Chapter 64: Book 1: Chapter 23 (Part 6 of 6)

Anastasia had already ordered the remaining mannequin-golems to take positions at the end of the road and they started firing into the advancing fishy mob.

“Shana, fire as many infused arrows as you can at the leader’s head and then you and Jackson get back into the school. Ana, you stick with me,” I ordered.

Three heads nodded without question.

Jackson threw several more of his flame balls before he admitted he was out of mana and retreated as ordered. Shana managed to get three arrows into the monstrosity’s head before she followed him inside.

Anastasia and the mannequin-golems emptied their magazines before the horde overran the golems and smashed them to pieces. The golems being made from shop mannequins weren’t very sturdy and provided little resistance when in melee range.

“With me, Ana,” I muttered and then yelled loudly. “For the Shattered Goddess! May Sholmdir drown in his own bile!”

Your attempt to naturally taunt the party of Fomorians was successful. They will choose to attack you rather than other available targets.

The flashed message was followed by the Greater Fomorian reacting accordingly and screaming some fishy obscenity in my direction while trampling a few of his lesser fellows to get to me.

Just as I’d hoped.

Sadly, taunting didn’t cause the targets to lose all semblance of sanity. They wouldn’t run through a trench of stakes and fire to get to you. They would, however, seek to find a way around said obstacle in an attempt to get to you rather than switch to your allies who weren’t as well protected. At least as long as the taunt lasted.

Although we could have retreated into the school and waited for them to flee back to the water when they began suffocating, I’d had enough of passing up opportunities for XP.

I’d foregone ripe chances in the past as we’d been under time constraints. I had to get my ship and then I had to found my cove. Well, I’d done the first and would soon do the latter. Time to grab a little more advancement while I could.

Plus, I would just have to deal with the fucker later anyway. Why not now when he was literally a fish out of water.

“Come on,” I said to Anastasia, and darted to our left down the road that led back into the township towards where the ship was moored, though that was not our intended destination.

“I hope you know what you are doing, sir,” Anastasia grumbled as she sprinted along behind me.

All the Fomorians chased after us, which was gratifying. Luckily, as they were sea-borne creatures they weren’t built for sprinting, and we kept ahead of them quite easily. In fact, we had to slow down a little to keep them in sight and maintain my taunt’s effect.

Periodically, one of the Lesser Fomorians would chuck their fish-bone spear at us, but we managed to keep out of range of any real danger.

We had been running for almost a minute before the road up ahead ended in a T-junction.

During the long wait, I’d been studying the map of the area. Which was helped by the school owning a detailed one of the islands in a display case.

On the other side of the bay was a hook of land that was sparsely populated about half a kilometre wide and long. I wanted to lead the watery host there, so when they started to suffocate, they wouldn’t have an easy egress back to the water.

Taking them deeper into the island may have seemed like a superior option for that, but half a kilometre from the township on that side was Font Lake, an inland lake on the island.

I suspected the Fomorians were well aware of the lake’s presence. During the original ambush, one of the groups had come from that direction. Also, it was the direction the prisoners and their pursuers had scarpered off in and I didn’t want to run into any Fomorians already ahead of me.

“I want to lead them away from the bay, into the woods on the other side, Ana. Turn right onto Main Street and then we’re going to cut left just after we get past the curve in the road,” I puffed as we ran.

Anastasia nodded but didn’t answer verbally. I wanted her to know our final destination in case we got split up.

-10 Hit Points. (520/570)

I’d been clipped by a spear as we turned the corner. We’d had to slow down to minimise the length of time we’d be out of their direct line of sight.

This was the riskiest part of the plan, in that it involved kiting the chasing mob back within sight of the bay. But we should be away from it again after only another minute or so of running.

Quixbix had informed us that the monsters could go three, maybe four minutes before they started to take Hit Point damage for being out of oxygenated water. Which matched my rough estimation of how long it would take to get away from the bay and into the centre of the wooded area at a running pace.

During the ten-hour wait for dawn, we’d had plenty of time to research various methods of finishing they guys off. Suffocation damage started at one Hit Point per second but doubled every ten seconds.

The two hundred Hit-Point Lesser Fomorians would have forty-three seconds before they perished. The big one perhaps seventy-five seconds. Presuming they hadn’t already lost any Hit Points. Shana had shaved five hundred from the Greater Fomorian and a lot of the Lesser Fomorians had been hit by bullets or Jackson’s flame balls.

I just had to hope my taunt would keep them so focused on me they wouldn’t think about turning back until they started incurring the damage. By which point. If we were far enough away from the shore it would be too late for them.

We ran along the main street, passed the marina and a microbrewery before we took our left turn off the main street. There were a few more houses but we were soon under the cover of trees.

Anastasia flashed me a cheeky grin. “This might work after all,”

“We have the hardest part left to go,” I warned.

A minute later and by my estimation we were in the centre of the forested area and as far from the shore on all sides as we could be.

We slowed and stopped and took cover behind a large tree. We had increased our pace ahead of reaching here to put a little extra distance between us. That and the sea-based mobs were even less well-equipped for running through a wooded area than they were a street.

With that being the case, our prisoners-cum-distractions may have managed to evade their pursuers. We would have to think about potentially rounding them up later.

As the Fomorians approached, I could see signs that some of them were beginning to suffer the effects of being out of the water for too long. They were trailing the main group and making vile throaty dry-heaving sounds as they struggled to breathe. Their dark fish-like eyes were sweeping in all directions trying to determine the closest way back to the water.

Anastasia opened fire with her assault rifle into the mass of those who were unaware or less affected thus far.

Then I stepped into sight, spun my scimitars with a flourish and smiled mockingly. The Greater Fomorian roared at me and gave chase.

I sprinted north. “Ana, go south and circle back,” I called to her.

We needed to keep them occupied for only a little longer.

Those who had been struggling earlier had already entered panic mode and had abandoned the battle. They were either running back the way they came or in random directions which they thought might be closer to water. The Fomorians hadn’t been the swiftest creatures in the woods at the best of times which further hampered their efforts.

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Suffocation as you would imagine brings with it certain debuffs that affect your decision making and physical capacity and they noticeably struggled and were prone to running into trees.

I was confident few, if any, of them would make it.

I had more to worry about, though. Hardly any of the non-panicked beasts had gone after Anastasia, there were fifty-odd as well as the big fella’ on my tail and the time factor seemed to have penetrated their fishy skulls as they redoubled their efforts, and I was swamped in a hailstorm of thrown spears and harpoons.

There were too many to dodge effectively and it included the gigantic harpoon which I had to prioritise for avoidance, so I was hit multiple times by the smaller spears.

-100 Hit Points. (420/570)

I led them on a merry chase in a circle for the next ten seconds and thankfully, they didn’t have an inexhaustible supply of such weaponry. Especially not the giant harpoon which the Greater Fomorian had to retrieve before he could throw the terrifying thing at me again.

I didn’t know how much inventory space the creatures had but I think they ran out after chucking four spears at me. I was hit several more times and was down another one hundred and fifty Hit Points when they both ran out of projectiles and the suffocation debuff started to affect the whole pack of them.

My circular kiting pattern had brought us back to the point where Anastasia and I had split up a little while ago.

I stopped running when the Lesser Fomorians started to scatter in a panic, rushing headlong for whatever source of water they could find, but not the Greater Fomorian.

He was making the same hacking dry-heaving sounds like the others, but he only had eyes for me and that suited me fine. I thirsted for a real battle too.

We charged one another and he tried to skewer me with that harpoon. I ducked his thrust, and it grazed my shoulder.

-20 Hit Points. (250/570)

I had far fewer Hit Points than I would care for, but I was inside his guard and slashed at his unprotected belly with my scimitars.

You have inflicted 232 damage on Greater Fomorian, it has a maximum of 928 Hit Points remaining.

As I cut his gut, I inexplicably tripped on a gnarled root as I darted out of his reach.

The creature took advantage of my sudden imbalance and clubbed me about the head with a closed fist, sending me sprawling to the ground. Then quicker than I believed possible it turned towards me and rammed the harpoon down. Reflexively, I desperately scrambled backwards, which saved my life as instead of being speared through the chest the harpoon penetrated through the meat of my thigh.

-10 Hit Points. (240/570)

+154 Hit Points (394/570)

-290 Hit Points. -2 Health. (104/570) (16/18)

My first thought, other than ‘fucking hell but this hurts so fucking bad’, was that I should be done for.

Then I registered the hand on the back of my neck. “What would you do without me, sir?” Anastasia deadpanned.

She had converted her personal Drain pool into healing energy and poured it into me in an eyeblink before the harpoon sank into my thigh and kept me alive. She was definitely getting a reward after this.

Before I could say anything, she let go of my neck and launched herself at the Greater Fomorian. Anastasia grabbed hold of his leg and hung on for dear life as the Fomorian tried to dislodge her until she was swatted away by the sea monster’s fist.

Anastasia has inflicted 154 damage on Greater Fomorian, it has a maximum of 774 Hit Points remaining. Greater Fomorian is under 25% Hit Points

While Anastasia had kept the creature occupied holding onto its leg, I had gripped the harpoon at the base of the coral tip and wrenched the fucking thing out of my leg. That was easier said than done, but I was hopped up on adrenaline and fury. Absently, I recognised that the wound mostly sealed itself once the harpoon was clear which helped considerably.

The harpoon had been barbed so it cost me more Hit Points and Health to remove it in the manner I did. But I didn’t have time to break the shaft and pull it through the other way.

-30 Hit Points. -1 Health. (74/570) (15/18)

I scrambled back onto my feet, popped a fifty Hit Point recovery pellet into my mouth, grabbed my swords and lunged at the distracted creature.

With the combination of the damage we had already done, and what it had to have taken from the lack of oxygen, the monster had to be on its last legs.

It was time to end this, and I leapt into the air and sank both scimitars into its big vile eyes.

You have inflicted 464 damage on Greater Fomorian. Greater Fomorian is slain.

I’d sunk the scimitars so deeply into its head they had stuck there, but the notification of its demise reassured me as I landed on the ground with a bolt of intense pain from my wounded thigh and punched it in the chest with both fists toppling it over.

I pulled my blades from its ocular cavities and spat on my defeated opponent for whom I had zero respect.

<Phew! You had me worried for a moment. That thing had to have some kind of enraged status at the end. He did as much damage to your leather-armoured leg as he did to Bunches when he speared her in the back earlier today> Quixbix commented.

“You didn’t say anything about it having an ability like that earlier,” I grumbled.

<It’s not typical for them. I suspect some Divine shenanigans> he explained.

“A gift from Sholmdir then?” I queried.

<Or the Shattered Goddess making you vulnerable to his attack, to ensure you earned the rewards she was offering> he verbally shrugged.

I glanced to my side and saw Anastasia was still with me and walked over and helped her back onto her feet. With the adrenaline fading, I felt the throbbing ache of pain in my leg and couldn’t help limping a little.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m down about half of my Hit Points, sir,” Anastasia admitted and then I felt her healing touch again as she boosted me back another one-hundred and fifty-four. “But I’ll live as long as you do,” she grinned.

“Good,” I smiled in response, “because we have a shitload of looting to do.”

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