Chapter 86: Book 1: Chapter 30 (Part 2 of 3)

This only left one other individual in sight.

 

Douglas Vickers (Goatblood Human)

Cultist Leader (U) 1

Character Aptitude: Moderate

Loot Value: Very Low

Threat: Very Low

XP Value: 770

Current Affiliation: Cult of Carnax (Beaver Island Sect)

Faith: Strong

 

Dougie was short, barely five and a half feet, but not a child. He couldn’t go through character creation until he was sixteen, and I estimated he was a year or two older than that. He was standing, and in addition to a human skin loincloth, he wore a cape made from the same grisly material. Atop his head was a crown of sorts, made from finger bones and teeth and he shook a staff that similarly had teeth embedded in the wood.

He pranced from one foot to the other and gibbered. “Oh, mighty Carnax! Please accept these oblations from your devoted servants. We shall cleanse the land of those who have profaned their bodies with the flesh of your precious ones, the cloven-hoofed. They shall experience the severity of their sins in kind! Let the immolation begin.” The crazed lad cackled.

He twirled about, chanting the same mantra several times. It was very likely he made it up as he went along and that the Capronids didn’t really care what he said or did. They simply waited for the shrine to be ready to absorb the next blood sacrifice.

It was also obvious Dougie considered himself something of a walking thesaurus. I’d taken enough Classics lessons at college to know that oblation was an offering to the Gods and that contrary to popular thought, immolation meant sacrifice, not setting fire to someone or something. Immolation was most often associated with sacrifices who were either burned alive or had parts ritually burned afterwards, which is where the confusion in its definition came from.

From my conversation with Sarah, I assumed Dougie had been suffering from a variety of self-esteem or mental health issues before the apocalypse.

In my head, I had been willing to cut the guy some slack, given his youth, allow him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe in his zeal for animal rights he hadn’t fully understood the ramifications of his actions. People used to type all kinds of impulsive shit on social media they deeply regretted later when they grew up and managed to get a clue.

That may have been true in the beginning, I didn’t know. What I did know was that he had definitely gone off the deep end since.

He was supposed to be a vegan and yet here he was, bedecked in the body parts of people he helped kill. And if the stains about his mouth were what I thought they were, he had been partaking in the same diet as his goat creature allies.

<Quest ‘Culling the Cloven-Hoofed 1’ completed. 1,330 XP and one Token of the Bound awarded> Quixbix formally intoned, and immediately the follow up quest flashed before my eyes.

Culling the Cloven-Hoofed 2 (K)

You have found the encampment and Blood Shrine of the Hooved Horde on the island. You need to remove their influence from your territory.

Success: Eliminate the herd of Capronids, all cultists of Carnax, and destroy the Blood Shrine.

Rewards: 3,400 XP and future quests in the chain.

Lucky Goat’s Hoof charm.

Failure: If this quest goes incomplete the rest of this quest chain will remain locked and unavailable.

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<Good, they don’t have a big enough blood pool to open even a temporary portal. Sacrificing Marco won’t provide enough either, but if we’d given them an extra couple of days to finish off the rest of their prisoners they would have. To make the blood shrine vulnerable you will need to kill the cultists first. It would be best to kill them early anyway as only characters can use the shrine’s blood pool. It’s why the Capronids need, and therefore tolerate, the cultists. They don’t have enough to open a portal, but they could still use what they have to summon a small herd of reinforcements> Quixbix whispered in our heads.

After what we had just seen I was fine with killing Dougie and the two fools who followed in his wake.

After the fourth recitation from Dougie, the serrated blade-wielding Capronid bellowed loudly, and the insane young man ceased his capering and chanting. The guttural lowing from the other Capronids increased in volume, as did the begging and squealing from Marco who knew what was coming his way.

Had it been someone else up on that altar I might have felt an emotional compulsion to act earlier, but it was Marco. I would end up killing him eventually anyway, so we’d wait. I had a sneaking suspicion of what would happen afterwards, and it would provide a much better opportunity for our ambush if I was right.

“Please!” Marco begged, tears streaming down his filth-caked cheeks. “You don’t have to do this. I know people, powerful people, Luca…he…he will reward you for my return…or…or…I can show you the way to the cunt who has a base on this island. Lead you right to him…”

Marco’s flapping lips of betrayal were cut off with screams of agony as the Capronid in charge roughly gripped his fright-shrivelled genitalia and roughly carved them off. Then threw the bloody mess on the barren earth in front of Dougie and the other two cultists.

Dougie eagerly snatched up a piece from the ground and tore into it with his teeth. Florence and Mark were decidedly less enthusiastic, but after a glare from their new leader, scrambled forward on their knees to consume their own pieces of Marco’s discarded flesh.

“Oh, that is beyond rank,” Anastasia whispered. “Please tell me we can kill these fuckers.”

“That’s the plan,” I mouthed back quietly.

Meanwhile, the blade-wielding Capronid hadn’t bothered to wait or watch what the former humans were doing. He stabbed the serrated blade into Marco’s lower belly, just above where his crotch used to be, and sawed his way up to his sternum with practised ease.

Marco was still alive for all of this, though his screams had faded into wordless, pitiful, sobs. We didn’t have long to listen to those either as the Capronid pulled the blade from his chest and raked it deeply across his throat. The arterial blood spurted from the grisly wound and Marco’s suffering ended swiftly as he bled out from his multiple wounds in a few seconds.

There was barely a murmured cry or any increased volume in the exhausted weeping from the remaining slaves off to the right who had undoubtedly witnessed more than a few of these sacrifices and knew their time would be coming sooner rather than later.

With their trio of sacrifices done for the day what I hoped might happen occurred as the Capronid with the serrated blade pushed Marco’s lifeless body off the altar to join the other two unfortunates. It bellowed loudly and the encircled beasts charged forward and pounced on the dead. The Capronids pushed and shoved one another in an effort to be the first to devour the flesh of the slain.

All the beasts joined the brawl apart from the two who had been assigned to watch over the remaining slaves. They looked onto the mass of goatmen greedily devouring flesh with envious eyes.

Dougie cackled wildly and rushed forward to join the ruck but was forcibly thrown back by the much bigger and stronger monsters. He landed hard on his arse and nursed his equally wounded tailbone and pride.

Now was the time to act.

“Shana,” I whispered. “Execute Dougie with extreme prejudice and then switch your attacks to the two Capronids guarding the slaves.”

“Understood,” she replied quietly.

“Ana, you’re with me. Once Shana drops the dickhead who started this, we rush the other two and finish them off,” I outlined to the blonde avatar.

Anastasia smiled with vicious glee.

“Jackson,” I murmured to the young sorcerer. “You follow in our wake. Get as close to the goat-headed fuckers as you need and then drop the biggest green fire-bomb on their asses that you can without pushing yourself into Mana exhaustion.”

“Then get your scrawny butt back to the treeline,” I joked and clapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Ana and I will mop up what’s left of them, and you can work your way around to free the prisoners once Shana has killed the two that are guarding them over there.”

Jackson gulped nervously but nodded and rolled his sleeves up, getting himself ready.

“Shana, fire at will,” I whispered.

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