Banishment?
“Crap, I’m sorry…”
“There are eyes and ears everywhere in this village. Tread carefully, traveler.”
I nodded. “Thanks for everything, Antatha.”
Damn… now I was really curious about Jezz’s background. What did she do to get her banished from her own home? Something so bad that it was forbidden to talk about it?
I bet her dear older brother would know.
.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I probably shouldn’t have been so eager to accept that quest. Not only was the bartender missing when I came back to the bar, I couldn’t find Rufian anywhere! He’d said he needed a couple of minutes, I’d given him plenty. But now the fake priest did a disappearing act on me, and I didn’t have time to search high and low for him.
“All of this for some tail,” I grunted, visiting my 11th vendor. “Come on, asshole where the hell did you go?!”
I was shaving precious time I didn’t have. I needed to call it quits.
“Thanks for nothing,” I hissed under my breath, then decided to head west, toward Demessia on my own.
Luckily it wasn’t too far on foot. If I could preserve my teleportation crystal then all the better. After about an hour of walking, I started to see why Antatha called this place the land of the cyber monsters, my alarm going off like crazy. I met a few beastly freaks in this low-district village of fae, and while the area wasn’t as crowded as Ether-Serin according to the map, I still couldn’t whip out my cyber gear to take down these bastards.
Damn, and I wanted to test out my new machine gun extension, too...
As my warning flared up and more of them began to creep up in the woods, I was beginning to think that I just might have to. I counted about seven plant-based constructs on the field, all of them circling me. With their pyramid-shaped heads and their oblong green bodies laced with thorns and tentacle legs, I couldn’t have them coming too close for a fist fight. Each had the same level, the many eyes on their heads looking at me cross, knowing I was no match for them.
An easy win for the cyber monster team—even though I had Enrage and strength on my side, being a brawler sucked in an uneven match against a bunch of monsters I’d never seen before. I eyed one of them and read his stats:
Ruktarba
Don’t get too close—this band of beasts are well armed!
Level:
60
Loot Reward:
200 sammies
1 RDM Energy Shield
1 Mana Restoration Vial
HP:
6000
Judging by the brief description, they traveled in groups—a pattern I noticed in Mavriel. First the nymph sisters, and now my first encounter with a defect in the land of the fae.
I was in their preferred habitat, which made my handicap worse. As I studied the area, I slowly backed up, making sure to watch all angles. I readied myself to defend, trying to work up a plan in my head. The way I saw it, I only had two options: Do I risk being exposed as a human to save my ass? Or do I try my hands against these higher leveled creatures?
“Screw it.”
I snapped my cyber arm on, the Ruktarba monsters looking at each other funny. They must have been the smarter of the cyber senses to notice a fae furnishing hardware, their squelching and squishing noises communicating with each other. A uniform ambush attack was right around the corner as I armed my other piece, the monsters not waiting for me to juice myself up. But I was ready for them.
I pulled out my machine gun extension, pointing it at the nearest cyber monster. The first shot rang out, followed by a quick succession of bullets, tearing through the monster's green body. He let out a loud wail before collapsing to the ground. The other monsters were not far behind, charging towards me recklessly. I kept firing, the sound of bullets echoing through the woods. The monsters were fast, but I was faster, dodging their attacks while keeping my aim steady.
As the monsters fell, I let out a taxing breath.. My cyber arm hummed with energy, hot adrenaline pumping through me. I made a fair observation at their high HP, realizing that if I continued on this way, they’d squeeze me dry of mana. Remaining resourceful and conscious of my mana bar was key, and I’d have to try another approach to get rid of this horde fast.
I refused to let them gang up on me. I lured them, playing a game of cat and mouse to divert their vision. With a creature with many eyes on their dome, they weren’t as cognizant as I’d thought, relying on each other for cover.
What a bunch of careless monsters. I’d use their flaws against them and win this fight. One by one I avoided their attacks and fired back with precision. The smell of burning green flesh filled my nostrils as I continued to shoot at them to space out the gap between us. I’d give them one thing though, they were quick to cover each other when they were down. As soon as I thought I caught a break, I had another on my ass, followed by an assembly of freaks behind him.
I had to keep myself slippery. If I fell short, I knew what came after, and I wasn’t about to die here. I charged away from the fray, but they were hot on my tail. They all reached out, stretching their arms down and under. I was hoping they would so I could follow up with an Earthquake. I stopped short and slammed the ground, temporarily rendering them still. Now I had the perfect opportunity to tack on some damage before it was time to run, but unfortunately I wouldn’t get to do much, realizing a newcomer creeping up behind me.
“Seriously?!” Great, I had to wrangle them again. Damn bastard ruined my shot.
I was tempted to toss a grenade behind me as I walked away from the creatures, but I had to conserve my mana. With 6k HP each, I was better off taking them on one at a time. Then there was the issue of my stamina, which I also had to look out for. I couldn’t let them burn me out, so I had to plan my next move carefully.
Their frustrated growls and grunts paved the path in front of me. I had to space them out and hit the reset button. I figured my Earthquake wasn’t going to give me more than a few seconds of downtime, so I plotted, telling myself to focus on taking bigger chunks of HP from them at a time. So after I caught my breath, I went back into the heat of the fire and pressed on.
One sprung up, his long appendages stretching out to grab onto the trees. He swung from one to the other like Tarzan, and I ran toward him with the same energy. He thought he’d intimidate me with his pack, but I didn’t shirk away. Not even when he dive-bombed right at me, and I sliced three of his arms clean with my bone saw.
He collapsed on the ground just as I dodged his heavy body tumble-weeding right past me. While I had him disoriented, he met a barrage of bullets from my machine gun, the creature covering his dozen eyes on the top of his head with the rest of his arms. The Ruktarba tried to shield himself as elongated thorns began to sprout out from his hard exoskin, extracting them as the rest of his posse pulled in.
