Spires

Then

The small candle lantern didn’t give off a large amount of light, maybe just up to eight feet before it was swallowed up by the darkness. The monster that leapt out at Eron was a gremlin. Except it was much larger than the toddler-sized ones that had attacked at start of it all.

Caught off guard by the man-sized gremlin, Eron was flat-footed as it slashed him across the chest with wicked claws. He lashed out reflexively with a wide backhand. The giant gremlin was quick. It ducked underneath and swiped again. This time at his stomach.

Eron let out a hiss, more out of annoyance than in pain. He reached out for the gremlin, but it ducked back into the darkness. He moved to follow when a second gremlin materialized from the shadows above him. It landed heavily on his back and forced him down to the ground further into the classroom, scattering desks. It took him out of reach of the candle’s light.

As the remaining members of the group watched through flickering light and shadow, the first gremlin reappeared and joined the second in savagely slashing at Eron’s vulnerable back.

“The light isn’t bothering them!” Remy stepped forward into the classroom with the candle lantern held wardingly in front of him. “Why isn’t it working?”

“Watch out!” Nila pulled Remy back by the collar of his jacket.

A third gremlin lunged out of the shadows to their right, just barely missing Remy.

Nila stepped into a downward swing of her newly procured baseball bat and slammed the gremlin into the floor. The monster tried to scramble away, but she didn’t give it the opportunity as she brained it once again. Hefting her bat, she started toward Eron and the other gremlins before Cal grabbed her shoulder.

“Wait,” Cal whispered. “To our right, in the shadows. I think there are two more just waiting. I’ll go first and you follow.” He pulled his trusty camp ax from its sheath. “I’ll take the first one that attacks. You handle the second one?”

Nila’s eyes were wide, but she nodded and tightened her two-handed grip on her bat.

“Remy, watch our backs.”

Without waiting for a reply, Cal stepped over the dead gremlin. He had to suppress a gag at the sight of its smashed head. It was like a watermelon that had been dropped. His mind was open, sensing the malicious and hungry thoughts hiding in the shadows. He could tell that there was something like building anticipation, an eagerness barely restrained. Like a deluge filling up a dam bit by bit, taking it to the edge. When it burst he was ready.

The gremlin came out of the darkness low to the ground, but Cal was ready. The ax in his right hand was already in the middle of its downward swing. The sharp blade bit deep into the gremlin’s head. Its limbs twitched for a few seconds, the last confused signals of a dead brain, before it stilled.

At the same time beside him Nila let out a loud shout, mixed anger and fear. She batted the gremlin that came at her like a home run ball into the wall next to the door where Remy was standing. It struggled to rise, but its legs refused to listen. Nila rushed over to the stricken monster and ended it like she had done to the other one.

“Fuck you!” Eron’s roar shook the room.

He burst up from his prone position throwing the gremlins off his back. Before they could recover he was on them. One he grabbed by the face and slammed into the ground, breaking the tile and destroying the back of its skull. The second he punched in the face as it rushed him again. It was thrown back to land in a heap. Its head resembled that fallen watermelon.

“Thanks for the help guys,” Eron said with a roll of his eyes.

Cal looked his youngest brother over. The graphic of the badger holding a beer stein on Eron’s favorite t-shirt was unrecognizable, ripped to shreds. There were numerous scratches on his body, thin welts, a little blood, but nothing that looked serious.

“I didn’t think you needed any,” Cal said.

“Well… yeah, but it’s the thought that counts,” Eron said.

“Disinfect those scratches. Then we’ll talk about how to hit the next room.”

“Do I really need to? Barely broke the skin.”

“Not worth the risk.” Nila was already pulling out a small bottle of alcohol and some disinfectant wipes from her pack. “We don’t know what kind of diseases these things might be carrying.”

“Might have magic diseases,” Remy said as he held the lantern over Nila’s shoulder.

The next classroom encounter they challenged went more smoothly. The plan was to move into the room in a proper formation this time. Once again Eron took the lead since he had proved that his skin was too tough for even these larger gremlins’ claws to do more than leave scratches. Nila and Cal flanked Eron on either side, entering after him. While Remy with the lantern brought up the rear.

The group stood close together anchored on Remy’s position just inside the door. This time Cal was focused on the thoughts that the gremlins gave off, so he was able to call out their attacks a second before they happened.

Just like in the first classroom, Eron attracted the bulk of the gremlins. Three jumped out at him from the darkness. Two came at him high from the left and the right, while one came at him straight on. He was ready thanks to Cal’s warning. The latter gremlin he kicked right in the chest, crushing its rib cage. The gremlin flopped to the ground on its back and remained still. Eron caught the former around their necks, one in each hand.

Nila slammed her gremlin with her bat, going yard for the second time. The gremlin was sent crashing into the wall to her left. Its head was a red ruin that hung at an unnatural angle down to its chest.

“Whoo!” Nila cheered then immediately looked embarrassed.

“Nice! Two for two,” Cal said as he struggled to pull his ax from where it got stuck in the last gremlin’s chest.

“Rem, you want to hurry up,” Eron said. “These things stink.” He held the two gremlins out as far as he could from his body. The monsters were weakly clawing at his arms as they struggled against his vice-like grip around their necks.

“Loosen up on your grip,” Cal said.

“No way! They’ll go crazy if I give them air.”

“Remy needs to be the one most responsible for killing them,” Cal said.

“Are you sure about this?” Remy handed the lantern to Cal.

“Mostly. It’s just a guess, but I think the amount of Universal Points you get for killing a monster is proportional to the amount of damage,” Cal said.

“In other words the one most responsible for getting the kill gets the biggest slice of the pie,” Eron said. “I’ll release this one first,” he waved the gremlin in his left hand. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

Remy gripped his machete and took a deep breath as he moved closer. Nila and Cal moved back closer to the door to give him space.

“The room’s clear. Just those two left,” Cal said. He didn’t detect any more gremlins with his telepathy.

“Fine, I’m ready,” Remy nodded at Eron, who released the gremlin and jumped away from it.

Remy rushed forward and stabbed his machete into the disoriented gremlin’s gut. He twisted the blade before he withdrew it and hacked a horizontal slash into the gremlin’s neck. The dead gremlin toppled over and almost dragged the machete blade out of his hand. He tightened his grip and pulled it out with a sick squelch.

“Man, that was brutal,” Eron said. “Ready for number two?”

Remy was breathing heavily, but he nodded nonetheless. The second gremlin fared just as well as the first.

“Huh? The giant gremlins seem to have a laughably small aggro radius,” Eron said.

“What’re you talking about?” Nila kept a wary eye down the dark hallway, bat at the ready.

“He means that the gremlins won’t attack or follow unless you get pretty close,” Cal said. “At least that’s what it looks like.”

The group was at the doors on the other end of the hallway. After they cleared the second classroom they skipped the remaining six. They had crept along cautiously, ready for each closed door they passed to suddenly burst open with monsters. Luckily, nothing happened or maybe it was unlucky.

“It’s going to be hard to pull the plan off if Eron needs to open every door,” Remy said. “We might need to help out with that.”

“I don’t want to do that,” Nila said. “Let’s not do that.”

“Can you use your powers to pull them open? The handles are metal.” Eron said.

A look of concentration came across Remy’s face. After a few seconds of straining he shook his head in disgust. “You were right,” he said to Eron. “I should’ve been working to get stronger.”

“Hey man, it’s alright.” Eron patted Remy on the shoulder. “You only got them like two weeks ago.”

“Maybe they can’t open doors,” Cal mused.

“Maybe not every room is full of monsters,” Nila said.

“No, I can sense them in there. Five in each room, just like the rooms we went in,” Cal said.

“I’ve got an idea!” Eron said brightly. “Get ready everyone.”

“Eron wa—!” Cal reached out for his brother.

He was too slow. Eron pushed the doors behind him open with the loud crack of the broken lock.

Nothing happened.

“Huh? I thought that might work. Oh well,” Eron shrugged. “I’m out of ideas.”

The rest of the group looked at Eron with a mix of disbelief and anger.

Before Cal could scold his brother the classroom doors, all six of them, suddenly burst open. Giant gremlins poured out, howling and snarling, they rushed the group.

Eron threw himself bodily at the mass of gremlins in an effort to hold back the tide. Cal watched helplessly as his brother threw wild punches before being swallowed up underneath the mass.

“Back, back, back!” Cal said desperately as he pulled Remy and Nila out the doors. He had a vague hope that the doors marked the boundary of the gremlins aggro zone, but from the way they were running at them with no signs of slowly down he was mistaken. “Bottleneck them!” He barely had the time to shout as he drew his knife in his left hand to accompany the ax in his right.

Cal met the gremlins just on the other side of the doors as they plowed them open. He choked his grip up on the ax handle to shorten his swings. The tight spacing and the sheer number of gremlins made wide swings unwise.

It was a desperate fight. He punched and hacked with his ax while stabbing with his knife. Gremlins clawed at him from what felt like every directions. They cut through his thick jacket to draw blood. They grabbed and bit at his legs.

While Cal drew the bulk of the attention, a few gremlins skirted out on either side of him and rushed for Nila and Remy. The gremlins weren’t able to swamp them, which spelled doom for the monsters. Nila was free to smash each as it came for her and Remy hacked away with a ferocity that drew on the concern he felt for his family.

Both were left drawing deep breaths when they finally realized that there were no more gremlins attacking them. Neither hesitated to leap to Cal’s aide. Together, they were able to handle the remaining gremlins.

“Hurry! We have to help Eron,” Cal gasped. He was a frightening sight. Blood dripped from dozens of cuts and bites all over his arms and legs, even his face wasn’t spared.

“Oh my god, Cal.” Nila’s face was a mask of worry.

“I’ll be fine,” Cal waved her away. “It’s Eron that’s in trouble.”

“Nah, I’m good.” Eron appeared suddenly from the dark hallway. His t-shirt was completely gone and his jeans weren’t in much better shape. He was drenched in blood just like Cal.

“Damn it, Cal! I need to take care of you, now!” Nila was frantically digging into her pack.

“Okay, but let’s get into some cover first,” Cal said as he walked unsteadily to the left hand side of the building.

He stopped around the corner near some bushes on a grassy lawn that ended at a wrought iron fence with the open street on the other side. Nila knelt down at his side, while Remy held up the candle lantern to give her some light to work with. He smartly kept his body between the candle light and the street.

“That was really smart!” Remy snapped at Eron.

“It worked though,” Eron said.

“Yeah, maybe, but it almost got us killed,” Remy said.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Cal said with a wince as Nila was drenching him in alcohol and wiping his wounds.

“You can argue later,” Nila said. “I need to get these cleaned up as quickly as possible. Shouldn’t someone be on watch or something.”

“I got it,” Eron said. “Sorry, Cal.”

“It’s fine, you just have to remember that not everyone is as invincible as you are,” Cal said. “As long as it doesn’t kill us then I’ll take it as a good learning experience.”

Eron nodded at that before he walked around the corner and out of sight.

“You’re too easy on him,” Remy said. “You never get mad.”

“Oh, I’m mad, just wouldn’t help anything to yell,” Cal said. “Ow, ow, ow!”

“Look, I need to make sure there aren’t any teeth or bits of cloth in these bites,” Nila said.

“Yeah, but can you maybe not dig around in there like you’re looking for buried treasure,” Cal said.

“I’m not a doctor. Before this started the most I’ve ever had to deal with were tiny cuts. So, sorry if my once a year first aid training certification class isn’t up to your standards. Now you can keep quiet while I clean these out and super glue them shut or you can do it yourself.”

“Sorry,” Cal said. “Thanks for patching me up all the time, Nila.” He grinned sheepishly.

“Yeah, well you’re not welcome. I’d rather not be doing this at all,” Nila grumbled.

“No argument there. I’m hoping I can pick up bulletproof skin like Eron,” Cal said.

“You think that’s possible? We didn’t have a choice on the class we got and I got the impression when I was in the spire that we couldn’t add to it,” Remy said.

“I don’t know,” Cal said. “But there was a lot under race that was hidden.”

“Human hybrid? What the hell are we?”

“No idea, Remy, but we’ll find out soon enough.”

As soon as Cal’s wounds were patched up Nila made a soft whistle and threw a bottle of alcohol and some wipes at Eron, who emerged from the darkness. “You can take care of yourself.”

While the youngest Cruces brother took care of his minor scratches Cal went over their next step.

“Okay, so that could’ve gone better, but at least now we know that we can go ahead with our plan,” Cal said. “I don’t think we should clear any more buildings since it’d only help those racist assholes.”

“They already know that we’re here,” Remy said. “Remember that message when we first got here. It said that there were ten challengers on site. Four of us and from what that Ron guy told you there were five or six of those einherjar.”

“There should be five then, plus Jay makes the six other challengers,” Nila said. “That’s bad. This means they know we’re here.”

“Yeah, but they don’t have any details. They don’t know who we are and what we can do,” Cal said. “All they know is that there are four invaders in their territory, taking their kills.”

“Right, so they’re going to be rushing or looking for us,” Eron said.

“I had a thought about that,” Remy said as he pointed at the largest building on campus. It stood three stories high and was maybe twice as long and as wide as the one they just went through. “That’s the best hunting spot in regards to efficiency thanks to the concentration of monsters. I’m betting that they’re in there.”

“Walk me through your reasoning,” Cal said.

“They’ve been running this thing daily for over a month, so if they’re competent they’ve got to have the most efficient path down. This means they start at that building and they start at the top floor,” Remy said.

“That’s perfect!” Eron joined in. “I can start at the bottom and bring the party right to them. They’ll be trapped.”

“What if our arrival threw them off?”

“I’d bet that it won’t matter, Cal,” Remy said. “It might even guarantee that they’d want to lock down the best source of kills as soon as they could.”

“Or they could be looking for us,” Nila said.

“You’d be able to sense them though, right, Cal?”

“Yeah, Eron,” Cal said. “Okay, I’m convinced. We go for the big building. Let’s skirt the central courtyard. I don’t want to walk out exposed in the open. We’ll be able to check the other buildings along the edges as well. See if they’ve been cleared.”