stingers swarmed from the bottom of Loth’s barrel and began flinging themselves at the kaith’s eyes, causing the monsters to flinch and scrape their forelimbs across their strangely mammalian eyes.

“You good?” Will asked.

Reggie nodded, seizing his left pauldron and snapping the leather straps, tearing it away from his shoulder with one hand in a stunning display of strength, flinging it behind them before he continued running, leaving Will bringing up the rear.

“Fire to the rear-guard!” Mason’s voice called out.

Will leapt up and clung to the rock face as a mote of fire screamed past, cutting a thin line through his night-vision before it detonated behind him, sending a dozen or more of the closest monsters tumbling into the chasm.

In the brief instant of light, Will saw a unit of kaith climbing the wall beneath and in front of Mason, about to form a wedge between their vanguard and their nuker.

Will pulled out his tomahawk and sprinted along the side of the cliff, trusting Aspect of the Goat to provide footing as he ran across the sheer wall above Reggie and Mason, arcing high over their heads before jumping off.

The nuker’s slack jaw was worth probable death as Will sailed through the air over him, aiming to remedy the outflank.

As the air flowed through the fang holes in his tomahawk, an unsettling chord began to float through the air, rising to a crescendo as Will came down feet-first on the lead kaith and buried the blade between the things mammalian eyes.

Some unspoken feeling prompted Will to dump a Charge into the axe as it swept down.

3 of 4 Charges remaining.

The haunting chord thrummed outward from the tomahawk with a physical force, causing the surrounding kaith to flinch backwards before they began writhing in pain, dropping off the wall, trailing smoke from their eyes and mandibles.

Relic use detected, decoding abilities…

Tomahawk of- “Crap.” Will muttered as the kaith he’d struck fell, bringing him with it.

Will leapt off the kaith, getting two steps up the side of the wall before his momentum began to push him away from the wall.

Unwilling to drop his weapon again, Will caught the ledge with the blade of the axe, pulling himself back towards the stone wall before letting his feet do the rest of the work, pushing him up and onto the ledge.

“Go, go, go!” Will said, climbing out of their way and ushering the mobility-impaired past.

“Will, catch!” Loth threw him a silk rope as the other two ran by them, attempting to catch up with June, who led the pack.

Knowing the drill by now, Will secured the rope while Loth pulled the stretchy silk tight, adding a metal trigger from his pouch with a swiftness of claw he wouldn’t have believed if he wasn’t watching it.

Loth took a leather box of some kind off his belt and slid it across the rope, and suddenly the stretchy silk was studded with poisoned blades, like an artist creating a detailed mountain vista out of paint with a single scrape of the knife.

“Good, let’s go!” Loth said, and the two of them sprinted to catch up with the other party as they barreled towards the rope stretching across the Abyss.

“WAIT! TURN AROUND!” Loth shouted, tugging on Will’s shirt, nearly spinning him off his feet.

“What!?” Will asked as he spun around, trotting backwards on an unstable cliff face over a lethal drop, tomahawk ready to cut the encroaching enemy down.

TWANG! CLATTER!

A clump of kaith flowing past the trap they’d just set were sent tumbling into the darkness as the stretchy silk whipped forward, some of them twitching from septic shock as glittering bits of metal stuck out of them.

“Fabulous.” Loth’s raspy voice turned into a satisfied purr. “That was almost an even dozen from a simple five-second trap. Mn. How many did you count?” Loth asked, peering up at him.

Will shoved the tomahawk handle between his teeth and picked the kobold up, spinning around and sprinting forward, making up for lost time. He was heavier than Will expected due to the sheer amount of gear Loth wore, but Will was able to manage anyway.

“UA E A’S WA AE OU!?” Will snarled. (What the Abyss was that about!?) Or perhaps (What the Abyss’s wrong with you!?)

“Sometimes you just gotta watch it go off!” Loth said defensively, arms crossed over his chest as Will carried him like luggage, rapidly catching up with the three ahead.

“HE UH!” (Heads up!) Will shouted as he approached, tossing the kobold ahead.

Loth flailed as he sailed through the air for a moment before he caught the rope suspended in midair and began scrambling up it, keeping pace with June.

A moment later, the scout and the saboteur were up in the ceiling, paving the way for their retreat.

“Alright,” Mason said, rolling up his sleeves as he prepared to hand-over-hand the rope.

“Sorry, dude, we don’t have time.” Reggie apologized and grabbed the nuker and threw him over his shoulder, wrenching a shriek of indignation out of the noble.

A moment later, Reggie was huffing up the rope, showing no visible strain carrying two and full armor.

“Fire to the Rear!” Mason shouted, aiming from Reggie’s shoulder.

Will ducked down an instant before explosion sounded above him.

A moment later, a cluster of kaith dropped from where they’d been flanking on the wall above, their limbs twitching in shock as they tumbled past. One snagged his belt and nearly pulled him off the ledge before Will hacked the leg off with his axe.

Slipping the tomahawk back into his beltloop, Will assessed the forty-five degree rope that stretched up about thirty feet into the hole in the ceiling lit by glowbugs.

The Abyss am I supposed to climb that with one hand? Although…Loth does favor springy rope.

**Mason**

“Take ‘im!” Reggie said, handing Mason up and into the hole with all the ceremony of a dockworker with a sack of flour, his face red from exertion.

June took his hand and set Mason’s foot into a loop placed on the side of the wall in silk by the kobold. Even now, the kobold saboteur was climbing above them, creating a well-lit path of handholds to follow.

“I’ll cover,” Mason said, allowing Reggie to climb up past him. The Tanker’s crimson face and huffing looked like he might have a heart attack.

“Do you have the Charge?” Reggie asked.

“Seven left.” Mason replied, squinting as he saw William Oh study the rope, looking down at his hand in consternation.

“How’s he going to climb that with one hand?” Mason asked aloud.

June slid down past Reggie to stop beside him and peeked down.

“We can haul him up. Burn it behind him.”

“Roger.” Mason said, aiming his Conflagration Ability at the rope. “Wait, what is he- ACK!”

Like some kind of disgusting three-legged spider, William Oh sprinted up the side of the stone wall until he hit the ceiling, then bunched up like a spring and leapt, catching the rope with his hand two thirds of the way up, before using the rebound of the rope to fling himself the rest of the way up, catching the edge of the tunnel with his hand.

William twisted upside down, still clinging with one hand and somehow got one of his feet above him, and through some black magic, wound up flipping around and clinging to the wall face-to-face with Mason.

“Boy doesn’t skimp on his Kinesthetics. All I’mma say about that.” June said with a shrug before scampering up the rope ladder the kobold had laid down for them.

“After you,” William said, motioning to the ladder.

“R-right.” Despite Mason climbing a ladder rope as fast as he could, the three-armed scout made it to the top before he did using nothing but the rough stone walls

“Come ON!” Reggie shouted, offering Mason a hand. “Movement behind you!”

With an adrenaline-fueled surge of strength, Mason leapt up and grabbed Reggie’s hand. The Tanker was pulling Mason out of the hole with one hand when something caught Mason’s boot, eliciting an undignified shriek.

“Piece of-“ Will muttered, pulling out that odd axe of his and chopping off the barbed forelimb attached to Mason’s heel.

“Did it get any venom in me? Am I bleeding?” Mason demanded, hopping on one foot to inspect himself. sometimes you didn’t feel the wound until too late. Especially with numbing agents.

“Venom?” Will asked, glancing up at Mason with a furrowed brow.

A moment later a stinger emerged from the darkness of the tunnel opposite the hole and caught Will in the shoulder.

“You didn’t hang the bell back up?” William Oh asked before his body stiffened, tumbling freefall into the kaith-swarming pit.

Kaith soldiers, their stingers raised, approached with shield-like forelimbs at the ready from the other side of the pit, while the smaller workers boiled up from the hole.

“GODSDAMNIT!” Mason shouted, rushing forward. He’d be damned if his legend started with some mentally challenged cripple dying because he lost composure.

Conflagration.

6/9 Charge remaining.

Everyone’s ear’s popped as the suddenly narrower tunnel system focused far more of the force of the explosion back on them than Mason had intended.

“Mason, cool it, it’s my turn!” Reggie said, picking up his tower shield from where he’d left it on the floor beside the tunnel.

“But he-“

“We are not going to survive running into that!” June said, tugging Mason backwards.

“But I-“

“Everybody knows what they signed up for, let’s GO!”

“Where is my teammate?” The kobold asked as they ran past him.

“I-“

“He was stung and fell back into the hole!” June shouted. “Reggie is giving us some breathing room for as long as his shield covers the whole tunnel, but your teammate is dead! We need to make sure the way back is clear and prep it for Reggie!”

“Kaith venom only paralyzes!” Mason shouted as they ran. “If we get to Nathan fast enough, he might be able to retrieve Will!”

The kobold looked past Reggie at the tunnel filled top to bottom with shiny chiton armor and thrusting stingers, with no sign of William.

“We will discuss this later.” The kobold said, turning and running after them.

**William Oh**

Sweet, I gained two levels. Fighting higher tier monsters will do that.

…I hope they write level 4 on my gravestone, not ‘level 2’ or ‘level unknown’ Will thought as the kaith forelimbs almost gingerly carried him across the ceiling.

Level four was almost respectable. A lot of people jumped off The Climb around there.

The ride would’ve had an interesting view if he hadn’t been clutched in such a way that 85% of his field of vision were kaith mandibles poised to bifurcate his face.

Bifurcate. That’s a good one.

The other 15% of his view wasn’t great. Mostly legs, empty void and a little bit of rock.

Despite the kaith carrying him having the ability to end him at any moment, Will had the dreadful realization that living food didn’t spoil, and so the Kaith would most likely leave him alive and paralyzed for a day or two until the moment he was devoured alive. Maybe by larvae bursting out of his skin. Who knew with these things?

Well, I guess Mason knew about the venom, which was why he was so freaked out, and also implies he’s a nerd that studies bestiaries. I should tease him about it after I escape. He seems like a prime target for it.

Challenge accepted. I’m not only going to escape, I’m also going to get back to camp before they do, and the cutest baker-girls in camp will offer me their buns as I lay in kingly repose, clothes artfully torn and bloody.

Sounds like a plan, where’s my out?

….where’s my out?

Hmmm… Will tried to move everything, but the only things he could move were his left pinkie toe, his eyes (a little), his lungs (a bit) and his Phantom Hand (as much as he wanted)

This could be a problem, Will thought, trying to use the Phantom Hand to scratch the kaith carrying him along, but his arms were tucked against his chest so he couldn’t really-

POP!

With a sickening mental pop that was deeply uncomfortable, his Phantom hand separated from his wrist and reached up to swipe at his carrier’s leg.

IT CAN COME OFF!? Will demanded internally. He would’ve been agog if the paralytic allowed for it.

As if it’d been chastised, his hand retreated back to his wrist.

Oh no! I’m not mad! You can come off, it’s okay! Will thought soothing thoughts towards his Phantom hand. The description never said anything about it being stuck to my wrist, did it? Go nuts!

Pop! With another mental pop that would’ve raised the hairs on his spine if he could feel them, his Phantom Hand separated from his wrist, bouncing in front of his face.

Still completely under his control, the Phantom Hand waved in front of his eyes, then flipped him off.

…Why did I flip myself off? Will absolutely did tell it to do that, he just wasn’t sure why.

Probably for getting myself into this situation, he thought sourly.

Okay, what resources do I have?

Will tried to grab his tomahawk.

No luck.

He tried draining the very soul of the kaith carrying him.

Nothing.

I didn’t figure it would work, but it was worth a shot.

I’ve got a handful of sling-shot stored in the phantom hand, but that’s not gonna do anything…

If Will’s meat-finger wasn’t jammed into his chest, he could at least fire the Sting Ring off randomly…

Epiphany!

…good one, Will.

Will moved his Phantom Hand over to his other hand and mentally selected the Sting Ring.

Dimensional Storage

2/8 Charges remaining.

Ooh, I’ve got Dailies, now.

Charge was based on Focus, it fueled Abilities, and everyone’s Charge took a solid seven days to recover from zero, without exception, so crossing the 7 Charge point was a landmark moment for most Climbers.

Hitting 1st Daily at level 4 was good for anyone but a dedicated caster, who might’ve hit it at level 2 by spending their free points.

Would you like to Sacrifice The Sting Ring to gain its effect?

Yes!

Phantom Hand may only have one active Relic effect. If you acquire another, the Sting Ring’s effect will be discarded. Do you still wish to Sacrifice it?

Oh no! My 20-silver ring will eventually get destroyed when I find something better. I should probably just let the kaith eat me rather than ‘waste’ it.

…Sacrifice Cancelled.

Yes, I want to Sacrifice the Sting Ring, you freakin-

Sacrifice Accepted.

Will felt a shiver run along the phantom hand as its appearance took on a greenish, mottled copper hue, matching that of the ring.

Okay, how can I use two shots of acid bolt to escape?

Is that the bridge?

In the dim light of Loth’s glow-worms, Will could see that the kaith holding him was rapidly approaching the bridge, aiming to rejoin that stream of meat heading for the kaith frontlines.

Some of whom must’ve just been paralyzed.

Will briefly considered trying to take out the bridge, but that was simply beyond the firepower of the Sting Ring.

Not with just two shots, anyway.

I need to make this thing let go of me before we get there, so it doesn’t have reinforcements.

Will considered shooting it in the face, arms or torso, but that didn’t guarantee a drop.

Actually does it have to drop me? Will thought. What if I drop it?

Here goes nothing.

Will timed the shot to the best of his abilities, having the Phantom Hand hover near the creature’s feet. Once two of its deceptively slender feet were lined up, Will took his shot.

1/8 Charges Remaining.

The bolt lodged itself in one foot, not carrying through like he’d hoped, but the acid in it carried on under its own momentum, wrapped around and sprayed the other foot.

The kaith’s mandible gnashed reflexively, missing Will’s face by a hair’s breadth.

Second shot.

Will moved the Phantom Hand and fired again, hitting another two legs.

0/8 Charges remaining.

Without fanfare, they were in freefall, hurtling down into the chasm.

Well, at least it’s quicker and more dignified than being Kaith trail rations, Will thought as they tumbled into the darkness.