“That’s dark,” said Beth.
Cole glanced at the dyed-black hair and soot-smeared eyes of the teenager and declined to comment. At the two bodies, the ring of stone statues was spreading, slowly, inch by inch, as the genie trapped within reset its net. Another half hour, maybe, and the body of the dwarf and lizard-man would be back inside the ring and the formless horror could do whatever it wished with them. But their water and weapons now belonged to Cole.
“I’m… just gonna wait back here,” said Beth, less than eager to approach the two face-down figures.
“That’s fine, keep an eye out,” said Cole. He searched the dwarf first, since it felt somehow closer to searching a human. Rifling through the pockets of an anthropomorphic reptile was still a little too weird for him. Somehow, even after all the madness of the Lewis Field worlds, that insignificant distinction still bothered him on a deep, deep level.
The dwarf’s axe he pulled aside and scanned.
Damage increased by 9%-12%
Attacks with this weapon are resistant to being blocked or parried
Damage against enemies larger than the user are increased by a further 9-12%>
Made sense for a dwarf to carry. Almost every humanoid it encountered would be bigger. Most monsters, too. Cole hefted the axe, which was heavy enough that he couldn’t properly wield it. But Besson had high strength and favored an axe he found on Curahee. He was a big guy, but there were plenty of things bigger yet. Like the lizard man. After Cole pulled out a satchel of field supplies and a half-empty canteen, he turned the dwarf face up. His round had left a hole high on the left side of the dwarf’s breastplate. He tapped the analyzer against the armor, but apparently his round had let out the magic smoke. It was dull as dishwater, and if it had previously been an otherworld armament, didn’t trigger the analyzer.
The lizard man’s firearm was next to the body, and Cole picked it up, feeling the weight of it. The axe had been heavy, but the rifle was on a whole other level. Almost as long as Cole was tall, it must have weighed twenty kilograms. It used a hammer mechanism, and what he’d taken as a single, large blunderbuss barrel was actually six separate barrels in a hexagonal pattern with a break-action. All six barrels faced the same direction, unlike Howie’s pistol that he was so proud of. He tapped the analyzer against it.
Increase damage and recoil by 13%-29%
Dealing damage with this rifle has a 20% chance of adding a spirit shell to the first available empty chamber.
Dealing lethal damage with this weapon further increases the damage and recoil by 10% for a number of seconds equal to the user’s intelligence times 2. This effect can apply multiple times.>
Nasty piece of work. Cole concentrated and activated Field Strip, melting it down into component parts. Everything but the barrel assembly, the fire control group, and the hammer mechanism melted away. Cole checked all three, discarding the six welded-together barrels that had inherited neither affix and stowed the hammer assembly with now minor self-loading. That would be great for someone like Ken, who used revolvers, and the fire control group with below-average blood-gorging, which Cole planned on keeping for himself. Having a stacking damage bonus on an automatic rifle with kinetic redirection bullets was something he could see Howie going nuts over, which probably meant it would be a crime against humanity to use in combat. But with his patient hunter rifle already so heavily modified that it was practically popping at the seams, it would have to wait until he found another otherworld assault rifle or carbine.
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There was always the snakebite rifle. But a timed stacking effect with, if his math was right, just shy of ten seconds duration, would go a lot further on a rifle firing six-fifty rounds per minute than on a clip-fed bolt action rifle. Cole went through the rest of the challenger’s belongings, finding a nearly-empty waterskin and a pouch full of dead mice—or some other rodent, dehydrated to preserve the carcasses. Cole glanced down at the small, sharp teeth lining the lizard-man’s mouth. Snacks. The genie could have them.
Beyond that, he’d ruined this one’s breastplate as well. But the lizard had a pair of armlets that looked like Aztec stone carvings of a winged serpent. Two gold rings on each had alternating red and blue feathers about the length of his pinky. Cole scanned them, smiled, and pulled them off the lizard-man’s arms and onto his own.
Allows the user to glide for 15 seconds. The first melee attack or thrown weapon attack within 15 seconds of activating this armament will deal 50% increased damage. This armament recharges every 4.5 hours.>
Almost custom tailored to his abilities. He considered for a moment. Did the impact from his Meteoric leap count as a melee attack? Cole looked down at the lizard who had carried a rifle and had items that let him glide. How close was your class to mine? he mused as he continued to search. How high a level had he been? Not high enough for Cole to level up. But Cole was close. Finding little else of value remaining on the lizard man (and no food that he would trust after seeing the rat-pack), he left the bodies to be reclaimed by the ruins.
Beth Black waited in the shadow of a stone awning, smoking one of Roxy’s cigarettes. She eyed Cole as he came up, raising an eyebrow at his new feathered accessories. “Were they out of tuxedo cuffs and collars?”
Back to her usual self. All that fear and anxiety and the trauma of seeing one person kill another must have been pushed to the back of her brain and walled off for the time being. She’d have to find a way to cope, eventually. Bad jokes and bravado could only get a girl so far. All that stuff mounted up a debt that would come calling. Cole had seen soldiers crack from combat often enough. More often the Glefa mercs than his Airborne brothers. But a constant barrage of Uncle Sam’s Easter eggs on top of your bunker will do that.
The spire to the east where they were set to rendezvous with the others loomed high above the surrounding ruins. Almost as tall as a terrestrial skyscraper, the top nearly brushed the roof of the canyon above. Cole led the way, with Beth now wary enough to follow stealthily behind rather than stomping around like she owned the entire tower.
A klick out from the spire, Cole got the feeling of a familiar and friendly presence. A few minutes later, Nona shifted into existence beside Cole so smoothly that he didn’t even flinch. Had he felt her schismed soul walking beside him? His Acuity was incredibly high, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have soul sight, or whatever Nona called it, that would let him detect the missing pieces of her soul. But then, he could also feel people using their ability charges, and no one else had mentioned being able to do the same.
Beth yelped in surprise behind them “Jesus Christ!” she said.
Nona turned her flat stare back for a moment, looking at Beth, who squirmed under the regard.
“What do you want, creep queen?” asked Beth.
Cole’s otherworld teammate raised an eyebrow at Cole.
“Stragglers,” he said. “Other challengers that were hiding in our shadow. They’re dealt with.” Cole glanced back at Beth before returning his eyes ahead. “She’s not handling it super well.”
“Good. Her light has dimmed, somewhat,” said Nona.
Beth crossed her arms. “Uh… Firstly, fuck you. Second, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? My light has dimmed.”
“It means your soul is no longer blazing like a forge fire. You’ll be less of a lodestone to every other monster and deific caster.” Nona sniffed. “Less likely to get us killed by the Beast Cult.”
Beth scoffed. “Last I checked, I was stronger than any of you,” she said.
“Not in the ways that matter,” said Nona. “You’re a child of Earth, and so you’ve had it easy.”
Beth sneered. “You have no idea what I came from,” she said.
“A world where monsters existed only in children’s tales,” Nona countered. “And now you’ve been given great power by the circumstance of your birth, and you wield it blindly.”
“I lived with a monster,” said Beth. “He might not have had claws or fangs, but I’d take a hundred dragons over going back to that house. You don’t know me. And I don’t like you.”
Nona shrugged. “I’m not Roxy,” she said. “I don’t care if people like me.”
“That’s enough,” said Cole. “I don’t give a shit if you like each other, but I’m not going to listen to bickering.”
He glared at each of them in turn. When he’d become a sergeant, one of his first lessons was that some people just had caustic personalities that reacted poorly when mixed with someone too similar. People saw the aspects of themselves that they refused to face reflected back at them. Left to their own devices, Nona and Beth might start competing in the whose-childhood-was-shittier contest without ever realizing they had more in common than they’d ever admit.