Chapter 36: Defending My Abbey... as a Rock?! (Patreon)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Defending My Abbey... as a Rock?!

Alice knew a moment's confusion before panic gripped her chest like a mailed fist.

More and more men were approaching the abbey, their angry faces popping into existence at the edge of Alice's [God Sense]. They carried with them shovels and pitchforks, a few torches and even one chipped sword.

"Urd!" Alice shouted, and her pint-sized priestess practically leapt off the floor. Iver and Axel turned to her with worried looks. "People are coming! Angry people!"

Urd blinked dumbly as Alice studied the approaching menace. They were not soldiers, but that would matter very little with the only resistance within the alley being cripples and urchins.

Urd relayed Alice's warning to Iver and Axel, and the twins looked around the abbey as if in search of a guardian angel.

"God will protect us, right?" Axel said. His left hand seemed to unconsciously brush against his broken nose. "R-Right?"

Alice bit her nonexistent lip. The adults outside were not like Red Shirt and his cruel friends. She did not think they would be satisfied with just kicking Alice's followers a few times in their stomachs.

Why did I let Kuonrat wander off?! she cursed inwardly. The man with the sword had even mentioned the Priest, as if the mob had been waiting for him to wander off.

"Urd, you need to take the others and... and hide!" Alice said. Her [God Sense] allowed her to see the whole abbey, and her focus anchored onto the heavy doors of Kuonrat's office. "Take everyone to the Priest's office! And block the doors!"

Urd needed no further instruction. Alice could dimly hear her pint-sized shouts as she turned her attention back to the angry crowd.

"Go away!" Alice whispered, planting the desire with [Serpent's Whisper] in everyone gathered outside the abbey doors. "This... This is a bad idea! You just want to leave!"

"Won't let no daemon infest our town!" one of the men said, and he lifted a chipped sword over his shaven head.

There were ten other men, and they quickly joined in his violent cheer. Her [Serpent's Whisper] may as well have been a [Serpent's Mutter] for how much it seemed to affect the crowd.

Fine then! Alice thought to herself, her panic turning red within her mind. You'll all just have to suffer then!

And she willed something bad to happen to the first man to reach for the abbey doors.

[Smite] activated the next moment, although with none of the red violence she had wanted.

"Dammit!"

"Careful, Tanner!"

The man pulled open the abbey doors with perhaps too much enthusiasm. The wood cracked into his head, though not even hard enough to dribble his face with blood.

I guess it's not as if [Smite] is a fireball I can hurl at people, Alice thought anxiously to herself, but she continued, but she continued to spam her ill will towards any and all.

Several roof tiles came loose from overhead and rained down on the men. There were several confused and worried shouts, and one coward threw down his club and ran away. Alice felt a brief moment of hope, but then Sword Man shook his chipped blade in the air.

"This is the daemon's work!" he shouted as the last of the tiles shattered against the ground around them. "The daemon is trying to stop us, but we will be strong! Zora will be our strength!"

And with that triumphant cry, he ripped open the abbey doors.

"Urd, you need to hurry!" Alice shouted, wincing, as three men streamed inside the sanctuary. Alice's pint-sized priestess was still urging a very confused woman into Kuonrat's office.

Thankfully, not all nine men stormed inside immediately. The first three entered on their tiptoes, Sword Man leading the way. They glanced all around, as if half expecting a monster to lurk in every corner, leaving little room for the others to follow inside after them.

"Reveal yourself, daemon!" Sword Man shouted from the sanctuary entrance as Urd and the twins pulled the heavy doors of the Priest's office shut. Within cowered four other confused and frightened followers.

Gah! Why couldn't one of those miracles have been more... more offensive?! Alice moaned inwardly as she spammed still more [Smites].

Six men remained outside the abbey doors, seemingly content to wait and see if the braver four were swallowed up by a monster. Two of these men jumped and pointed, however, clearly distracted by something outside of Alice's [God Sense].

"You thrice damned fools!"

Alice felt weak with relief as a blade pulsing with electrical menace entered her [God Sense].

"Get away from the abbey!" Isaak shouted, pointing his blade at the rabble gawking at him. "That is a holy place! How dare you! How dare you!"

"The P-Priest desecrated it!" one man with a pitchfork called back. "We're Fate-fearing- "

"You are fools!" Isaak barked, and Alice snapped free from her confusion. Sword Man and the others were stalking deeper into the abbey, a bright torch held in one of their hands.

"There are men inside!" Alice whispered, grabbing hold of Isaak's ear with [Malevolent Whisper]. "Urd and the others are hiding inside!"

Back in the cavern, Alice had felt Isaak's armor looked overlarge on his age-shrunken body, but as her words tickled him, the old man seemed to inflate to three times his previous size.

"Stand aside or die," Isaak said simply, and he started to march towards the six men marshaled around the abbey doors. Alice wasted no time to [Bless] her champion, willing him the grace and speed of a man half his age.

"Not afraid of some old man," the same man with a pitchfork said. "You be careful or- "

Isaak did not wait for the man to finish. If not for [Geological Memory], Alice might not have known what had happened.

Her champion moved as quickly as the lightning spitting off his blade. Isaak seemed to almost glide towards the man with the pitchfork, his steel drawn with an almost magnetic violence towards the fool's open mouth.

No blood misted the air as the blade slid out through the back of the man's throat. The horrible sound of sizzling meat filled the air, however. The man dropped his pitchfork and grabbed the blade, panic painted clear across his tear-strewn face. Where his hands touched steel, however, his flesh turned black with an electric kiss.

"Fuck this!" one of the other men said, and he threw down his club and ran off.

Only four remained.

Alice's victory was short-lived, however. Her CCTV vision covered the whole abbey, and though the men outside stumbled away in fear of Isaak, Sword Man and his two still stomped towards Alice the Rock with righteous anger.

"There!" Sword Man shouted, jabbing at the stone statue of Alice's new body. "That's the source of the taint!"

Alice was not sure how worried she should be. The man only had a sword, and those behind him a torch and a club. She had wondered before what would happen if part of her stone body broke off, but with Urd trembling in Kuonrat's office...

Eh?

Alice's attention was drawn away from Sword Man's zealous shout and Isaak's electric violence as a horrible revelation made her heart sink like a rock.

She had thought the only danger came from the abbey's front doors, but several figures had appeared in the abbey's otherwise empty basement. She had little time to squint and stare at this newest threat, however.

"Urd! You need to hide!" Alice shouted as the absolute idiot of a child slipped out from the Priest's office, followed quickly by Axel and Iver. The twins each held the iron pokers of a fireplace while Urd herself clutched what looked like the broken fragment of a vase.

Urd said nothing as she simply shook her head, her brow furrowed and tense.

"You need to return to the office!" Alice whispered, planting the desire in Urd's mind with [Serpent's Whisper]. "It isn't safe! You need to hide!"

"Zora, forgive this town for allowing such evil into your abbey!" Sword Man said, mere feet away from Alice the Rock. "Do not punish us for that Evil Priest's daemonic work!"

Urd and the twins showed no sign of turning back. Alice wanted to scream, but instead she willed that they had the strength to overcome. She willed that Iver and Axel would not die so quickly after reuniting with Urd.

[Bless] works on objects, too! Alice reminded herself, though the thought brought her little relief. But there was nothing else she could do.

Alice willed that Axel and Iver's pokers, that Urd's shank of clay, meager and small as they were, struck with the same strength as Isaak's electrified blade.

Perhaps it was [Smite]. Perhaps it was [Consecrate Earth]. But none of the adults seemed to notice Urd and the twins until the three children had their weapons raised and ready for violence.

"Damn it all!" Sword Man howled with pain as Urd drove her broken shard into the back of his leg. Behind Sword Man, Iver and Axel cracked the other two intruders with their iron pokers.

Alice dared to believe her street urchins would overcome!

But then Iver fell sideways onto the abbey floor as a club cracked him over the head. Axel screamed and threw his poker at his foe as the man waved their bright torch in Axel's face.

And then there was Urd.

"You Fate-scorned scum!" Sword Man said, hacking at the air where Urd's head had been mere moments before. Terror had The Girl drop her clay shank and fall onto her knees, the blade gliding harmlessly over her head.

Whatever courage had filled Urd fled her as Sword Man raised his sword high over his head. The Girl seemed petrified, incapable of even crawling away, as she stared up at the instrument of death.

He was going to cut down Urd!

He was going to kill Urd!

There was no time to think. There was no time for [Smite]. Alice instead focused on the invisible cursed energy that raced through her like blood, hardly even sure what she was doing, and poured the malevolent force into the tip of the man's sword.

Curse Spread: Dale Wont

Severity: Weak

Received experience!

Received cursed energy!

Alice blinked in surprise at the notification, but then the sword was hurtling down, its chipped teeth ready to bite into Urd like a pig served up to be slaughtered.

It had been easy to move Roobit the Rabbit. It had been dizzying to try and move FOT. But as Alice willed the swordtip away from Urd with [Haunt Object], she felt as though she was finally starting to understand how the skill worked.

The blade bit into the floor, and Alice grabbed hold of Urd's head with a [Serpent's Whisper].

"MOVE!"

That was all the motivation The Girl needed. Urd tried to stand, but her trembling legs left her crawling towards Alice the Rock, crawling until she had practically thrown her tiny arms around FOT's doll.

"Fate-damned sow!" Sword Man cursed as he limped nearer, his face a mask of pain and fury. Behind him, Iver shielded his head as best he could as a man smacked him with a wooden club, but Alice could offer the twin no help. Sword Man had raised his blade high over his head, and Urd simply buried her face into FOT's chest. 

Alice could not be sure if [Haunt Object] had run out of cursed energy, but she forced another ball of black into the blade, demanding control of the murderous steel.

With invisible hands, Alice pressed down on the tip of the sword... and it started to push down against Sword Man's own head.

"Wh-what the?! What is this?!" he cried out, and the man grabbed the hilt with both hands.

Alice could feel Sword Man trying to lift the blade away, but Alice refused to return control of the sword. She imagined herself pulling down on the tip of the blade. She imagined the steel driving into the man's skull with the force of a guillotine.

"Zora, please!" Sword Man howled miserably as blood began to trickle down his face.

The blade was rusted and chipped, but it began to carve a ruby line down the top of his skull, splitting the man slowly open as if he were a piece of wood.

Alice had seen death more than she cared to since arriving in this world, but she grew sick and sicker as the man continued to scream, as blood bubbled out from his skull and down his own sword. The man's eyes were clenched shut in concentration. Several veins in his neck bulged with an effort to push the sword away. He was fighting so desperately! Struggling so horribly against the sword that had come to life in his own hands!

Urd lifted her face from FOT's bosom and watched with horror.

Alice did not realize what was happening until it was too late. One minute, sweat was pouring down her nonexistent face as she willed the blade to put a bloody end to the intruder. The next, Axel was barreling into Sword Man like an NFL linebacker.

Perhaps it was because of [Bless] and [Consecrate Earth], but the underfed urchin was able to smash Sword Man off his feet.

And the sword away from his skull.

Whatever control [Haunt Object] had given Alice disappeared as the blade's tip clattered harmlessly away from the man's bloody scalp. With the back of his hand, Sword Man smacked Axel away. Already he was getting to his feet, blood dribbling down his delirious face.

Her nonexistent face white with horror, Alice realized the strangers in the basement had reached the sanctuary. She watched with defeat in her mouth as two figures blurred towards where Isaak fought and another towards where Axel cried. Her defenders were about to-

Sword Man's eyes went white with confusion as a knife was rammed into his belly. Over and over, the knife pumped into the soft red of his flesh. Even when the man fell over sideways, the shape on top of him did not stop sliding their knife in and out of his belly. In her concentration with [Haunt Object], Alice had not realized just who had skittered up from the basement, but she saw them now.

"Blood!" Dirt shrieked, his hands red and sticky as he continued to tear apart Sword Man with a stone-like shank. "Blessed Red for the Hungry Master!"

I never realized how much the story needed Dirt until I added Dirt. He's such a good boy.

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