The previous Sassy Saturday post can be read here: Sassing Death Gods
The context for this post: Eric has been targeted by Samael, a death god who reports directly to Death himself, because of what he did to another reaper in Looming Shadow. In order to save him Tasio made a wager with Samael that Eric couldn't clear a local dungeon without relapsing into monstrosity. Annala is helping him do this.
_______________________________________________
Monsters lay dead and bleeding at the
cage’s boundaries. Their bodies were burned, electrocuted, or simply broken.
Others sat and stared at the bars. Only an odd tail or abnormal limb marked
them as anything but human and Eric knew this to be only superficial. He
himself had, or could have, a monstrous appearance, but he was still human on
the inside. However, the monster was also inside him, so it stood to reason
that they would have monsters too.
“Hello,” he said and waved.
One of them approached the bars and
mimicked him. She was a woman as tall as Basilard with long orange hair and
skin with the consistency of sandstone. While her clothing was worn and torn,
the gems embedded all over her body gleamed.
She smiled and asked, “Can you open the
gate?”
“Yes, I can. Were you trapped in here?”
“Yes. Queen Kasile the VI thought it
was more humane than killing us. It is difficult for us to make a living here.”
She sniffed and her bright eyes welled with tears. “Please let us out.”
“Right away!”
He pulled out his Dragon’s Lair badge,
but Annala grabbed his hand.
“This is obviously a trap.”
“This is obviously injustice. They’ve been imprisoned here for years, ever since
Kasile’s mother sat on the throne. Just a month was enough to make me stir crazy.”
“Exactly, and so they must work for
Nulso. Gruffle chose this spot for a reason. They’re going to attack us as soon
as you release them.”
“They’re victims of Nulso! He ruined
their lives with his ‘treatment.’ That could be me in there. How long until it happens again?”
“Eric…Think about this…”
“You don’t think I have?!”
He pulled his wrist away and slammed
his badge against the gate. Its lock flashed and the many runes and spells
warding the entrance shined briefly as they deactivated. A crowd of monsters
gathered behind the gate with the crystal woman at its head. The gate opened
before them and they filed out in an orderly fashion.
“Thank you for freeing us. Now we can
eat to our heart’s content.”
“You’ll have to wait until the stores
open in the morning.”
“Why wait when there’s food here?”
All the gems on her body flashed and
bombarded Eric with the spells they unleashed. Caught off-guard, he took the
full force of all of them. Only Annala’s spell shield, Mana Guard, prevented
instant death, and even then, he was stunned. Two wolf-like monsters came from
the crystal woman’s left and right and extended foot-long claws from each of
their four arms with which to cut him up.
“Targets acquired,” Annala muttered.
A complex magic circle with many
sub-circles rotated beneath her feet. In her eyes, she saw a bull's-eye's eye over
every monster outside the facility.
“Fire!”
She released her arrow and it split
into a dozen energy duplicates. The real one soared for the crystal woman while
the others targeted her minions. Six of them found their targets and killed
instantly while four more injured. The only ones to avoid the barrage entirely
were the crystal woman and the knife wolves by using the bodies of others as
shields. Then the solid arrow radiated sound that cracked many of the woman’s
gems before she smashed it.
By now, Annala had fired a second
arrow, which created just as many duplicates, and now they only had three
targets. The monsters dodged acrobatically but the wolves were ultimately
impaled by three each while the original found its mark in the crystal woman.
Again, it produced the gem-shattering frequency and reduced her body to dust.
“Don’t underestimate elf tech!”
________________________________________________________To learn more about the heroines of Journey to Chaos, visit the Tvtropes character sheet.
The next Sassy Saturday post is Spider in the Brush
Brian Wilkerson is a freelance book reviewer, writing advice blogger and independent novelist. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).
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