Chapter 40

A good while later, I circled back in the direction of Last Chance. I slowed down my pace, jogging softly, allowing my Stamina Regeneration and Higher Endurance to help my stamina slowly start ticking up again. It had been a close call. Closer than I’d liked, for sure. Yet, after a while of just running, I took a stand, letting Wave of Reflection handle the few Ghastlings who were fast enough to still keep up with me. The rest of them had either fallen far enough behind to forget about me or simply fallen to the ground, out of stamina.

And there they were. In the distance ahead of me, I spotted a trio striding in a southeasterly direction. Their heads were on swivels and they turned constantly as if they were ready to get jumped at any second.

The moment they spotted me, a squeal went up. Or, rather, I thought it was a squeal. It sounded like another layer to the constant ringing in my ears.

I had to hand it to Nix. The speed with which she sprinted at me, I almost suspected she’d picked something like Improved Run Speed as well. She was fast. She was also fast enough to stop herself from jumping at me when she reached me. Barely. She skidded to a halt and nearly fell. Her hand crept inadvertently to cover her mouth. “Liam. Your… everything.”

I laughed. Even though it stretched my skin and pained my throat, I flung back my head and howled with laughter. Eventually, I relaxed a bit and brought up a soot-covered hand to wipe a few tears away.

By then, the others had caught up. They stared me up and down. Steve especially looked ready to hurl. Eventually, he managed. “Are you… will you survive?”

My nod didn’t hurt quite as much as everything else. “I’ve never had this many debuffs. It’s actually kind of impressive. My attributes are in the dumpster, my health is crap, and my everything hurts.” I winked at Nix. “But I’m alive. And we pulled it off.”

“We?” Nix rolled her eyes. “You pulled it off. You absolute nutjob. Please don’t do anything like that again.”

I snorted. “Hey. You were the one who torched me!” Noticing her face falling, I held up a hand. “Wait! Stop that. I fucking asked for it, remember? This needed to happen, and you did good. Besides… did you check your levels?”

She perked up and nodded eagerly. “Three levels. Three! I didn’t think it’d be possible to gain that much of a jump all at once!”

“Right on. Three for me as well. I’d say it’s probably for the best if we don’t spend it all right away. We should probably get back to Last Chance and have a proper talk about everything.” I shrugged. “I’ll want to hear if you know more about what went down back at the Ever Steady, and… what we can do and all.”

Haddock looked like somebody had punched him in the liver. “That… yeah. We should talk about it. How did you even-”

“Silence!” Steve held a hand out and grasped Haddock’s shoulder. “Nobody move or activate anything. We’re hiding.” He closed his eyes and the world… changed.

It was like a see-through curtain had been pulled over the surrounding world. Like we were at the centre of a massive downpour under a giant umbrella, and everything beyond the umbrella was distorted.

“We should move a bit out of the way. Whoever’s arriving back there is marching straight in our direction.” Steve frowned, then stared into the distance. “Wait a minute. They seem familiar.”

I realized who he might mean. “I did pass three people on the way here. Is it them? My Perception is nowhere near good enough to see from here, especially with this weird talent. They were two Tavungor – those big-ass gorilla-like things – and a Moagie.”

“Hold the fucking phone.” Nix snapped. “Moagies? Are they the ones looking like a seagull bumped uglies with a bulldog?”

“Sounds about right. This one was a bit fancier than usual. Gold trim around his robe and whatnot.”

“That fucking bastard.”

It was the asshole who’d conned them into racing right into the horde of Ghastlings in the first place. He and his friends, who Kimzi had discovered were just interested in stealing whatever Nix and the others had on them, were now slowly strolling along, ready to sneak in and secure whatever equipment survived once the Ghastlings were done gnawing their bones.

We had a very brief, very heated discussion about what to do. Five minutes later, we had another heated discussion. With the Moagie.

***

“You let us out of here, right this instance!” The Moagie shouted up at us.

Watching Haddock’s fortress in action had been impressive as hell. The fact that he’d regained enough mana to summon another big construction into existence a mere hour after bottoming out on mana was impressive enough. But how, within a couple of seconds, he was able to turn another piece of soil into a deep hole into the ground? That was outright awe-inspiring.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Of course, your perspective might differ if you were on the bottom of said hole, watching the distant horizon being replaced by soil. Soil, which was slowly ringed by spike-strips on all edges, just in case somebody got any ideas.

Eventually, Haddock nodded, wiping a drop of sweat from his brow.

I slowly strolled up to the edge of the hole, just in case they’d try to attack us immediately.