Chapter 17: Book 1: Chapter 8 (Part 2 of 3)

With a quick nod, Shana half drew the bowstring back, stepped past me and settled into her stance. She took half a second to sight her target before drawing the string back fully and releasing the arrow smoothly. Shana spun out of the doorway and then I was in motion.

 Critical Strike! x4 Shana has inflicted 52 piercing damage to redcap gnome #5. Redcap gnome #5 has fewer than 25% HP remaining.

I charged towards the room. The redcap Shana hit had fallen to the ground and the arrow stuck out of his hip.

He was no longer laughing that was for sure.

I scanned the locker area as I raced through and there was no sign of any redcaps in there. I did spot that the employee entrance we came through yesterday was wide open. Which had to be how the redcaps got into the building in the first place.

I burst into the break area and took in the scene before me. The place was a mess. The tables and plastic chairs had been overturned. The kitchenette unit at the end of the room had all the cupboards and drawers pulled open. The crockery and utensils had been strewn all over the room.

There were two redcaps on the kitchenette counter rummaging through the coffee and sugar tins. Apart from the mewling redcap who Shana had skewered, the remaining five maniacal gnomes had smashed the glass of the snack vending machine. Most were inside the cabinet tearing through and opening the chocolate bars or bags of candy. The craziest part was there were gobbets of spat out chocolate and sweets on the floor surrounding the machine. They clearly didn’t like what they were eating but they didn’t let that stop them.

The good news was all eight of them were here in this room. There was no sign of any of the other BuyMart employees but when I’d seen the open back door, I hadn’t expected them to be in here.

I moved up to the hurt gnome who had just pulled the arrow from his side and beheaded the little fucker with one swipe. I didn’t need a notification to know he was dead.

That got the attention of the assembled redcaps who stopped in their tracks, their beady eyes following the bouncing head of their erstwhile companion as it rolled across the floor and banged into one of the overturned tables. Shana came up right behind me in the doorway.

“Mind yourself,” I said to her quickly.

Stowing my swords, I grabbed the nearest circular table and dragged it over. I flipped it so the pedestal pointed towards Shana and shoved it in the doorway, blocking the only way out of the room.

The table had a diameter of four feet, so it blocked the exit effectively for the two-foot redcaps and protected Shana from them, but she was tall enough it allowed her to use the bow over the top of the makeshift barricade.

Updating the feng-shui of the room broke the redcap’s rapt attention on their fallen brother’s head. Their interest then centred on me and they hissed threateningly. The two on the counter jumped up and down while the other five hastily scrambled over the broken glass shards of the vending machine cabinet.

Re-summoning my ice scimitars I ran over to the cabinet and engaged the redcaps there. Each of them had pulled a small knife resembling a scalpel from their belts and moved to swarm past me. I whipped both scimitars in wide arcs trying to encompass the whole line of maddened gnomes. The redcaps ducked and rolled under one of my blades but the second sliced through the upper arm of one of them.

Hit! You have inflicted 17 piercing damage and 12 points of cold damage to redcap gnome #4.

Only twenty-nine points of damage, not quite half of the gnome’s total. It was enough to spin the small creature around and left a reddened wound on his arm where I had hit him, but he was still very much in the fight. The rest of the redcaps swept past slashing at my knees and thighs. I danced about trying to evade their attacks but was only half successful.

-14 Hit Points. (396/410)

-14 Hit Points. (382/410)

Ignoring the redcap gnomes who had run by me I advanced on the one I had hit already who was still a bit off-balance. Two quick slashes with my scimitars connected with his body and number four was dead.

As I turned to face the four who had passed me, I received the prompt.

Critical Strike! x2 Shana has inflicted 26 piercing damage to redcap gnome #1.

Shana had shot one of the redcaps who were on the countertop. I saw out of the corner of my eye they had been climbing down from it and gnome number one who she hit in the back had fallen in a heap on the floor. His compatriot ignored him and dropped to his feet nearby. I had to ignore the pair of them for now and trust that Shana could keep them off my back.

I changed my approach to the fight and stowed one of my blades and grabbed one of the knocked over cheap plastic seat chairs and hurled it at the group of four redcaps in front of me. This forced them to scatter and knocked a couple of them down. I followed in and hacked at one of the downed creatures.

Critical Strike! x2 You have inflicted 34 piercing damage and 24 points of cold damage to redcap gnome #8. Redcap gnome #8 has fewer than 25% HP remaining.

Critical Strike! x2 You have inflicted 34 piercing damage and 24 points of cold damage to redcap gnome #8. Overflow of 56 damage is converted at a rate of 5 to 1 (important spot) for 11 health lost. Redcap gnome #8 is slain.

Another one down. I saw Shana’s third arrow streak out and slam into the face of the unharmed redcap who had climbed down from the counter.

Critical Strike! x8 Shana has inflicted 104 piercing damage to redcap gnome #2. Overflow of 44 damage is converted at a rate of 2 to 1 (vital spot) for 22 health lost. Redcap gnome #2 is slain.

Make that another two down. There were only four of the little devils left.

-14 Hit Points. (368/410)

-14 Hit Points. (352/410)

While I had been ending number eight, two of them had run by me and slashed the back of my thighs for a further loss of twenty-eight hit points. But then I got a fresh prompt which brought a smile to my face.

Having suffered 50% casualties, redcap gnomes must undergo a morale check.

Redcap gnome’s morale check failed! Mental and Social attributes suffer a fifty percent debuff until the combat is complete or a subsequent check is passed.

The rest of the fight was a breeze once the redcaps were slapped with that debuff. Their decision making became panicked and illogical. They ran heedlessly about the room no longer coordinating their attacks which made it easy to avoid them.

With the only exit blocked they couldn’t escape. The solitary annoyance was they kept their fleetness and it took Shana and me several more minutes to corner each of the creatures and finish them.

Your party has slain redcap gnomes (8). +82 XP Torin, +90 XP Shana.

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Shana wasn’t getting more XP from the redcaps than I was, but she did get a ten percent bonus from being soulbound to me. As well as a couple of extra points for our shared notoriety bonus.

“I guess gnomes don’t rule, after all,” I said as we finished the last of them.

“What was that Torin?” Shana asked

“Nothing, Shana. Just a little in-joke is all, no offence meant,” I said with a wink.

<Congratulations, boss.>

<Quest ‘Clear the redcaps from the BuyMart’ completed. 206 XP to Torin and 226 XP to Shana, awarded.>

We moved around the room and looted the redcaps. Shana retrieved her arrows, as they were all still usable. The redcaps only contributed a paltry twenty copper pieces each and four pieces of shoddy leather scraps which you could merge five of to create one sheet of shoddy leather, but more importantly, we picked up four gear drops.

Shoddy Leather Boots

Leather Armour (M) Damage Mitigation: Low HP +10 Durability: 5/5

 

Shoddy Leather Cuirass

Leather Armour (M) Damage Mitigation: Low HP +20 Durability: 5/5

 

There were two of each and Shana and I donned them quickly. If the melodramatic sighs were any indication, Shana wasn’t too fond of the aesthetic of our new shoddy armour. However, some armour was better than no armour.

“Should we clean up this mess?” Shana asked, pointing at the dead redcaps.

Quixbix answered for me.

<Unlike Victor and Reg, the redcaps were spawned from a crystal and were made from Mana. They will dissipate over the next few hours back into pure mana which will be drawn back to the nearest spawning crystal.>

“Okay, but what about the rest of this mess?” she said.

“Kitchen rules,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders as I went into the locker area.

“Huh, what’s that?” she said.

“Whoever cooks, or in this case kills, doesn’t have to do the clean-up,” I said with a smirk.

Before heading back into the store to check in with the trio we left behind I needed to lock the back door again.

The door was weighted, so it being open was no accident. There was a hook and catch on the outside for whenever there was a need to keep the door open.

I stepped out into the cooling night air. It wasn’t far off five in the morning and after a hot summer’s day, this was always the most pleasantly cool period. The air temperature had faded to its lowest ebb and the first rays of dawn with the heat it brought was still an hour or so away. If I hadn’t been so damn tired every morning, I would have appreciated the walk to work more.

That was another change in me I noted. I was way more alert than I otherwise would be. I didn’t think it was the fight with the deadly gnomes waking me up, either. I’d felt like this since I’d been awoken by Quixbix earlier. I used to have to chug a large cup of coffee before heading out and jog half the way to force myself awake. Now, it may as well have been the middle of the day.

When I had completed a once over of the surrounding area and not seen anything untoward, I turned my attention to the door. There was something different that stuck out immediately. There was a message scrawled on the inside of the door in black marker.

Fuck you Torin.

I hope the monsters get you.

The handwriting was Constance’s. She insisted on being the one to update the daily deals board if she was on shift. This passive-aggressive graffiti was indisputably hers, the fucking cow.

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