Sell you a Bridge chapter 80

The Cathedral August 10th 2010 8:00 PM EDT

Tonight  was the big night. We were about to kill the skeleton king. I stared at  the entrance to his crypt along with the others. Reggie raised a hand  questioningly. "Umm, anyone else getting a bad feeling from this weird  vaulted archway? Because seriously, that might as well be screaming  trap." He turned to me worriedly." You sure we can't like, lure him out  here or something? I might be able to swap him with one of the skellies  near the door." He paused. "If my power even works on skeletons. I don't  know if I've ever actually tried that. Does my power count as magic?" I  hadn't considered that either, but it was something to keep in mind.

I  shook my head at that one. "I'd leave experimenting with translocation  for another time. Unfortunately that leaves all our ranged options out  of reach, so we need to group up and move as a unit. Do we have enough  potions?" Everyone here was strapped with a full complement of potions.  Mostly health for this since magic didn't effect them, but we even had a  few rejuvenation potions we had scrounged up on the way here. The  things were rare as hens teeth, but damn useful at the same time, and  honestly it would almost have been a waste to use them here if not for  the increased effectiveness across the board.

Rejuvenation  potions, as it turned out, were more than just more effective than  health potions, they were qualitatively better. Aside from healing  wounds and replenishing mana, the rejuvenation potions could repair long  term injuries. Artemis had been thrilled when she found out and had  gotten one for her mom, but sadly Paula's spinal injury was too severe  for the potion to cure. However I had mentioned that there was a full  rejuvenation potion down here that should do the job and Artemis had  been over the moon.

Due to this little quirk, rejuvenation  potions had quickly become priceless in Gotham, with everyone and their  mother trying to get their hands on one. Especially after one of the  Arkham doctors had given one to Two Face last time he ended up in there.  Oddly rather than fixing Harvey Dent, the healing seemed to have broken  the man. Two Face had done some horrible things, and he had based a  huge part of his identity on his appearance. Without that foundation he  was left too damaged and stained to return to his former self but too  whole to remain Two Face.

Regardless everyone here knew  not to use the rejuvenation potions unless they had to. I got a nod from  everyone nearby in regards to potion allocation so we moved in. I was  the one who took the lead of course. My reaction time and twelve  dexterity made me a perfect dodge tank. Artemis was faster flat out, but  she couldn't process and respond to an attack as quickly as I could, so  I was the better front man, even if I was less able to take a hit.  Durability had never been my scene, but with my speed and instantaneous  movement skills dodge tanking was a role I was suited for. Combine it  with my ability to do damage and my knowledge of the human body and I  could grind down anything I met. So far.

The crypt looks  almost identical to the cathedral at large. Gray stone floors, gray red  brick walls, arches and torches, the same old same old we had been  dealing with since we got here, but there was also something different  about it. The cathedral felt predatory, but it was a pervasive  suffocating feeling. Like there were thousands of beasts hiding in the  dark waiting to fall upon us as a tide. This place felt predatory in a  united sort of way. Like Leoric had become the dungeon itself in this  space and we were within his domain now. I wouldn't be shocked if he  could see everything that happened here.

True to my  impression of events to come a series of skellies converged on us as  soon as we entered. Not just normal ones either, burning dead, captains,  and archers had all become commonplace here, but usually only one or  two. The swarm that we hit when we walked in made it obvious that the  King had been expecting us, or at the very least had been a boy scout or  something because this level of preparation was absurd. I had my tanto  out and swinging before my conscious brain even registered what was  happening, my reflexes taking out as the short blade lashed out with a  snicker snack.

Bones fell in piles as I put my knowledge  of killing skeletons to work. Though they were magical and didn't have  any muscle or sinew for my anatomy knowledge to work with, I was still a  master assassin with weeks of practice fighting them and I'd learned  which bones to shear through to disable them quickly. I took apart the  two Captains without even trying, not just because of my speed, but  because fighting down here day in and day out had allowed me to finally  make the most of what I could do.

The constant battle  pressure had forcibly started merging my various skillsets together more  seamlessly and more than that, was squeezing every ounce of usefulness  from each point I had in my body stats. I had been purposefully waiting  to start gearing up until I ran into a real issue with combat just so I  could learn to adapt to how my skills and body worked together, and it  was paying off. Having a brain full of random disparate techniques was  fine, but until I could learn to synergize properly in combat I would  never be using them to their fullest.

With the extra  training and the exponential boost in effectiveness I took apart the two  burning skeletons, circling around to take off the archers left leg at  the knee before sweeping up to sever the spine of the Corpse Bow in  front of me, causing it's bones to collapse into a pile as I wiped out  its ability to function. Artemis put several arrows in incoming skellies  as Kit unloaded a series of beanbag rounds into the things, a genius  idea of her own conception since blunt force is the ticket for  skeletons.

Reggie though unsure if his translocation would  work directly was using it to swap balls he was tossing at them with  small explosives. Holding a tennis ball in one hand and a small grenade  in the other he pulled the pin with his teeth while keeping the clip  depressed then hurled the ball. The skeleton captain dodged it with ease  but the tennis ball bounced off the wall behind it and Reggie swapped  it with the grenade right before it hit the back of the things head.  He'd been training the combat style for a few days now and could  reliably bank the ball off a wall or ceiling to get a better angle.

Zee  was unable to effect the skeletons with magic, but considering how  versatile she was and how powerful her spells had gotten she had just  started conjuring anvils above the heads of the archers, crushing them  easily. There were so many that even she had to pace herself however,  and could only cast the spell a few times per minute, and eternity in a  combat situation. Leoric as it turns out, decided not to bother with  laying traps this time and just hurled waves of skeletons at us to bog  us down.

I hadn't expected him to be able to command them  perfectly over a distance though I suppose it was a kingly sort of  power, but the waves of the bastards kept us busy while he summoned even  more of them and we were barely making progress. I snarled but we had  expected some kind of concentrated push, even if we hadn't figured on it  being this bad. I kicked our plan into gear and nodded to Reggie and  Zee. Zee used levitation to get herself up near the vaulted ceiling and  when she had an eye on the right spot she shot Reggie the signal.

Reggie  chucked me a pair of his grenades, which I caught easily, and then  swapped us out. Using my teeth to pull the pins I reacted at top speed  and used my perfect marksmanship to wing both of them down the length of  the crypt and through an open door to land near the hulking crowned  form of a skeleton who could only be Leoric himself. I fell back towards  the floor and Zee caught me with magic, lowering me down as we heard a  boom. I was sure the explosion wouldn't kill the bastard but at the very  least it should slow down his summoning and let us close the gap.

We  went back to fighting the army of bone bastards, hacking and cleaving  our way through. Kit had a backpack of those beanbag rounds to work with  and Artemis had brought plenty of arrows so we were more than capable  of keeping up the pace for a while. With the King out of commission or  at least distracted we started making actual progress in the battle,  cutting through two full rooms of skellies before making it to the door I  had hurled the grenades through. The room on the other side was burnt  and broken, these had been full sized frags, not the baby grenades  Reggie used in combat.

Still, despite the severe damage to  the surroundings and the piles of bones, it was easy to see at first  glance that as I suspected Leoric was fine. Super pissed off from the  way he was stalking toward us but not really damaged too much aside from  some scorch marks. His crown shone with a cold light on his brow and  the sword he was carrying was fucking massive, which fit really well  with his frame. Because holy shit. Leoric was easily ten feet tall. His  bones were thicker than other skellies, the fingers being almost as wide  around as my wrist and the wrapped snugly around the grip of his  fucking monster of a blade.

I swallowed hard at seeing him  but lunged forward to do battle. Much like with the butcher I was on  the back foot, but Leoric was on a whole other level. I had to dip into  shadow form constantly to avoid being split in two and I winced at the  point use. If I was lucky I'd be down to two hundred when this was over,  though the fight should put me up to level six and increase my point  yield to thirty five per day. Reggie was hanging back as we fought  because those tennis balls weren't safe with me in range, but the  beanbag rounds were proving to be worth their weight in gold.

Zee  continued dropping anvils on the bastard, which seemed to seriously  disorient him so that was good. Finally after minutes of frantic dodging  I saw an opening. I used my water walking to step off Leoric's knee and  then again off his extended arm and catapult myself up into range of  his fucking basketball hoop height head and slashed out at the his third  vertebra with my tanto. It connected and sheared through the bone. The  stress had been mounting all fight and that blow had been what my  assassin skills told me would end it.

And end things it  did. The huge skeleton collapsed into a massive pile of bones and I felt  a rush of power as I leveled up and I knew Artemis and Zee did the  same. I slumped to the ground, exhausted, as the others made short work  of the stragglers. We all smiled in triumph at the final hurdle of level  three being clear and let the exhaustion wash over us as we started at  the huge metal chest at the back of the room. We had won.