Chapter 38 (Patreon)

Chapter 38

The next several seconds seemed to happen in slow motion. Donut was the first to react. She jumped up, claws out, as if she meant to decapitate the elderly man. She pulled back at the last moment, instead pushing off his shoulder and sailing through the air, flying until she landed three platforms down. 

Yolanda also reacted, just a fraction of a moment behind Donut. She didn’t pulled her attack. An arrow sprouted from the side of Jack’s head, pinning the hat to his head. She’d been forced to shoot him, but it didn’t matter. It was too late. The now-dead man fell to the ground, still pissing in death. The curved pee stain on the dungeon wall started to sizzle and boil. Smoke rose directly from the point of contact. I realized I was running, running toward the back of the train. Behind me, Brandon shouted. The safe room was only a hundred feet away. Chris and Imani were already picking up speed. The second man on the last car, Randall, went flying off the train as it lurched forward. He hit the ground with a loud, painful crunch, his walker flying over his head just as the monster appeared. 

“Holy fuck,” I cried. “Donut, run!” I kept running toward the thing.

Purple and black smoke kept hissing and spitting from the wet stain on the wall, filling the hallway behind us. The monster coalesced, coming into existence five feet behind Yolanda and Randall. She hit it with two arrows, and the shafts just shattered against the smoke. It didn’t even form a health bar, indicating she’d done no damage whatsoever. 

The thing was fifteen feet tall, just as wide, made of fulminating, sizzling black and purple smoke. It had six legs, each gleaming with obsidian claws the size of rakes. The claws seemed to be the only corporeal parts of its body. A honey badger-like head sat amongst its mass, its eyes made of glowing, red fire that poured smoke. It roared, and the ground shook.   

Rage Elemental – Level 93

The first recorded summoning of a Rage Elemental, blah, blah, blah. If you are reading this, you likely don’t give a shit about the monster’s (rather interesting and tragic) history. You’re probably running. It’s not going to matter. The almost-indestructible Rage Elemental is said to only dissipate after it has claimed 666 souls. 

In other words, you are fucked. Absolutely fucked.         

A magic missile bounced off the monster’s head, and a health bar appeared for a half second before disappearing. It’s self-healing. 

I came skidding to a stop as the train rocketed past me. Donut landed on my shoulder. She was screaming something about not running unless I ran too. Yolanda stood over the fallen form of Randall. The creature was still growing, the last of the black and purple mist twirling around him. 

“Fog,” I yelled. Donut, who had read my mind, activated her scroll of Confusing Fog at the same moment. 

The monstrosity finished forming just as the wall of fog billowed into the hallway. It fell to all six legs. The monster spun toward us, impossibly fast, its movements cleaving through the cloud like a boat cutting through waves. It ripped at the dead form of Jack, and the man’s body shredded. It leaped forward, clawing at Yolanda and Randall. 

I never got to know Yolanda Martinez. Not really. 

But I didn’t have to know her very well to know who she was. I knew she was a quiet, sweet woman who’d been a nurse her entire life. She’d worked sixty hours a week for years to pay for her son to go to college. Her husband had owned a landscaping company. At only 4’11, the woman had a presence much bigger than her stature suggested. There was a warmth about her, something I’d never felt as a kid. Just being in her presence imparted a feeling of a longing in me, something difficult to describe. Like I wished I could relive my childhood, but this time, I’d have her as my mother, and she would have never, ever left me.  

When the apocalypse came for Yolanda, she didn’t once waver in her dedication to her patients. She was quick to laugh, quick to smile. 

And even though Yolanda Martinez was just as terrified as the rest of us, she stood her ground against a force she couldn’t possible hold back. 

She lived her entire life as a hero. She died as one, too.  

One moment they were there, the next they were gone. Through the still developing cloud of confusing fog, the monster’s claws ripped forward, cutting through the nurse and the elderly man as if they weren’t even there. Yolanda’s body dissipated in a red cloud of ribbon-like flesh like she was a knitted sweater that been unraveled all at once. 

The monster didn’t even break stride, it came for us despite the fog. It swung a mighty claw just as I smashed down on Protective Shell. 

The monster flew back, as if it was a charging dog that had reached the end of its leash. 

The transparent, glowing, semi-circle shell spread around me, completely filling this section of the hallway, floor to ceiling. 

The rage elemental hissed and squealed with fury as it went flying back, skidding. It jumped back up, charging again. Its badger head made it through the shield, but the moment its giant claws touched the force field, it rebounded yet again. It seemed the sharp tips of the monster’s claws couldn’t make it through the protection.

“Holy shit,” I cried. I hadn’t expected that to work. “Run!” Donut leaped off my shoulder as I turned and rushed toward the others, who were struggling to get everyone into the safe room. The individual cars were too wide for the entrance. Imani and Chris were bodily pulling people off their chairs and tossing them into the open door. 

The round shield remained firmly in place, and I felt an odd pop in my ears as we left its area of effect.   

The spell was only going to last 20 seconds, and I’d already wasted five of them being dumbfounded. 

About halfway to the door, the ground disappeared underneath me. At least that’s what I thought had happened at first. I fell, but I fell upward, crashing into the ceiling. A few feet in front of me, Donut flipped in midair, deftly landing upside down. 

In front of me, the very last train cars flew upward, and the remaining resident—Mrs. McGibbons—cried out as she also slammed up into the top of the hallway, wheelchair crashing upon her like she’d been dumped face first down into a hole.  

My shoulder crunched, but I slammed a health potion before the pain could hit me.

Gravity had been reversed. The elemental had cast the spell, but it hadn’t reached all the way to the safe room door. That last platform, connected by Imani’s magic chain, remained attached to the rest of the cars, and it dangled upward, having dislodged its only remaining rider. 

I didn’t look back. I pulled myself to my feet and kept running, but now I was on the ceiling of the hallway. We rushed toward the crumpled form of Mrs. McGibbons, who groaned and rolled onto her back, feebly pushing the wheelchair off herself. It rolled a few feet forward and reached the edge of the spell’s effect. It clattered to the ground. She opened her eyes, and upon seeing that she was now stuck to the ceiling, she started to cry out in fear. Her health was deep in the red. 

“I got you,” I said, picking her up. I pulled her over my shoulder like a sack. 

Ahead of me, Chris and Imani were ushering the last of the residents into the room. I could see Brandon just inside the door, moving them out of the way. Imani was screaming Yolanda’s name. 

Donut took a step toward the door, and she plummeted off the ceiling, also having reached the edge of the spell’s effect. She, once again, landed easily. 

“Be careful, Carl!” she called up to me. 

“Get the wheelchairs, then get inside!” I cried as I pulled a health potion and shoved it in Mrs. McGibbon’s hand. “Drink this.” 

I anticipated where the line of gravity was, and I tried a desperate flip maneuver in an attempt not to be upside down when I fell. It didn’t work. I shielded the crying woman’s body as I landed, once again, in a painful heap on the ground right next the wooden platform. I groaned and smashed down on my own Heal spell. 

Behind me, the rage elemental roared as the spell dissipated. It rocketed down the hall at us, claws raking up stones as it ran. 

“Shit,” I scrambled to my feet. Donut hit it with another magic missile before turning and bolting toward the door. Chris and Imani pulled their last resident in. 

I ran. The ground shook as if a locomotive was bearing down on me. Ten feet. Five feet. One foot. 

I jumped at the door, banging into the jam and ricocheting inside just as the monstrosity’s forward claws swiped at me, missing by millimeters. It screamed in frustration, continuing its forward momentum as it slid down the hallway.

I had a quick sense of déjà vu, of the goblin murderdozer also missing me by inches.  

I handed Mrs. McGibbons to Brandon, pulled a boom jug, and returned to the hallway. I lit and tossed it at the backside of the still-turning elemental before I jumped back into the room and slammed the door. 

We could hear the monster’s screams through the thick walls. It made a sound that was part pain, part rage, part the end of the fucking world. I knew there was no way I could’ve really hurt it, but I felt a wave of satisfaction at that horrific, penetrating sound. 

A moment later the door pulsed, creaking worryingly as the elemental attempted to get in. It screamed and thrashed and pounded, throwing itself against the impenetrable door with all its might. 

“Jesus,” I muttered, reaching down to grab my legs. I closed my eyes, unable to get the sight of Yolanda and Randall being torn to pieces out of my head. “Jesus,” I repeated, out of breath. 

I turned to survey the room. We stood in what appeared to be a dusty, no-way-they-passed-the-health-inspection chicken restaurant. Big Shot Chicken, the sign said. I’d never heard of it. A Bopca Protector stood behind the counter, looking distastefully at the large crowd.

Mrs. McGibbons hadn’t taken the potion I’d given her, but she still clutched it in her hand. I watched as Brandon helped her drink it down. She continued to cry as her health rose. 

Most of the residents were on the ground, weeping for help. Imani, tears on her cheeks, was helping them one-by-one to the booths so they could sit. Donut had saved several wheelchairs, but there was no way we had enough now. Chris, his head low, turned to also help. Donut jumped to my shoulder, and her whole body was shaking.  

“Fucking Jack,” Brandon said, growling the words. “He knew. We explained it to him.” 

Zev’s message echoed in my head. This was a mistake. Helping these people. All we are doing is delaying our own training and delaying their inevitable deaths. It would’ve been kinder to have left them on the first floor rather than subject them to this terror. 

I looked up at the screens. 

Time to Recap Episode: 1 hour 40 minutes. 

Time to Level Collapse: 4 days, 20 hours. 

Remaining Crawlers: 1,033,992

“You saved me,” Mrs. McGibbons said, sitting up on the floor. Ninety-nine years old. I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone that old before. Not a human, at least. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”  

I smiled weakly. “Of course,” I said. 

“Jack was always an ass,” she continued. She made a clucking noise. “Poor Yolanda. She was such a good kid. And Randall. Dumb as a pigeon, that one. But he deserved better than that. At least it was quick.” 

“Do you think it’s gonna leave?” Donut asked. 

Behind me, the door continued to smash and rock under the onslaught of the screaming rage elemental.