“What the hell was that?” Bunny demanded.
“Divine politics,” I answered with a shake of my head. “I’ll tell you later.”
Then I looked around the temple, running my eyes over the eight shrines and altars. There were six more deities that I could contact about a potential bargain, but I had absolutely no intention of doing so. For one thing, we had run out of time and I couldn’t afford to waste another minute with that kind of thing. Second, and more importantly, I did not want to risk getting caught up in even more divine grudges or bullshit.
I started moving towards the door, but Bunny announced, “We have an audience.”
When I saw her pointing upward, I paused and looked up. The ceiling was completely gone from the temple, and it looked like it had been missing for a long time. I could see the open sky above…and I could see a lot of ugly little faces looking down on us.
“Ah, crap,” I muttered.
A couple dozen gargoyles were perched on the ruined walls, and they all seemed to be staring down at us. Not a single one of them made a move to actually attack, nor had they done so while we were distracted. That would have been the best opportunity.
“I wonder if this is a safe zone,” Olivia commented thoughtfully. “That would explain why they haven’t attacked us in here.”
“Could be,” I agreed.
I stared up at one of the gargoyles specifically, one who was much larger than the others. We’d known that this one had been around, though it was the first time that any of us had actually seen it. This was their boss, the gargoyle who seemed to be their leader.
“It looks impatient,” Bunny said. “I think it’s finally going to attack us.”
“Probably as soon as we step out that door,” Turtle offered in agreement. He shrugged, adjusted his shield, and then began moving towards the door. “I’d better get this over with.”
“Wait,” I warned him. “I have an idea.”
I quickly discussed what I had in mind with the others, then I moved to the doorway. I looked out into the fog covered street, unable to even see all the way across to the other side. All I could make out where the vague shapes of walls.
Once I was ready, I activated ‘Invocation of the Wisp’, and an illusion that looked just like me abruptly ran out into the street. The illusion only made it halfway across before the giant gargoyle suddenly burst out of the fog and landed right on top of it, hitting it so hard that if I really had been out there, I probably would have died immediately.
I finally got a good look at the monster, even better than I had when it had been hunched over on top of the wall. The other gargoyles were small, resembling bald grey monkeys with wings, but their big brother looked more like a bald grey gorilla with wings. It was bulging with muscle, and even hunched over, it was close to seven feet tall. And where the smaller gargoyles had scorpion like tails emerging from their backs, this one had two such tails.
We’d expected this attack which was why I’d sent the decoy out instead of letting Turtle take the hit. Considering what I’d just seen, I was thankful for that decision.
I immediately fired an ‘Invocation of Spite’ while Olivia and Ace joined in with the ranged attacks. The monster dropped to its knees for a moment and then howled in rage and agony. Smaller gargoyles suddenly began to emerge from the fog, joining their leader in the attack.
“My turn,” Turtle announced as he stepped forward and activated both of his abilities. Nearly two dozen gargoyles all began attacking him at once.
I grinned as I considered my new ability, ‘Blessing of Avexis’. I’d only had the ability for a couple minutes, but I instinctively knew how it worked, and I was eager to test it out.
‘Blessing of Avexis’ was a passive ability, something that was always on and which I couldn’t turn off. It was like an invisible aura around my body which retaliated against anyone who attacked me. If someone or something attacked me, they’d take a small amount of damage. This wasn’t really all that useful to me since it wasn’t a lot of damage and my usual goal was to avoid being attacked in the first place, but for someone like Turtle…
“NOW!” I yelled to let Turtle know what I was doing.
My new ability had one other feature, one that made it perfect for this situation. I could share it. A moment later, I pushed ‘Blessing of Avexis’ away from me and onto Turtle. Suddenly, every gargoyle that attacked him began taking damage. That riled them up and they began attacking him even more frantically.
“I can’t do this for long,” I warned Turtle.
I could only give the blessing away for a short time before it returned to me, but the more I increased my presence and focus, the longer that time would become. For now, this would have to be enough.
The boss monster shook off the effects of my ‘Invocation of Spite,’ enough so that it could get to its feet and attack again. It howled in rage, its twin tails raising up from behind it. Drops of green liquid dripped from the spiked tips.
“My turn,” Bunny called out.
Bunny held out her scepter, and a moment later, the giant gargoyle was held by glowing magical chains. It was locked in place, unable to move for several long seconds, seconds that we took full advantage of.
Ramirez was suddenly there, slamming her spear as deep as she could into the monster’s chest. Before she’d even pulled her spear back, Sir Fluff followed that up with his own attack. The four horned rabbits charged in and joined the fight a moment later.
“If you can keep them occupied just a few seconds more,” Olivia said with a grimace
Olivia held out her hand and unleashed a shockwave on all the gargoyles who were surrounding Turtle. Most of them dropped out of the air and died before they even hit the ground. The ones that remained were quickly finished off.
I ignored the swarm of smaller gargoyles since they were already under control. Instead, I focused my attention on their boss, who was just being freed from Bunny’s chains. I ran towards the monster, intending to slam my mace into the side of its head, but it lashed out with its tails which forced me to change dodge instead.
“I was hoping you’d be dead by now,” I growled in annoyance.
The boss gargoyle spread its wings to take off, but I wasn’t about to allow that. We’d lured it down to the ground just so that we could kill it, and I intended to see that through. With that in mind, I swung my mace at one of the wings, shattering the bones es on impact. The whole thing now hung at a bad angle.
“Good idea,” Ace called out, right before he fired two blasts right at the other wing. One of them missed, but the other burned a nice hole right through the leather membrane. “You’re grounded.”
The monster lunged at Ramirez, lashing out with both of its stingers. She dove to the side, just barely avoiding being hit. Turtle was suddenly there, standing between her and the monster, blocking its stinger with his shield. He followed through with his sword, taking off half of that tail.
“I need more agility,” the Warden muttered to herself. “More of everything.”
Bunny laughed. “That’s just about always the case. Players always need more.”
Ace added, “It’s kind of addicting.”
“I’m about to hit him again,” I called out, warning my team right before I fired another ‘Invocation of Spite’.
The howled as it spasmed in pain, while we all rushed in to finish it off. My mace hit the side of its head only a second after Ramirez drove her spear into his side. Sir Fluff hit it two more times in rapid succession. By this point, the monster was no longer moving. Instead, it collapsed to the ground, finally dead.
A couple of the smaller gargoyles were still flying around and being an annoyance, but we weren’t too concerned with them. They were easy enough to kill, and we proved that soon afterwards.
“Well, that was annoying,” Olivia grumbled. “And time consuming.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, looking in the direction that we had been traveling. I no longer saw any monster bodies remaining, only a few small puddles of goo.
“Well, the good news is that we have a treasure box,” Ace announced.
There was a treasure box, one of the bigger ones that I’d seen. It was about four feet across on each side, and was leaning up against the side of a nearby wall.
“Let’s just open it and get going,” I said, my eyes locked on the fading trail ahead of us. “We’ve spent way too much time in this place.”
“And whose fault is that?” Bunny teased me. “Remember who it was who wanted to go to church.”
“Bite me,” I responded, flipping her off.
“Hey,” Ace exclaimed as he held up a large piece of fabric. “It’s a cloak…”
I looked more closely and saw that Ace was holding a cloak, one made of purple fabric. It looked like it was pretty good quality, though a bit too bright for my tastes.
“I think Olivia should have this,” Ace said. He looked towards the arcanist. “You could use a bit more protection, and since this is an artifact, you know it will be sturdy.”
“Not my style,” Turtle said in response.
“That would probably get in the way of me being able to move,” Ramirez added.
I shook my head while Bunny just shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with that.”
“Okay,” Olivia said as she accepted the garment. She looked it over and smiled faintly. “It looks nice…”
“And there’s a piece of unobtainium,” Ace added almost casually. “Not a very big piece, but it will definitely be good for our wallets.”
“Good,” I said, not really caring about either the cloak or the unobtainium. “Now that we’re done with this, let’s get going.”
----------
“Who the hell are we even after, anyway?” Bunny asked. “I mean, we’re chasing after these players, so we should probably know a bit more about them before we actually face off.”
“She has a point,” Turtle agreed. “We’ve been so busy chasing them, that we haven’t really had a chance to talk about who they are.”
“Or what they can do,” Olivia added. “That is the important part.”
Everyone glanced back at Ramirez, though nobody stopped walking. We’d been going almost non-stop since leaving that ruined city, trying to make up for all the lost ground. The monster bodies were getting fresher, so we were finally catching up again, and none of us wanted to risk losing that progress.
I looked around, trying to spot any monsters or other threats, though all I saw was sand dunes and desert. Olivia had her new cloak pulled around her as protection against both the sun and sand while the rest of us had to make do.
“This is personal to us,” Bunny told Ramirez. “We didn’t come in with you because there are bounties…”
“Though, that does help,” Ace offered with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“We knew the people they killed,” Olivia stated, her eyes darting to me. “The ones in Gideon Heights. A couple of them were friends.”
“And one owed me money,” Ace joked, though it was a bit forced.
Ramirez was the one with answers, at least about the players we were chasing. After all, she’d told us several times that she’d been investigating them ever since they’d murdered me. She knew more about our enemies than I did, and I was the only one of us who’d actually met them.
“I know a little about Raze and Mad Mike,” Ramirez finally responded. “I don’t know much about the other players who joined them, other than what Davis told me before we left.”
“Anything helps,” I said to encourage her to continue.
Ramirez nodded at that. “Raze is a big guy. A warrior type who prefers fighting with an axe. I strongly suspect that he’s a berserker class, but I haven’t been able to confirm.”
“He’s fast,” I added, remembering how quickly he moved back in the nursing home. “He’s put points in agility.”
“He favors direct physical combat,” Ramirez continued. “And his abilities seem focused around enhancing his own physical abilities. If he can do anything else, I haven’t heard about it.” Then she looked at me and smirked. “Raze is also missing one of his eyes. It seems that one of his victims stabbed him in the eye before dying.”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said with a shrug. “My only regret is that I wasn’t able to push the knife in any deeper.”
“Damn,” Ace exclaimed, giving me a nod of appreciation.
“It gets even better,” Ramirez said.
“How could that get any better?” Ace asked. “Maggie stabbed the guy in the eye…”
“We recovered the knife, at the scene,” Ramirez continued almost cheerfully. “It turns out, the artifact has an interesting, albeit sadistic, ability. It prevents artificial healing.” She chuckled at that before adding, “The most powerful healer in the world couldn’t make that eye grow back.”
“Now THAT is good news,” I said with a grin of my own. “I’d hate for him to be able to fix it after I went through all that trouble.”
“That’s about all I can tell you about Raze,” Ramirez told us. “Well, I could tell you more, but nothing relevant.”
Olivia looked back. “Like what?”
Ramirez gave her a wry look before answering. “Such as the fact that he first respawned at the Connecticut entrance, twelve years ago, which means that he probably died somewhere in the eastern part of the US or Canada.”
“What about the other one?” I asked.
“Mad Mike,” Ramirez stated. “In spite of his name, he’s the more reasonable one of the pair. From what I’ve been told, he’s a bit obsessive about artifacts, and other players joked about him about acting a bit like a mad scientist.”
“Hence the name,” Bunny said.
“Hence the name,” Ramirez agreed. “Either that, or because he got angry over the jokes. I’ve heard claims of both.”
“Artificer?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ramirez agreed. “He was considered to be a semi-respectable appraiser, until a couple years ago when he teamed up with Raze and they began delving together.”
I nodded at that. Artificer was a bit of an odd class, and most players considered it to be the second worst one…after invoker. Unlike most invokers, artificers did start out with abilities, just not ones that were useful for combat. This was why they generally avoided the Labyrinth and stayed in places like Gideon Heights instead, appraising artifacts that other players brought out and identifying what they could do. Artificers were useful, but not well respected.
“From what I’ve been told, Mike tends to hold back and let others fight,” Ramirez continued. “Though, this seems be more from a lack of interest in fighting than an inability. He’s been reported using a variety of one-handed weapons, including a scepter.”
Since Ramirez seemed to be finished, I asked, “What about the others?” I looked at my team, who knew the other players better than I did.
“We worked with Jace a couple times,” Bunny admitted with a scowl and a look of disgust. “It didn’t work well.”
“She’s a standard warrior,” Turtle stated, “though she likes to fight more like a berserker. She also likes hammers.”
“She has a huge chip on her shoulder,” Olivia added. “And her only ability that I know about is something like my shockwave. She can shake the ground and knock people off their feet.”
“Not much of a threat,” I assured Ramirez. “At least, not in a serious fight. She seems to be fairly low-level, and she doesn’t have any real skill.”
“Accurate,” Bunny agreed.
“Wolf is an invoker,” Turtle said. “And he has…HAD a pretty good reputation. He was the strongest invoker in town, and I mean that in both figurative and literal senses.”
“Before we left,” Bunny said, “I talked to Madrid. She said that Wolf looked pretty reluctant about going with them…like he didn’t have a choice.”
“We can ask him when we find them,” I said, hoping that Wolf really had been forced by those bastards. That would be a LOT better than if he’d joined them of his own free will. I hadn’t known Wolf very well, but I’d liked the man and still owed him a drink. I’d hate to have to kill him for going rogue. “Hopefully, he has a good answer.”
“Does anyone know who that last player was?” Bunny asked. “She wasn’t a regular in town.”
“No idea,” Ace responded with a shake of his head. “I saw her a few days earlier though. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I’m pretty sure I would have noticed her if she’d been around more than a few days.”
“That’s the impression I got,” Turtle agreed.
I looked to Ramirez and asked, “A known accomplice?”
“Not one that I know about,” Ramirez responded with a sigh. “Her description doesn’t match any known accomplices, but I bet Simon will have an ID on her by the time we get out of the Labyrinth. If he doesn’t have one already.”
“Doesn’t do us much good in here,” I said. “So far, she’s the big mystery, so we’ll have to be careful.”
“A probable rogue player with unknown class and abilities,” Ramirez announced sarcastically. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I grumbled at that.
Just then, Bunny exclaimed, “SHHHH!”. She held her finger to her lips in the universal gesture to be quiet, then she tilted her head and listened carefully. After a few seconds, her eyes widened and she gasped. “I hear voices…”
“Voices?” Ace asked with a worried look. “Hearing voices is usually a bad sign.”
Bunny just glared at him before announcing, “I think we finally caught up.”