Book 7: Chapter 22 - Forced Error (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 22 - Forced Error

“What is reflected in the mirror is not truth, but a lie wrought through the cunning artifice of man, no matter how closely it resembles the truth. As shadows upon the sand, so too is the nature of time.” 

- Unknown.

The sound came some time after we had entered the deeper streets of Atarantu, faint enough at first that I took it for another peculiarity of the city. Beneath the stone skin of the ruins lay so many hidden things, that the occasional distant groan or tremor had ceased to deserve much consideration. This noise, however, possessed a more ominous beat. There came a succession of quiet clicks from somewhere beneath our feet, followed by the scrape of something passing over stone, and then a silence sufficiently foreboding to make us stop and listen.

Vaska raised one hand, and his company halted around him with the smooth discipline of people who had cheated death many times. Jean brought his shield forward, Roberts lowered the point of his spear, and Lorn already had an arrow resting against his bowstring. Kristoff moved two steps toward the shadow of a ruined doorway and seemed to become part of it, while Clara stood in the center of them with her head slightly inclined, listening for something the rest of us could not hear.

“What is it?” Jean asked quietly.

“Something moving,” Clara replied after a moment.

“That narrows matters considerably,” he retorted sharply.

Before she could answer him, the sound came again, although this time from somewhere above us. Stone grated against stone along the upper story of a building to our right, and a fragment of alien masonry tumbled from the roof, struck an exposed rib of black metal, and bounced into the street. Something followed it down a heartbeat later and landed upon all fours with enough force to crack the paving beneath it.

For a moment, my mind attempted to fit the creature into some recognizable category and failed. It was approximately the size of a large hound, although no hound had ever possessed six legs, a mane of pale quills, or a mouth that opened vertically from brow to throat. Its forelimbs ended in hooked black claws, its hindquarters were covered in overlapping gray scales, and when it lifted its body to regard us, a second narrow head unfolded from beneath its ribs and tasted the air with a black tongue.

But no matter its horrifying appearance, I knew what it was. It was nothing. Not even worthy of me using my Identify spell.

Jean stared at it over the rim of his shield. “What in the bloody hell is that?”

I did not bother answering him. But as if to answer his question, the creature screamed. The cry was answered almost immediately from somewhere several streets away. A second call rose from another direction, then a third, until the ruined city seemed suddenly inhabited by voices that had been waiting in silence for permission to speak.

Vaska swore beneath his breath just as the first creature sprang.

The heavily armored warrior received it properly, stepping into the attack with his shield raised and his full weight behind it. Monster and armored man collided with a tremendous metallic crash, followed by the less impressive sound of bones breaking inside flesh. The creature folded around the shield, but before it could recover, Vaska’s great sword came down through its shoulder and passed almost to the opposite hip. Dark fluid splashed across the stones, although even divided nearly in half the thing continued to writhe until Roberts drove the point of his spear through the larger portion and pinned it to the ground.

The street remained quiet for perhaps three heartbeats after that, and then Atarantu disgorged its inhabitants.

They came from windows, alleys, collapsed courtyards, and openings beneath the paving stones. Some crawled down the sides of buildings with the easy adhesion of spiders, while others simply threw themselves from rooftops. There was no common form among them, nor any obvious relationship except that all seemed assembled from incompatible parts. 

One resembled a hairless ape with a swollen torso and four long arms ending in crablike pincers, while another ran upon six narrow legs beneath a body plated in green scales, a cluster of wet tentacles whipping around the place where a head should have been. Some were covered in fur, some in shell, some in glistening skin without so much as a hair or scale to hide the muscles working beneath it. Several were almost human until they opened their mouths too widely or unfolded additional limbs from their backs.

Their sizes varied no less than their shapes. Small things no larger than rats scuttled between the feet of the greater beasts, while others possessed the mass of horses or oxen. Farther down the street, something as large as an elephant shouldered its way around a corner, its enormous body hidden beneath dirty white fur except where irregular plates of armor pushed outward through the hide. Three curved tusks emerged from a face crowded with black eyes, and beneath its jaw hung a nest of tentacles that dragged across the stones as it advanced.

For once, I found myself sincerely impressed by the Trial’s imagination.

“Formation!” Vaska roared, and the Crimson Blades moved around one another without argument or hesitation.

Jean took the forward position with his shield braced before him, while Vaska stood close enough beside him to make use of the reach of his great sword without obstructing the defense. Roberts guarded their rear quarter with spear and axe, Clara remained protected near the center, and Lorn and Kristoff occupied the shifting edges of the formation where they could strike without becoming trapped. Their discipline was admirable, which was precisely why I felt no particular need to participate in it.

A creature possessing the body of a wolf and the upper limbs of a man leaped toward me from the side. I met it with the spear point of my halberd, caught it beneath the jaw, and continued the motion until its entire body left the ground. Its claws scraped uselessly across the black-and-gold plates covering my chest while I twisted the weapon and tore its head backward until the neck surrendered with a wet crack. The corpse was still sliding from the blade when I threw it into two more creatures and advanced to meet the next rank.

You have slain…

I half heartedly read a notice before something snapped at my attention.

“Gilgamesh!” Vaska shouted from somewhere behind me.

“I am maintaining my formation,” I called back as the axe blade of my halberd passed through the chest of a scaled monstrosity and continued into the forelimb of whatever had been following it.

More notifications crossed my vision. More experience.

“You are twenty paces outside of it!” he complained.

His answer disappeared beneath the renewed violence, for my new weapon had been made for work of this nature. The axe blade opened flesh, broke bone, and hooked limbs aside; the spear point found throats and eyes; the rear counterweight crushed whatever came in reach. A vaguely humanoid creature covered in greasy black fur caught the haft in both hands and attempted to wrench it away from me, whereupon I released one hand, seized it by the throat, and struck its face against my helm killing in a display of glorious violence.

Another creature struck me from behind while I was occupied, its claws finding no gaps, but the impact enough to cause my Health to drop by an amount scarcely worth considering. Regeneration began correcting the injury before I had even turned. I cut away two of the creature’s limbs with a single returning stroke, empowering my blow with a simple Power Strike, drove the rear spike through its abdomen, and cast it aside to make room for the next.

The numbers, however, continued to increase. They were not individually dangerous enough to concern me, but eventually even insects became tiresome when there were sufficient quantities of them. Every slain creature was replaced by two more, and the press of bodies began restricting the space required to use a polearm properly.

Greater Drain provided the obvious solution.

I shaped the spell with the voices while keeping the halberd moving, and the familiar hunger answered almost immediately. Dark strands spread outward from me, multiplying as they found living targets and sinking through fur, shell, scale, and flesh without regard for the protections beneath. Health, Stamina, and Mana began flowing back along those invisible bonds filling with raw pleasure and the stuff of life distilled.

The effect upon the monsters was considerably less pleasant. A six-legged creature stumbled as strength deserted it, while something covered in pale scales attempted to leap and collapsed halfway through the motion. One of the more humanoid abominations clawed desperately at the dark connection between us as though fingers could tear apart a spell, only to weaken further with every wasted movement.

I laughed as I drove the halberd through its chest.

The arrangement possessed an elegance that pleased me. Every creature that reached me brought some quantity of the very resources required to destroy the next. They had, in effect, constructed a machine of slaughter and then volunteered themselves as its fuel.

More experience flowed into me, in dribs and drabs.

The Crimson Blades were engaged in the less convenient business of surviving without such advantages, although they acquitted themselves well enough. Jean’s shield quickly became slick with dark blood and fragments of flesh, but he held the center of the street while Vaska’s great sword rose and fell beside him with brutal efficiency. Roberts alternated between spear and axe according to the distance, thrusting whenever there was room and chopping when the enemy pressed too close. Clara controlled the ground beneath them, raising slabs of stone to trip charging creatures, closing narrow approaches, and once tearing part of a wall outward to crush several smaller monsters attempting to descend upon the formation from above.

Lorn wasted very few arrows upon armored bodies. He aimed instead for eyes, open mouths, joints, and those narrow places where plates overlapped, while Kristoff remained difficult to follow for more than a few moments at a time. I would see him appear beside one of the larger creatures, place a knife beneath a limb or behind a jaw, and disappear into the confusion before its corpse had finished falling.

They were, I grudgingly had to admit, good at what they did.

It was only after several minutes of sustained fighting that I noticed the pattern governing the attack. The creatures came from nearly every direction, but never with equal pressure. Whenever we attempted to move toward the central structure of Atarantu, the numbers before us multiplied with extraordinary speed. When Vaska shifted his company west, another mass poured from the side streets and forced Jean backward behind his shield. East produced much the same result. South, however, remained merely murderous.

I saw Vaska realize the same thing at almost the same moment. Our eyes met briefly across the conflict, and neither of us bothered to say what had become obvious.

A massive creature struck Jean’s shield hard enough to drive him several paces backward, his sabatons shrieking across the stone. It vaguely resembled a bear, possessing something like the bulk of one but with an armored wedge of bone for a head and two thick tentacles in place of forelimbs. One wrapped around Jean’s shield while the other hammered against his breastplate. Vaska removed the first tentacle, Roberts cut through the second, and Jean crushed the exposed head with repeated blows from his mace until the creature collapsed. Two more monsters immediately began climbing over the body.

“We’re being pushed!” Roberts shouted.

“I had noticed!” Vaska replied as another wave struck the front of the formation. He spared one glance toward the street behind them, judged the relative density of the enemy, and raised his sword. “South! Keep together and move!”

Thus began what Vaska would undoubtedly have described as a tactical withdrawal. I did not retreat with them in any meaningful sense. I merely continued fighting while circumstances carried the battle in approximately the same direction.

And still the experience flowed, a meager tap, as my weapon and magics dealt death.

Street by street, intersection by intersection, the creatures drove us toward something. They showed none of the ordinary caution of living animals. These creatures hurled themselves against shield and blade without hesitation, climbed over their own wounded, and allowed themselves to be butchered if doing so bought those behind them an opening.

More troubling was their coordination. Large creatures filled the streets while smaller ones attempted to reach us from roofs, windows, and walls. Flying abominations appeared twice, ugly mixtures of membrane, feather, talon, and grasping hands, although Lorn and Clara proved sufficient to drive them away. Whenever Vaska tried another direction, the press increased until progress became impossible, while the southern route always remained just open enough to permit us to continue.

We were not being hunted. We were being herded.

A creature nearly as large as Theodore eventually demolished the corner of a building to reach us. The wall burst outward in a storm of blue stone and black fragments as the thing forced itself into the street upon four pillar-like legs. Its barrel-shaped torso was covered in alternating patches of red fur and dark scale, while its head consisted primarily of a circular mouth ringed by grasping appendages. A series of bony ridges ran along its spine, giving it the appearance of some living mobile fortress.

It charged directly toward the Crimson Blades.

I used Improved Rush Strike and met it before it could reach them. The spear point of my halberd entered the center of its mouth, and the creature’s own momentum drove the weapon inward until my gauntlets nearly struck its teeth. The impact forced me backward several paces and carved deep lines through the ancient pavement beneath my sabatons, but the Adamantium of the weapon held, and so did I.

It died as my weapon found what passed for its brain, and the creature collapsed heavily enough to shake the street. However, by the time I tore my weapon free, the Crimson Blades had already gained considerable distance.

“Cowards!” I called after them.

Jean somehow found enough breath to shout over his shoulder, “Keep up, you little bastard!”

The street opened abruptly beneath a broad archway, and there the ruined buildings gave way to a structure unlike anything surrounding it. An enormous circular edifice rose before us, large enough that much of it disappeared into the blue haze above. Portions of its outer stonework had collapsed, revealing the same impossible skeleton of black and gray metal beneath, while tiered arches surrounded its circumference and strange statues stood between them. It resembled one of the great amphitheaters of Rome seen through a strange and alien lens.

The largest entrance stood open.

Vaska saw it, looked once at the monsters closing behind us, and made the decision immediately. Jean and Roberts entered first, followed by Clara, Lorn, and Kristoff. Vaska remained at the threshold until the others had crossed before retreating after them, while I entered last because there were still several creatures close enough to kill for a few more points of experience.

The instant my sabaton crossed the threshold, the attacks ceased.

I turned back toward the entrance and found hundreds of creatures filling the street beyond. They crowded between the buildings, stood upon corpses, clung to walls, and packed themselves around the archway in a grotesque congregation. Some continued making small restless movements, but none attempted to cross after us.

Jean bent forward with one gauntleted hand resting against his knee while he recovered his breath. “Well,” he managed eventually, “that seems promising.”

“Nothing about this seems promising,” Roberts replied, refusing to lower his axe.

Clara approached the entrance cautiously and extended one hand. The nearest creature snapped at her from beyond the threshold, causing her to withdraw a fraction before she began forming a delicate sequence of gestures with her fingers. A faint distortion shimmered across the archway.

“There may be a ward woven into the structure,” she said after a moment. “Something protective. It may be preventing them from entering.”

Vaska looked toward her. “Can you determine what kind?”

“Perhaps, if you give me time.”

“You do not need time,” I said, resting my blood-covered halberd against one shoulder. “This place is not protecting us from them.”

Clara turned toward me with a small frown. “You cannot know that.”

I indicated the street beyond the archway. The monsters were no longer struggling to enter. In fact, several of them had settled where they stood. A creature with six mouths crouched upon its haunches, another lowered itself onto a pile of dead, and an enormous many-eyed beast farther back simply watched us.

“They wanted us here,” I observed. “That army had more than enough numbers to surround us if its purpose was simply to kill us. Instead, every attempt to move elsewhere was opposed. Whatever commands them did not fail to stop us. It succeeded in moving us.”

Jean slowly straightened as the implication settled upon him. Roberts muttered something unkind beneath his breath, while Vaska surveyed the interior of the structure with considerably greater suspicion than before.

Beyond the entrance lay a broad oval arena covered in pale sand. Tier upon tier of stone seating climbed around it, interrupted here and there where the outer shell had collapsed to expose dark metal beneath. Great passages opened at regular intervals around the lower circumference, each leading into darkness beneath the stands. The cold blue illumination of the cavern reached the arena through gaps in the broken roof and turned the sand almost silver.

Clara continued to regard the entrance. “You are assuming the creatures are being controlled.”

I glared at her. “The proof of my assumption is standing outside in several hundred different shapes.”

She glanced toward the waiting creatures and could not find an answer.

Kristoff wiped one of his knives against a scrap of fur caught upon the blade. “So something herded us into an arena.”

I considered the question while looking across the empty sand. “Whatever arranged this spectacle has saved me the trouble of finding it. I find that more convenient than troubling.”

Jean gave a tired groan. “Do you ever listen to yourself?”

Again, I ignored the oaf.

Then, a heavy sound interrupted whatever answer he might have made. It came from beneath the arena floor, a deep metallic impact muffled by sand and stone, followed several seconds later by another.

Everyone turned toward the center.

The pale sand approximately twenty paces away began to tremble. At first there was only a narrow line where grains shifted and sank, but the disturbance steadily widened until something rectangular pushed upward from beneath the floor. Black metal emerged first, carrying sand upon its upper edge, followed by a tall frame within which lay a perfectly smooth surface of darkened glass.

The object continued rising until it stood twice the height of a man, a reflective construction.

Before anyone could approach it, another muffled impact sounded beneath us. Sand began moving in several places around the arena at once, and additional frames rose with the same ponderous mechanical precision. One emerged before Vaska, another before Jean, then Roberts, Clara, Lorn, and Kristoff, each turning slightly upon some buried mechanism until its surface faced the person for whom it had apparently been intended.

The last disturbance appeared before me.

Sand flowed away in whispering sheets as the final mirror climbed into the cold blue light, its black frame unmarred by age and its glass perfectly smooth. When the mechanisms beneath the arena finally became silent, seven adventurers stood upon the pale sand with seven mirrors arranged before them.

And in mine waited a reflection that had already learned how to move without me.

Notes for next chapter;

Update stats and experience.

Between creation and adaptation, there was a gap that could be exploited. And, when two “equal” machines face off against each other, it is always the one with the greater amount of data that wins.