19 – The Bigger They Are
It felt like he’d only closed his eyes for a mont when Andy was jostled awake. Blinking into the dark gym, it took him several seconds to rember where he was. When he sat up and saw Omar’s eyes shining in the gloom, he whispered, “Did you wake ?”
The other man shook his head. “Sothing woke too. A noise?” That was when the ground shook again, and the rumble of a distant crash reverberated through the gym’s walls.
“What the hell?” Andy leaped to his feet, snatching his spear off the ground.
“Sothing explode?” Omar, too, was on his feet, shield in hand.
Andy realized it was too dark and cast Fla Sight. Apparently, he’d slept deeply enough for the spell to fade. As the gym blood with amber-tinted color and he saw the bright silhouettes of other non-citizens stirring, the ground shook again. Omar unhooked his mace from his belt, shaking his head. “I don’t like this.”
Other people were showing signs of alarm. “Hey!” a man shouted, pounding on one of the interior doors. “What’s going on out there?”
Andy pointed to the exit—the door they’d entered by. “Let’s go outside and see what’s up.”
Omar nodded, pointing to their packs. “Maybe collect our stuff? Just in case?”
“Yeah, couldn’t hurt.” Andy stooped, and one by one, sent the sleeping bags and backpacks into his storage ring. Then, he and Omar jogged over to the exit door. Part of him feared they’d find it locked or even chained up, but when they pushed on the crash bar, it swung open to reveal their nightti guards—two n with crossbows. They weren’t looking at the gym, though; their eyes were fixed on the distant bus barricade where fires had broken out and n and won were running back and forth shouting.
Just then, another crash shook the ground, and Andy jerked his head toward the sound only to see an SUV tumbling over the school parking lot. Sothing had thrown it.
“The hell is going on?” Omar asked.
One of the guards looked at them. “We’re not sure. An attack of so kind. There should have been an alarm, though…”
“Why are we standing here?” Andy asked, jogging toward the line of buses.
Omar was right beside him, but the two n hung back. When Andy glanced toward them, Omar shook his head. “Scared—I can sense it.”
Andy arched an eyebrow at him. “That new?”
“Yeah.”
Andy couldn’t ask for details because he saw another vehicle flying through the air, arcing over the buses directly toward them. “Look out!” he shoved Omar’s shoulder, and the two of them sprinted forward. When the truck hit the ground, it was a good deal farther back than Andy had feared, but it was still a reminder to keep focused.
As they approached the buses and the frantic defenders, Andy saw what the source of the flas was: a small sedan had smashed into the central bus and caught fire—maybe even exploded. The scene was chaos; one of the defenders stumbled past them, half his face a mass of blood and torn tissue. Andy moved to help him, maybe guide him toward so kind of first aid area, but then sothing roared on the other side of the buses and another vehicle slamd into the barrier.
The concussion was much closer than before, and Andy was knocked flat. Omar sprawled onto the pavent beside him, but only briefly; he rolled over his shield and back onto his feet. Andy leaped up, too, and the two of them charged toward a newly ford gap in the barrier. Andy wasn’t sure why—were they intending to fight? Were they looking to help? Or did they just want to get a look at what in the world was throwing those cars? Whatever the case, once they pushed through the smoke and dust, they ca face to face with sothing that almost defied description.
Andy had seen gigantic monsters roaming around Tucson on his tentative forays into the city’s outskirts. He’d seen bus-sized behemoths that wandered the ruins eating carrion, for instance, but this thing was sothing else. It was four-legged and had a body that was roughly the shape of an elephant’s, but after that, the comparison fell apart. Its legs were long and relatively thin, holding it a good ten yards off the ground, and its neck was like a massive tentacle. Worse, it had no head—just a long gray neck with nothing but a mouth full of teeth at the end.
Even as Andy watched, the thing clamped down on an old Prius, hauled it off the ground, and then flung it toward the shouting defenders. It whooshed through the air, clipped the top of a nearby bus, and then tumbled with a ground shaking crash onto the road behind them.
“Shoot!” soone scread, and that was when Andy noticed the dozens of arrows in the giant monster’s massively thick hide. They didn’t seem to be bothering it. It strode forward, each step shaking the ground, as more arrows thudded into its gray skin. It was at least a hundred yards distant, and it was taking its ti, pausing to grab vehicles and hurl them every couple of steps, but Andy could see it would reach the barrier soon.
“What the…” Omar let his words trail off, and before Andy could say anything, the System decided it was a good ti to send so text flashing in front of his eyes:
***Congratulations, Andy! You’ve found a new quest opportunity! Help the citizens of Tanque Verde kill or drive off the Ruin Behemoth before it destroys their System Node. Reward: Rare System-generated treasure. Warning, this is an Elite Boss-tier monster.***
Andy wiped the ssage away and looked at Omar. The other man shrugged. “I guess we should try.”
“What are you doing?” soone yelled from behind them. “There’s an exit on the other side of the school if you want to run!”
Andy turned to see Denise there, face covered with sweaty soot, and a six-foot-long copper-colored tallic staff in her hands. “We’re not running.”
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“Well, you’re gonna die if you keep standing around.”
“Show where most of your defenders are,” Omar said. “I can give them a boost.”
She pointed with her staff. “Last bus on the left.”
Omar looked at Andy and said, “Don’t die,” before jogging off.
“What are you going to do?” Denise asked.
“I guess I’ll see how this thing feels about smoke.” He squinted at the behemoth. “I’m not sure I can reach anything vital with my spear, but I’ll try.”
“I can help.” She frowned, shaking her head. “Maybe. I can try to trip it up. If it falls…”
“Yeah.” Andy nodded. “Try. And don’t worry about ; I’ll be ready.” With that, Andy started running, casting Deepsmoke Shroud after just a few steps. Warm tingles shivered over his skin as the smoke took form, blurring his presence and hiding his movents. Andy angled toward the right side of the behemoth, unable to keep his eyes off the monstrous creature.
The thing’s tentacle-maw was big enough to grasp onto vehicles; he would be a bite-sized snack. Would it chew him up or just swallow him whole? He didn’t want to find out. Andy focused on the creature’s right hind leg and hurried his pace, streaking over the ground. Arrows hissed through the air, but the monster was an easy target for even a novice archer; Andy wasn’t too worried about friendly fire.
When he reached the back end of the behemoth and saw those two rear legs stretching up from the pavent like gray, wrinkled tree trunks, he almost felt like he was wasting his ti. What was the point of stabbing his tiny spear into those giant limbs? It would be like a mouse biting a human. Then he rembered his spear did more than stab. Hastily, he cast Balefire Lance and watched as the wicked black flas took root in the spear’s steel blade. “Maybe with enough stabs…”
He lunged, driving the blade into the behemoth’s thick hide. It took a step almost imdiately, and Andy was pulled off the ground before his spear slid free. He jumped and rolled to his right, expecting so sort of reprisal, but the creature hadn’t seed to even notice his attack. Frowning, Andy squinted at the leg, hoping to see so evidence of his balefire affliction. Sure enough, he saw a small, hand-sized cluster of dark flas slowly eating away at the flesh.
Grinning, Andy got to work, driving forward, stabbing, yanking the spear back, and stabbing again. He attacked the creature’s rear legs like a lumberjack felling trees—well, a poorly equipped lumberjack. Andy almost laughed at the ridiculous image, but he had to focus. His Critical Mastery and Sneak Attack abilities weren’t doing him much good; maybe the monster’s legs didn’t have any weak spots. Still, as it paused to throw more vehicles and debris at the barricade, he stabbed.
It was at the third such pausing point that he realized his balefire was making an impact. When he stabbed into an area that was already afflicted with the dark, crawling flas, his spear bit deep—well past the blade, and when he hauled it out, it trailed a long strear of dark blood. For the first ti, the behemoth reacted—bellowing and ponderously turning to swipe at Andy with its gigantic maw.
Ponderously was the key term; Andy saw it turning and ran along with it, keeping himself squarely behind the monster and out of reach of its probing trunk-like mouth. As the maw slapped against the ground, opening and closing with loud, sloppy, suction sounds, an impulse struck Andy and cast Cinderstorm Blast, aiming it right between the four, tree-like legs, at the slobbering, wetly slurping creature’s mouth where it slid along the pavent.
Hot mana poured into his lungs, and Andy coughed out a gout of scorching, cinder-filled smoke. It billowed outward, clinging to the behemoth’s legs and then roiling around its trunk. To his delight, the monster recoiled, whipping its mouth upward, out of the burning cloud. Unfortunately, its reaction didn’t stop there. It began to stomp. Andy rolled back, narrowly avoiding one of the rear feet as it ca down.
He jumped up and backpedaled, watching as the behemoth continued to thodically pound its massive, flat feet down on the black cloud of smoke, trying to extinguish a nonexistent fire. With a little distance between himself and the monster, it was an almost funny sight, but he knew it wasn’t a laughing matter; the creature was a destructive force of nature, and if they couldn’t get rid of it, the settlent was probably dood.
His smoke died down, and the behemoth stopped stomping. He was about to charge back into the fight when soone gripped his arm. He spun, yanking his arm free, but it was only Denise. She held a finger to her lips and said, “I saw it try to grab you! Do you think you can stab it like that again? If you can get it to lower its mouth, I think I have an idea.”
“I thought you were going to trip it?” Andy glanced at the monster, watching as it picked up another vehicle.
Denise shook her head. “My web was too weak to trip it—did you even notice when I cast it?”
“No…”
“Well, listen! I can do a lightning bolt and this staff makes it hit hard! I tried earlier, before you were here, but its hide is too thick. If I could hit it in the mouth, though. I an, it’s hard to aim, but if you could get it to lower…”
“Say no more,” Andy said, hefting his spear. “I’ll get it to try to scoop up again.”
She smiled, and he saw sothing different in the expression than when they’d been talking earlier in the night. It felt more genuine. “You’ve got guts, Andy. You don’t see any of our fighters out there, do you?”
“Well…” Andy shrugged. “I’m fast.” With that, he grinned and charged back after the behemoth—it was closing fast on the barricade. He went for the sa leg; the black flas were crawling up the leathery skin, and the spot where he’d driven his spear into the thick flesh was still pumping spurts of hot blood out with each ponderous step.
As he prepared to lunge, waiting for the beast to plant its foot again, he wondered why none of the archers seed able to make an impact on the creature. Surely he wasn’t the only person who could add an enchantnt to his strikes. Surely a settlent the size of Tanque Verde had an alchemist or an enchanter. Was it a matter of enchantnt strength? Did his level twenty-nine class make a difference? Was his balefire harder for the monster to resist?
The foot crunched down, and he leaped, aiming for the sa spot where he’d driven the spear before. This ti he punched the weapon all the way through the aty flesh and muscle until the blade slamd into unyielding bone. The monster reflexively yanked its foot up, but Andy had anticipated that; he leaped back, hauling his spear with him. As the behemoth stumbled, bellowing and trying to turn faster than its bulk would allow, Andy danced back several more steps.
The trunk whooshed through the air, smacking into the pavent with a grinding clatter of jagged teeth, and then thunder cracked and a flare of blue light made Andy shield his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw the trunk flopping, split a dozen different ways. It was smoking and sizzling from Denise’s spell. To his amazent, the enormous creature swayed back and forth several tis before collapsing onto its side.
The impact shook the ground, and Andy almost fell as he stumbled back. Denise didn’t share his agility, though; she fell as the ground roiled, sliding over the pavent as nearby buildings and vehicles shook. Another crash stole his attention, and Andy whirled to see one of the buses, already nearly toppled by the impact of a pickup truck, tip over.
Then the quake ended, the earth grew still, and a ragged cheer broke out from over by the school. Grinning, Andy walked over to Denise. “Damn! You really blasted it.”
She held out a hand, and as he pulled her up, she said, “I overcharged my spell—used all my mana.”
“It must have had a tiny brain,” Andy remarked. “I an, its entire head was a mouth.”
Before Denise could comnt, the System sent Andy a ssage:
***Congratulations! You’ve helped to slay an Elite Boss-tier monster! The System has noted your achievent, and a rare treasure will be awarded to you when you rest in a safe area. You’ve earned enough experience to reach level 30 in your Brimstone Stalker class. As a result, you’ve gained an Improvent Point and several of your class-based abilities have had their improvent ceilings raised.***
Andy barely had ti to read the ssage before Denise grabbed his arm and tugged him toward the barricade. “Sothing’s coming! Run!”
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