Brute Force: Chapter 4

The Hell Pigs were about as subtle as their name implied. Their party crashed through the jungle like a carnival, plunging into a jungle that got thicker and wilder as it sloped down into marshland. The scent was lost in the brackish water, but I tracked Clive’s gang by following the corpses of the common Legions they’d left behind.

The Pig had fought their way home, so despite the enormous lead they’d had on me. I was able to catch up with them in time to see them approach a broken temple complex hewn of enormous blocks of black stone half-sunken into the earth. The towering front gate leaned almost forty degrees to one side in the mud. It was carved with stylized images of howling, wild-eyed apes. The beasts wrung the blood from human hearts into their gaping mouths.

Then the rolling boom of drums started up all around me, and I pretty much nearly shat myself.

[You have discovered the City of the Apes.]

This place had theme music? Not a good sign.

The leaning gate was manned by a team of four guards. Beyond them sprawled the filthy camp I’d scented on the wind. The Hell Pigs had set up in a big courtyard that probably contained about sixty or seventy people. The perimeter was surrounded by free-standing wooden spike walls. There were tiki torches planted at intervals to try and brighten the place up. It didn’t work. Other than that, the place was a slum. Lots of little shit-shack buildings. Shanty huts cobbled together out of wood planks and thatch, teepees made of poorly tanned hides, lean-tos and bedrolls. As I studied the view from cover, I couldn’t help but note that many of the people working in the camp wore rags and heavy iron collars.

I watched with narrowed eyes as Clive’s squad pranced in through the checkpoint, forded through the center of camp, and made a beeline straight for the complex of buildings that stretched out into the ruined city behind them. Even my eyes couldn’t pierce the gloom all the way back, but I could make out the shells of buildings overgrown with vines and trees. The whole city was surrounded by a huge wall.

Cattails slithered over my hard skin as I followed the wall around from the outside. Only once I was sure that the coast was clear did I slink out of cover and look up. Each one of the massive hewn stones was thick with moss, the seams between them glowing bright green under the moonlight. I backed up, wiggled my butt like a cat, and sprinted forward into a bounding leap. Claws and tentacles found the cracks between the stones, punching in and pushing me up. I scrabbled with my back feet until they found purchase, and then jumped off, leaping up a second time. The jump was clumsy, and I landed half-on, half-over the wall on my belly. Kicking and struggling, I used all eight limbs to haul myself onto the edge, only to see one of the guards in front of the main building shade their eyes and peer in my direction.

My heart hammered as I dropped down low, clamped the pud squad to my back, and narrowed my glowing eyes to thin slits.

“What? Something there?” The distant buzz of their voices carried to my ears.

“Maybe?” The Hell Pig craned his head, squinting in my direction. “Can’t see anything, but I swear I heard something.”

He was maybe fifty feet away. How the fuck could he miss me? I was a twenty-foot-long dragon-shark thing. But then I remembered: most animals had senses that were hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands more sensitive than humans. It was no different here in the Crucible. Just because I could see these guys didn’t mean they could see me.

“Don’t worry about it. Worry about what we’re gonna do after Razor’s dead.” The guard’s companion said sourly.

“Razor? You think Vanara is going to niner him?”

“If Vanara doesn’t kill him, Clive will. Did you see that grin? He’s a man on a mission.”

“Fuck, man, keep it down!” The first guard hissed. “Don’t say that too loud!”

“I’ll say it and I’ll stand by it. Razor cleared one lousy outpost and now he thinks he’s hot shit.”

“I don’t know. He caught an Iron Legion lieutenant. Her Brute’s pretty good.”

Brute? Did he mean a Greater Legion?

“So what? It doesn’t change the fact he’s shit-tier. Mark my words: Clive’s gonna walk out of here with the Mandala and that Runtina on a leash.”

I relaxed as they lapsed back into chatter, and studied the building they were guarding. It looked like a temple or a church. The place was basically a cross with a big chamber in the middle, a rotunda capped by a domed roof. The roof was supported mostly by pillars all the way around, leaving an open space at the top. By the sounds coming out of there – whoops and shrieks, screams of agony – I figured that was where I’d find Sam.

The spaces between the pillars looked big enough for me to enter. There was also a way to climb up there: two big arches that had once linked the main temple to the outer walls. Careful to be quiet, I padded forward, took the first step out onto the arch carefully, and then trotted and bounded across to the temple roof. It was about ten feet up to the gap. I jumped up, anchoring myself to minimize sound, and slunk inside.

The first thing that hit me was the metallic, sweet odor of human blood. Lots and lots of blood, the blood of many different people all mixed together into one big sensory overload. I circled around until I could get a good view of the altar, and rumbled softly. "Oh jeez."

The Pigs had a row of people bound face-down on the floor. Some were struggling, others lay still. Male, female, older adults and teenagers... there didn't seem to be a theme, other than that they were all lightly clothed, helpless, and ready for slaughter. Three Pigs with rifles stood over them, keeping them pacified as the rest of the gang brutalized a screaming woman on top of the altar. I couldn't exactly see what was going on. By the spreading pool of blood on the floor, I got the gist.

There was a row of iron cages on crude wagons to my right. Most of the cages contained miserable looking Legions: an injured goblin languished in one, imprisoned beside a comatose fish creature that lay gasping through its gills. The cages were hitched together to form a train - all but one of them. The nicest wagon and the best-looking cage were apart from the others, posted with two guards with better gear than the other Hell Pigs. Inside the cage lay a huge stag. It was a graceful, sad looking thing, with a brilliant copper hide that flexed with shimmering embers. Its crest of antlers burst from its skull like twin trees, the tips scraping the insides of the cage. They were made of orange crystal. As I gazed at it, a little magnifying glass sprung up in my HUD, along with a rapidly filling meter.

[You have identified a New Legion: Runtina.]

[Also known as Golden Stags, Runtina are rare and powerful Body/Fire/Holy-elemental Greater Legions.]

The Runtina wore a [Greater Legion control collar] that resembled the one in my Inventory. It burned and spat around his long neck, flaring whenever he struggled against its magic. The stag’s muscles spasmed like it was being shocked, and every time his legs twitched, one or both of the guards looked back with visible anxiety. They did not want this guy getting loose.

"Number nine! Num-ber nine!" The Pigs took up a chant, drowning out the piteous screams of their victim as a machete rose and fell, rose and fell above the heads of the crowd. Within seconds, a cheer went up, and the hooting gang of men parted to reveal the body of their sacrifice. I was wrong – it wasn’t a woman. It was Birch, the guy Clive had tied up to exchange for a go at one of the captured girls. He and his warband were standing at the far side of the rotunda, watching with stony expressions. The Pigs closest to the altar were covered in gore.

"We're almost there, Piglets! All we need is two more, and we're off to boss town!" A tall, thin man with a black mohawk and the crazed dark eyes of a junkie thrust Birch’s severed head up in one hand, the other white-knuckled around the machete he'd used to butcher him. He was addressing an unseen camera, hamming it up for his audience. "And then, Razor’s Reavers will face Vanara for the first time, with Clive’s Hyena Boys waiting in the wings to back ‘em up! Which one do you want to see us chop next?"

My stomach turned as laughter went up among the gang. They were all staring off into space, watching their stream chat and waiting for the results. Only the guards were paying attention: but the ones near the monster cages didn't ever seem to think to turn around.

"Snow White it is!" Razor dropped the head of his victim and threw his bloody arms in the air. "Let's clear some space for the lovely lady, boys!"

Two Pigs went down the line and hooked their arms through the bound limbs of one of the sacrifices, lifting a slight woman from the floor. By her size and hair color, I'd mistaken her for an old lady. She was a lady, but she wasn’t old: she was in her late teens or early twenties, her ice-blue eyes blazing with terror and fury. Her hair and skin were both a pale, pure white that flooded with scarlet as she began to struggle, lashing her head from side to side.

Hell no. Fuck a whole lot of this. I felt a rumble curl deep in my chest, and flexed my claws into the stone.

"Well well well, look at this exotic little flower." The ringleader – Razor, I was guessing - purred. He leaned in to her as the guards dragged her struggling to the altar. "Still got all nine lives, sweet-teats?"

The girl didn't seem to hear him, thrashing soundlessly in the hands of her captives. Her hands were bound in front of her, but she was making the same repetitive gesture over and over again: chopping the blade of her right hand into the palm of her left, fast and desperate. She was deaf. Speaking sign language. A language I recognized like a native tongue.

"STOP! STOP STOP STOP STOP!"

The temple scene withdrew into a buzzing haze as a memory swallowed me, as vivid as a hallucination.

A woman, faceless, lunging toward me as I struggled with another man. I shouted in drunken rage, banging his face down on a counter over and over again. The air was pungent with old alcohol and cigarettes and blood. She made a strangled, frightened sound, chopping her hand down into the other until I thought she'd bruise her own palms. Signing at me. “STOP IT! NO! STOP! THAT’S ENOUGH!!”

She pulled me away from the man by my shirt, then let go to scream at me with her hands as he slumped to the ground. I couldn't see her face. It was like television snow, blanked out. But I knew who she was. She was the woman I'd die for. The one I’d spent my whole life protecting.

My kid sister. Samantha.

A hot pain shot through my head, jerking me back to the present. The Hell Pigs had pressed the albino girl onto the altar, where she snapped and snarled, bucking against the circle of hands holding her down. Restrained from all sides, she couldn't sign as they tore her clothes off. Her scream was silent, or so quiet it was drowned out by the hooting and laughter of the men that surrounded her.

Adrenaline coursed through my body.

"Take a good long look, all of you!" Razor yelled over the rest of the pack. "Isn't she a beauty? I'm thinking it's almost a waste to sacrifice her to summon a boss as low tier as Vanara. Anyone who sends us, let's see... how about a Silver or higher tribute? Yeah! Anyone who sends us a Silver or higher tier tribute will spare the life of our little snowflake princess here! Ahahahah!"

I slipped down to the top floor of the auditorium, barely making a sound, and froze as I heard a grunt from the darkness ahead. As my eyes adjusted, I spotted the man who'd made the noise: a lone Hell Pig, who had been set up here as a spotter behind the monster cages. His cruddy hide armor and crude iron spear told me he was a junior member of the gang. He was peering over the railing. The noises he was making and the pumping motion of his arm were unmistakable.

I padded forward, low to the ground. When I moved slowly, claws held off the floor, my steps were as silent as a panther's. It was disturbingly natural to assume the right posture, the right speed, and the right angle to kill.

He was oblivious, still choking the python when I lunged in, caught his head in my jaws, and crushed down. My fangs went through bone and flesh with almost no effort at all. He didn't even have time to cry out. The body spun from the neck, which snapped with a muffled 'crunch' and then sagged in my jaws, twitching and hot. The second I realized that, I dropped him and backed away, breathing hard through all six vents in my muzzle. My mouth was full of a sweet metallic taste... a taste my predator's body yearned for, even as I paddled back and gagged as quietly as possible. Fuck. Motherfucker.

[Stealth Gladiator Kill. You gain 50 EXP.]

"Whaaaat?! Not a single tribute!? Not even a measly little crumb for our next contestant on 'who's blood is that anyway'?" Razor let out a shrill, insane laugh. "Too bad! Time to die!"

That laugh snapped me out of the crisis. I shuddered, licked my teeth. Time to pull it together: the guy would respawn, for one thing. For another, whatever kind of animal I was, these guys were worse. I hadn't ever had a duty to kill before, but I did now.

I concentrated on the dead Pig, and thought 'Inventory'. Sure enough, a holographic window opened, revealing everything he'd been carrying. He had a surprising amount of stuff. Some bullets in different calibers - strange, given he wasn't carrying a gun - a whole bunch of berries, raw linen x 300, hide x 130, twine and rope and a few other survival basics. He was wearing Buckskins and carrying a Bog Iron Spear. I switched out the three hundred pounds of sticks and bracken in my Inventory into his, took all his stuff, then looked over the railing.

The Pigs were crowded over the girl. She was still struggling. That was good - I just hoped she could hang onto her sanity. I tested the strength of the stone before leaping up, and then experimentally reached down and flexed my claws into the mossy wall. They sunk into the rotten mortar like pitons, anchoring me securely. Instinct told me to unfurl my tentacles and use them to assist my descent. The four prehensile limbs were strong enough to easily bear my entire weight, so I clambered down the wall like Doctor Octopus, as stealthy while vertical as I was while horizontal.

Neither the other monsters or the cowering humans in the cages seemed to notice me, either riveted to the scene on the altar or buried in their own little worlds. Any sound I made was drowned out by the howling of the Pigs. The two guards were watching the scene ahead, confident that their spotter was still alive and keeping an eye on their backs.

They didn't see what hit them. The tentacles lanced forward like harpoons, punching through the backs of their boiled leather armor and out the front of their chests. I hauled them around either side of the cage, whisking them off their feet and dragging them back into the shadows. Two quick bites, and they were goners.

[Stealth Gladiator Kill. You gain 100 Exp. You are Level 8.]

[You have 1 Ability Points.]

[You have 5 new Subscribers.]

[You have gained a Patron: Cold_Fox. You have earned a Silver Milestone Pack!]

[You have a New Private Message.]

[Patron Cold_Fox has sent you a Bronze Tribute Pack!]

Great. I had my first stalker. The pair of corpses collapsed as I drew the tentacles out of them with a wet sound, then raided their inventories. These guys had rifles and [Iron Cutlasses], as well as more ammunition - all different kinds - food, iron tools, and lots of other crafting materials and trinkets. Most importantly, they had keys to the cages.

Now, the moment of truth. I could do almost everything a human player could do, but could I use keys?

There was a high-pitched sound of terror from the altar: a thin garbling cry that caused images of that beer-soaked room, broken teeth, the angry slash of a woman chopping her left hand into the palm of her right.

My heart thumped. I focused on the cage locks. As I did, the stag reared his head as much as the cage allowed for, ears flicking with curiosity. He stared at me with eyes like hot coals, smoldering with barely-suppressed anticipation as I pulled the key out of my Inventory: or tried to.

[Error: You do not have the ability to use this item.]

"Hey! Who the hell's Brute is that?!" A voice from the edge of the pack surrounding the altar called out.

My pulse skipped a beat. In desperation, I latched onto the padlock with my teeth and bore all of the primal strength in my jaws down on the crude metal. As a human, the idea of biting a device like this was absurd. As a... whatever the fuck I was now, it was absurdly easy. I crumpled and shattered the iron the same way I might have cracked a peanut shell between my canines. It broke apart in my mouth with a resounding CRACK, startling the onlookers not too wrapped up in whatever was going on at the altar.

A small, rangy guy on the fringe was first to sound the alarm. "What the- HEY! GUYS! THE-THE-THE FUCKING MURDER-DEER JUST-"

I bounded forward, seized the stag’s collar between my teeth, and chomped down a second time. The metal sharply heated, then shattered in my mouth with enough force that I lost 233 HP.

I scrambled out of the way as the stag clambered to his feet. He put his head down, glaring at the panicking mass of Hell Pigs, and pawed the floor of his cage.

“Don’t worry, boys! Focus on Vanara! We got this!” Clive roared. “BLAZE! Get over here, you big toothy bastard!”

The huge red sabertooth he’d been riding plunged through the crowd, roaring as he charged straight at the Runtina. The stag’s eyes constricted into brilliant points of light, and then he burst into pure white flames that roared around him like whips, slashing the steel cage and slagging it into so much liquid metal. The sabertooth was driven back, but he had fire of his own. As the stag thundered out into the crowd, the big cat’s paws became incandescent, boiling with scarlet fire.

I charged into the melee, shrugging off the blow of a machete against my hard skin and trampling a different man down with my claws. The albino woman was where I'd last seen her: chained to the altar, nude and bloody. She was straining her bonds to their limit, still fighting for survival as men fought and screamed and died around her. And on her. Her face contorted in a soundless cry of horror as I slapped the head off the startled Razor and sent him tottering back toward the altar. He spun on his feet and fell over the girl's body like a ragdoll.

[The sacrifices have been made! Vanara has heard your summons!]

[Vanara will spawn in 10, 9, 8...]

The altar flared with a sickly green light, and an unholy stench filled the air. I launched up to the mossy stone, grabbed the nearest chain in my jaws, and bit down. My teeth creaked and cracked as I hauled on the links. They pulled apart like slow taffy, heating as the metal strained and then snapped.

The girl beat on my chest with her free fist as I reached over her with all four tentacles, seized the chain on the other side, and ripped the links apart. As I did, a ring of energy blasted out of the altar, bathing us in sickly emerald light. Ignoring them all, I gave her ankle cuffs the same treatment, seized the woman in my jaws, and ran for the edge of the circle of crackling energy forming around us. I wasn't sure if we could take on a boss. Had no idea what the challenge rating of 'Vanara' was compared to my level, but given how many Hell Pigs had gathered to fight him, the odds weren't good.

There was a deafening bang, the sound of a rifle going off, and a bullet took me in the shoulder. It shaved off a chunk of health and sent sticky blue-black blood gushing out of my flesh, but the pain barely registered. Instead, I charged my way to the edge of the circle, smashing people away from me left and right. As soon as we broke free of the melee, I started running.

A deep roar ripped through the hall of the temple, bouncing off the walls and drowning out the bellows of the monsters still brawling there. But now we were out of that mess, it was none of my business. The Hell Pigs wanted a boss fight? Well, they'd got one.

"GET IT! GET THAT BRUTE!" The panicked voice of Clive cut through the racket as the roar faded. "Rooster, you need to get that fucking Brute! The one with the girl! Before the boss arena-!"

[Vanara the Devourer rises once more!]

[All exits to the arena are closed!]