Born a Monster

One may wonder, in a culture that favored axes, why Victor chose to come after me with a spear. The answer is simple; reach, or striking distance.

Against someone with shorter arms, someone who needs to close in order to strike at you, the option to keep in range for your strikes while avoiding those of your opponent can mean an easy victory.

After all, his Might and Valour were both greater than mine, and while he was no Tomas Istre, Victor had some skill with a spear. He wielded it two handed, using the haft to block my strikes, whenever he didn’t just step back and thrust at me.

Behind me, Madonna cursed as the archers didn’t go up like candlesticks.

I danced behind my shield, moving forward and to the right. He rotated to meet me.

If the fatigue of a day marching through the woods had any effect on him, it certainly wasn’t slowing him down. To be fair, my day of marching wasn’t slowing me, either.

He thrust at my left foot, forcing me around him, and began laughing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the archers, screaming, going down under a mob of shadows, the darkest of which had his throat.

I saw Madonna cursing, pulling an arrow from her hip. She turned her head and spit.

.....

Victor almost tagged me as I dodged left. Don’t ask me how my wild strike upward with the mace parried that, save that I was short and lucky.

Or not, there was a distinct crack when the hafts of the weapons met, and Victor’s smile told me it hadn’t been his weapon that would need repair later.

“You have him?” Sigmund asked.

“I have him, slay the beast.”

I struck in that moment, and Victor danced backward, out of reach. His counter-attack was toward my right, and rotating inward rather than away brought us close.

I tried for a shield slam into his gut, and had to duck as he spun his spear like a staff at my head. Bardic and flashy, but not practical in a real fight, which only confirmed that Victor was toying with me.

He tried to spin behind me, drawing my attention away from the remaining archer. It may have been deliberate, swinging us so that I had to see the jarl approaching the helpless and unmoving form of Blackfur.

Crap, the only hand I had half-free was my left. So I risked an opening to focus the last of my Dream mana. “Awaken.”

Blackfur sprung to her feet, and roared. It would have been impressive if she hadn’t puked just then.

Victor thrust at the point where both jacket and pants of the gambeson overlapped over my hip. It may have been deliberate, for the sheer power of the attack hurled me backward into a bush, and my severed belt fell away.

I rolled under his next blow, ineffectively taking a swipe at where his knee wasn’t.

Madonna sat with her back against a tree, front of her shirt stained crimson. Her lips were moving, possibly an invocation.

The jarl and Blackfur moved too rapidly for my eye to follow, not in the time I had.

At least when I had to spin and put my shield between his spear-point and my torso, I saw no remaining archers.

He brought his stance and spear forward, attempting to knock me into the same brush as before. I knocked the point aside with my shield, and landed a noisy blow against his breastplate. That would leave a nasty bruise, but it wasn’t going to turn the tide.

It did, however, end the playful nature of Victor. Suddenly, the point of his spear seemed to be everywhere, driving me backward among the trees, through the edges of bushes whose limbs snapped like twigs.

My ankle struck an exposed root, and I had to jump to avoid a stumble.

[You have taken twelve points of piercing damage. After armor, you have received six damage. 14/30 health remain.]

He continued driving me back, re-oriented his spear tip to match the angle of my ribs. My next strike he parried, trying to rotate the weapon out of my hand.

“Woden is the god of battle, he watches this; where is your Pongo now?”

I took a swing at his jaw, below the helmet. He didn’t even have to pull back.

The impact of a tree trunk forced a “whup” from me. He struck two swift blows, both of which took divots from my shield. I stepped in, my swing colliding with his haft, sliding down it to clang off his metal glove.

He struck me with a fist.

WHAT? That really happened outside of song and legend?

[...two damage. 12/30 health remain.]

We were both breathing ragged, and neither of us expected what came next. As he moved forward, a piece of shadow darted forward, seizing his armored ankle, then another. He didn’t even stumble, raising his spear in preparation of striking at the new opponents.

I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know THAT I was thinking, not beyond NOT PUFFBALL. Even as I rushed forward, I knew I couldn’t be fast enough.

[Optional goal partially failed, Blackfur’s children must survive. 7/8 quest points still available...]

If Woden was watching, he would have been appalled. Not of his champion, striking down an enemy with precision and speed, but of what I did with that opening.

I jumped high, smashed my mace against the upper breastplate as hard as I could.

He didn’t cough up blood, nor spit phlegm; nor did he need to.

Like most amulets, enchanted amber has to be worn OUTSIDE the armor to be effective. Even as he raked the back of his spear-point up my left thigh, doing enough damage to inflict a BLEEDING condition, I extended a hand, focusing Fire mana to my will.

The safest way to use magic is by ritual. It is a matter of minutes and hours, and obviously cannot be used in battle. Next is invocation, a full recital that gives away what you’re doing and can be interrupted by attacks. Into the danger zone is casting, just reciting the name of the spell, or some other words linked through your subconscious into the effect you desire. The absolute dumbest is to be screaming in rage and pain and loss, and just shove mana at your opponent, dimly remembering that Fire wants things to burn.

The most dignified term I know of for this is wrangling raw magical forces.

Boil, Boil, the ability that took my first three points of Thermal (fire) damage, protected me as my right hand literally assumed a glove of flames.

“Gyahh!” Victor screamed, pulling away. The chainmail links on his upper arm were fading from red, the leather beneath smoking.

I snarled, surrounded by whines and yowls and barks. My forward momentum hadn’t slowed, didn’t slow even as his spear darted past my shield into my sternum, where it stuck for just a moment.

Just the moment I needed to grab the haft.

“Ignition!” I screamed, forcing too much mana through the casting. The mana broke loose, lighting both my gambeson and something on Victor.

He jerked his spear free, and cursed at me. My shield was somehow there when he struck again, but he was keeping himself well beyond my grasp.

Two things happened in that moment.

[Quest goal achieved, slay Sigmund Findseth. Ten quest points earned, quest incomplete. Finish quest to receive rewards.]

And in that moment of his distraction, I extended my hands toward him, willing the fire forward. It stayed on me, taking the last of my health. And then, just as I was losing consciousness, it moved like a hungry blanket toward him.

He was still screaming when a massive shadow struck him from my left, but the battle was over for me.

#

Again, it’s a time I passed out and honestly shouldn’t have woken. I’m not sure I’d have left me alive if I were Blackfur.

Long before I woke, I could hear the sounds of nature. The wind in the upper canopy, birds discussing whatever takes up so much time (I think it’s just gossip, but I’m told that I’m just being jaded), a stream burbling nearby.

[You have 1/30 health remaining.]

Gods, was I tired of that kind of message. But, fight against enough opponents better than me, especially while wounded, and it was bound to keep happening.

And WHY did people keep laying me out on my back? I mean... other than to keep my wounds, mostly on my front, clean?

With a grunt, I rolled toward the sound and smell of the stream. Fresh pains assaulted me; when had I blistered the side of my face?

Emotionally, I felt empty. I was down seven points of serenity, and ten sanity.

But, as near as my System could tell me, all of my parts were attached and working. Maybe my balance was off.

So... we ... won? Yay?

#