Chapter 192 - Escort Mission (Patreon)

From atop a sizable hill, Abby watched the horde’s progress. The zombies and other assorted undead looked like a dark patch on the horizon, but with the increased visual acuity that came with her racial evolution, she could just make out enough details that the scene all but set itself. The undead were on the move, and at least part of the horde had begun the long trek from the more temperate regions of the Radiant Isles to the desert. And presumably, to Jariq.

It made something of a mockery of her current task; escorting the refugees to the relative safety of the desert city was, at best, a temporary measure. At worst, she was only giving them false hope and a few extra days before they succumbed to the undead threat. To call it frustrating would have been an understatement, and for a moment, Abby considered simply abandoning the mission. Perhaps she could bring the group with her back to the tower, and they could eventually make their way to the coast where they could eventually find safety in the port city of Salvation.

But was that even really an option? Never mind that she wasn’t even certain that she wanted to be stuck with the refugees for that long – would Zeke be okay with it? Would he choose to slow down his own progress just to save a group of strangers that had already proven themselves an annoyance? Maybe if his first meeting hadn’t been so tainted; the mob was harmless to Abby and her companions, but they didn’t know that. Instead, they’d laid an ineffectual siege to the tower. If Abby had been a less moral person, she might’ve rid herself of the nuisance straight away. It wouldn’t have even been that difficult.

“We must move,” urged Alex, the so-called leader of the refugees. He was an annoying man who’d gained his position by virtue of being the highest leveled person in the group. Abby much preferred dealing with Geraldine, but the other woman had chosen to suborn herself to the man. Abby understood it. In the middle of a war, it was easy to follow the strong. He glanced toward the horizon, adding, “The horde will be upon us soon.”

“We have a few days,” she said. “They don’t move very quickly. Besides, Jariq is only a day away.”

“And the other monsters?”

Abby shook her head. The man was terrified of the desert – or more accurately, he thought every step would bring with it a monstrous attack. For someone like him – or for the rest of the refugees, who were all civilians – it was probably a smart attitude. However, Abby found it difficult to take his concerns seriously. After all, when she and her companions had first reached the desert, they hadn’t been much higher-leveled than him. And they had survived – no, they had thrived, regardless of their comparative strength. As such, it was difficult for Abby not to interpret his caution as rank cowardice.

But that wasn’t fair, was it? She and her friends were far from normal, and they could handle threats far more dangerous than their levels would indicate. Not everyone was like that. She knew that as well as anyone. So, why did she feel the way she felt?

Of course, she knew the answer, even if she didn’t want to admit it. By nature, people judged others based on their own experiences. It was exceedingly difficult to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to look at things from their perspective. It had been the case back on Earth, and it seemed doubly true in the Radiant Isles, where power discrepancies were more concrete than monetary worth or social standing.

Abby wasn’t immune to either, in her current world or the last. But she wanted to be better. She wanted to push her tendency to look down on others to the side and treat people equally. However, she wasn’t always as successful as she wanted to be. Sometimes, those tendencies crept up and ambushed her without her realization. The only solution was for Abby to be on her guard, to be vigilant as she looked out for the problem.

“Come on,” she said, starting down the hill. It was comprised of scree, sand, and jagged rocks, but she picked her way down the steep slope with relative ease. A benefit of her high agility and dexterity, she thought. “We still have some daylight left.”

Alex followed, though not nearly as nimbly, and a couple of times, he nearly slipped. Abby was ready to catch him, but miraculously, he managed his way to the bottom without falling. For her part, Abby waited, her frustration with his slow pace evidenced by her tapping foot until he finally joined her. Then, together, they made their way back to the group.

Carlos met them when they arrived, asking, “See anything?”

She shook her head at the handsome man, saying, “No. It’s clear for miles, but there’s a horde about ten miles away. They’re slow-moving, though.”

“Do we need to do a preemptive strike?” he asked. “We could choose our ground. I’m sure we –”

“We can outrun them just fine,” Abby stated. “I’ve fought them before. They’re extremely slow. We could drop these people off and be gone before they got halfway to the city.”

He ran his hand through his jet-black hair. “And then what?” he asked. “We just abandon Jariq to the undead? I don’t know if I can do that, Abby.”

Looking away, she let out a long-suffering sigh. It was the same as with Zeke. There was almost no benefit to attacking the horde of undead. Sure, they’d get a little experience, but beyond that, they’d be putting themselves in danger for almost no reason at all. Other than the safety of the citizens of Jariq, of course. But hadn’t they already done enough for the those people? Abby and her companions had risked everything to help them, and they’d even cleared most of the city when Jariq’s own elites had been arguing over who was going to fight Pudge. Wasn’t it time the city learned to protect itself?

She shook her head. No. If it was just her, she would have long since headed back to the tower. The biggest reason she had chosen to escort the refugees in the first place was because she was bored; with Zeke spending so much time in the caustic area around the lake, she and the others hadn’t had many ways to occupy their time.

Now, though?

It felt as if she had volunteered to babysit a bunch of people who should have been capable of taking care of themselves.

And she felt certain that, regardless of what she chose, Carlos would attack the undead army. Jariq was his city, and even before they’d met, he’d spent much of his time protecting its citizenry. Sure, he did it, at least partially, out of a misguided desire to emulate a comic book superhero, but he also cared deeply about the people of the city. And he wouldn’t abandon them in their time of need – not when he could do something about it, at least.

So, it seemed that she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

“Talia’s still out there, isn’t she?” Abby asked. The revenant girl had attempted stealth, but she hadn’t escaped Abby’s notice. Nor had she been capable of hiding from Carlos.

Carlos nodded. “She fought some desert wolves yesterday,” he said. “I thought I was going to have to step in to help her, but she made it through okay.”

“She’ll protect the refugees, then,” Abby said, assuming that Talia would continue to do what she’d been doing all along. The group of refugees had gone largely unmolested, almost entirely due to Talia’s constant vigilance. The girl was angry, confused, and a little lost, but when she set herself on a path, she followed it with single-minded focus. As such, she’d killed anything that might threaten the group, all without the refugees even knowing she was shadowing them. If they’d known, it probably wouldn’t have been a very peaceful march.

“We should tell her we’re heading out,” Carlos suggested.

Abby agreed, then turned to the gathered refugees. She raised her voice so they all could hear and said, “Carlos and I are going to go deal with a threat. We have a friend shadowing us, so you should be protected. I’ll use my skill, [Makeshift Camp] that should help protect you, but you still need to be on watch.”

Alex, who’d been hovering nearby, said, “A friend? Who? The armored warrior?”

“Sure,” Abby said, not wanting to alarm the man by telling him that they were being protected by an undead. “You should be fine until we get back, though.”

After that, it took a few more minutes to address the refugees’ various concerns, most of which centered on them not wanting to be left alone. Abby shut them down as gently as she could, and, after using [Makeshift Camp], eventually left them behind. She couldn’t deny that she was grateful that she didn’t have to deal with them anymore. Or at least not for a while.

As she jogged through the desert, Carlos kept pace with her. Eventually, he said, “You see them as a burden, don’t you?”

“Aren’t they?” she asked.

“They’re people,” was his response.

“People who happen to be a burden,” she argued. “I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but that’s what they are. They can’t protect themselves. They add nothing of worth. They’re just dead weight who need others to protect them. I’ll do it, but you can’t expect me not to be annoyed by it.”

“That’s a callous way of looking at it,” he stated. “If you took some time to get to know them, you would –”

“I don’t want to get to know them,” Abby interrupted. It was a strange dichotomy that had slowly begun to envelop her mind. On the one hand, she empathized with the monsters they routinely killed, usually by the hundreds. The memory of how she’d killed the village of gnolls still kept her up at night. But when it came to people? It was exceedingly difficult for her to look at them and see anything but people who’d squandered the opportunities their new life had given them.

Back on Earth, getting ahead wasn’t easy. Sure, it was possible, but a host of social and economic issues made climbing the ladder more difficult than it probably should have been. As a result, many people were stuck, one generation after another, in the lower class. However, in the Radiant Isles, if someone wanted to succeed, there was a clear, quantifiable method to do so. They merely had to work for it.

That’s how Abby had succeeded, and she thought of herself as a shining example of what was possible. She had overcome a host of barriers, and now, she was one of the more powerful people in the world. It felt almost galling that others couldn’t do the same. She could almost hear her grandfather complaining about people not pulling themselves up by “their own bootstraps” anymore, which made her very cognizant of the dangers of that line of thinking.

She tried to ignore it. She wanted to push it aside. But the best Abby could do was sequester it in the back of her mind where she hoped it wouldn’t influence her too much. Luckily, they soon reached a hill that would hopefully prove to be an ideal spot for an ambush. The sides, which were lined with boulders and scree, were steep enough that the uncoordinated zombies that made up the bulk of the host would be ill-suited for the climb. If everything went right, they would be perfect targets for her arrows and Carlos’s shadow spears. So, the pair set up and waited.

The sun was high in the sky when their vigil began, but it soon dipped toward the horizon as dusk overtook the daylight hours, casting the entire desert into shadow. Given the nature of Carlos’s skills, such an environment boded well for their ambush.

Finally, the first zombies shambled into view. In many ways, they were no different from the undead she and Zeke had fought what felt like a lifetime ago. Rotting, ambulatory corpses that displayed none of the casual grace of the living. However, to Abby, the seemed stronger. Faster. More coordinated. It might have been her imagination, but these zombies looked like elite versions of what they’d experienced in the north.

“Two golems,” Carlos whispered, referring to the hulking mounds of flesh in the center of the horde. “I see four reapers, too. Otherwise, it’s all zombies.”

Abby didn’t ask why the man seemed familiar with the different sorts of zombies; clearly, he’d run into them before – not an uncommon thing for adventurers. Instead, she said, “Concentrate fire on the reapers. They’re the fastest, so they need to go down first. Then, we move to the golems. Zombies last. Got it?”

“Got it.”

With that, the pair readied themselves for combat. Abby’s bow unfolded from her glove, and she conjured a silvery arrow. Carlos didn’t carry weapons, so he simply crouched on the hill, staring at the approaching undead army. It took another half hour for the horde to amble into range, and when it did, Abby nocked her arrow, drew back the string, and let loose. Before the first arrow hit her target – hundreds of yards away – another four were in the air. One after another in the space of a couple of seconds, the silvery arrows hit their target – the biggest reaper of the bunch. The robed and hooded creature was rocked backward, its scythe falling to the ground as the energy of Abby’s skill, [Thunder Strike] built. She held the resulting lightning at bay until the last arrow buried itself in the reaper’s chest. And then, she released her grip.

A huge pillar of lightning descended from the sky, an echo of thunder following in its wake. It tore into the reaper, throwing it into the air and burning it to a crisp. When it landed amongst the zombies, it was still alive, but it was grievously wounded. That’s where Carlos stepped in, sending one [Shadow Spear] after another into the undead monster. Grimacing in concentration, he pushed mana into the skill before, finally, activating [Shadow Explosion].

Umbral blades erupted from the spears, obliterating the wounded reaper and scything through the surrounding zombies. Curiously, the attack wasn’t nearly as effective as Abby had expected. Certainly, it had made a dent in the horde, but most of the zombies were merely wounded, as opposed to the obliteration she had anticipated.

Perhaps her perception of the zombies wasn’t as imagined as she had thought. Maybe they truly were more powerful versions of the undead foot soldiers she’d experienced before. Not that it mattered. They were committed to the battle, now.

The zombies darted forward – the result of the unevolved version of [Alacrity of Undeath] that activated when the creatures sensed prey – covering ground with enviable speed. As they did, Abby shifted her focus to the other reaper, sending one arrow after another toward the hooded monster.

Most missed, now that it was aware of the danger, but enough hit their mark that Abby was soon able to release another devastating lightning bolt and put the monster out of commission. It flew into the horde of zombies, injured but still alive – at least insomuch as any undead creature lived. She couldn’t see it amidst the tide of rotting flesh, so she shifted her focus to the golems.

Already, the zombies had reached the hill, and they’d begun to climb it with far more alacrity than she’d expected.

“This is going to be a lot harder than we thought,” she muttered.

“Yeah,” said Carlos. “Retreat?”

“I think that’s our only option,” Abby responded. “They’re going to follow us, you know.”

“Nothing we can do about it now,” he stated. “C’mon. Before they get any close.”

Abby sighed, hating that she was leaving the job unfinished. But she couldn’t argue with the necessity of retreat. Neither she nor Carlos were suited for close-quarters combat. If the zombies reached them, they would be swarmed in a matter of minutes. And then, they would die. Retreat left a bad taste in her mouth, but it was the only option.

So, without any other debate, the pair turned and ran down the other side of the hill, leaving the slavering horde of rotting monsters behind.