Chapter 66: Boar Hunting

Hushed whispering and muffled weeping filled the side room they’d been corralled into. The hapless waitresses curled in on themselves fearfully. Well, the blond one did. The other looked actually…eager?

She was taking off her apron, tying up her hair, and rolling her sleeves…like one might do before taking out the trash…or picking a fight.

Reggie and June each dealt with barely contained nervous energy, while Alicia stared at the wall, her eyes flickering as she no doubt watched what happened in the main room.

Their kobold was nowhere to be seen.

I need to do something. I’m the only one who can… Mason thought, the fire crackling on the tips of his fingers, hand hidden behind his back.

As far as combat effectiveness, nearly all of them were screwed without their relics, but since Mason’s primary Abilities were direct damage and shielding, he had all the ingredients he needed to lay a beatdown regardless of his kit. His fire might be a small fraction weaker than it normally was, but that was about it.

He watched one of the faceless minions surrounding them walk just a bit too close to another two of them, creating a three-person cluster.

Here we go…

Mason felt a hand clamp down over his wrist, and he nearly incinerated it before he realized it belonged to a hostage.

Mason didn’t mentally assign himself to that category.

The man was older, with fine clothes, darker skin and drooping jowels.

“Wait.”

Mason hissed quietly in frustration and glanced back up at the minions, where they had drifted apart again.

“Why are you stopping me?”

“Because you were about to screw things up.” The old man said with a shrug.

“I have to do something,” Mason whispered. “I’m the only one who can!”

“You act too soon. A Nuker waits until he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that his actions will strike a critical blow, not muck things up. Even if that means watching your friends suffer. How many of them are there? Three dozen? And they’re not even the commanders. You want to expose your queen to take three pawns?”

“Something’s happening,” Alicia said, her gaze flicking up to the ceiling of the next room over, then down and to the left.

She glanced back up at the ceiling and frowned, before turning and staring at the guests, several of whom were arguing with each other with gradually increased fervor.

“Yeah, well if it wasn’t for YOU, we never would’ve been here!” A brown-haired woman in an evening gown shrieked, backing away from her husband as her voice rose above the growing clamor.

“ME!? You’re the one who wanted to go to this damned party, I just paid for it!” the husband said, following after her with a thunderous expression.

It was strange. Four women were backing away from four men, arguing about similar things as the woman’s back hit the edge of the imaginary line their captors had defined for them, all at the exact same time…An uncanny synchronicity.

Alicia’s right. Something is happening.

The minions approached and restrained the women, wrapping their arms around them, pinning them to the side.

“Calm down or-“

The four women slipped effortlessly out of the masked men’s grasp and spun around, their hands morphing into blades as they latched on and began sawing away with what Mason could only describe as feral rage.

The other minions watching them ran to their aid, but their ‘husbands’ charged forward, hands morphing into something black, shiny and pebbled, like the shell of a beetle.

The mask-wearing minions were blasted back, but they didn’t seem to be receiving any damage.

“I got these ones!” the eight guests spoke as one. “Go!”

“Will’s about to die. Nevermind.” Alicia whispered, her gaze flickering around the main hall on the other side of the wall. “No. Yes.”

Mason and Reggie shared a glance before Reggie used T.O.F.T. on him, and Mason began sprinting down the hall, June running beside him, kicking off her heels as she ran.

Mason glanced to his left with astonishment as the taller, more athletic baker girl tore the platters off her steel tower of baked goods, leaving behind the pole, turning it into a metal cudgel as she ran beside them.

Jun took a pin out of her bun, allowing her brown hair to cascade down over her shoulders for the first time since he’d met her. The brass pin began to glow as she imbued it with magic using her secondary Ability.

“I’m only gonna get one shot before I have to run,” she said as they sprinted. “I’ll shoot first, then you rain hell.”

Mason nodded, screeching to a halt as they arrived in the main hall.

All the masked minions were facing away from them, clumped together…Mason nearly reflexively threw a Conflagration out before he noticed they were all paralyzed.

Motion caught his eye, and Mason spotted Will scampering up one of the pillars supporting the massive main hall before he tossed his tomahawk down at the Boar-masked colossus chasing him.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The boar dodged the weapon and much to Mason’s surprise, the tomahawk halted in midair, smack-dab in the middle of the cluster of paralyzed minions.

In single a heartbeat, three waves of lightning-laced sound burst out from the tomahawk, and as one, the masked minions toppled to the floor, wisps of smoke emerging from beneath the mask.

The red demon-faced mask grabbed Will’s axe out of the air, and wrestled control of it away from whatever Effect Will was using.

Will fell off the pillar, clutching his chest as he impacted the marble before scrambling to his feet an instant later.

As Will’s axe began to circle him, June tapped Mason’s shoulder and pointed at the one with an arsenal of weapons floating behind him like a cape.

She cocked back her arm, and the glow of the hairpin began to gradually increase as she waited for the perfect moment.

Mason’s heart leapt into his throat as the boar-face caught Will by the ankle and swung him at the ground, only for the ground itself to bend away, refusing to receive him. Will swung down between the boar-mask’s legs and jabbed a previously unseen blade into the man’s leg, an undoubtedly lethal attack, were it not for healing potions.

Will was assaulted by dozens of blades from the demon mask, as well as a couple more attempts by the void-mask to stop his heart or summon ghosts from the floor to grab his legs. Try as they might, they couldn’t quite pin him down.

“That is one slippery son of a bitch.” The jowel-faced old man mused with admiration as he arrived behind them.

“Tell me about it,” The athletic baker girl said sourly.

Will scrambled across the floor, juking left and right with unnatural speed, sometimes shifting direction in midair to throw off the floating swords assaulting him, forced to back away from the boar-mask, who seemed to grow even angrier and more muscular as he drank his healing potion.

A potion of Fury, or does he have a damage-based boost to his stats? Mason thought as Boar charged after Will, plowing right through the pillar he was hiding behind, the demon-masked Climber bending his knees to follow after him and provide support.

“Now.” June hissed, her arm quivering with the strain of holding her shot so long.

Hunter’s Patience triggered, and the brass hairpin flew forward with startling speed and accuracy, shearing through the air in an instant.