As he spoke, Will finally used Phantom Hand for what felt like the first ti in ages.
The hand supporting the bag of arrowheads high above their heads turned upside down, spilling hundreds of arrowheads out of the bag.
And now, we’re on a tir.
Will ntally marked each of Caddock’s n as the target of an arrowhead before turning his attention to the Pants of Darting.
Pants of Darting
8 Kinesthetics
3 Acuity
15% Movent speed
Once per battle, user may drastically boost their movent speed for a short ti. Scales with Kinesthetics.
Will triggered the Ability on his pants, the world around him turning into a blur as his movent speed more than tripled.
Each step he took spat out gravel and small rocks, which he designated as projectiles targeting Caddock’s n.
The spray of stones following in Will’s wake bent in midair, accelerating to their targets, fanning out and impacting against the soldiers with the force of a warhamr.
Hundreds of small bolts of lightning sprung up around these n, before each bolt arced to ten more, creating a confusing web of brilliant flickering light and ozone that covered the entire battlefield.
Each rock hadn’t done a staggering amount of damage, but in total it was enough for the trickle of lifesteal from the Bloody Colossus armor to snap Will back to full in an instant, replacing the missing chuck of shoulder and granting a couple inches of height in the process.
Now where’s his Nuker? Will thought, scanning the battlefield with Phantom Eye and wishing he could squint.
The sheer brightness made it painful to look at.
There!
A mousy young woman on a hill overlooking the battle had six bodyguards and bore a staff, shielding her eyes from the sudden burst of light. Staffs typically boosted the Abilities of charge-heavy classes, like Necromancers, Nukers, Healers…that sort of thing.
Will skidded to a halt and slipped his hamr in his belt before he picked up a rock the size of his head and lobbed it at the Nuker.
She was about a quarter-mile away, but Hamr of God perford splendidly.
The head-sized rock that should’ve drawn a gentle arc and fallen to the ground instead accelerated, gaining speed in midair.
Typically, even with high aim correction, a projectile will eventually run out of kinetic energy and surrender to gravity.
But a self-powered, self-steering projectile?
Distance was no longer a limiting factor.
The rock got faster and faster as it crossed the distance, until it turned into a streak in the air. Then it sped up so more.
For an instant, Will spotted a cone of air forming behind it, followed by a flash of light and an explosion as the rock tore itself apart before it even arrived at its intended target.
At least so of the pieces must’ve hit because an enormous tree of lightning that dominated the horizon joined earth and sky together and made the energy circulating around them look petty by comparison.
…I’m gonna need special ammo.
That doesn’t bode well for the arrowheads.
Will scanned the hilltop while also focusing on returning his Phantom Hand to himself as quickly as possible.
The hilltop was carved away, replaced by orange-hot glass where stone had been rendered into-
KABOOOOOM!
Kaboom!
The sound of the attack landing finally made it back to them, two peals of distant thunder, one suspiciously smaller than the other.
Will glanced down at the Ring of Echoing Thunder on his finger, then up at the sky, where the arrowheads were going to be raining down from above. They still hadn’t arrived, which ant that the amount of speed and mass that they had built vastly outweighed the ager quarter-mile of Will’s previous throw…which had changed the topography of his map.
It’s going to make shockwaves…I think…I think I’m standing too close. I think everyone is standing much too close.
“LOTH IF YOU CAN HEAR GET AS FAR UNDERGROUND AS YOU CAN! TAKE WHOEVER YOU CAN! TRAVIS IF YOU’RE STILL ALIVE, SURROUND YOURSELF WITH SEVERAL FEET OF SOLID STEEL! JUNE, HIDE INSIDE MASON! MASON, SHIELDS! LOTS OF FUCKING SHIELDS!
“JASON! GET-
A bloom of white light appeared in the sky above them as the first arrowhead hit the atmosphere.
…
……
Will gasped and inhaled dust and ash, forcing a raspy croaking cough out of him, his entire body aching as he righted his twisted limbs under him.
Okay, that’s broken, Will thought, raising his head and scanning the horizon. All the plant life had been both flattened and burned, as if so giant burning hand had co down from above and crushed everything.
The sandstone ridges most exposed to the blast were still cherry-hot, rapidly losing heat while nooks and crannies were much cooler, protected from the sudden heat.
Will coughed and propped himself up on his left elbow, inspecting himself with Phantom Eye.
He had multiple bloody tears in his clothes that suggested large wounds which had been healed by lifesteal, and a dried stream of blood on his forehead from a wound on his skull that no longer existed.
LIfesteal may have been the only reason he was still drawing breath.
Clunk.
The Bloody Colossus armor fell away from his torso, turning to dust as it finally failed to withstand the punishnt he’d put it through.
Not ideal, but I can make another.
Where did my Greater Healing potion go? Will thought, searching his under-armor bandolier and coming back with sticky fingers.
Ah, it busted.
Will had more in his Phantom Hand, but it was on its way back.
Gonna take a few more minutes.
Will’s best bet at the mont was to lie low, then. Blend in with the rest of the debris and not make himself conspicuous. It would take hours for Caddock to recover from-
Poof!
…I know that poof.
It had the distinctive sound of raven feathers. About four feet away from his left side.
Will rolled, gritting his teeth as his broken arm was abused, sending fresh pain up into his body.
The ivory spear drove itself deep into the ground where Will had been laying an instant before.
“I was watching you,” Caddock said, pulling the spear out of the ground. “You seed surprised by the amount of firepower your trump card had created. Then you started telling everyone to duck and cover, so I took a small leave of absence from the battlefield.”
“You left everyone to die?” Will asked.
“Yes, but let’s be entirely honest. You’re the one that killed them.” Caddock said, winding up the spear.
Will mustered himself, gritting his teeth and putting his feet under himself just barely fast enough to dodge out of the-
NEW QUEST!
HOLD STILL A SECOND.
REWARD: 1 XP, 1 Stabbing.
Will blinked the ill-tid Quest out of his mind as a fire blood in his stomach.
Caddock had tid the feint perfectly with Will’s distraction, impaling him on the spear.
Congratulations!
You have completed the Quest:
HOLD STILL A SECOND.
Reward: 1 XP, 1 Stabbing.
It really didn’t matter who you were, when a spear went through your guts, you made an undignified ‘urk’ sound.
“Urk!” Will croaked, locking his fingers tight around the spear. His broken arm was weak, but between that and his natural Resistance, it was hard enough for Caddock to move it that the paladin left it in place and drew his off-hand weapon, aiming for Will’s neck.
Will intercepted the strike with his left forearm, sacrificing a bit of flesh to protect his neck. His Resistance might not be as strong as it had been with the Ring of Explosive Doughmaking equipped, but it was still too high for Caddock to cut through his bones.
Will didn’t have to fake the scream of pain, or the thrashing as Caddock yanked the sword out of his arm and took aim again, like a man out to thodically chop down a tree.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
During the thrashing, Will tucked his toe under a rock and flung it up and away from the two of them. The rock hurtled out into the distance, unseen by the hulking wall of muscle, gaining speed and mass, looping around behind the paladin as it did so.
Will intercepted a second attack an instant before the rock struck the back of Caddock’s head, causing a bolt of lightning to arc from the clear sky and strike the exact sa spot.
Caddock in place shuddered montarily, and Will used the opportunity to raise his feet and shove the paladin away from himself.
…Ow.
In retrospect, tensing all of his stomach muscles to raise his feet while there was a hole in them, may have been ambitious. Will only got as far as the paladin’s kneecaps before the pain caught up with him.
Will kicked the paladin’s inner leg with a feral snarl and caused the huge man to drop down on one knee.
He didn’t let go of the spear, but his grip on the sword loosened as he tried to stabilize himself, allowing Will to snatch it up.
Will was holding it by the blade, and didn’t have ti to flip it, so he copied the move he’d seen Caddock try, swinging the quillon right at the paladin’s face, cursing his broken arm’s weakness.
The sword jerked in his hand as the quillon impacted against the side of the man’s head, the sudden for cutting a bit into Will’s palm, but in exchange…sothing magical happened.
The paladin’s helt finally popped off.
Will spotted a lted hinge of so kind dangling off the back of the helt, right where the lightning bolt had hit it.
Ah, it was locked on.
The two eyed each other for a mont.
Caddock was panting with effort. More than Will had expected, given his seemingly endless stamina. There were splotches of dried blood across his scalp where he’d healed the wounds delivered by Will’s hamr. Blood pooling around his collar from when Will had gotten his lungs.
If he hadn’t been wearing a helt, he’d already be dead.
Sadly, Will wasn’t in the sa shape as he was at the beginning of the fight, so repeatedly bashing the juggernaut in the face with a warhamr wasn’t an option.
Most of his current options involved wriggling at the end of a spear like a worm on a hook.
Caddock lifted him off the ground, the spear resting Will’s entire weight on his ribcage, wrenching an involuntary scream out of him.
Caddock lood forward, and Will grabbed a piece of air with his hand, layering and compressing it like a cat’s claw before flinging the cantrip forward.
Hamr of God treated it as a projectile, and the invisible dart shot forward with far greater force, catching Caddock in the eye.
A wrist thick bolt of lightning danced across Caddock’s face, burning out his left eye and carving fractal burns across his socket.
Caddock bellowed with rage and twisted, whipping the spear around and sending Will flying, tumbling to the ground.
The pain made his grasp on consciousness dim. The distant sound of Caddock groaning in pain and popping the stopper on a potion was difficult to place any importance on.
“So your trump card was just lightning damage?” Caddock’s voice ca from sowhere above and behind where Will’s face was pressed into the dirt.
“To be fair, it’s a lot of damage, but a pure elental attack is fairly easy to counter.”
Poof!
Will grunted and rolled over onto his side, where Orev Harti was handing Caddock a potion that seed to crackle with lightning.
Aw damn.
“You wanna finish him off?” Caddock asked the teleporting ranger as he downed the potion and healed himself.
“To be perfectly honest sir, I’m afraid that kid’ll kill if I get close enough.” Orev said, watching Will like one might watch a venomous snake.
Where is Phantom Hand?
Still a minute out, even moving miles per second.
What else do I have? What can I do?
Fear is a terrain.
Will scanned the wasteland he’d created.
Caddock no longer had the leverage to kill his Party if Will escaped. There was nobody left to pin them down.
Will glanced down at his feet. The soft leather boots were still intact.
Through it all, his Dunewalkers were still hanging on.
Will put himself into the mindset of a young soldier of Caddock’s fort. He internalized the lingering fear that any of his teammates might be the Tangled in disguise. That any minute now there would be another attack, which would spell the end for all of them.
There. Will felt the terror in the pit of his stomach lock in place as the fear he cultivated matched perfectly with another person’s fear. The two stringy, colorless terrains rged across dozens of miles, creating a bridge.
The fear built up around him, and Caddock’s eyes widened. The paladin turned on the balls of his feet and charged towards Will.
The slimy, amorphous fear folded in around Will as he sank into it.
The boots DO make it easier.
An instant later the Ivory Armistice sank into the ground where William Oh used to be.
The world twisted around Will and he was ejected from the fear of a young man stationed on the wall of Caddock’s main fort.
A keening, quiet half-scream was cut off as Will seized the fear radiating from the young man, stopping his breathing.
“Healing potion.” Will rasped.
“W-What?”
“Do you have one?” Will demanded, holding his hand out expectantly.
Now, most of the rank and file hadn’t actually seen Will’s face, but when an unknown person steps through your fear and demands a healing potion, the rule of thumb is to sound the alarm.
The soldier took a deep breath, readying a scream.
Will cocked his head and raised his brows.
“H-here.” The soldier said, seemingly reconsidering his options as he fumbled a standard healing potion out of his bandolier and offering it to Will.
Regular healing potion? Well, it’s all we’ve got.
Will downed the entire thing in a breath
Sourdough
33 Charges remaining.
Will sighed in relief as the pain went from ‘beyond words’ to simply ‘unbearable’.
His fra sagged as the inferior potion drained an enormous amount of energy from his body to patch the most critical issues.
“Thanks. Jump off the wall and start running.” Will said, mustering all of his power to raise his arm and point out into the desert. “That’s all the rcy you’re going to get from .”
“O-okay.” The soldier jumped off the wall, absorbing the fall with superhuman strength and sprinting out into the morning light.
Soon as he was over the edge, Will slumped against the wall, holding his insides in as his legs gave out.
Still have a big ass hole in my stomach though…at least it’s not bleeding as bad as it was before. The healing potion and relocating like this should buy plenty of ti to get Phantom Hand back. Once I have that I can-
Poof.
“Godsdamnit.” Will groaned an instant before an impact sent him tumbling through the stone parapet, slamming into the cobbled street beneath. The potion had healed the worst of being impaled but he was too tired to put up a fight.
An armored boot caught Will’s spine and shattered the stone around him in a spiderweb pattern.
“Ow.”
“You asked how I found you?” Caddock’s voice said from just over Will’s shoulder.
“Sure did,” Will coughed, hearing Caddock move sothing on a chain from underneath his breastplate.
Phantom eye.
32 Charges remaining.
Will spotted an amulet with a needle of solidified blood that pointed straight at him. A mont later, Caddock tucked it back in his breastplate.
“From when I almost cut your head off the other day.” Caddock said. “Had so blood on my sword.”
“...Damnit.” Will had overlooked how Caddock found him so easily the first ti and now it bit him in the ass.
“Indeed.” Caddock said, grabbing Will by his neck and lifting him up. “I wasn’t planning on this, but you’ve given an excellent opportunity to execute you in front of my n. My thanks. It should make morale better if they know you’re dead.”
“No, you.” Will croaked through the paladin’s grip.
The paladin dragged Will down an alley and into the morning light, climbing onto a stage in the center of the Fort.
“GATHER ROUND!” Caddock bellowed, his voice ringing through the entire fort as he marched up the steps.
Soldiers seed to materialize around Will as hands locked around Will’s arms and legs, pushing him to the ground.
“After a week of fighting for our lives, We’ve got the one we ca for! The Deceiver! The harbinger of chaos who will bring the world to an end! Behold! William Oh, in the flesh! Let this be a lesson that legends are never as great as they seem in the minds of n, and this particular legend, it ends here!”
Caddock raised his sword above Will’s neck.
“For the future! For Granesh!”
Phantom Hand arrived beside him as the zealot’s cheers echoed through the fort, the faint blue hand invisible to all but Will.
How am I supposed to- he’s immune to lightning right now, and the physical damage won’t-
Will’s eye twitched as he realized that the Sickle of Malignant Silence had finished overwriting the Stormfist Gauntlets, probably during one of his monts of wavering consciousness.
As the sword ca down, Will slotted the Sickle of Malignant Silence.
Sickle of Malignant Silence
67 Strength
47 resistance
27 Kinesthetics
12 Acuity
118 Focus
Active: 1 Charge. Wearer may shush a target and apply a debuff that makes it significantly more difficult to speak. Duration and potency scale with Focus.
50% potency of debuff Abilities.
Debuffs inflicted by the user that have expired or been dispelled, will leave behind ‘seeds’. These seeds will regrow into new debuffs as soon as their host loses focus on them.
Number of seeds and their duration scales with Focus. Debuffs from seeds do not spawn further seeds.
Debuffs applied by the wearer also apply major Bleeding, paralysis, and psychic damage over ti.
Bleed damage is greatly increased. Scales with Focus
Debuffs applied by the wearer may spread to other enemies. Chance scales with Focus, opposed by enemy Focus.
As the sword whistled down, Will manifested Phantom Hand’s armor and held the index finger to his lips.
“Shhh.”
32 Charges remaining.
Caddock froze, his sword barely breaking the skin.
Blood vessels burst in the paladin’s wide-eyed gaze, dying his bulging eyes a deep crimson as he struggled to speak.
The blood began to weep from his eyes, then spread to his nose and mouth as a ruddy bruise began to engulf his entire body, starting from a single point between his eyes and rapidly spreading outwards as every blood vessel in his skin was ruptured.
Cries of surprise and fear rippled through the crowd as the curse spread, first with the ones holding Will down, then jumping to the closest observers, freezing them in place as they began to silently liquify from the inside out from the deadly cocktail of curses.
Those at the edge of the crowd – the wiser ones – started running, hoping to outrun the spreading curse. Will didn’t see if they succeeded or not.
…This Relic might’ve been…a bit too much.
Will slumped out of the grasp of those holding him, his trembling hand receiving a Greater Healing Potion from Phantom Hand.
Will barely had enough strength to pull the cork out between his teeth and Phantom Hand, spilling so of it over his face as he struggled to get his mouth working properly.
Sourdough
31 Charges remaining.
Will slumped forward in relief as the pain lifted. The hunger and tiredness from the inferior potion was still there, but it was a lot more tolerable when not accompanied by blinding pain.
Clunk.
Will rolled aside as Caddock’s sword struck the floor where he had been.
“I…was…right.” Caddock said, his face flickering between bruised and normal as he tried to stem the self-propagating curse with his healing magic.
“The…Tower…has…plans…for you.” Caddock gasped, struggling to pull his sword out of the wooden stage.
Will pushed himself to his feet, studying the trembling Paladin as the man’s grip failed and the sword clattered to the ground.
“But…you’re…not…leaving…This…Floor.”
Will shaped Phantom Hand’s armor into a blade and put the paladin out of his misery.
Caddock’s corpse toppled to the ground and shattered several boards in the stage under the force of it’s fall.
Will slumped in place and gave a ragged sigh among the bloated dead.
More than anything else, he wanted a nap, so cider and at least half a dozen sandwiches.
Jean!
Will lurched to his feet before grabbing himself with Phantom Hand and flying back towards the battlefield.
It was a smoky haze on the horizon, easily spotted.
Will flew fast and hard, what was left of his hair nearly shorn away by the speed.
Will landed to find his entire party, more or less alive. Even Jason and Jean were relatively unscathed.
“We got lucky,” Jason said with a big grin, leaning on Jean as Will turned towards them.
“Of course you did.”
A mont later, he turned his attention to Travis, who was creating living insectoid wheelchairs for Reggie, Alicia, and June.
The three were torn up, to the point where actual high-tier healing magic would be necessary to get them back to 100%.
“Hey, just because you didn’t see doing anything doesn’t an I didn’t do anything.” Travis said as he noticed Will’s blind stare.
“Usually that’s what that ans, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.” Will said, clapping Travis on the shoulder.
“Everyone’s accounted for.” Loth said with a nod. “Did you get him?”
“I got him.” Will said, collapsing to the ground.
Will’s attention fuzzed out for a mont as the world seed to flow around him, while the less-exhausted Party mbers made plans and preparations…until he felt a tap on his shoulder.
Phantom Eye
35 Charges remaining.
“Eh?” Will asked, looking up at Loth.
“Over there.”
On the horizon were two figures leading…several thousand more people, creating a cloud of dust as they traveled that swallowed the horizon.
“Ah crap.” Will groaned.
“They’ve got the white flag.” Loth said. Will flinched, recalling the one that had kissed his liver…
But no, these people were flying a simple white flag that seed to be crafted from a…bedsheet?
What the Abyss?
“Let’s see what they want,” Will groaned, pushing himself to his feet. “If they start any trouble I can just shush them.”
Loth raised a brow but didn’t comnt.
The two figures ca into full view. An older man and woman. They didn’t have the callous look of Climbers. Nor did they have any Kit to speak of. Their cheeks were sunken and their eyes squinting against the morning light like they’d never seen the sun.
“Are you William Oh!?” the older woman asked as they ca within earshot while her husband held up the white flag.
“That’s right.” Will said.
“You have to help us! Caddock went mad and burned the stronghold down, then he had his zealots lock everyone in underground caves without food or water! He said you would save us! Please help us! We’re starving!”
…Oh…that bastard.
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