Sell you a Bridge chapter 67

The Cathedral July 31st 2010 8:00 PM EDT

It  was time. I had hit level four on the way over and I was a decent way  into level four, and we'd finally hit the end of level two. It was time  to fight The Butcher. Much like in the game using the Town Portal  prevented monsters from respawning in the level, so we'd been able to  clear this place with decent speed. Of course the levels only got bigger  and harder from here, but we'd be getting stronger too.

I  stopped next to Artemis. "You ready for this? We have it all planned  out and we managed to get Zee all the gear she needs to make this work.  We won't be able to glitch him in place or anything but we have  everything set up to pin him down. I even put one levels worth of points  into my dexterity to bring it up to eleven. Combined with my reflexes  having more than human speed should let me keep him occupied perfectly."  It had pained me to waste the stat points, but I didn't have time to  save up for a new power.

She  nodded, patting the weapon in her hand. "Of course. Raiding Hunter's  Bow of Storms for the damage. Increases attack speed by thirteen percent  and deals lightning damage with a chance to stun on hit. I can only use  the thing because of my ring and amulet and it's way better than my  normal bow." She lowered her voice. "Honestly I like it better than the  The Undead Crown for my build. I think I'm going to sub it out, I don't  really want life steal or death powers. Increased attack speed and  lightning damage is way better especially with the holy damage thrown  in."

That was  actually fair. I could have fought her on it but since she was clearly  thinking ahead and she was at least waiting for the Butcher's Cleaver I  just sighed and nodded. It was her life, as long as she gave it some  thought I couldn't complain. I turned to Zee, who was staring worriedly  at the door. "How about you babe? You ready for this?" We'd gotten her  the Fire Wall spell after some farming, and her natural twenty five  magic put her well within range of casting as long as she had her Ring  of the Mind on. Fire wall was crazy useful for crowd control so it had  been a great find.

She  gave me a nervous smile. "Yeah, I'm good. I'm more worried about you.  If I can't keep him pinned he can swat you like a fly." She bit her lip,  suddenly looking pale. "If something happened to you because of me..."  She swallowed hard and looked panicked and I stepped in close and pulled  her into my arms. She rested her head on my chest. This wasn't fair of  me really, giving her such a pivotal role, knowing if things went wrong  she would blame herself. But Zee was the only one with the mojo to make  this fight practical anytime in the next month or two. Plus I believed  in her.

I kissed her on the  forehead. Then caught her chin and pushed it up so I could meet those  bright blue eyes. "Hey. This is not on you. This is a team effort. Every  single person here has a job to do, yours is important but so is mine,  and I can't bail on it. But I'll be fine." I shot her a wink. "I'm just  as capable as you are you know. Besides, I have a secret weapon." I  patted my hip where my Royal Dagger of Demon Slaying was sheathed. "The  Butcher is a demon, this thing combined with my new speed will make  taking him out a cakewalk."

I  was using the stat gains in dexterity to explain my reflexes, since I  was the only one who could level it worked out well. Of course I was  infinitely more dangerous than another person with my dexterity stat  thanks to my reaction speed, but they had no way of knowing that. I  kissed Zee on the top of the head, smiling at the smell of her lavender  chamomile shampoo and then stepped back. I nodded to Reggie and Kit. My  cousin was standing back with a fucking assault rifle and Reggie was  getting ready to open the door and then translocate with one of the  nearby chests to provide cover and escape.

We  weren't sure if the assault rifle would do much but it couldn't hurt.  Well it couldn't hurt US, it could definitely hurt The Butcher and  hopefully would. I also had new bullets in my Holiday gun. I was going  to put a full clip into the bastard as soon as he was visible and hope  it helped. With that last bit of reasoning out of the way we started our  plan. First up we had dragged one of the big bronze chests into the eye  line of The Butcher's door and jammed it open filling it with rocks to  weight it down. The things were so absurdly heavy it had taken four of  us but we got it done.

When  he got my nod Reggie (who was wearing a shit ton of armor to put him  closer to the weight of the chest) pulled the door open, then swapped  locations with the chest, effectively pinning the thing open and putting  a big ass chest in the way of the exit. Once he was clear Zee slammed a  fire wall down on the other side of the door, not only forcing anyone  trying to get past the chest to climb through fire, but also super  heating the metal of the chest itself turning the already big heavy  chest with the open lid into a white hot six foot high roadblock to  leaving the room.

The  Butcher himself came charging at us, but was stopped in his tracks by  the chest and stuck in the wall of fire as he tried to muscle through.  The rock filled chest which couldn't close because the rocks had levered  open the lid completely, stopped the bastard in his tracks. Since he  was like eight feet tall he was still more than visible and the first  wave of the plan kicked in. Artemis dumped about fifteen arrows into him  in that first split second, I put my whole clip into his upper chest  and head and Kit emptied the magazine of her assault rifle into the  horned son of a bitch.

The  fire, lightning, bullets, weird dark magic of my gun and sheer impact  seemed to stun him for a bit, leaving him stuck in the flames for a  minute taking fire before he finally roared with rage and leaned down,  ignoring the heat and levering his fingers under the chest, flinging it  away with a massive amount of brute strength. We had luckily considered  that already, Reggie used his power, swapping me into the position the  chest had been in (only a foot or two outside the door) before the rocks  had time to fly free. Since I was at the back of the group on purpose  the chest and rocks smashed harmlessly against the wall.

Now  within range of the red skinned bastard I slipped out my dagger and my  tanto and darted in to get to work. My increased dexterity gave me not  just speed but flexibility, making the dodges that would have before  been tough and incredibly tricky almost as easy as breathing for the  first few seconds. My muscle was more streamlined and mobile, more so  than a normal person, and with my reflexes I could move out of the way  with ease. I dodged his swing with the big ass cleaver and slammed my  dagger into his side before darting back to avoid an attack.

Artemis  circled around to put arrows in him from the side, Kit reloaded and put  another magazine into him in bursts when I wasn't in the way, Zee was  laying down slowing spells, Reggie was shooting him with buckshot, and I  held his attention with my dodges while I wore him down. The plan was  going perfectly so far. Of course no plan survives first contact with  the enemy, and ours was already hitting a snag. The Butcher was even  tougher than expected.

His hide and  muscle created a sort of natural armor and while my enchanted dagger  and the tanto (which also benefited from the enchantment) were doing  damage, all the bullets and even the arrows were barely having an  effect. Not to mention that while my dexterity was definitely above  human, my vitality was not, and I was actually starting to get tired.  Putting every ounce of power into dodging something as strong as The  Butcher was exhausting. He was big and slow in terms of regular movement  but his strength propelled his attacks along at a very high speed. I  was barely hanging on.

Zee's  spells were what clinched it for us. Her slows and paralysis mixed with  Artemis's lightning arrows slowed him down enough for me to start  getting in more damaging blows. My tanto was razor sharp and cut through  even his hide, and I poured every ounce of assassination experience  into my attacks, even using my doom fist techniques to focus all my  weight and force into my stabs. The extra damage from the demon slaying  dagger helped a ton as well, but even with all of this going for us the  fight was a slog.

It  took us a full thirty minutes to finally bring the big bastard down. I  mentally thanked every god I could think of that the demonification  seemed to have turned him into a slavering psycho and that his cleaver  was such a straightforward weapon. Big and dumb was scary but manageable  with the proper preparations just like I knew it would be. Next level  we had Leoric and that was a whole other ball game, magic immunity and  intelligence would make that fight a nightmare. For now though we  finally managed to wear The Butcher down and finish him off, and he  dropped dead at our feet.

I  was panting by the time it ended, caked in sweat and exhausted but  unhurt. My reflexes and all our preparation had gotten me through this  without any damage, which was good because I was fairly sure a single  blow from the giant ass cleaver would have split me in two. We'd put as  much effort into this as we had specifically for that reason. I slumped  against the wall in exhaustion as Zee rushed over to catch me, burying  her face in my chest worriedly.

I  knew sitting back and playing ranged crowd control while I was on the  front lines had been hard for her and I felt terrible putting her  through that. Artemis stepped forward slowly, circling around until she  reached the cleaver, which in her hand looked more like a fucking long  sword just from the sheer size of it. She shot me a triumphant grin and I  returned it before wrapping my arms around Zee and burying my face in  her hair. That had been...scary. In a way the Talons hadn't.

The  ninja stuff was my bag, I was more than qualified to deal with them  because of my powers, I even had the memories and the reflexes to know  how to handle that and it had never quite seemed real somehow. The  Butcher though...there was something unspeakably horrifying about  putting your life on the line in front of a big fuck off demon with  horns and red skin. It was like taunting a mac truck. 

I was still  shaking a bit at the sheer terror of the experience. I held my  girlfriend close and closed my eyes and let the tension drain from my  body. Two down fourteen to go. But I was pretty sure we were due for some  time off. Tomorrow we would do Artemis's ritual and then I was going to  enjoy some downtime with my lady.