The pair were coming close to the network of intentionally gridded streets that marked the first in they'd stayed, on the first night of their arrival. Ulric was now exceedingly glad of his Shadow's insistence on dragging him along these well-traveled corridors, else he'd have been utterly lost. City travel absent named streets was completely mind boggling, he didn't know how anybody found their way in such a sprawl without distinct junctions to key off of.
The thoughtful purse of her pretty lips and her tapping finger indicated that Taipan was giving it a good think. Ulric was tempted to ask her what she thought, distracting her, which was one of her favorite games to play with him, but decided against. Serious Business now, Play later.
"The best lead we have now is that we know that it was House Wicker's second son leading the catch team and he had been given his command at the behest of one who could hide the movements of his house's boats. We were able to find a discrepancy within an hour, any serious inspection of the unaltered dock register would pull immediate question from its authorities. Then we need to determine who with access to such documents has connection to House Wicker." Taipan began.
"Ulric, our enemies know your appearance. They were following you with intent, but I was merely an opportunity. You have not detected any following since have you?" She inquired.
Shaking his head no she continued.
"Neither have I. It seems that those five were the only ones seeking us that had made contact. No doubt a runner had already left to bring word to whoever else they might have on hand. What I propose is that you be seen roaming the streets nearby, absent my company, to draw them in. I will be nearby in concealment, from a rooftop I think. I will be able to judge their number and disposition as they close in and, when they try to make their move, you will slaughter them while I cover your back. We will keep at least two alive to question. The guards will no doubt come to the disturbance and you might even be placed under arrest. Do not resist this, I will remove you from custody either through legal means, or, perhaps, not so much, shortly after. This will prompt our overseer to pull strings to prevent you from being removed or to hire another killer and thus out themselves."
Ulric almost interrupted her a couple of times. There was some highly objectionable shit going on here.
Hand over his eyes, Ulric tried to exercise one of those necessary skills for life: thinking before you open your trap. He stewed for a couple of minutes under the attentive gaze of his Shadow.
This was, unironically, a test. His partner was trying to train him, trying to teach him, in that sink or swim, throw the fledglings off the cliff sort of way that the Iriel'en could have about things. They would spend decades instilling the fundamentals, patiently, diligently coaching with all the experience they could muster. But. When it was time to fly, they gave you a pat on the back and shoved you out of the nest and expected you to get with the program on the quick because the rocks were sharp at the bottom.
After giving the situation due consideration, he addressed his partner, who he believed had his best interests at heart and, maybe, loved him in the way that Elves did.
"You are barking at the moon, totally batshit, worms in the head crazy." He decided.
She rolled her lovely indigo eyes.
"What is it now, Ulric, that is wrong?" She whined.
Raising a finger, Ulric replied, "First. We don't know how many, their abilities, or their potential connections our enemies have, other than that they might go well up into the higher eschelons of the city. For all we know there might be thirty of them coming, all of them members of the city guard, or well-regarded fighters, or ruthless mercenaries."
Raising a second finger, Ulric continued, "Second. Even if I kill every single one of them, minus the two you'd like, because I can totally manage to do that in a life or death struggle, no problem, what happens when the town guard show up to a blood bath against locals with a single outlander survivor? Because, let me tell you, in my old world, that just never works out for the stranger."
Raising a third finger, Ulric kept going, "Third. All of this assumes that you do not get clubbed from behind and dragged off whilst I am having my throat cut in the street. Then they'll have you raped before they sell you to a sardine merchant in Prosp-"
Taipan put her hand over his mouth, scowling. He continued to mumble and started to raise a fourth finger when she grabbed his hand with her free one and shoved it down between them, glaring.
"Fine!" She barked, "What better idea do you have in mind? Hmmm?"
The problem with Iriel'en was that they just assumed you had to kill everybody straight away. They were stalkers not ambush predators, they wanted to get things over with, even if they were perfectly happy to nurse a grudge for a couple of centuries until that opportunity arose. What this called for was a bit of misdirection.
"We're going to set fire to all of House Wicker's ships tonight, every one of them, and, at the same time, burn their house down, with "Slaver" painted on the street in front of their home, as well as copies of these letters posted all over the place, for all to see. Then, tomorrow, we're going to wait and see who it is that comes out to defend them most loudly from the higher ups in the city. Whoever it is that pulls the damage control is probably invested in seeing that this goes away, we're costing them money and man power and raising questions that their rivals will happily use to jump down their throats, cornering them." Ulric said, calmly answering his Shadow's question.
She pulled up short, face scrunched and biting her lip as the implications.
"Okay, fine. I like your plan better after all." Taipan admitted, the words dragged from her.
"Where did you learn to think like this?" She asked, genuinely curious.
"Come on, Taipan, let's walk around and buy a water barrel, a sack of salt, and a cart to haul it, and I'll tell you all about this guy named Machiavelli. A real bastard but he left a playbook for other bastards to follow and I feel like our guy reads from a Vardan version of this same playbook, which makes him at least a little predictable." Ulric explained, leading his Shadow down the street.
*************Six Hours Later*************
They sat comfortably on top of the cart, the empty barrel tossed carelessly to the side. The empty canvas bag made for a somewhat saliferous head rest but they'd been there for an hour after making their preparations and Ulric was tired of the rough wood jamming his sword's hilt into the back of his head. His hair wasn't thick enough yet to pad it. Taipan sat crosslegged next to him in her Iriel'en clothes, her bow strung and sat across her lap, absent wig, but her face fully covered by her shemagh. She was getting antsy. They'd spent several hours roaming the streets openly, her skin charcoal darkened to prevent anyone from realizing that she'd lightened it. They couldn't do anything about the eyes but she'd been careful to keep her head ducked to make it hard for anyone to see that, thus her disguise should be intact.
"I still say that this does not work. Our enemies are incompetent, not complete fools." She announced, for the fourth time in two hours.
"Taipan, you simply do not understand. We're targeting more than our foes' intelligence, we're attacking them in their instincts, using their own emotions against them. Why does the mosquito fly into the bug zapper? Because it can do nothing else, it answers a compulsion outside of its own control." Ulric explained.
"What is a bug zapper?" She asked, confused at this phrase with no meaning.
Patting her thigh reassuringly Ulric whispered, "Tell you later love, no, better, I'll show you shortly." before raising his voice to address the group of eight that had closed off either end of the narrow alley.
"Our guests have arrived, late, of course, but who can blame them? They have been busy burying their friends, have they not?"
Grumbled curses and hateful stares met him as he stood.
"Is this all of you? Only these? Friends, you are badly outnumbered." Ulric claimed, which raised a few hackles, sometimes literally.
A motley assemblage of humans and beastkin, with a single Celestin leading them. The otherkin showed humble backgrounds, uneven cuts of cloth, patched, and rough gear. Daggers with nicks, axe blades showing pits from rust, a few spears with burlap headcovers stuffed into belts, and only the Elf wore a sword. The Celestin was of a remarkable similarity to the ones they'd left outside the city. So. It would seem another of the Wicker House would join his kin.
At least he was wearing his Sunday best, Ulric thought, regarding the silk finery, the gems in metal rings, and the unscuffed polished leather boots. Good money in slaves, he concluded, grimly.
Ulric's grey eyes shimmered white as he employed the magic that allowed him to gaze on the connection of living beings to the Akashic Record.
Looking over these men who had decided to throw their lives away, he wanted to know who they were, for future reference. Taipan was not all wrong, this was training, a test of sorts.
[Scan]
Yeah. That's about what Taipan said it would be, Ulric told himself. He'd questioned her thoroughly about what to expect from their enemies. She scanned the people she intended to kill out of habit and was all too happy to describe their traits, tendencies, and most appropriate means of dispatch.
Well, she hadn't seen this option before but that was mostly because he was the only one who could do it. He was, after all, a freak.
Stepping forward, the Celestin cried out "You will pay for my Brother's murder with your miserably short life you Valin animal. Your partner will not know such mercy, I am afraid." The Elf leered.
Wow. This was going to be even easier than he'd thought. Ulric drew his sword, even as the Elf's eyes sheened white.
Ulric felt the light pressure of someone looking at his Akashic link and mentally pushed back against it, as he'd been told that he could. The pressure vanished and the Elf rocked backwards momentarily, confusion painting his features.
"What are you?" Wicker, soon to be of the House Departed, asked, shakier than he'd been a few moments earlier.
Ulric grinned and pushed his core into action, relishing the flow of Ceraun, the chase of opposites eternally trying to find unity. He overcharged, holding the magic ready, allowing it to build. About a third the mana pool, he decided, pushing the spell to readiness.
"I am your enemy. And, right here behind me is your prize." Ulric gestured, and Taipan rose from her seat, still mumbling her complaints.
"Keep an eye on the roof tops." He instructed her, unnecessarily.
She knew her job here, they'd been over it already.
"Go teach your grandmother to harvest sap." She groused.
Ignoring her complaints, Ulric kept the show going. They'd scouted this alley thoroughly, no traffic in or out, no entrances, nothing. This was not a side road or gutter or anything like that. Just a space between buildings that naturally crops up within cities that have grown. The light splash of boots behind them announced that the group closing the other side of the alley had moved in to seal the only ways out. Perfect.
"I am not ungenerous! Let these fine men see what they have to win, since they fear to face my blade!"
Taipan lifted her shirt to flash the soft curves of bare breasts, pale in the gibbous moonlight.
At least half the bunch led by the Celestin wore lascivious expressions eyes focused completely on his Shadow's form. Ulric understood, she had that effect on him too, even after all this time.
Dropping her shirt she punched him in the back, muttering "This better work."
Already though the Celestin had taken a step forward and his lackeys were pressing ahead at his direction. Leading from the rear, of course. Oh well, Ulric thought. That didn't matter at all for this next bit.
"The barbarian dies, the Hunter remains alive, we will have our fun when she is brought to heel. Spears front!" Ordered Wicker, to which action his minions happily leapt, pressed shoulder to shoulder two abroad in the confines of the buildings to either side.
"Look, he cannot even swing that blade in this alley!" cried the Saurid in a gravely baritone.
Yeah and that would have been a really good hint to Ulric's way of thinking. Oh well, Varda punished mistakes.
A rogue spark leapt off his frame, a particularly energetic streamer of misdirected energy finding its way to the wall next to him, mana wasted in a bright static discharge.
The Celestin's eyes widened, "Mage! Ru-" He cried cutoff as the restrained magic roared to life, an arm thick arc than leapt from the Valin's hand to the soaked cobbles of the alley, water held to standing by a small perimeter ridge of raised stone, reflecting the brilliant moonlight in its unfrozen surface in the evening chill thanks to the salt mixed into it, and, also, supremely conductive.
If you've never seen a work crew get scaffolding into high voltage lines, don't look it up. Such accidents happen with surprising frequency and the results, well, they are not so very pretty. Much like the alley at that current moment, with dancing Ceraun arcing across the thin sheen of brine coating the cobbles below their cart. Ulric held the spell for a few moments more, noting the foul stink and the smoke as he cut off his core's flow, returning it to its resting cycle.
A particularly astute Leor, catlike beastkin, had leapt to the wall of the alley only to be intercepted by an arrow from Taipan and brought splashing back to its allies in the high voltage field below. A moment's stiffening and the arrow didn't matter. As the spell ended, Taipan looked to him with some amount of concern.
"You are certain that it is safe?" She checked.
"Yep. Totally fine now. Only while I held the spell active is the water dangerous. It's just salt water now. Look, see?" He answered, hopping down to the street below the cart, boots splashing lightly.
She merely nodded and hopped gracefully down to the street.
"Very well then, I suppose this 'bug zapper' of yours is similar to a candle for moths then?" She asked, knowing the answer.
"Sure is, but instead, they land on a cage of metal that passes electricity through it and are handled thusly." Ulric indicated to the bodies cooling in the wet alley floor.
"And my breasts, they are the light that pulls them in irrevokably?" She asked even more drily.
Ulric nodded, "Yup. Like I said, they literally couldn't help themselves." He said shamelessly.
Sighing his shadow began to join him in rifling through the belongings of the thugs, "We need to speak, at length, about your obsession with breasts and about how it would occur to you to use mine to bait a trap."
"If it makes you feel any better I only obsess because I am allowed to touch them, otherwise I'd just sort of fantasize without letting you know about it." Ulric told her.
"It does not, Glade Chief, but thank you for sharing." Taipan replied.
A thought seemed to occur to her, he noticed that his Shadow froze and raised her head to look at him with suspicion.
"What would you have done if these were mostly women?" She asked.
Ulric shrugged. That was a good question. He didn't know if he had the heart to do this to women, which was super sexist. Women could be assholes and enemies too. Still, some things were baked into the hardware side of him.
"I dunno, probably just set the phasors to stun? I think I could probably have rendered most of them mostly unconscious or too fucked up to move temporarily." Ulric admitted, somewhat sheepishly.
"So you purposefully killed everyone, without chance to escape?" She probed.
He wasn't sure what she was getting at.
"I don't know what you're getting at, but yeah." He answered, somewhat defensively.
"Nothing, Glade Chief, I am just glad that you are finding your killing instinct without being provoked to Rage. Last time, I thought that perhaps you would weep over your enemies." She told him with some amount of relief in her tone.
Rude.
"Believe it or not, it's not going to be an issue to kill of a bunch of rapists, in addition to murderers and slavers." He informed the Aes'r woman, pulling the Celestin corpse up to toss into the cart.
Taipan had finished going through the others in the meantime. Unlike previously, there were no lapses in security with handwritten messages. Ulric had their names from his [Scan] but that was information to go over later. Right now, they were going to have to hide the body of this minor noble and see about bringing ruin to the rest of his household before the dawn.
"Good." Taipan declared, passing him the contents of the rest.
Some mixed coinage went into a different pouch than their funds, it might be useful as evidence later. Not much else, unfortunately.
Taipan's eyes scanned the alley her nose scrunched at the odor, she scrubbed her short pixie cut glad to be free of the wig for a little longer.
"What even compels you to think of something like this? Did you just…come up with this on the spur of the moment?" She asked.
Ulric waved his hand in denial, he wasn't some kind of monster.
"This is number forty-three." He said, as if that were supposed to answer the question.
"What in the Seven Hells is that supposed to mean?" She crossed her arms.
Ulric rolled his eyes as he tossed a bedroll over the body of the minor lordling and took up the cart.
"This is the forty-third way I could think of to use magic, back when I was enduring the three weeks of constant rainfall in the glade. Not much to do but mess with my core, and think out how to use magic." He clarified, continuing to explain, "A little mineral water, a little electric current, and boom! A single target lightning spell becomes an area of effect spell with effectively the same potency and mana consumption. Now that's efficiency!"
Taipan pushed the cart from behind, and they rattled over the small stone ridge that had trapped the barrel's water within the alley.
From behind him he hear her musical voice call out "I worry for mine future prospects."
This from the woman who had committed pentuple homicide before most people had finished brunch.
He was starting to think that their little adventure had taken a slightly dark turn, as he pulled the cart containing the body behind him down another less traveled but broad street. The foulness of tanner's vats to their left was loud in his nostrils but he stopped anyway.
Taipan ran into the cart and started to curse him when her ears pricked up and she hissed "They are coming!" as she readied her bow.
And coming they were, five from the direction in which they were traveling, all dressed alike in dark grey wraps and light armor, another three from a side alley to their right, and another four from behind.
Adrenaline spiked as the dim forms came into greater focus. Five earlier, eight just now made thirteen, five in the front, three on the flank, and four more made twenty-five total. Three catch teams.
[Warrior's Instinct]
[Battle Rhythm]
[Surge]
Ulric's core roared to life, mana filling his body with the crackling energy of pure Ceraun. He could almost hear Idra'se in his ear, 'against many, break their formation before it can solidify its structure'. He shot forward, coming low from a lunge, and brought the blade from low left to high right, one of the strongest rising cuts he could manage, and the shocked face of the human he bisected dimly registered before he brought the long sword back across horizontally to his left, a branching step bringing him in line, while the cut whistled through a blocking spear haft to cleave the shoulder and chest behind it cleanly.
A mace swung down at him but he remained rooted to the side and it was little effort to simply return to the Undan ready and evade the swing, putting the brawny Sauri off balance. A fast turn of his wrists and a pull downwards to his hips sent the tip of his sword whipping to follow, and it removed the top of the Sauri's skull as it did. The other two were trying to readjust for the sudden losses to pinch him between the flankers who had started to close behind him.
[Ceraunoperception]
He pulsed to feel where his enemies were and drew heavily on his core, even as a rounded shield began to bullrush, short sword pointed over top of its metal rim to impale as it did.
Ulric reached towards the legs of his enemy clawed hand, already glowing violet with ionizing air.
[Voltaic Riot]
A lance of energy, mana flowing freely from his core, carved through the exposed legs under the shield and the Elf cried out some inarticulate scream as he fell to the stones below, weapons forgotten as he tried to stem the bleeding that wasn't occurring. Idiot. Wounds from lightning cauterized and his scrabbling was breaking open the sealed vessels that would actually kill him.
The last of the five had pulled up short when the spell lit the night, face drawn in dawning horror when she realized that she was fighting a battle mage.
Three behind were closing but had slowed at the flash of light and the sudden deaths of their comrades.
This one in front of him found her courage with allies closing and readied herself, spear forward. She rocketed forwards, fast, faster than any of the rest of them in a charging thrust. And, yet, compared to Christ, so slowly. Ulric barely had to turn his chest to let the spear point pass by and caught the rushing Leor with his hand on her face.
[Voltaic Grip]
Carefully, dialing back his core's exuberant output, he passed a small pulse from the cycle of his core and tasered the Leor's brains, hopefully just enough to steal consciousness, Taipan had asked for two alive and he had delivered. The rest he was free to kill outright. These had had time to ready themselves though and were already initiating their coordinated attack.
He turned, whipping Xef'toct around and trimming a spear tip. One of the other three, a huge Lupid, used a ridiculously fast leaping skill, jumping higher than possible, almost four meters and hurtling down with more momentum than they'd started with, a two-handed hammer slamming.
Ulric had to retreat, the practiced steps of the Dance and a remembered Idra's advice 'the hands holding are the most prized targets against long weapons' before his counter cut parted the wrists of the beastkin and he fell back, face a mask of realization that his hands were still gripping the hammer's handle, its heavy head buried in the stone cobbles.
The disabling cut cost him his first blood, as the other two had not abandoned their attack, pressing him when he was forced to dodge the hammer strike that would have pulverized him. A cut flashed down and scored his temple before slashing a thin line in his shoulder, blade whipping through an amplified double cut. The headless spear haft cracked loudly against his forearm at the same time he'd flinched away from the sword, trying to open his empty damned skull and he grimaced as he felt his left hand go numb. Just like that godsdamned [Golden Heckler Monkey].
Ulric retreated a few steps warding them away and caught himself before an uncharacteristic stumble, returning to ready as the three of his enemies came on at wide angles.
[Surge] was costing him, the draw on mana and the strain on his body warning him that he couldn't keep this up, he was almost out of juice. No time or concentration for trying to purify mana for any spells it was melee or bust.
The handless enemy was rushing furiously, berserk, muzzle wide fangs flashing, with intent to tackle and rend him. The now quarter-staff user was trying to club him again from the side while Sword Elf came again, dodging another of his short thrusts. He could feel his combat skills and the ruthless training of the Iriel'en telling him to break out of the encirclement. Now. He swung a one handed over hand that forced the damned agile Elven sword user back and turned, arm raised in cover to take the quarterstaff blow on his shoulder, instead of his head before charging the staff wielding Celestin who hadn't expected his blow to be absorbed.
He also hadn't expected to be blown aside like a child and hilt struck as he bounced off a tanner's vat, ribs breaking and side lacerated through his light armor by the decorative razor leaves of Xef'tocht. Ulric grabbed the stunned, breathless elf with his good hand and slung him into the approaching swordsman, tangling them. Out from the corner of his eye, he saw the blur of motion and threw his knee hard into the still tackling crazed hammer warrior, whose impressive force threw them both to the ground despite Ulric's muzzle crunching counter. Ulric saw the sword hilt fly free from his numb fingers.
Stones crashed into his back and Ulric had a breathless moment as the weight of the Lupid slammed down onto him, fangs darting for his throat. Ulric caught the approaching form by its throat muscles straining to keep it at bay. Ulric yelled wordless anger and turned violently beneath his enemy, slugged the creature across the eye with his elbow, the satisfying impact sounding like a bat hitting a homerun. The beastkin sagged momentarily and Ulric took the chance as he jammed his boots against the heavy chest and kicked hard, [Surge] assisted strength launching it away, blood arcing from its severed wrists across the foundation stones of the tannery as it flew.
Ulric had just gotten to his side, palms bracing on the cold cobbles of the street, injured forearm flashing brilliant pain, and suddenly rolled, [Battle Rhythm] feeling the attack, in time to see the impaling sword fling sparks as it drove through the space his head had been. He kicked out and caught the swordsman's knee, crunching it satisfyingly under his boot, and drew on his core just enough for one more Ceraun spell, even as [Surge] fell away, exhausted.
The Celestin held its knee with one hand and drew back, snarling, to cut Ulric apart and stumbled back, his swing wide as an arrow tore into his chest. Another followed, next to its brother, and a third, the mangled armor failing to resist as the last went through and through. Ulric heard its clatter down the cobbled street.
Propping himself up, he realized that the other two he'd been fighting were already dead, arrows buried in their upper bodies. Handless had caught one roughly through his wolflike ears.
Ulric saw Taipan rising from her stabilizing crouch, the slashed corpses of the four around her already still.
He stood to join her and his combat high fell away, [Warrior] skills going dormant, and sat back down suddenly when his head spun and some absolute bastard poured acid into his tendons. Holy fuck! The grinding of his teeth was loud in his ears as he locked them together to avoid cursing.
Groaning loudly despite his best effort, Ulric levered himself up and limped to Xef'tocht. He used the priceless sword as a walking stick to hobble over to meet his Shadow, who had definitely just pulled his bacon off the griddle.
It was an almost out of body experience to survive mortal combat. A combination of glee, near to giggles, relief, shaking that had nothing to do with fear, and deep breaths of air that was the sweetest it could ever be. And, there was the sheer triumph, the primal urge to scream to the skies and let the world know it had not claimed you.
Taipan was assessing him with a critical eye while she roped the unconscious Leor in a hogtie and mercifully clubbed the screaming Elf with her bow stave to stop him opening the sealed arteries at the new stumps where his knees used to be and killing himself. Ulric was glad to leave her to it, he felt like absolute hell, like Idra had forced him through the worst of their practice sessions, the ones he inflicted when the royal guards' efforts dissatisfied him.
Every joint burned, every muscle verged on cramp. Feeling returned to his hand, the bone throbbing but some tentative inspection and flexing indicated that it wasn't broken. The spearman hadn't been as strong as Goldie. Pulling his attention inwards, Ulric felt his core and realized just how much effort [Surge] had cost him, it burned mana like crazy. He probably could have managed enough to handle the asshole with the sword, but only if they didn't realize they just had to hop back out of range and the arc would fall short, grounding itself out on the stones and wasting the last of his mana.
As his partner finished securing their prisoners, Ulric, with more trouble than he cared to admit, finagled Xef'tocht back into its sheath. The stink of the tanner's vats very nearly covered the fresh smell of death, of emptied bowels, pooling blood, and steaming gore.
He looked around the street, silver sheen of moonlight transfixing the scene with an otherworldly glow, blood, resting like pools of mercury, and the reality of the thing set in on him.
Ten bodies dead in the streets. There was a part of him that had trouble reconciling it. Taipan had called warning and there hadn't been any time to plan, to strategize, or even to really think. He'd reacted according to instincts, mostly the bloodthirsty ones courtesy of Lord Instinct, but with a healthy dose of good old Humanity. It bore remembering that it was the homo sapiens of his old world that was the most incredibly destructive creature ever to exist.
Shaking some of the post-combat euphoria away, he tried to rationalize, to process the battle. Stuffing all the emotional horseshit down into a space to be dealt with later he reviewed the bugfuck course of the last ten minutes.
Twelve attackers just now. Eight more not five minutes before that. And Taipan had eliminated another five before this, hours ago. If they'd all managed to converge on the two of them, Ulric had no doubt that the two of them would have been killed. So, first lesson, don't get surrounded by an army. That one seemed more or less straightforward.
Looking over the corpses of the four he'd killed initially, Ulric couldn't help a bit of pride. Idra would have called it 'adequate'. He'd given it pretty much all he had there, and felt damned fortunate.
Those first five hadn't expected to be closed on, had been almost comically unready to defend themselves, even if they'd been ready to kill others. Their mindset was wrong.
Christ called it the Turn, the moment between when a would be predator corners dangerous prey and is slain by its unexpectedly aggressive counter attack. The three flankers though, that was another ball of wax. They'd had the extra time they needed to get over that gap and seize their own initiative and it had put Ulric on the back foot almost instantly. The Hammer-Wolf and Swordboy especially. Between the two of them there'd been so much pressure he'd been unable to effectively counter and maintain any advantage, taking off Hammer's hands was probably the only thing that kept him alive. And even then the bastard had come on, stumps bleeding him out the whole time, like some kind of fucking terminator.
Another lesson: Enemies in this world aren't not a threat until they're super dead. The insanely amplified biology of the peoples of Varda meant what he would have called a disabling wound in his old world wasn't here. Hammerwolf had come damned close to biting Ulric's throat out, even if he would soon bled to death afterwards.
Ulric felt the warm stickiness on his face and brushed it, seeing his own blood and feeling the sting of the cut as his fingers passed over it. Clean, like a razor. Grimacing, he checked the one on his shoulder, about a hand long, shallow, and also made as if by a surgical scalpel. Pretty fucking close to opening his head and ruining his arm then, which would have pretty quickly been the end of things. Just a little deeper into that shoulder, cut the right muscles, and Ulric probably wouldn't have been able to grapple the spear dude to tangle them up or keep Wolfy at bay.
He shivered a little. Too close.
"Taipan, I'm thinking that whoever is in charge of this little operation has some deep fucking pockets and way too many friends." He announced, unafraid of stating the obvious.
"That would…mmph…seem to be the case Glade Chief." Replied his partner, hauling the unconscious amputee over the edge of the cart.
Ulric went over and took the legs of the second prisoner and, together, they tossed her limply over her brother in assholery.
"Well, we got your live ones, what the hells do we do with them?" He asked.
Again came the upturn of her lips and the veiled turn of her almond eyes that said somebody was in for a very bad time, the expression she must have learned from her mother Vedyr.
"I still like your plan to set Wicker's ships alight, as well as their headquarters, and to leave this one with the copied letters in his pockets and see how our enemy responds to having his, as you would say, 'balls kicked into his stomach'. As for these two, we question them separately so that we can spot their lies." Came her melodic answer.
"And after we get whatever use we can after them?" Ulric asked.
Taipan drew a finger across her throat. Oof. Well. He probably should have seen that coming. Did he have it in him to murder disarmed, or legged, prisoners? Maybe. Maybe not, but he'd come to that decision later, one small horror at a time here.
Sighing at the tragic, stupid fucking waste of it all, Ulric helped Taipan strip the corpses, throwing what hadn't been ruined into the cart with their prisoners and their message. And there! Another mistake from their enemy, a second set of orders, in the same delicate, precise handwriting that had passed down the initial command to have Ulric murdered and Taipan captured.
His partner, the only one of them possessing night vision to speak of, read the text aloud for Ulric's benefit.
"Dispatch now; Teams 2 thru 4. Objective unchanged, disposition upgrade to hazardous, corner and overwhelm. Losses expected, fee quadrupled for live capture, failure will see those funds spent having you flayed alive en route to Prosper with a healer in tow."
The handwriting grew a little unsteady at the end, the nib of the pen damaging the paper with its force.
Well. At least they were getting under somebody's skin. Their nameless enemy would shit bricks when they found out about the little party that had gone on here.
"We have rubbed the [Itch Oak] in their eyes now, Glade Chief. That will learn them to think they could take a Hunter and one trained under Iriel's finest, even if the time was short." Gloated Taipan.
She must be forgetting the part where their enemies had almost succeeded. And, yet, almost only counts in Horsehoes and hand grenades. Their enemies made a mistake, they'd missed the timing on their attack, had come in too spread out, too disjointed.
"Alright Taipan," Ulric said, taking up his position holding the cart, stretching his back to relieve its ache as he did, "Go ahead and criticize, I see it on your pretty face."
Noticing the assistance of her pushing more than earlier that day, Ulric pulled the cart along side streets and alleys back towards a vacant, run down storage building they'd found earlier that week as his Shadow made her critique.
"Your impulse to drive into them and break their formation was good, as was the form for your attacks but you failed your execution through targeting. The one with the shield should have been first, you could have struck him first with that same rising cut and then the branching side to cleave both the mace and spear wielder, before a crossing back step to Fyor ready to sweep down and take the legs from the great axe user you first cut. It cost you greater effort to use your magic and time." Began Taipan.
She continued in similar vein, dissecting his failings and suggesting improvements, most of which would have ended the fight against his opponents with less risk and greater efficiency. Ulric listened to her go through three more alternatives better than what he'd done before she finished.
"In summary, Ulric Glade Chief, you have tremendous advantage in your initial rush, the speed and power is incredibly potent, especially with this skill you use, but it takes deeply from your reserves, both physical and arcane, which means it must be maximized in efficiency. You did not choose poorly in going to the blade over trying to cast magic against our enemies; we did not have the time for you to employ your greater weapons and you are still too slow to utilize the techniques for refining mana not of your core's aspect. However, you could use that [Voltaic Riot] of yours to greater effect if you swept it across the front of your enemies, it might even have taken all five in the initial charge, at little extra cost to your mana, I note the scarring of the cobbles that say you wasted significant effort to no gain taking the shieldbearer's legs." His more experienced manhunter of a partner assessed.
"Perhaps it would not have killed in that manner but it steals your enemy's vision at night and would have wounded faces, necks, and guarding hands, disabling all of them greatly. You have great room for improvement, Ulric." Taipan finished.
It bore some amount of consideration that Taipan's opponents had lasted a little over a second, she'd arrowed one, shadow bladed another two across their carotids, and ended the drought beneath the last's feet before kicking her bow back up to her hands and taking the clean-up shots on the last three Ulric had been struggling with. She might have gotten them faster if he hadn't been in the way of her shot.
In this, his Iriel'en partner was most assuredly his superior. Ulric's magic was more potent in many ways than anything Taipan could manage, the destructive power of his spells and his monofilament of an enchanted sword meant that, technically, Ulric could do more damage than his partner. His Shadow's sheer fluid efficiency rendered most of those qualities moot though. She was able to do far more, with far less effort than he could. When it came time to kill something like that [Shrieking Ravager], or the infested [Bloodstarve Brood Queen] his skills shined. Against these mooks? Taipan was easily the more effective of the two of them, especially on short notice.
As such, Ulric took notes when the gorgeous, if spooky, Elf that had decided to follow him through life gave him murder tips.
The pair were coming close to the network of intentionally gridded streets that marked the first in they'd stayed, on the first night of their arrival. Ulric was now exceedingly glad of his Shadow's insistence on dragging him along these well-traveled corridors, else he'd have been utterly lost. City travel absent named streets was completely mind boggling, he didn't know how anybody found their way in such a sprawl without distinct junctions to key off of.
The thoughtful purse of her pretty lips and her tapping finger indicated that Taipan was giving it a good think. Ulric was tempted to ask her what she thought, distracting her, which was one of her favorite games to play with him, but decided against. Serious Business now, Play later.
"The best lead we have now is that we know that it was House Wicker's second son leading the catch team and he had been given his command at the behest of one who could hide the movements of his house's boats. We were able to find a discrepancy within an hour, any serious inspection of the unaltered dock register would pull immediate question from its authorities. Then we need to determine who with access to such documents has connection to House Wicker." Taipan began.
"Ulric, our enemies know your appearance. They were following you with intent, but I was merely an opportunity. You have not detected any following since have you?" She inquired.
Shaking his head no she continued.
"Neither have I. It seems that those five were the only ones seeking us that had made contact. No doubt a runner had already left to bring word to whoever else they might have on hand. What I propose is that you be seen roaming the streets nearby, absent my company, to draw them in. I will be nearby in concealment, from a rooftop I think. I will be able to judge their number and disposition as they close in and, when they try to make their move, you will slaughter them while I cover your back. We will keep at least two alive to question. The guards will no doubt come to the disturbance and you might even be placed under arrest. Do not resist this, I will remove you from custody either through legal means, or, perhaps, not so much, shortly after. This will prompt our overseer to pull strings to prevent you from being removed or to hire another killer and thus out themselves."
Ulric almost interrupted her a couple of times. There was some highly objectionable shit going on here.
Hand over his eyes, Ulric tried to exercise one of those necessary skills for life: thinking before you open your trap. He stewed for a couple of minutes under the attentive gaze of his Shadow.
This was, unironically, a test. His partner was trying to train him, trying to teach him, in that sink or swim, throw the fledglings off the cliff sort of way that the Iriel'en could have about things. They would spend decades instilling the fundamentals, patiently, diligently coaching with all the experience they could muster. But. When it was time to fly, they gave you a pat on the back and shoved you out of the nest and expected you to get with the program on the quick because the rocks were sharp at the bottom.
After giving the situation due consideration, he addressed his partner, who he believed had his best interests at heart and, maybe, loved him in the way that Elves did.
"You are barking at the moon, totally batshit, worms in the head crazy." He decided.
She rolled her lovely indigo eyes.
"What is it now, Ulric, that is wrong?" She whined.
Raising a finger, Ulric replied, "First. We don't know how many, their abilities, or their potential connections our enemies have, other than that they might go well up into the higher eschelons of the city. For all we know there might be thirty of them coming, all of them members of the city guard, or well-regarded fighters, or ruthless mercenaries."
Raising a second finger, Ulric continued, "Second. Even if I kill every single one of them, minus the two you'd like, because I can totally manage to do that in a life or death struggle, no problem, what happens when the town guard show up to a blood bath against locals with a single outlander survivor? Because, let me tell you, in my old world, that just never works out for the stranger."
Raising a third finger, Ulric kept going, "Third. All of this assumes that you do not get clubbed from behind and dragged off whilst I am having my throat cut in the street. Then they'll have you raped before they sell you to a sardine merchant in Prosp-"
Taipan put her hand over his mouth, scowling. He continued to mumble and started to raise a fourth finger when she grabbed his hand with her free one and shoved it down between them, glaring.
"Fine!" She barked, "What better idea do you have in mind? Hmmm?"
The problem with Iriel'en was that they just assumed you had to kill everybody straight away. They were stalkers not ambush predators, they wanted to get things over with, even if they were perfectly happy to nurse a grudge for a couple of centuries until that opportunity arose. What this called for was a bit of misdirection.
"We're going to set fire to all of House Wicker's ships tonight, every one of them, and, at the same time, burn their house down, with "Slaver" painted on the street in front of their home, as well as copies of these letters posted all over the place, for all to see. Then, tomorrow, we're going to wait and see who it is that comes out to defend them most loudly from the higher ups in the city. Whoever it is that pulls the damage control is probably invested in seeing that this goes away, we're costing them money and man power and raising questions that their rivals will happily use to jump down their throats, cornering them." Ulric said, calmly answering his Shadow's question.
She pulled up short, face scrunched and biting her lip as the implications.
"Okay, fine. I like your plan better after all." Taipan admitted, the words dragged from her.
"Where did you learn to think like this?" She asked, genuinely curious.
"Come on, Taipan, let's walk around and buy a water barrel, a sack of salt, and a cart to haul it, and I'll tell you all about this guy named Machiavelli. A real bastard but he left a playbook for other bastards to follow and I feel like our guy reads from a Vardan version of this same playbook, which makes him at least a little predictable." Ulric explained, leading his Shadow down the street.
*************Six Hours Later*************
They sat comfortably on top of the cart, the empty barrel tossed carelessly to the side. The empty canvas bag made for a somewhat saliferous head rest but they'd been there for an hour after making their preparations and Ulric was tired of the rough wood jamming his sword's hilt into the back of his head. His hair wasn't thick enough yet to pad it. Taipan sat crosslegged next to him in her Iriel'en clothes, her bow strung and sat across her lap, absent wig, but her face fully covered by her shemagh. She was getting antsy. They'd spent several hours roaming the streets openly, her skin charcoal darkened to prevent anyone from realizing that she'd lightened it. They couldn't do anything about the eyes but she'd been careful to keep her head ducked to make it hard for anyone to see that, thus her disguise should be intact.
"I still say that this does not work. Our enemies are incompetent, not complete fools." She announced, for the fourth time in two hours.
"Taipan, you simply do not understand. We're targeting more than our foes' intelligence, we're attacking them in their instincts, using their own emotions against them. Why does the mosquito fly into the bug zapper? Because it can do nothing else, it answers a compulsion outside of its own control." Ulric explained.
"What is a bug zapper?" She asked, confused at this phrase with no meaning.
Patting her thigh reassuringly Ulric whispered, "Tell you later love, no, better, I'll show you shortly." before raising his voice to address the group of eight that had closed off either end of the narrow alley.
"Our guests have arrived, late, of course, but who can blame them? They have been busy burying their friends, have they not?"
Grumbled curses and hateful stares met him as he stood.
"Is this all of you? Only these? Friends, you are badly outnumbered." Ulric claimed, which raised a few hackles, sometimes literally.
A motley assemblage of humans and beastkin, with a single Celestin leading them. The otherkin showed humble backgrounds, uneven cuts of cloth, patched, and rough gear. Daggers with nicks, axe blades showing pits from rust, a few spears with burlap headcovers stuffed into belts, and only the Elf wore a sword. The Celestin was of a remarkable similarity to the ones they'd left outside the city. So. It would seem another of the Wicker House would join his kin.
At least he was wearing his Sunday best, Ulric thought, regarding the silk finery, the gems in metal rings, and the unscuffed polished leather boots. Good money in slaves, he concluded, grimly.
Ulric's grey eyes shimmered white as he employed the magic that allowed him to gaze on the connection of living beings to the Akashic Record.
Looking over these men who had decided to throw their lives away, he wanted to know who they were, for future reference. Taipan was not all wrong, this was training, a test of sorts.
[Scan]
Yeah. That's about what Taipan said it would be, Ulric told himself. He'd questioned her thoroughly about what to expect from their enemies. She scanned the people she intended to kill out of habit and was all too happy to describe their traits, tendencies, and most appropriate means of dispatch.
Well, she hadn't seen this option before but that was mostly because he was the only one who could do it. He was, after all, a freak.
Stepping forward, the Celestin cried out "You will pay for my Brother's murder with your miserably short life you Valin animal. Your partner will not know such mercy, I am afraid." The Elf leered.
Wow. This was going to be even easier than he'd thought. Ulric drew his sword, even as the Elf's eyes sheened white.
Ulric felt the light pressure of someone looking at his Akashic link and mentally pushed back against it, as he'd been told that he could. The pressure vanished and the Elf rocked backwards momentarily, confusion painting his features.
"What are you?" Wicker, soon to be of the House Departed, asked, shakier than he'd been a few moments earlier.
Ulric grinned and pushed his core into action, relishing the flow of Ceraun, the chase of opposites eternally trying to find unity. He overcharged, holding the magic ready, allowing it to build. About a third the mana pool, he decided, pushing the spell to readiness.
"I am your enemy. And, right here behind me is your prize." Ulric gestured, and Taipan rose from her seat, still mumbling her complaints.
"Keep an eye on the roof tops." He instructed her, unnecessarily.
She knew her job here, they'd been over it already.
"Go teach your grandmother to harvest sap." She groused.
Ignoring her complaints, Ulric kept the show going. They'd scouted this alley thoroughly, no traffic in or out, no entrances, nothing. This was not a side road or gutter or anything like that. Just a space between buildings that naturally crops up within cities that have grown. The light splash of boots behind them announced that the group closing the other side of the alley had moved in to seal the only ways out. Perfect.
"I am not ungenerous! Let these fine men see what they have to win, since they fear to face my blade!"
Taipan lifted her shirt to flash the soft curves of bare breasts, pale in the gibbous moonlight.
At least half the bunch led by the Celestin wore lascivious expressions eyes focused completely on his Shadow's form. Ulric understood, she had that effect on him too, even after all this time.
Dropping her shirt she punched him in the back, muttering "This better work."
Already though the Celestin had taken a step forward and his lackeys were pressing ahead at his direction. Leading from the rear, of course. Oh well, Ulric thought. That didn't matter at all for this next bit.
"The barbarian dies, the Hunter remains alive, we will have our fun when she is brought to heel. Spears front!" Ordered Wicker, to which action his minions happily leapt, pressed shoulder to shoulder two abroad in the confines of the buildings to either side.
"Look, he cannot even swing that blade in this alley!" cried the Saurid in a gravely baritone.
Yeah and that would have been a really good hint to Ulric's way of thinking. Oh well, Varda punished mistakes.
A rogue spark leapt off his frame, a particularly energetic streamer of misdirected energy finding its way to the wall next to him, mana wasted in a bright static discharge.
The Celestin's eyes widened, "Mage! Ru-" He cried cutoff as the restrained magic roared to life, an arm thick arc than leapt from the Valin's hand to the soaked cobbles of the alley, water held to standing by a small perimeter ridge of raised stone, reflecting the brilliant moonlight in its unfrozen surface in the evening chill thanks to the salt mixed into it, and, also, supremely conductive.
If you've never seen a work crew get scaffolding into high voltage lines, don't look it up. Such accidents happen with surprising frequency and the results, well, they are not so very pretty. Much like the alley at that current moment, with dancing Ceraun arcing across the thin sheen of brine coating the cobbles below their cart. Ulric held the spell for a few moments more, noting the foul stink and the smoke as he cut off his core's flow, returning it to its resting cycle.
A particularly astute Leor, catlike beastkin, had leapt to the wall of the alley only to be intercepted by an arrow from Taipan and brought splashing back to its allies in the high voltage field below. A moment's stiffening and the arrow didn't matter. As the spell ended, Taipan looked to him with some amount of concern.
"You are certain that it is safe?" She checked.
"Yep. Totally fine now. Only while I held the spell active is the water dangerous. It's just salt water now. Look, see?" He answered, hopping down to the street below the cart, boots splashing lightly.
She merely nodded and hopped gracefully down to the street.
"Very well then, I suppose this 'bug zapper' of yours is similar to a candle for moths then?" She asked, knowing the answer.
"Sure is, but instead, they land on a cage of metal that passes electricity through it and are handled thusly." Ulric indicated to the bodies cooling in the wet alley floor.
"And my breasts, they are the light that pulls them in irrevokably?" She asked even more drily.
Ulric nodded, "Yup. Like I said, they literally couldn't help themselves." He said shamelessly.
Sighing his shadow began to join him in rifling through the belongings of the thugs, "We need to speak, at length, about your obsession with breasts and about how it would occur to you to use mine to bait a trap."
"If it makes you feel any better I only obsess because I am allowed to touch them, otherwise I'd just sort of fantasize without letting you know about it." Ulric told her.
"It does not, Glade Chief, but thank you for sharing." Taipan replied.
A thought seemed to occur to her, he noticed that his Shadow froze and raised her head to look at him with suspicion.
"What would you have done if these were mostly women?" She asked.
Ulric shrugged. That was a good question. He didn't know if he had the heart to do this to women, which was super sexist. Women could be assholes and enemies too. Still, some things were baked into the hardware side of him.
"I dunno, probably just set the phasors to stun? I think I could probably have rendered most of them mostly unconscious or too fucked up to move temporarily." Ulric admitted, somewhat sheepishly.
"So you purposefully killed everyone, without chance to escape?" She probed.
He wasn't sure what she was getting at.
"I don't know what you're getting at, but yeah." He answered, somewhat defensively.
"Nothing, Glade Chief, I am just glad that you are finding your killing instinct without being provoked to Rage. Last time, I thought that perhaps you would weep over your enemies." She told him with some amount of relief in her tone.
Rude.
"Believe it or not, it's not going to be an issue to kill of a bunch of rapists, in addition to murderers and slavers." He informed the Aes'r woman, pulling the Celestin corpse up to toss into the cart.
Taipan had finished going through the others in the meantime. Unlike previously, there were no lapses in security with handwritten messages. Ulric had their names from his [Scan] but that was information to go over later. Right now, they were going to have to hide the body of this minor noble and see about bringing ruin to the rest of his household before the dawn.
"Good." Taipan declared, passing him the contents of the rest.
Some mixed coinage went into a different pouch than their funds, it might be useful as evidence later. Not much else, unfortunately.
Taipan's eyes scanned the alley her nose scrunched at the odor, she scrubbed her short pixie cut glad to be free of the wig for a little longer.
"What even compels you to think of something like this? Did you just…come up with this on the spur of the moment?" She asked.
Ulric waved his hand in denial, he wasn't some kind of monster.
"This is number forty-three." He said, as if that were supposed to answer the question.
"What in the Seven Hells is that supposed to mean?" She crossed her arms.
Ulric rolled his eyes as he tossed a bedroll over the body of the minor lordling and took up the cart.
"This is the forty-third way I could think of to use magic, back when I was enduring the three weeks of constant rainfall in the glade. Not much to do but mess with my core, and think out how to use magic." He clarified, continuing to explain, "A little mineral water, a little electric current, and boom! A single target lightning spell becomes an area of effect spell with effectively the same potency and mana consumption. Now that's efficiency!"
Taipan pushed the cart from behind, and they rattled over the small stone ridge that had trapped the barrel's water within the alley.
From behind him he hear her musical voice call out "I worry for mine future prospects."
This from the woman who had committed pentuple homicide before most people had finished brunch.
He was starting to think that their little adventure had taken a slightly dark turn, as he pulled the cart containing the body behind him down another less traveled but broad street. The foulness of tanner's vats to their left was loud in his nostrils but he stopped anyway.
Taipan ran into the cart and started to curse him when her ears pricked up and she hissed "They are coming!" as she readied her bow.
And coming they were, five from the direction in which they were traveling, all dressed alike in dark grey wraps and light armor, another three from a side alley to their right, and another four from behind.
Adrenaline spiked as the dim forms came into greater focus. Five earlier, eight just now made thirteen, five in the front, three on the flank, and four more made twenty-five total. Three catch teams.
[Warrior's Instinct]
[Battle Rhythm]
[Surge]
Ulric's core roared to life, mana filling his body with the crackling energy of pure Ceraun. He could almost hear Idra'se in his ear, 'against many, break their formation before it can solidify its structure'. He shot forward, coming low from a lunge, and brought the blade from low left to high right, one of the strongest rising cuts he could manage, and the shocked face of the human he bisected dimly registered before he brought the long sword back across horizontally to his left, a branching step bringing him in line, while the cut whistled through a blocking spear haft to cleave the shoulder and chest behind it cleanly.
A mace swung down at him but he remained rooted to the side and it was little effort to simply return to the Undan ready and evade the swing, putting the brawny Sauri off balance. A fast turn of his wrists and a pull downwards to his hips sent the tip of his sword whipping to follow, and it removed the top of the Sauri's skull as it did. The other two were trying to readjust for the sudden losses to pinch him between the flankers who had started to close behind him.
[Ceraunoperception]
He pulsed to feel where his enemies were and drew heavily on his core, even as a rounded shield began to bullrush, short sword pointed over top of its metal rim to impale as it did.
Ulric reached towards the legs of his enemy clawed hand, already glowing violet with ionizing air.
[Voltaic Riot]
A lance of energy, mana flowing freely from his core, carved through the exposed legs under the shield and the Elf cried out some inarticulate scream as he fell to the stones below, weapons forgotten as he tried to stem the bleeding that wasn't occurring. Idiot. Wounds from lightning cauterized and his scrabbling was breaking open the sealed vessels that would actually kill him.
The last of the five had pulled up short when the spell lit the night, face drawn in dawning horror when she realized that she was fighting a battle mage.
Three behind were closing but had slowed at the flash of light and the sudden deaths of their comrades.
This one in front of him found her courage with allies closing and readied herself, spear forward. She rocketed forwards, fast, faster than any of the rest of them in a charging thrust. And, yet, compared to Christ, so slowly. Ulric barely had to turn his chest to let the spear point pass by and caught the rushing Leor with his hand on her face.
[Voltaic Grip]
Carefully, dialing back his core's exuberant output, he passed a small pulse from the cycle of his core and tasered the Leor's brains, hopefully just enough to steal consciousness, Taipan had asked for two alive and he had delivered. The rest he was free to kill outright. These had had time to ready themselves though and were already initiating their coordinated attack.
He turned, whipping Xef'toct around and trimming a spear tip. One of the other three, a huge Lupid, used a ridiculously fast leaping skill, jumping higher than possible, almost four meters and hurtling down with more momentum than they'd started with, a two-handed hammer slamming.
Ulric had to retreat, the practiced steps of the Dance and a remembered Idra's advice 'the hands holding are the most prized targets against long weapons' before his counter cut parted the wrists of the beastkin and he fell back, face a mask of realization that his hands were still gripping the hammer's handle, its heavy head buried in the stone cobbles.
The disabling cut cost him his first blood, as the other two had not abandoned their attack, pressing him when he was forced to dodge the hammer strike that would have pulverized him. A cut flashed down and scored his temple before slashing a thin line in his shoulder, blade whipping through an amplified double cut. The headless spear haft cracked loudly against his forearm at the same time he'd flinched away from the sword, trying to open his empty damned skull and he grimaced as he felt his left hand go numb. Just like that godsdamned [Golden Heckler Monkey].
Ulric retreated a few steps warding them away and caught himself before an uncharacteristic stumble, returning to ready as the three of his enemies came on at wide angles.
[Surge] was costing him, the draw on mana and the strain on his body warning him that he couldn't keep this up, he was almost out of juice. No time or concentration for trying to purify mana for any spells it was melee or bust.
The handless enemy was rushing furiously, berserk, muzzle wide fangs flashing, with intent to tackle and rend him. The now quarter-staff user was trying to club him again from the side while Sword Elf came again, dodging another of his short thrusts. He could feel his combat skills and the ruthless training of the Iriel'en telling him to break out of the encirclement. Now. He swung a one handed over hand that forced the damned agile Elven sword user back and turned, arm raised in cover to take the quarterstaff blow on his shoulder, instead of his head before charging the staff wielding Celestin who hadn't expected his blow to be absorbed.
He also hadn't expected to be blown aside like a child and hilt struck as he bounced off a tanner's vat, ribs breaking and side lacerated through his light armor by the decorative razor leaves of Xef'tocht. Ulric grabbed the stunned, breathless elf with his good hand and slung him into the approaching swordsman, tangling them. Out from the corner of his eye, he saw the blur of motion and threw his knee hard into the still tackling crazed hammer warrior, whose impressive force threw them both to the ground despite Ulric's muzzle crunching counter. Ulric saw the sword hilt fly free from his numb fingers.
Stones crashed into his back and Ulric had a breathless moment as the weight of the Lupid slammed down onto him, fangs darting for his throat. Ulric caught the approaching form by its throat muscles straining to keep it at bay. Ulric yelled wordless anger and turned violently beneath his enemy, slugged the creature across the eye with his elbow, the satisfying impact sounding like a bat hitting a homerun. The beastkin sagged momentarily and Ulric took the chance as he jammed his boots against the heavy chest and kicked hard, [Surge] assisted strength launching it away, blood arcing from its severed wrists across the foundation stones of the tannery as it flew.
Ulric had just gotten to his side, palms bracing on the cold cobbles of the street, injured forearm flashing brilliant pain, and suddenly rolled, [Battle Rhythm] feeling the attack, in time to see the impaling sword fling sparks as it drove through the space his head had been. He kicked out and caught the swordsman's knee, crunching it satisfyingly under his boot, and drew on his core just enough for one more Ceraun spell, even as [Surge] fell away, exhausted.
The Celestin held its knee with one hand and drew back, snarling, to cut Ulric apart and stumbled back, his swing wide as an arrow tore into his chest. Another followed, next to its brother, and a third, the mangled armor failing to resist as the last went through and through. Ulric heard its clatter down the cobbled street.
Propping himself up, he realized that the other two he'd been fighting were already dead, arrows buried in their upper bodies. Handless had caught one roughly through his wolflike ears.
Ulric saw Taipan rising from her stabilizing crouch, the slashed corpses of the four around her already still.
He stood to join her and his combat high fell away, [Warrior] skills going dormant, and sat back down suddenly when his head spun and some absolute bastard poured acid into his tendons. Holy fuck! The grinding of his teeth was loud in his ears as he locked them together to avoid cursing.
Groaning loudly despite his best effort, Ulric levered himself up and limped to Xef'tocht. He used the priceless sword as a walking stick to hobble over to meet his Shadow, who had definitely just pulled his bacon off the griddle.
It was an almost out of body experience to survive mortal combat. A combination of glee, near to giggles, relief, shaking that had nothing to do with fear, and deep breaths of air that was the sweetest it could ever be. And, there was the sheer triumph, the primal urge to scream to the skies and let the world know it had not claimed you.
Taipan was assessing him with a critical eye while she roped the unconscious Leor in a hogtie and mercifully clubbed the screaming Elf with her bow stave to stop him opening the sealed arteries at the new stumps where his knees used to be and killing himself. Ulric was glad to leave her to it, he felt like absolute hell, like Idra had forced him through the worst of their practice sessions, the ones he inflicted when the royal guards' efforts dissatisfied him.
Every joint burned, every muscle verged on cramp. Feeling returned to his hand, the bone throbbing but some tentative inspection and flexing indicated that it wasn't broken. The spearman hadn't been as strong as Goldie. Pulling his attention inwards, Ulric felt his core and realized just how much effort [Surge] had cost him, it burned mana like crazy. He probably could have managed enough to handle the asshole with the sword, but only if they didn't realize they just had to hop back out of range and the arc would fall short, grounding itself out on the stones and wasting the last of his mana.
As his partner finished securing their prisoners, Ulric, with more trouble than he cared to admit, finagled Xef'tocht back into its sheath. The stink of the tanner's vats very nearly covered the fresh smell of death, of emptied bowels, pooling blood, and steaming gore.
He looked around the street, silver sheen of moonlight transfixing the scene with an otherworldly glow, blood, resting like pools of mercury, and the reality of the thing set in on him.
Ten bodies dead in the streets. There was a part of him that had trouble reconciling it. Taipan had called warning and there hadn't been any time to plan, to strategize, or even to really think. He'd reacted according to instincts, mostly the bloodthirsty ones courtesy of Lord Instinct, but with a healthy dose of good old Humanity. It bore remembering that it was the homo sapiens of his old world that was the most incredibly destructive creature ever to exist.
Shaking some of the post-combat euphoria away, he tried to rationalize, to process the battle. Stuffing all the emotional horseshit down into a space to be dealt with later he reviewed the bugfuck course of the last ten minutes.
Twelve attackers just now. Eight more not five minutes before that. And Taipan had eliminated another five before this, hours ago. If they'd all managed to converge on the two of them, Ulric had no doubt that the two of them would have been killed. So, first lesson, don't get surrounded by an army. That one seemed more or less straightforward.
Looking over the corpses of the four he'd killed initially, Ulric couldn't help a bit of pride. Idra would have called it 'adequate'. He'd given it pretty much all he had there, and felt damned fortunate.
Those first five hadn't expected to be closed on, had been almost comically unready to defend themselves, even if they'd been ready to kill others. Their mindset was wrong.
Christ called it the Turn, the moment between when a would be predator corners dangerous prey and is slain by its unexpectedly aggressive counter attack. The three flankers though, that was another ball of wax. They'd had the extra time they needed to get over that gap and seize their own initiative and it had put Ulric on the back foot almost instantly. The Hammer-Wolf and Swordboy especially. Between the two of them there'd been so much pressure he'd been unable to effectively counter and maintain any advantage, taking off Hammer's hands was probably the only thing that kept him alive. And even then the bastard had come on, stumps bleeding him out the whole time, like some kind of fucking terminator.
Another lesson: Enemies in this world aren't not a threat until they're super dead. The insanely amplified biology of the peoples of Varda meant what he would have called a disabling wound in his old world wasn't here. Hammerwolf had come damned close to biting Ulric's throat out, even if he would soon bled to death afterwards.
Ulric felt the warm stickiness on his face and brushed it, seeing his own blood and feeling the sting of the cut as his fingers passed over it. Clean, like a razor. Grimacing, he checked the one on his shoulder, about a hand long, shallow, and also made as if by a surgical scalpel. Pretty fucking close to opening his head and ruining his arm then, which would have pretty quickly been the end of things. Just a little deeper into that shoulder, cut the right muscles, and Ulric probably wouldn't have been able to grapple the spear dude to tangle them up or keep Wolfy at bay.
He shivered a little. Too close.
"Taipan, I'm thinking that whoever is in charge of this little operation has some deep fucking pockets and way too many friends." He announced, unafraid of stating the obvious.
"That would…mmph…seem to be the case Glade Chief." Replied his partner, hauling the unconscious amputee over the edge of the cart.
Ulric went over and took the legs of the second prisoner and, together, they tossed her limply over her brother in assholery.
"Well, we got your live ones, what the hells do we do with them?" He asked.
Again came the upturn of her lips and the veiled turn of her almond eyes that said somebody was in for a very bad time, the expression she must have learned from her mother Vedyr.
"I still like your plan to set Wicker's ships alight, as well as their headquarters, and to leave this one with the copied letters in his pockets and see how our enemy responds to having his, as you would say, 'balls kicked into his stomach'. As for these two, we question them separately so that we can spot their lies." Came her melodic answer.
"And after we get whatever use we can after them?" Ulric asked.
Taipan drew a finger across her throat. Oof. Well. He probably should have seen that coming. Did he have it in him to murder disarmed, or legged, prisoners? Maybe. Maybe not, but he'd come to that decision later, one small horror at a time here.
Sighing at the tragic, stupid fucking waste of it all, Ulric helped Taipan strip the corpses, throwing what hadn't been ruined into the cart with their prisoners and their message. And there! Another mistake from their enemy, a second set of orders, in the same delicate, precise handwriting that had passed down the initial command to have Ulric murdered and Taipan captured.
His partner, the only one of them possessing night vision to speak of, read the text aloud for Ulric's benefit.
"Dispatch now; Teams 2 thru 4. Objective unchanged, disposition upgrade to hazardous, corner and overwhelm. Losses expected, fee quadrupled for live capture, failure will see those funds spent having you flayed alive en route to Prosper with a healer in tow."
The handwriting grew a little unsteady at the end, the nib of the pen damaging the paper with its force.
Well. At least they were getting under somebody's skin. Their nameless enemy would shit bricks when they found out about the little party that had gone on here.
"We have rubbed the [Itch Oak] in their eyes now, Glade Chief. That will learn them to think they could take a Hunter and one trained under Iriel's finest, even if the time was short." Gloated Taipan.
She must be forgetting the part where their enemies had almost succeeded. And, yet, almost only counts in Horsehoes and hand grenades. Their enemies made a mistake, they'd missed the timing on their attack, had come in too spread out, too disjointed.
"Alright Taipan," Ulric said, taking up his position holding the cart, stretching his back to relieve its ache as he did, "Go ahead and criticize, I see it on your pretty face."
Noticing the assistance of her pushing more than earlier that day, Ulric pulled the cart along side streets and alleys back towards a vacant, run down storage building they'd found earlier that week as his Shadow made her critique.
"Your impulse to drive into them and break their formation was good, as was the form for your attacks but you failed your execution through targeting. The one with the shield should have been first, you could have struck him first with that same rising cut and then the branching side to cleave both the mace and spear wielder, before a crossing back step to Fyor ready to sweep down and take the legs from the great axe user you first cut. It cost you greater effort to use your magic and time." Began Taipan.
She continued in similar vein, dissecting his failings and suggesting improvements, most of which would have ended the fight against his opponents with less risk and greater efficiency. Ulric listened to her go through three more alternatives better than what he'd done before she finished.
"In summary, Ulric Glade Chief, you have tremendous advantage in your initial rush, the speed and power is incredibly potent, especially with this skill you use, but it takes deeply from your reserves, both physical and arcane, which means it must be maximized in efficiency. You did not choose poorly in going to the blade over trying to cast magic against our enemies; we did not have the time for you to employ your greater weapons and you are still too slow to utilize the techniques for refining mana not of your core's aspect. However, you could use that [Voltaic Riot] of yours to greater effect if you swept it across the front of your enemies, it might even have taken all five in the initial charge, at little extra cost to your mana, I note the scarring of the cobbles that say you wasted significant effort to no gain taking the shieldbearer's legs." His more experienced manhunter of a partner assessed.
"Perhaps it would not have killed in that manner but it steals your enemy's vision at night and would have wounded faces, necks, and guarding hands, disabling all of them greatly. You have great room for improvement, Ulric." Taipan finished.
It bore some amount of consideration that Taipan's opponents had lasted a little over a second, she'd arrowed one, shadow bladed another two across their carotids, and ended the drought beneath the last's feet before kicking her bow back up to her hands and taking the clean-up shots on the last three Ulric had been struggling with. She might have gotten them faster if he hadn't been in the way of her shot.
In this, his Iriel'en partner was most assuredly his superior. Ulric's magic was more potent in many ways than anything Taipan could manage, the destructive power of his spells and his monofilament of an enchanted sword meant that, technically, Ulric could do more damage than his partner. His Shadow's sheer fluid efficiency rendered most of those qualities moot though. She was able to do far more, with far less effort than he could. When it came time to kill something like that [Shrieking Ravager], or the infested [Bloodstarve Brood Queen] his skills shined. Against these mooks? Taipan was easily the more effective of the two of them, especially on short notice.
As such, Ulric took notes when the gorgeous, if spooky, Elf that had decided to follow him through life gave him murder tips.
