Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

Chapter 63 – Struggle

Emily wakes with a jolt, finding herself lying on the cave floor in a small bubble of light with Oscar crouching over her.

“Are you okay?” he asks worriedly. “You stopped talking, and when I turned my candle on, you were already unconscious on the floor.”

Emily sits up and looks around, rubbing her brow.

“Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry about it.” She waves off his concern while trying to understand what just happened.

Argh, it feels like I just had five new knowledges crammed into my head at once. I think I need to tune down my spatial awareness when I reset: the spatial distortion caused by The Clock is sickening.

She sits up, accepting an offered hand from Oscar to pull herself to her feet.

“Don’t worry, just accidentally overloaded my mind while trying to scan the nearby caves,” Emily casually lies as the pain in her head finally recedes.

“Ouch. If you need to rest, just let me know. I’m sure Enzo and Ivor wouldn’t mind taking on an extra hour each.”

“I’m fine,” she says dismissively, observing the state of their campsite.

The barrier is still set to one way, and from a quick check with infra-sight, she sees most of the camp still half-awake in their sleeping bags.

I came back just after he joined me. Damn! It’s a shame I couldn’t change the barrier before everyone was set on edge by the screeching. Looks like we’ll have to deal with a little exhaustion in our fight no matter what.

“You have a way of setting this barrier to block sound both ways, right?” she asks Oscar, already knowing the answer.

“Yes, but we won’t be able to hear anything approaching.”

“It doesn’t matter. We have two people on each watch. Just send someone out every now and then. I don’t think anything’s gonna attack us till our follower has had its fun.”

Oscar looks unconvinced, so Emily points out: “It won’t matter what we hear: nobody will be fit to fight anything if they’re kept up all night.”

Oscar reluctantly agrees and they set about resetting the stakes. After finishing and returning to their watch position, Emily sticks her head out of the barrier but can’t hear anything.

I guess it’s not time for the drip yet.

She pulls back in and sits down on a rock to wait the creature out. Oscar takes on the role of checking for sound, and after fifteen minutes, he pulls his head through the barrier and turns to Emily with a look of concern.

“I’m not sure if it’s a problem or not, but I hear a dripping that wasn’t there last time.”

Emily nods, standing from her rock.

“I’ll go check it out. Wait here.”

She runs out of the barrier, confidently heading towards the dismembered arm while carefully looking around for the monster. As expected, she sees nothing, and a few seconds after arriving at the arm, she hears a call in Oscar’s voice behind her.

Returning to the barrier, Emily waits just outside in the darkness, not yet letting Oscar know she’s back.

I have no clue what that thing is, even after all the books I’ve read on beast studies. I’ll give Oscar some of the details I gathered before resetting and see if he has any clue.

“Emily?”

After a few minutes, she hears Dante’s voice in the distance, and takes that as her cue to re-enter the barrier. The second she steps through and into the light, she sees Oscar standing with a glowing magic circle surrounding him.

“Are you okay?” he asks with slight panic as she steps into view.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

He breathes a sigh of relief as he dismisses his prepared spell.

“What took you so long? I was starting to get worried.”

“The monster attacked me,” Emily answers calmly, walking over and taking her seat.

“What was it? Is it dead?” Oscar asks eagerly.

Emily shakes her head, crushing his hopes quickly.

“I have no clue. I’ve never read about anything even similar before.”

“Hmm, can you give me a brief description? My family has some tomes on creatures in The Glade and The Crystal Waters that aren’t publicly known in The Covenant, so I may be able to help.”

“Sure. It’s humanoid, with grey skin and long limbs, a bit like an oversized grogler. But, it only has two eyes, and its mouth takes up half its face.”

Oscar frowns as she continues.

“Maybe a ghoul?”

“I don’t think so, it can mimic things it heard us say, and its skin is bullet and blade proof.”

“Hmmm.”

“Also, it used earth magic and rapidly regenerated damage when it ate some grogler flesh from the corpse it used to make the drip.”

Oscar considers for a few moments before shaking his head while giving Emily a sceptical look.

“I can’t think of anything either. How come you’re here alone and completely unharmed if it was so strong?”

“I was able to damage it with bolt. I think it’s weak to fire and lightning, and then it left me alone.”

“I see. What a strange monster.”

Emily nods in agreement before falling silent.

Well, if he knows nothing about it, at least we get to discover a new monster.

The rest of their watch passes without any problems, and they soon hand over their duty to Fionn and Ivor. Emily spends the night’s meditation formulating plans to hunt the monster and, by dawn, she’s decided how to deal with the coming confrontation.

The day flies by, with no changes from her first time around. They choose the same path when the tunnel forks and, as the light in the tunnel starts to fade, they pick the same spot for their camp. Emily breaks the pattern by calling the group’s attention to herself.

“I think the thing following us is going to attack soon.”

The moment her words are out, the group break out in panicked conversation, some believing her and others sceptical.

“How would you know?” Cormac asks, his voice laden with exhaustion and a hint of spite.

“Shut up and don’t question your scout,” Emily fires back quickly, silencing his arguments with a fierce glare.

Turning away from him, she offers a reasoned lie to the rest of the group to convince them she’s telling the truth.

“Most of you won’t know this, but that screech you heard last night was just the start of it. We made the barrier two way after, so you could get some sleep. And when you did, it kept up its games, trying to draw people away from the group, probably to pick them off, possibly just to mess with us. It set up severed arms in the tunnel entrances nearby to make noises, and it can imitate people’s voices, making us think someone’s calling for help. You know I’ve been able to sense it, even before we knew it was there, and now I can feel it coming. Last night was about weakening us. Tonight is about finishing the job.”

Nervous chatter spreads as information held only by the night watch is revealed. It gets louder and louder until Emily draws her revolver and fires a shot into the ceiling, instantly silencing the group and drawing their fearful attention back to her.

“I didn’t tell you this just to scare you. I told you so you understand what we’re dealing with. The creature is stronger than we are, and probably just as clever. If we’re going to be the ones to come out of this alive, we need to get our shit together and handle it like mages. This is a new monster we’ve never seen before. Don’t fear the unknown, look forward to dissecting it to further our knowledge after we kill it.”

Emily looks over the group, nodding in satisfaction as she sees them calming down, greed and excitement filling their eyes where fear once dominated.

They’re pretty easy to control. I’m definitely making Oscar do this if I have to reset again though.

After checking The Clock and seeing she has fifty minutes left till the attack, Emily starts explaining the monster’s traits while directing the group into action for her planned strategy. They settle in, gathered together, with the carriers and healers in the centre of the group, ringed by everyone else in a similar fashion to their marching formation, the main difference being Matteo joining Emily and Dante at the front, with Cormac begrudgingly just behind them. They stand together in silence, quietly munching on some rations to help restore their energy, as they wait for their challenger to arrive.

Time crawls by as Emily watches the cave behind them with infra-sight, revolver in hand, and soon spots what she was waiting for. Slowly approaching from the distance, a familiar hunched form slinks into view.

“It’s here,” she quietly alerts her group.

In an instant, a dozen chants start as Emily watches with bated breath as the monster approaches. Then, fifty metres from them, the creature pauses, standing up to its full two metre height and glancing around in what Emily assumes to be confusion.

Why isn’t it coming closer?

“Where is it?” Dante asks after finishing his spell preparations.

“It’s fifty metres in front of us. It’s stopped moving.”

Barriers of wind and water spring to life, surrounding each member of the group individually. They wait for a minute, their anxiety growing in the darkness as Emily silently watches their enemy.

“Should we attack?” Matteo asks, nervously shuffling from side to side.

The moment he moves, the monster’s head snaps towards him, and Emily feels a shiver run down her spine as it vanishes from her sight.

It sees motion.

“Split!” she screams, jumping away from Matteo.

Everyone reacts to her words quickly, separating from their tightly bunched group. However, Matteo isn’t so lucky. Almost in sync with Emily’s cry, the ground below him erupts as a grey blur shoots up, ripping open his stomach in one clean slash and spilling his bowels to the floor.

Emily tumbles out of her panicked escape, quickly bringing herself back to her feet as she raises her revolver and charges it full of machina. The monster leaps on Cormac the moment Matteo’s corpse hits the floor, and Emily fires a shot into its back. The bullet sinks into its spine, but the beast simply cries in pain and rips Cormac’s throat out with its teeth.

Light suddenly fills the cave as Fionn and Nora both throw glowing golden balls into the air. A few of the mages flinch, their eyes struggling to quickly adjust to the change in light, but the monster is unaffected, tearing through Ivor as Emily tracks it and fires another shot, into its leg this time. It stumbles slightly, but once again ignores her to continue ripping people apart.

Damn it, I won’t be able to do enough damage to kill it like this.

Tossing her revolver aside, Emily starts casting bolt, watching as more of her teammates are torn to pieces.

Why isn’t it attacking me? I’m the only one who’s dealt damage so far, and it was definitely getting annoyed by attacks and targeting the attackers last time.

A few magical projectiles fly at the creature as she casts, and Emily watches as it shrugs them off with a barely irritated snarl. Two more mages die in the seconds it takes for Emily to cast her spell, their defensive barriers barely slowing down the monster’s claws. The water barrier around Emily vanishes as Bella dies, but she ignores it and releases her attack. As the scorching light burns some of the creature’s grey skin black, Emily notices a change in behaviour.

Its head snaps round to face her as it drops its last kill, a monstrous grin plastered on its face. It leaps towards Emily, and she ducks under its claws while raising her own to its passing stomach. A machina-charged pop accompanies a blade extending and tracing a thin line along the creature’s skin. It lands and turns on its heel, leaping at her once again, this time aiming its claws towards her feet. Emily sidesteps the swipe, sending her boot into the monster’s head while activating the weight-increasing enchantment.

She hears a heavy thud as her foot connects, but the monster’s head glows brown in anticipation, and it only flinches as the heavy hit lands. Emily deactivates the enchantment as she leaps back to avoid another clawed swipe, bringing her hands up and sending another bolt into her assailant. Her bolt hits it at the same time as a burst of flames flies past her, smashing into the creature a split-second after her spell.

The monster is engulfed in smoke and fire, and Emily takes a moment to glance over her shoulder, seeing Dante standing with his signature mad grin. Unfortunately, his happiness is short-lived, as an enraged shriek sounds behind Emily. Her head whips back around to where she sees the monster hunched over with lightly scorched skin, coated in the glow of earth mana.

Shit, that barely even hurt it.

The monster sinks into the ground before any more attacks land, and Emily begins looking around the group with infra-sight. She spots the creature as it emerges from the ground behind Dante, leaping up with a snarl. Dante avoids death by diving to the side, but the creature severs his left arm from his body at the shoulder.

He cries out in pain, falling to the floor and clutching his bleeding stump.

I’m gonna have to reset anyway, so I’ll send you off with a bang, buddy.

Taking a deep breath and slowly releasing it, Emily reaches for her bandolier, ripping off a mana grenade. While she charges the grenade full of machina and starts its countdown to detonation, she reaches for The Clock with the other hand. The monster grabs Dante by the throat, lifting him up to eye level and slowly squeezing the life out of him with sadistic glee.

Emily flings the crackling orb of explosives at the creature as she presses the button on The Clock and activates her protective earrings. Time starts to slow as a thundering boom fills the cave, burning shrapnel fills the space and cuts into rock and mages alike. Several shards fly past Emily, and one hits her in the stomach like a punch, bringing searing pain.

She winces as time freezes, and the last sight she sees as her movement halts is the monster glaring at her, Dante’s corpse blown to pieces in its hand, and its arm discoloured by blood and burns.

Well, at least it did some damage.

Pain and information overwhelm her as Emily is once again flung backwards in time.