“Oh my God, I’m roasting.”
Joe shivers. “Are you kidding, I’m freezing.”
“I feel like I’m gonna die if I don’t take it off.”
“Don’t take it off, Drips. It’s armor for a reason.”
“It IS armor for a reason. Or I’ve GOT armor for a reason?”
“Whichever, man.”
“How’s your armor?”
“It’s tight. It sort of pinches where it bends.”
Joe, tall and sandy haired, and Todd with his dark, curly hair are posted as guards for their recuperating friends. Both are ill. Both are tired. Todd is bleeding from a cut on his hand, his left tibia is fractured from a bite. Joe’s leather armor is cracked at the knee.
“How’s it looking in there?”
Todd admonishes him. “Don’t distract her.”
“Right.”
The two have been holding the line for nearly an hour. Candra had come outside to help, but the wood ax had begun to splinter at the handle. Left without a heavy weapon, she’d gone back inside to get out of their way.
“That arm’s still giving you trouble. You want to switch with Candra?”
“It’s just sore,” Todd incorrectly states. “My right arm is fine.”
“Alright.”
Three rats exit the mansion door and quickly orient on Joe. They rush and Todd blasts one. Joe uses a body as a blocker and cleans up the three without getting surrounded. He moves away afterwards and spits.
“Drips, are you feeling worse or better?”
“Worse.”
“Yea. Hey, you guys. Are you feeling worse or better?”
Candra’s voice calls out with Randall’s. “Worse,” they say.
“Do you think we should use a healing pill or something?” Joe wonders loudly.
Candra pokes her head out. “It can’t hurt, right?”
Randall pushes his way around her. “Guys, a healing potion is different than an antidote. Every game works that way.”
“Why would it have to work like a game?” Candra snipes.
“Everything else has so far,” Randall counters.
“If you’re sure you’re sure, Toast. Candra, if you’re feeling better, come take over for Drips. His arm is messed up.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Candra reaches out to snatch up [armor breaker]. She pats Todd on the shoulder.
As his stomach pitches like a ship at sea, Todd hands over the weapon and stoops into the hut. He plops down into a butt indentation in the ash and crosses his legs. Sue Ann sits across from him with a pinched expression. Her long brown hair is matted with perspiration.
Todd goes through his bag looking for bottles of pills and withdraws a glass vial filled with rough round orbs. One set of pills is off black, and the other pair of pills is deep dark burgundy. He inspects them to check if he’s judged the color correctly, then slowly places them back in his satchel. He winces as his arm twinges.
“Randall,” he whispers. “Randall.”
“What?”
“You should be working on your weapon.”
“I was trying to level up.”
“Shh.”
Randall speaks in a hushed voice. “I was trying to level up.”
“You can level up from killing monsters.”
“I’m close though.”
“Still.”
“But I want my weapon to be good. I don’t want a gimpy one.”
“We don’t have a choice, man.”
“Can you both be quiet,” Sue Ann scowls.
They shut up.
Settling in, Todd finds his token and holds it in his palm. He breathes in and out and feels the stale energy in the air. By cycling his cultivation manual he draws in that energy into his body, and it makes rivulets of power following his inner channels. Following some earlier advice, he pushes cosmic energy hard in his hand, putting pressure on his skin. The nickel colored token warms in his hand.
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“Huh,” he murmurs, exerting more effort. His palm begins to bleed as his flesh lets raw energy through.
Todd cultivates. Outside, Joe and Candra defend them from all comers, but it’s calm and muted indoors. His belly is subdued as long as he cycles, but nausea is ever present. A half hour passes.
“Oh!” Sue Ann chirps. She startles as an actual freaking katana appears in her hands. The blade is twenty seven inches long. It looks like carved bone and is slightly curved with an eleven inch wooden grip and no hand guard. “Ow,” she says as the razor sharp blade cuts her thumb. She grabs it by the handle and sucks on her appendage.
Todd draws down from his session and lets the energy inside himself settle. His token gleams and dims.
“Is that it?” Todd asks rather stupidly.
Sue Ann lifts the sword with one hand and wobbles it. “I mean, I guess so.”
“She got it?” Joe hollers.
“Looks like it.”
“Send her out then, let’s get her some levels.”
Sue Ann flinches. She reaches out towards Todd. “Can’t you take this?”
“I can take it!” Randall bounds to his heels. He wavers and collapses again, then gets back up.
Todd shakes his head. “Don’t you think you should get at least one level? It would really help us out if you could fight with us.”
“I have been fighting!” Sue Ann shouts. Her voice bounces inside the walls and rattles Todd.
“You’re right. I know,” he apologizes. “We just need more weapons.”
“I can redeem your tokens for you,” she offers.
“Come on. I’ll take your sword,” Randall reiterates.
“If it’s alright with Randall…” Todd falters.
“Yea, of course. It’s a katana,” the stocky young man says in explanation. He trades Sue Ann for it and leaves the hut. He waves as he goes.
Todd wipes his hand on his pants and returns to cycling cosmic energy. A half hour passes. The others fend off another attack while he meditates.
“Let me see your arm,” Sue Ann demands suddenly.
Todd has been rolling his wrist and bending out his elbow for some minutes now. He works it as if he can dispel the pain. At her request, he reaches out to her.
Her fingers squeeze and he jolts as something inside his arm shifts.
“It’s broken,” she announces.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Can’t you tell? Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I guess so. I mean, yes.”
“You should use a healing pill.”
“Crap. Crap. It hasn’t even been a day yet.”
“A break like that would take weeks to heal on its own. You’re not going to be able to use that hand without seriously messing yourself up.”
Todd rises to his feet. He cradles his arm and steps to the door. “My arm’s broken. I’m going to use one of the clotting blood healing pills!”
Joe whacks a rat in its middle and its heart stops. Candra uses her palm to hammer the pommel of [armor breaker] and drive the chisel-like tip into a neck. Randall hacks at a half-severed leg and is sprayed by blood.
“Sure,” Joe wheezes.
“What? Fine,” Candra gasps.
“Ack,” Randall pants.
Todd withdraws and searches for his pills for a second time. A thick herbal and metallic smell hits him as he places the burgundy medicine on his tongue. He swallows. The blood runs thick in his veins, and his heart beats heavily.
Over the next hour the pain lessens but does not vanish.
At one point Randall is injured. A bloody bite punctures his thigh and he takes a [clotting blood, weaving renewal pill] himself. He splays in the crunching debris, breathing heavily and trying to cultivate. He fights against an upchuck and wins just barely.
“Come on, come on,” Todd mutters. Sweat drips into his eyes and down his nose. He weaves loops of energy into his token and feels at it hums and resonates just out of tune with him.
Finally, he feels a snapping sensation and he activates the coin. The teleportation happens without noise or light, air is perfectly displaced. Todd opens his eyes and turns over his new possession.
The whole thing appears made out of red and white coral. It has a long, rough handle and a short, jagged leaf-like blade. Heavy in his hand, the thing looks like a spear, but it’s too short to qualify. With its pointed tip, clearly it’s made for stabbing – but without the safety or comfort of distance.
“Shit. Okay, well I got it!”
Todd joins Joe and Candra outside.
Joe nods. “I think we’ve cleared out as many of these things as we’re gonna. We should move up and tackle the mansion now.”
“We still have one more weapon to get,” Todd reminds him.
“But Toast is down,” Joe disagrees. “Which means 4H needs to step up and carry her weight for a while.”
Todd looks backwards. “This is hard for her.”
“I mean, tough titties. She’s least sick out of all of us, and we’re all worn out.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Candra says.
Together, they all agree on a course of action. It takes some convincing, but Sue Ann appears with her sword held out in front of her. Todd takes the other side, and Candra leads with her scepter. They cross the street with Randall limping in their center, and Joe hefting his sword to cover their behinds.
The entrance to the great building yawns cavernously in front of them. Only an angular corridor of light pierces through. They can enter two abreast, but they stop.
Candra calls out loudly into the darkness. “Hey fuckers. Here fuckers. Where are you?”
A nest of seven rats emerges from the shadows, practically climbing over one another to get at them. Todd applies a judicious spray into the crowd, but the kickback causes a pang of pain in his forearm. He shakes it out and lunges with his new short spear, plunging it into the back of a rat. This time the point catches in the skin and penetrates deep, leaving a ragged puncture wound that slides around a rib and into a lung.
He lifts his foot up high to avoid the snapping teeth of the dying animal and stomps on it to drag out the stuck blade.
Todd lifts his left arm and fires another excruciating blast of water into the open mouth of a rat flanking Candra. Then he jabs his weapon into the side of a head and through an earhole with a squelch.
“Gross,” he says. Kill energy spirals into his body, filling him.
He wrenches his weapon free with a spurt of fluid and assumes a fighting stance. “Super gross.”