51. The Bone Lord''s Minions


    Serac’s initial impression was that the Pishacha Footmen were simply the scaled down versions of Hanuman. They certainly looked a lot like the erstwhile Sentinel, except they came with the reassuring sight of an HP bar.


    Well, that’s something. HP I can work with.


    Serac raised REVOLVER to do just that, intent on testing an unimbued bullet against a new enemy’s Physical mitigation. She aimed, she locked, but before she could fire, the Pishachas fired first.


    Or rather, they punched. Their fists shot out black balls of energy that flew towards each of the Wayfarers at speed—faster than Serac could react to them.


    [122!]


    The Rakshasa reeled, clutching at her chest and trying to get back the wind that had been knocked out of her. The impact felt, well, much like a heavy punch, transmitted through space as Infernal energy. It flew fast and hit hard—and it also reminded Serac of another attack she’d witnessed (suffered) quite recently.


    Beside her, Zacko had fared better, having parried the second flying punch with a NINEFOLD [Shield]. The man was, not for nothing, a master pugilist with sharp reflexes and well-trained agility. He put both to the test now as he swiftly transitioned into [Lance]—a spearing kick to close the distance.


    Not to be outdone, Serac readjusted her aim and fired, hoping to land her attack alongside Zacko’s. It landed alright… but not on the intended target. For the Pishachas had summoned onyx-colored bricks from thin air, blocking both Zacko’s kick and Serac’s bullet.


    The bricks disintegrated into bone dust upon contact, but they’d done their jobs. The Pishachas, HP bars still full and untouched, launched another set of flying fists. Zacko dodged one from point blank range, while Serac protected her midsection with PULVERIZER, taking [44!] more damage as she did.


    Now, that feeling of déjà vu solidified into certainty. These so-called Pishachas did take after a ‘boss’ the Wayfarers had recently fought, but not Hanuman. No, these Footmen shared their brand of magic with the Bone Maidens—Meetra and Sundara.


    Flying fists in place of blades. Brittle cinderblocks in place of a full shield. The effects were a little less impressive than the Maidens’ version, but the principle remained the same. Ranged attacks coupled with responsive defense.


    Theirs was the kind of sensibly well-rounded skillset that was rare to see in most other parts of hell. It displayed and required a certain level of logic, discipline, and organization. Maybe not unlike something one would expect to see in an army.


    As much as Serac wondered at the implications, she also relished the challenge. For she saw it as an opportunity—for her and Zacko to practice and ‘skill up’ before the inevitable rematch against the Bone Maidens themselves.


    Very kind of you, Bone Lord, to deploy your minions as part of an extended tutorial.


    And for act one of this extended tutorial, Challenger Serac… turned tail and ran.


    Just as she’d hoped, Zacko stayed put, keeping himself within melee range of his Pishacha. And just as she’d expected, the other Pishacha peeled off to give chase, thereby turning a 2v2 into two separate 1v1s.


    Whatever the Bone Lord’s intentions might be, there was a method to his madness—conscious design behind his minion ‘placement’. So too was there method to Serac’s cowardice; she’d run, not to avoid fighting the Pishacha, but to give herself the chance to do it properly.


    Because, as one disembodied voice had once said to her: what kills you can only make you stronger, as long as you take the right lessons from it. She was here, not just to smite an Aberrant, but also to pick up knowledge she could then apply to the bigger, more important fight.


    This first sequence of Serac running and the Pishacha giving chase had already taught her something—a confirmation of what she’d suspected since her last outing against the Maidens. Namely, there was a limited range to this brand of magic, and the Pishacha clearly didn’t want her to push it.


    It’s got to be this [Ossify] cloud. This is the origin of their power—the ‘resource’ they spend to activate their shields and energy balls.


    She supposed she could altogether extricate herself from the cloud if she ran fast enough. But not only would that eat up more Stamina than she could afford, it also wouldn’t let her bypass the Pishacha’s defense.


    No, the more obvious solution was to disrupt the [Ossify] cloud from within. On this count, she already had a bit of prior experience to draw from. During her first fight against Bhootas, out in the stormy Badlands, she’d acted on blind faith to do just that. She could try the same trick again, this time knowing it would work.


    First, though, she had to cycle. Three unimbued bullets remained in the cylinder. All three she fired off in rapid succession, but slightly offsetting her aim with each squeeze of the trigger.


    In a way, it was another experiment to learn more about the Pishacha’s (and therefore the Maidens’) bone dust magic. Every one of her attacks were rebuffed in sequence by three separate bricks—one brick for each bullet. Serac then reloaded, all the while keeping her eyes peeled for a fist flying her way.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    The fist did come—eventually—but not until Serac had already slid a sixth and final cartridge into the cylinder. She was ready for the punch, rolled sideways to avoid the ball of energy, then stayed on one knee as she aimed, locked, and—


    [Chamber One: CATHARSIS]


    [192!]


    REVOLVER’s own Infernal flames shot out as a tremendous burst, feeding upon the bone dust as if it was kindling.


    Back during the Bhoota fight, [Catharsis] had helped to smoke the ghosts out of hiding. Here, too, it burned away a large swath of the [Ossify] cloud, thereby clearing a path for a gunslinger to sling her gun, unimpeded.


    The path was clear, but the window was brief. Serac started firing before she even had visuals on her target, and didn’t stop until both her cylinder and her Stamina bar were empty.


    [124!], [124!], [124!], [124!], [298!]


    That last jump in damage came as a surprise, but Serac immediately understood why. And because she understood that her opponent was Poise-broken, she eschewed any thought of reloading and, instead, sprinted forward with PULVERIZER raised.


    As the smoke cleared, however, she saw that there was no need. For the Pishacha Footman was no more, having gone straight past Poise-break and into Souldust territory. At the same time, the [Ossify] cloud (along with its build-up gauge) cleared, leaving the same dimly-lit hallway as before the fight had begun.


    [TRIBULATION active: current buff at 5%]


    [1,200 ?]


    1,200! That was a much bigger Karma haul than Serac might’ve hoped for. On reflection, however, it felt fairly proportionate to the risks involved and the resources spent.


    All told, she’d sacrificed a third of her HP, a quarter of her MP, and nearly two full cylinders of Cartridge to earn the smite. The Pishacha had been dangerous and beefy enough to be something of a ‘mini-boss’ on its own.


    Lifting her gaze, Serac saw right away that Zacko too had won his 1v1. The Manusya stood alone, leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, looking for all the world like he’d been ‘resting’ for some time. He gave her a look with one eyebrow raised, as if to say, what took you so long?


    But Serac had Wayfared with Zacko long enough to notice the faint flush of his otherwise sallow cheeks and the slight unevenness of his breaths. Even such subtle signs of exertion were unusual for the NINEFOLD master, which meant the Pishacha must’ve demanded greater effort than the average ‘mob’. Serac smirked inwardly, but kept those thoughts to herself.


    “How’d you handle yours?” was the first thing she asked. “Don’t tell me you went into more debt again.”


    “What do you take me for?” Zacko answered with mock outrage. “I handled it just fine with my Auxiliary, thanks very much. Pretty simple in the end, really. Keep up the pressure and punish those short windows where they’d inevitably have to recover their own Stamina.”


    Serac nodded, remembering the ‘lag’ in between the Pishacha’s actions that had given her the time to reload. She also reassured herself with the knowledge that Zacko had approached his 1v1 with the same analytical intent—using it to plan for a bigger, more important fight.


    “Shall we get a move on?” Zacko asked as he straightened himself. “Just a wild guess, but I think these guys were meant to stop us from getting to the other end of this hallway.”


    Serac agreed with that assessment, but only partially. In her mind, ‘stop’ wasn’t the operative word. Slow us down, more like.


    “Wait,” she said, stealing a glance at her own HP bar. “Can we just chill here a bit? I want to heal up, in case there are more of the Bone Lord’s minions waiting for us.”


    Zacko frowned at this, but only briefly before he nodded his understanding. “Ah. Your Trinket. Handy one, that.”


    Indeed it was. Even now, the missing third of Serac’s health bar ticked back up, hair by hair, as Froggy’s [Lesser Regen] worked its humble magic: [1], [1], [1], …


    “Yup. Saves me from having to ‘manage’ my HP on top of everything else. Did you want a turn after I’m done with it?”


    “No need,” Zacko replied quickly, making no secret of his arrogance. “Didn’t take a single hit during that fight. That’s the benefit of, you know, being awesome at what I do.”


    “Pfft,” Serac made no secret of her disdain. “More like the downside of your paltry HP! What, did you put all 16 of your attribute points into [Substance] or something? So much for prioritizing needs over wants!”


    “Guilty as charged,” the Manusya admitted with a self-satisfied grin. “No one could ever accuse me of practicing what I preach. As long as I draw breath, I’m committed to stunting on fools above all else—even if it means I’m constantly in danger of being one-shot.”


    After that, while Serac’s HP slowly recovered, she and Zacko committed to shooting the shit. Their shared mood was a jubilant one, a far cry from the powder keg from this time yesterday. As a Manesferan might say, winning cured all ills.


    When at last they set off again towards the end of the hallway, they did so with confidence tempered by sensible caution. They both felt ready for whatever ‘source of Karma’ might lurk around the next corner, and indeed welcomed the potential challenge and learning opportunity.


    As it turned out, their caution was for naught, at least for the time being. The path eventually led into a small, vacant room, one not much wider than the hallway. It was, however, much brighter, thanks to another blue lantern that hung from the conical ceiling.


    Serac’s gaze immediately fell upon an object in the center of the room, positioned such that the lantern above acted almost like a spotlight. If the Bone Lord had placed it here, he couldn’t have done more to draw the visitors’ attention.


    It was a partial skeleton that sat atop a raised platform. Partial, because it consisted only of a pale-gray skull (smooth; no horns), a neck, and a rib cage that extended from the thoracic vertebrae. Only… strictly speaking, it wasn’t really a ‘cage’, given that each of the ribs bent the wrong way: splayed out in a grotesque facsimile of a blooming flower.


    Upon the center of this ‘flower’, where a pistil might’ve been, instead grew one slender piece of bone that didn’t belong in anyone’s anatomy, Rakshasa or otherwise. Serac tilted her head and stared, trying to make sense of the mystery object, while Zacko beside her let out a low whistle.


    “Well, would you look at that?” he said, amusement tempered by sensible caution. “A bona fide skeleton key for a skeleton door…”