Rogan's Monsters 3: Temple, page 7
“Where?” I barked, and both of them pointed.
There weren’t as many of the creatures this time. Perhaps Vesh hadn’t been able to summon as many as he wanted. Perhaps we had already thinned the herd of those available. Either way, there were still more than enough to take seriously. Hundreds at least, heading our way. And even though she had proven to be largely ineffective against the flyers’ strategy of dropping rocks and hurling spears, Ash never hesitated. She took up a position next to me, with the others behind us, and set herself ready for action.
But before the flyers arrived, Gamma shouted a warning. “There are more of them! Coming from that way as well!”
The princess was right. But this second group wasn’t made up of flying revenants like the first. The second group was made up of monsters, revenants like those we had faced before, but far larger, enormous beasts that seemed to be more insect than man, a fact that my AC lens confirmed within a heartbeat.
Right away, Ash turned to face this new, formidable threat, and I knew she was right to do so. Against these creatures, her size and strength would prove more useful.
But I failed to see any reason why we should waste our time and strength at all. “Ecco!” I called to the beautiful dragonfly woman. “Protect Zera and Gamma! And Camille, lend me your chi!”
Ideally, I would have chosen to merge my chi with Ecco, given how compatible the two of us were. But if for some reason the merging didn’t work, if the fight had to become physical once more, then I didn’t want to expose the noncombatants to danger.
The massive insect creatures and the flyers approached like two separate swarms, with Ash and me both at the ready, our weapons held high and eager for blood. Yet Camille responded swiftly, extending her chi toward me as she had done before, just as I reached out for her as well.
There was a moment of joining, of fusion, and this time it was easier, as if the practice we’d had made a difference. I found myself swell with the power of the gods once again, and knew that it was enough.
But this time, instead of casting power about as if I were in some sort of anime cartoon, I tried something different. With my chi merged with that of Camille, we both had an astral form that reflected our physical selves. I willed my form to grow vast, pouring chi within it rather than without, and in moments, I felt myself towering above everything, including Ash. I was a giant in chi form, and it wasn’t just me. My astral clothing had expanded as well, and so had my soul blade.
I knew without having to ask that there was power in my blade. Knew that even before I started to spin, to whirl about both on the ground in my human form, and above in my enormous astral one, that it would work. With a single swing, I sliced through the front rows of the converging flyers, scything through dozens, if not hundreds of them all at once. This time, they couldn’t get close enough to drop their rocks, to hurl their spears. This time, they were cut from the sky, falling to the ground before they could even get close.
Once more, I was the living incarnation of death, and my blade was death’s own scythe, and in mere moments the attack from the sky turned into a rout. With hundreds of their companions dead in a heartbeat, those few that survived were in disarray. I continued my spin, leaping high and scything through them again, and those few that hadn’t been caught by my impossible, godlike attack turned to flee.
Then I turned my attention to the ground assault, noting that Ash was standing her ground, smashing her club into the bug revenants with glee. I thought to stride over, a matter of a single step to help her, to sweep the Wraith’s army aside with my blade, when I saw that Camille had seen what I’d done and replicated it for herself.
Camille was a deadly assassin. A lizard woman, fierce and gifted with her blades. She stood on the ground beside me, with her spectral self towering above the both of us. But Camille had a chi gift of her own that was different from any I possessed. She could flicker in and out of existence, turning invisible in the blink of an eye, only reappearing when and where she chose.
Before my eyes, she enacted her gift, both her physical form disappearing, and her astral form as well. I didn’t know what she was planning, and didn’t want to wait, stealing myself to launch into the thick of the attacking creatures.
But Camille got there first.
All of a sudden, a great swarm of bugs was suddenly cut off, with great holes appearing in the middle of it. I knew what had happened even though I couldn’t see. Camille’s astral body had leapt into the middle of them, enough away from Ash that she wouldn’t get in the way. The bug creatures, human enough to be sentient, reacted with panic as Camille engaged in her slaughter.
It was over in seconds. No foe could stand against such overwhelming power. Camille was like a poisoned blade, swift and deadly, instantly fatal to most, coming out of nowhere to rend and slay.
Almost as one, the bug creatures started to howl, their voices inhuman, almost metallic, and just like the surviving flyers, those few that Camille and Ash left alive turned to flee.
I let go of my chi, and found myself no more than human again, barely puffing in response to the fight. Moments later, Camille reappeared as well, her physical self clean and bloodless, her knives still at the ready.
Of the three of us, only Ash had battled against Vesh’s army in her human form. It had been a quick fight, but even so, her club was once more coated in blood, and she hadn’t been able to avoid getting some of the debris on her.
The giant woman surveyed the carnage before finally accepting that we had won yet again.
Then she looked us up and down. She wiped some of the blood spaces away from her face with the back of a forearm, and studied us with a straight face.
“I really am going to have to learn that,” she said, referring to the chi union Camille and I had just shared. Quite apparently, the giant woman had seen what had happened, and understood it. “Either that, or we are going to have to find more of those hot pools. I was enjoying being clean for a change.”
10
It should have been clear to Vesh D’Agon that his forces were outmatched. When he’d faced us on the Wastes, he had failed to take even one of us, and then he had been facing little more than my sword, Ash’s club, Camille’s knives, and the more explosive of Gamma’s potions. Even then, Camille and I had managed to steal Zera away from him, whisking her out the cage he had kept her in.
And now, we had something he couldn’t hope to defend against. We had this new chi power that made us much more powerful than before.
But perhaps that only enhanced the allure. After all, he had always said he was after our chi.
But surely he could see that with this new power, it didn’t matter how many of his minions he threw at us. Within the chi union, we could defeat armies of flyers, armies of land-dwelling revenants, no matter what their genetic derivation might be. And I could do it easily. Without real effort, and without exposing my companions to risk.
Yet he wouldn’t give up. Three more times during that day, Vesh D’Agon threw his minions our way. Three more times, I reached out to Camille, trusting Ecco to keep the others safe. And three more times the two of us created fields of death where Vesh’s armies once stood.
But then, perhaps he did know. Perhaps he did understand that his armies were no match for us. Because the fourth time he attacked, just as the sun was starting to dip down to the horizon, the Wraith chose a different option.
Instead of sending his minions to their deaths, he attacked us himself.
Of course, it wasn’t in Vesh D’Agon’s nature to lead the attack. The Wraith was a creature of shadows, a puppeteer in the dark. He worked through his minions, using them to protect himself, heedless of the cost value of their lives.
In the dwindling light, he sent three of his monsters toward us.
Perhaps he had kept these revenant beasts back for the purpose, or perhaps they had simply been slow to respond to his call. Either way, the three monsters approached from different directions, each of them as big as elephant and covered in chitinous armor, their insect origins clear even without the aid of my AC lens.
By then, our pattern of response had become ingrained. At the first sign of danger, Ash, Camille, and I would take the take to the fore, with Ecco using her talent to craft a wall or a dome out of the surrounding rock to protect the others.
This time, the dragonfly girl was a little slow to react, and I understood why right away. As attacks went, this one was minor. Sure, these revenants were huge, but there were only three of them instead of the scores that had attacked us at different times during the day. Nor were they flyers, able to drop rocks on us from above.
In fact, this attack seemed so comparatively weak that I didn’t even reach out for Camille’s chi right away, instead considering our options in our normal forms.
I knew I could handle the bug monster bearing down toward me. Knew also that Ash could dispatch her opponent with relative ease. Of the three of us, perhaps only Camille would be outmatched, and even then, it would be a matter of moments before I could turn to aid her.
And, as powerful as we were within our chi union, it did drain our reserves. Which meant that it might have been best to face this small threat without resorting to such tactics.
“Camille!” I shouted as the bug monsters loomed. “Let’s do this the old-fashioned way, with the strength of our arms and the edge of our blades!”
It seemed Ash and Camille were just as eager as I was to flex their muscles after the day of relying on our chi, and they nodded in agreement.
I had no further time to plan. The bug monster was upon me.
It was a human beetle hybrid, possessing the head and torso of an ugly, mutated man with bug eyes and mouth parts, coming at me with a bastard sword as large as my own, the creature’s torso joined onto oversized bug parts as if it was some sort of huge, perverted bug centaur. And it was swift, scuttling over the rocks on insectoid legs, a monster of nightmare dimensions that my AC lens obligingly defined.
Class: Human/Insect mutation
Dominant DNA: Human (44%) Goliath Beetle (23%)
Additional DNA: Wraith, Hippopotamus, Centipede, Cockroach, + assorted others (33%)
Height: 9’5”
Weight: 405 pounds
Level: VI
But I was swift as well, even without forming a chi union with Camille. I swung my sword around to build its momentum and launched into a sequence of steps designed to bring me close to the monster’s left side, then across in front of it in a single fluid motion. I had to duck down mid step to avoid the monster’s blade, but my own struck true, lopping off one of the monster’s legs at the knee joint.
Green blood splattered as I kept my blade whirling, stepping about in a quick circle and lunging forward. The bug monster let out a piercing shriek that showed no sign of humanity and raised its own blade to parry.
At the last moment, I sent some of my chi into my soul blade and watched as my weapon sheared through my opponent’s sword almost as if it wasn’t there, taking a good chunk of the creature’s shoulder as well.
I knew that a single additional spinning attack would bring the brief fight to an end, and even knew the sequence of steps I would take to achieve it. With the combat zone littered with jagged boulders, I intended to use one to step up, and change the angle of my blade as I did. But before I did so, I took a quick moment to check on the others, and saw that Ash had been even more direct than me, bludgeoning her opponent to the point where its chitinous shell was broken, and it struggled to remain upright on legs that were shattered.
It was harder to gauge Camille’s progress, as she had made use of her talent, disappearing mostly from view, only to flicker in and out as she attacked her opponent’s weak points with her blade. This monster seemed to be part praying mantis, and while it held no traditional weapon, it struck out again and again, seeking contact. But Camille was swift and knew how to stay out of danger.
I had underestimated the lizard woman. It looked as if she would defeat her opponent with comparative ease even if I wasn’t able to help.
Satisfied that we had it all under control, and proud of both Camille and Ash, I completed the steps I had planned and brought my oversized blade down at an angle, shearing through the revenant’s human torso, divesting it from the bug parts, before landing lightly back on the ground.
The creature’s shrieking cry cut off as if with a blade, but the monstrous, headless abdomen and thorax continued to stumble about without direction. With my blade still whirling about, I took care of that by taking out the remaining legs, giving it nowhere to go.
I was about to head over to Camille when I heard it.
A scream coming from one of the others.
Ecco had fashioned a wall behind which she and the others had crouched, away from the perceived danger. But now I could see that it wasn’t enough. Somehow, Vesh had approached, unsensed by Camille, myself, or anyone else, his black inky magic spreading over the ground. As I watched in growing horror, I saw Gamma scrabble away from the wall Ecco had created, while Zera and Ecco both took to the sky.
The fear on their faces was plain, but of the two of them, Zera was luckier. Before I could so much as move to intercept, Vesh cast a noose of his inky dark power toward Ecco, and I watched as that magic settled around the dragonfly girl’s ankle.
As if he had all the time in the world, the Wraith started to reel Ecco in, and spoke to all of us in his calm, sibilant voice. “I told you all that your strength will be added to that of my Queen. This one is just the beginning. I will return for the rest of you as I will.”
With that, the monster turned and fled, towing Ecco behind him like a balloon on a string, the dragonfly girl trying her best to get away, slapping her fragile wings as she screamed in pure terror.
11
I could move at frightening speeds simply by lightening my feet and using those steps designed to cover huge amounts of ground very quickly. But I knew that Vesh was faster. I didn’t know if the Wraith had mastered some technique that enabled his speed, or if he managed it somehow with his magic. All I knew was that at the rate at which Vesh fled, I would never be able to catch him.
Not unless I did something drastic.
I didn’t waste a moment on doubt. I knew that if I wallowed in uncertainty for even a few seconds, my window might close. All that mattered was that Vesh had taken Ecco, and I could still hear her panicked scream as they sped into the distance.
So I acted. Without pausing to think, to even consider if what I intended was possible, I hurled my sword high into the air, letting it pull me along behind it. High in the sky with the multicolored aurora all around me, I turned like a cat, spinning around at the apex of my leap, and fixed my eyes on my target.
I wanted that target to be Vesh D’Agon, but he was already too far away. So I focused on the next best thing.
Camille’s opponent. She had largely crippled it, taking out most of its legs. But with the praying mantis’ strikes, combined with its sheer size and chitinous hide thicker than the skin of a rhino, she wasn’t having much luck dispatching it.
But then, she didn’t have a soul blade like mine.
The obscene revenant’s attention was still drawn by the flickering Camille. It didn’t even consider that it might get attacked from a second direction, and hadn’t so much as looked up before my bastard sword sliced once, twice and three times within a single heartbeat of time, slicing through its shell as if through nothing but air.
I touched down lightly on a rock next to the monster, noting that it was larger than the one I had faced. Out of no more than a sense of efficiency, to make sure the huge creature knew it was dead, I turned and lopped off its head as well. Then, as casually as if I could see her, I held out a hand to where I thought Camille might have been.
I wasn’t panicked. If anything, I felt a cold, hard, sense of determination. I knew what I had to do if I was ever to see Ecco again.
“Lend me your chi,” I demanded even as Camille appeared beside me, her daggers already sheathed as she took my hand in her own.
The assassin had either heard or seen Vesh D’Agon abscond with the dragonfly girl, and her intent was clear. Perhaps Camille hadn’t formed as close a relationship with Ecco as she had with Gamma, or even Ash or myself. But by then, we had each saved each other’s lives on multiple occasions.
Ecco was part of the party, and Camille was just as determined to retrieve her as I was.
I felt the lizard woman’s chi reach out to my own, and within moments, we had formed our union once more. As always, it was electric, as if I had plugged myself into a power plant and pumped up my own chi power by a hundred times or more.
But having power was one thing. Knowing how to use it was another. For a few precious seconds, I stood there, contemplating my options. I could call a bolt of lightning from the heavens and do my best to turn Vesh D’Agon into dust where he stood. But that would endanger Ecco, and so wasn’t an option.
Instead, almost out of desperation, I hurled my sword before me one-handed, filling it with chi, and lightening my feet at the same time. With Camille clasped close to me so that I would not lose contact, I found that it worked. The two of us shot forward, covering a hundred feet in an instant before petering out. Camille stumbled against me, surprised by the move, but I wasn’t done. I found myself grinning madly as I drew my arm back, pumped more chi into my blade than ever before, and repeated the move.
The two of us sailed across the rocky, volcanic landscape as smoothly as skaters might glide across a lake made of ice, ignoring jagged boulders and everything else as if they didn’t exist.
I knew in that moment that I could do it. That with Camille beside me, I, sharing her chi, I was quicker than Vesh.
But he was hardly slow, and had not relaxed. My second burst of speed sputtered and died before we had caught him. But I knew it was just a matter of time, and wound up again, once more hurling myself forward, determined to reach my target.
