Chapter 88: It’s More Interesting This Way (Patreon)

Rebecca regarded us both with the same blank stare that the other revenants shared. She was gone. There was nothing left of her inside that reanimated corpse. Hemi didn’t see it that way though. He almost looked like he was about to take a step towards her and implore her to come to her senses.

“Hemi, don’t!” I warned.

An ice spear formed in the air above the ice witch’s shoulder. I moved as soon as it appeared, but I knew that I wouldn’t get there in time. I ran anyway as the spear shot towards Hemi. Right before it was about to hit him, an arrow slammed into it and the ice spear shattered into a million pieces at Hemi’s feet.

I looked up, expecting to see Damian or Tim. Instead, it was Hugo’s Archer spirit summon that was standing on top of the ice wall. Archer fired an arrow at the ice witch, who raised up another floating shield of ice to block it.

Hugo was circling above to direct his summon but I still feared for Hemi’s safety.

The ice witch retreated further while summoning more floating shields to surround herself with. Meanwhile, all the melee revenants were moving away from the cave entrance and heading this way. Only the two guards from before stayed behind. They seemed human and were stacking boxes near the cave entrance. Perhaps more weapons or supplies for the revenants? It didn’t matter. Right now, we needed more of our people here.

[Lucas Hudson: We need more help over here.]

There was a thunderclap behind me the ice wall as it shook.

[Elise Evans: We’re working on it.]

Another boom and cracks started to appear in the wall.

Hugo circled once again and a dark, angry goblin shape dropped out of the sky. It landed on the ice witch’s shield and started hammering away at it with its knife.

With everyone else busy, I went to Hemi, who was despondent when I reached him.

“We need to move,” I said, but it didn’t look like he’d heard me. I resisted the urge to slap him only because it was too much of a cliché. The ice wall could break at any second. He needed to get clear of it. Not to mention the revenant fighters that were running towards us. I raised my voice and shouted, “Hemi!” His eyes snapped to me. “We have to move,” I repeated, and this time he nodded.

I led him away from the ice wall and the ice witch. He wasn’t in any shape to fight her and Hugo’s Archer and Norris were keeping her too distracted to use magic on anyone else. It was the perfect time to get him clear of the fighting, but the melee fighters would get here soon. I’d have to fight them on my own.

“Look, just keep your eyes open and have a barrier ready. Can you do that?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he muttered, still upset but no longer dissociating.

Boom!

Archer nimbly leaped away just as the ice wall exploded.

Elise and Serena stood triumphant in its place. They were covered in sweat and their chests were heaving as they’d pushed themselves to the limit to bring it down. The melee revenant group diverted course away from me and towards them instead. But seeing them as the weaker target was a mistake. Damian and Tim stepped forward, firing a volley of arrows and bolts that harried the revenant fighters. Some fell, while others halted their advance and raised their shields.

[Lucas Hudson: You guys okay?]

[Elise Evans: I will be.]

She took a blue potion out of her inventory and drank it to replenish her magic, and Serena did the same. Good, there were enough of them to handle the revenants without my involvement. I directed Hemi to link up with them while I left to investigate what the cave guards were doing near the entrance.

I wrapped myself in my cloak and stuck close to the shadows. Edging slowly behind the ice witch and the other revenants. If they ever noticed me, then they showed no sign of it and, with the others keeping their hands full, getting to the cave entrance was easy. The two guards weren’t there but presumably were inside, fetching more of those wooden crates. There was a whole stack of them by the entrance that was sealed shut. With no markings on them, I’d have to smash one open to see inside, which would only alert them to my presence. No, better to wait until they came back out to deal with them.

A strong hand clamped down my shoulder from behind.

“We had an agreement,” Carina said, her grip tightening.

I pretended not to feel her prodigious strength. “Keep your voice down,” I whispered, hoping that guards were too deep in the cave to have heard. With several battles going on nearby, enhancing my sense of hearing would just overwhelm me, so there was no way to be sure.

Carina didn’t raise the hatchet in her hand, but it was held tightly by her side, and the expression on her face said that I should talk fast.

“I’ll honor the agreement,” I said. “Believe me, I’ll have enough trouble dealing with Martin. You can have Anders.”

I meant it too. Fighting both of them at the same time would be less than ideal, and I wanted to stay on good terms with Carina.

She searched my eyes before giving me a stiff nod and looking further ahead into the cave.

Just like that, we were on the same side again.

We waited around the corner of the cave until we heard the two guards approach while conversing. As I suspected, they weren’t revenants, which means they had greater duties than just being attack dogs.

“Boy, they’re really going at it out there,” said one of them.

“Yeah,” laughed the other. “Too bad that it won’t make a difference.”

“These are the last ones?”

“Right. These are the last of them.”

That was our cue.

We left our hiding spot and Carina kicked the one on the right in the back and sent him flying. The other guard turned at the commotion just as my elbow snapped into his nose. It broke and started bleeding while the man, blinded by pain, reached for the sword at his side. Only the cold touch of my blade at his throat made him stop.

I glanced over to see Carina wrestling the other man to the floor and putting him in a headlock. Her arms squeezed around his neck, cutting off his blood supply. He passed out within seconds.

Guess I’m doing the interrogation.

“What’s in the crates?” I asked the guard.

He spat some blood off the side. “Like I’d tell you!”

“You don’t even know me, but if you answer my questions, then I’ll let you go,” I replied calmly. Being hated by Martin’s followers based on hearsay was getting old, but I found myself caring less and less about what these people thought about me. I pressed the knife harder into his throat until it produced a trickle of blood. As it rolled down his neck, I thought about drinking it. Of attaining that perfect feeling of vitality and strength. Of getting that euphoric rush.

“Maybe I’ll smash the crates open?” suggested Carina. Her voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

“No, don’t!” shouted the guard when she got too close.

“What are they? Explosives?” I asked.

He nodded. “We were supposed to place them in key locations in town while the revenants attacked and kept you distracted. They’d then draw you into one of the kill zones where we’d set off the bombs.”

I frowned, surprised that they’d cut it so close to the time that the elevators would unlock again. “Martin didn’t think we’d attack first?”

“Dunno, haven’t seen or heard from Martin for a while now. It was Anders’s plan. I guess he figured that it would take more time for you to find our hidden camp. Probably never imagined that his own sister would betray him,” he sneered at her.

“You know nothing!” Carina spat. “Let me kill him.”

The guard’s eyes widened as he silently pleaded with me.

“No, I said I’d let him go. I’m keeping my end.” I withdrew my blade. “Go,” I told him.

“How do you know I won’t just go after him?” Carina asked.

“I don’t. But I’m going into that cave and fighting whoever I find. If it’s Anders, then I can’t guarantee his survival.”

Carina gnashed her teeth. “Fine. We prioritize. It’s not like it’s a big tower. I’m sure I’ll run into him again.”

Considering the System had referred to the town by a number, I wasn’t too sure about the size of the tower myself anymore. But it wasn’t the time to get into that.

“Hey, watch out!” Carina yelled before shoving me out of the way.

I stumbled forward just as a rogue fire spell from a surviving revenant spellcaster flew past. It must have been hidden within the melee group. The fireball hit the crate behind me. There was a deafening roar and suddenly everything went white and I blacked out.

Pain is what I felt next. An unbelievable amount of pain in my head and body. My ears were ringing so loudly that each sound was like an ice pick being jabbed into my brain. I opened my eyes. I was inside the cave and with all my limbs still attached, though there were burns on my chest and arms.

I tried to sit up and vomited from the motion sickness.

Groaning, I reached for a blood vial on the pouch only to feel shattered glass fragments inside the bag. The explosion had destroyed my remaining blood vials. That just left the potion in my inventory. My eyes went to it in my inventory and plucked out the large blood potion. It was the last of the drinkable blood that I’d collected from the zombies, but I had no choice. I had to drink it now before I passed out again.

Opening it proved more difficult in this state than I realized as my fingers struggled with the cork.

“We should hit him now while he’s weak,” said Miller.

I heard a gasp and then a choked, gurgling sound. I continued struggling with the potion bottle cork, feeling weaker than a baby, until a new pair of hands ripped the bottle away. There was nothing I could do to stop them. If I didn’t have the power to open a bottle, I certainly didn’t have it to fight.

I felt something brush my hands. Instinctively, I flinched, but the sensation was persistent until I realized it was the potion bottle. I looked up and saw that it was Yanis who had uncorked it and was offering it to me. Behind him Miller lay dead. I couldn’t speak, but he could read the question on my face.

He shrugged with a wry smile. “It’s more interesting this way,” he said, before handing me the potion.