Chapter 83: Chapter 83: Abominable Droppings

Lain had found Quincy about sixty feet down the mountain, his body dangling between a jut of rock and ice. He was unconscious and charred. Smoke was still coming off him and there was a circle of molten heat and slush around him.

She half-slid and half climbed down the slope to reach him. If he hadn’t of been caught in the crotch of the rock and ice, he would have continued to tumble down the mountain. Her feet slammed into rock there on the edge, stopping her descent.

Upon inspection, it seemed like his Bronze-rank resistances had saved him from being burnt to a crisp. The Gloom Ranger had seen worse burns. During the last outpouring from The Scar, she had treated a ranger who had been badly burned by a wyrm. Even though she had been able to mend his flesh, he still carried phantom pain with him. His body remembered the experience of the burn.

One day, she wished her healing to become so powerful she could erase those memories of the skin for him and free him from his torment. Her hope was that Quincy wouldn’t suffer from the same condition.

She tapped into her spirit veins and envisioned the gold blossom forming between her cupped hands. Her Mend Flesh Bloom that she had used on so many of the injured. It truly was a vigor gift. Healing the broken was what gave Lain purpose. It was why she became a ranger. To heal those brave enough to protect others from the horrors that threatened normal people.

She released the gold blossom over Quincy’s body and it hovered there, spinning, giving off a kaleidoscope of golden light. The healing flower bloomed and an outpouring of healing washed over Quincy’s form, the gold motes of vigor mending his burnt flesh.

The half of his mustache that remained began to twitch. His blue eyes opened and he gasped.

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Nay shifted into stealth so she had a third-person view of herself and the young harpies that surrounded them. When she disappeared from sight the harpies hissed, disapproving.

“Can still smell you,” one said. She was taller than the others and seemed to be the leader. Or the older sister. That’s how Nay would think of her, the Older Sister. She crept towards her.

Nom hopped on Tuk-Tuk’s back. The polar bear turned in a circle, trying to keep eyes on all six of the harpy brood.

The harpies were amused by the bear.

One of them batted her eyes at Tuk-Tuk. “How warm and soft you must be,” she said. She opened a wing that was covering herself and she presented herself in a seductive manner.

“Now I’m confused,” Nom said. “Is this supposed to be a harem or a nursery?”

“Why not both?” another said.

“Sorry, gals,” Nom said. “But I’m afraid you’re just not my type.”

Nay popped out of stealth, appearing behind the Older Sister. She dragged Thorn’s edge along the harpy’s throat, slicing open the carotid artery and windpipe. Arterial blood sprayed into the air and the Older Sister placed a hand over the wound, trying to stanch the blood. But she gasped at the air, unable to breathe.

And that’s when chaos broke out in the room. The two sisters who were closest to the Older Sister flew into the air and rushed towards Nay.

Nom fired his Disintegration Ray into a harpy who was still looking at the dying Older Sister. There was a red flash, blasting the harpy into the wall.

Tuk-Tuk ran down another harpy, swiping it out of the air with his paw. He fell on with both front legs and used his Shred attack, ripping the wings from its body.

Nay jumped on one of the harpies flying straight at her. She landed knees first on the harpy’s torso and activated Shred, Thorn and ice scythe poking holes in her chest as they crashed to the floor. The other harpy landed on Nay’s back, clawing her.

The remaining harpy flew into the air and circled from above, flinging something wet and clumpy at Nom and Tuk-Tuk. Something brown and sticky exploded on Tuk-Tuk’s fur.

It threw another clump at Nom and was confused when it just hit the polar bear in front of the tentacle. It looked like it should have been a direct hit.

Nom sniffed, realizing what it was. “It’s throwing shit at us!”

Tuk-Tuk let out a confused but horrified roar and ran away from the harpy. “Don’t run away from it!”

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Ilyawraith approached the crater made in the side of the mountain. Smoke was coming from inside off of the reaver. She saw the red glow of its core in the ice. And she felt the pressure shift in the air before the crater. She could hear the core charging up.

The reaver was still operational. She pulled the vigor particles of moisture to her and it formed a cloud underneath her and she whisked into the sky and out of the way. Just as the reaver blast blew out of the side of the mountain. Its heat turning all the ice in the vicinity to water.

Ilyawraith could feel its heat, even as it disappeared. There was a loud stomping and the winding and gear clicking of a mechanical construct. The reaver rushed out of the crater and spotted her in hovering in her cloud above.

It leapt up at her, throwing punches. Its stone and iron arms pumping like pistons. She easily tilted her body to dodge each blow. She counter-attacked with a bo strike. The end of the bo planted into the metal of its chest, cracking the glass around the core frame.

She forced the reaver back down to earth, using her momentum to slam it into a switchback on the mountain. Ilyawraith’s cloud dissipated and she landed feet first atop the reaver’s torso. This side of the cairn trembled from the impact.

She raised her bo staff above her head, spinning it, then brought it down with all of her strength into the core inside its chest. There was a burst of red light and a loud shattering.

The unstable core released a molten blast but ice flew off her staff, meeting the heat and canceling it out.

Now that she had access to its core, her elemental attacks could finally do some damage. Its hull needed to be weakened and cracked so her elemental damage could get inside it. She’d remember this the next time she faced a construct.

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The reaver grabbed the bo staff with both arms. Ice spread from the staff onto the reavers fingers and spread down its hands and wrists and arms, encasing it in ice. It released a metallic groan, a hollow protest. As the spread onto its chest and through the broken glass, its core froze over, the burning light faded from the eye sockets in its metallic and stone visage. The maugrim golem of stone, iron and steel powered down, shutting off forever. Its vigor spirit extinguished.

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Quincy had recovered, although his armor was singed and parts of his clothes had been turned to ash. Even with his Bronze-resistance, he still felt the harsh cold of the wind up here.

As he walked over to retrieve his axe, Gertrude, out of the snow, the side of the cairn shook and there was a whine above them.

Lain looked up and saw a crack spreading through the ice sheet, disrupting some of the snow. “We need to get out of here!”

She shifted into elk form and ran to Quincy. He hopped atop her elk back and she ran down the path as a wall of ice and snow and rock crashed behind them.

Lain deposited Quincy out of harm’s way then shifted back to her human form. They watched all the debris settle, revealing what appeared to be another cave in the side of the mountain.

They both looked at each other and then headed towards it, as there seemed to be no other way to get back up to the harpy lair entrance without climbing the vertical rock face.

They peered through the threshold, looking into the cave.

“Maybe this connects to the rest of the lair,” Quincy said.

“I hope so,” Lain said. “We need to get back to them. That thing might have burned someone else. And I’m not sure if an Iron-rank could survive such an attack.”

“A maugrim relic,” Quincy said. “There could even be more. This lair was probably once part of the maugrim dwelling and operation inside the mountain. As to why it was with the harpy is a mystery.”

“I’ve seen such a thing once before,” Lain said. “But whatever life it once had was long expired. Was just a shell.”

She took out of her hoops and it glowed red, providing them with light. “Shall we?”

They entered the cave.

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Nay felt hot searing pain on her back. A harpy had hooked its talons into her and she felt its wings strike her as they flapped, lifting them into the air. Pulling her off the drying harpy she had just mortally injured.

She kicked her feet that were dangling in the air, tried to twist and wrench herself out of the harpy’s talons. But they were hooked into her skin. Below she could see saw Tuk-Tuk, with Nom on his back, running away from the other remaining harpy, which was also in flight.

Then there was more searing pain, but at her neck this time as the harpy sunk its teeth into her. She screamed and reversed her grip on Thorn so she was holding it with an icepick grip. She drove it into the belly of the young harpy behind her. A Kinetic Point dinged on her HUD.

The teeth immediately pulled out of her neck and the harpy screeched in pain. She twisted the dagger and then jerked her hand out, yanking, tearing open the harpy’s side. Its talons let go of her, ripping Nay’s skin even more. She fell about twelve feet to the floor, crumpling against the stone, her legs folding underneath her and landing on her side. The impact took the wind out of her.

Blood droplets splattered her from above. She turned to see the harpy looking down at its open belly. Then it looked at her with hate and flew into a divebomb towards her.

Nay tried to right herself and get her blades in front of her, but her movement was sluggish. Were harpy talons poisonous? Something felt off.

Before the harpy reached her, there was a red flash. Nom’s Disintegration Ray hit it in the side, blasting it across the room. Boring a hole through its torso. She watched the harpy’s head hit a stalactite. The neck bent at an odd angle with a snap and the body flipped, crashing to the floor. Lifeless.

Nom had flew off Tuk-Tuk and slithered over to her, concerned.

The last harpy was still pursuing the polar bear, flinging its toxic shit at Tuk-Tuk.

“Are you hurt?” Nom said.

“I don’t feel right,” Nay said. Her eyes went to the remaining harpy. “Is she…”

“Yes, she’s flinging her shit,” Nom said.

That’s when Nay remembered something from one of her English classes in high-school. It had been freshman year, when Ms. Mahafee had them reading through Greek epics. A line from Virgil, in The Aeneid. Aeneas and his party had run into harpies tormenting them.

Bird-bodied, girl-faced things they are; abominable their droppings…

Disgusted, Nay pushed herself to her knee and she activated Salvo of Knives. Thornand ice scythe appeared inside the harpy, surprising it. The combat dagger was stuck in her neck. Ice scythe in her stomach. She fluttered to the ground, looking at the handles of the blades sticking out of her.

Then spirit knives fell from above, shredding through her wings and piercing her all over. The harpy succumbed to the rain of blades, dying.

Nay’s weapons disappeared from the harpy’s flesh and reappeared in her hands. “I think their shit must be toxic.” An image off filthy harpy talons opening her skin flashed across her mind. “I think I’ve been poisoned.”

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