Middle Triumvarate B1C6

Here's another one. Just could not stop the flow. Now I'm really going to be though it's quite late.

Also, with this post I'm moving the $10 people two chapters of this ahead of the $5 people instead of just one. As I get more chapters done I'll try and increase the lead for each tier to something resembling the difference in Blood Shaper chapters, but no promises yet on exact numbers.

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“Go!” Amelia hissed.

The painting hadn’t been looking toward them when they snuck back to check it out so they’d taken a moment to prepare. With Maeve and Scarlet on the extinguishes and the guys ready to throw the cannonballs corpses, Amelia was their scout. At her signal Alex stepped out through the archway and hurled a cannonball at the painting of George Washington.

Washington’s entire head snapped to track the sudden movement and the eyes narrowed at Alex. It was very disconcerting to see an image of the first president of the United States, who was usually depicted with nobility and dignity, looking so malicious and hungry. The monster was too buys staring at Alex and licking its lips, which was also an incredibly disturbing thing to see George Washington do, that it didn’t notice the mildly deformed cannonball coming straight at it. The heavy projectile impacted with the painting and made a dull thud sound instead of the expected noise of canvas being torn.

“Aaah!” The figure inside the painting recoiled from the blow, shouting in pain and surprise as it did. After jerking back it snarled in rage at the human who dared to attack it, and began to push its way out of the frame holding it. The colors of the painting began to run together, merging into a continuous shade of black and dark blue that blended into each other. George Washington’s countenance faded into a featureless head with blank eye sockets and a groaning mouth with no teeth. From either side of the bottom of the painting, below the neck of the head extending outward, came two hands that were also mottled blue and black. The whole creature expanded as it moved outward, until it took up the entire frame, with the large head and hands stretching forward toward Alex on a thing neck and arms that looked like they shouldn’t be able to hold the weight at the ends of them. The face groaned, the eyeless sockets locked onto Alex as it reached out to grab him with giant fingers.

Maeve rushed through the archway and sprayed a blast from the extinguisher at the monster. It didn’t have any eyes to irritate, but as the white cloud hit its face it reared back and it’s hands came up to cover its face. “Ed!”

Ed chucked one of the cannonballs he had and got a glancing blow in. Instead of trying to throw the second one he dropped it and turned to grab at the weapons leaning against the wall behind them. Alex threw his second cannonball, getting a more solid hit against on of the hands. He turned to see Ed holding out the sledgehammer. He grabbed it, swung it around behind him and brought the weapon down in an overhead blow while Ed stepped to the side and started jabbing at it with his flagpole turned mediocre spear.

The head of the hammer came down, and they could all hear something break as it smashed a finger. The face screamed in pain and lashed out, missing completely in it’s blind thrashing. Amelia grabbed one of the free flagpoles and did her best to get in on the action, stabbing at the monster with the inferior spearhead and occasionally just whacking at it. Scarlet stepped forward with her own extinguisher and the sound of whooshing came again and again as they took turns blasting the monster in it’s blank eyes. Occasionally there was enough of a gap between sprays that it could look around and make an aimed swing, but it missed each time. Each attack tore holes in the carpet and actually gouged furrows in the concrete beneath, but as strong as it was it was also very slow. Where it’s original emergence and grab at Alex had been very fast it was no sluggish enough to dodge easily.

They continued beating on it and blinding it until it made a giant swing at Amelia who had just poked it in the eye, which left an opening that Alex took advantage of. He reared back for another powerful strike form above and slammed the sledgehammer into the top of the monsters head. The painting monster bulged inward at the point of the strike before suddenly collapsing and spilling blue and black paint all over the floor.

__

You meaningfully contributed in defeating:

1x Ambush Painting

You receive: 13 XP

__

Maeve immediately dismissed the box and scanned the surroundings for any other monsters. It was nice to get confirmation when each monster died, but there was no way to know if the System would send them messages when they were still in danger. Nothing else moved around them and there were no other paintings in sight. She slowly let the extinguisher drop to the floor. “Everyone good?”

“I almost pissed myself when that thing started ripping up concrete, but otherwise it didn’t touch me.”

The girls all made faces at Ed’s comment and everyone else reported no injuries.

“I got thirteen for contributing, how about everyone else?”

“Same.”

“Yeah, same.”

“Me too!”

“I got fifty for the kill.” Alex’s eyes went a little blank. “Uh…”

“So meaningfully contributing gets you a quarter as much experience as the final blow? Or is there some other way to calculate who got the kill and we just haven’t been fighting in a way where that would come up.” Maeve stopped theorizing when she saw Alex staring at the air. “Alex, what’s up?”

“’Congratulations on gaining one hundred and fifty experience and reaching level one.’” He read out. “’In order to level up for the first time, unlock your status, and pick your first class, it is highly recommended’, and there’s is all kinds of emphasis on the highly, it’s like I can feel how important the System feels about it when I read the word, ‘that you reach a safe area. It is possible to override this safety warning but it is not’, again crazy emphasis, ‘recommended. You will be automatically prompted to level up when you reach an area the System considers minimally safe to undertake your first level up.’”

“There’s a lot to unpack there, but it answers a few questions I had. If theres-“

A terrified scream rang out from down one of the hallways that met at the rotunda they were now partially in and everyone jumped away from the noise. After a second of shock Ed and Alex gripped their weapons tight and started to run in the direction the scream had come from.

“No!” Maeve barked, stopping both of them in their tracks. “Do not go running off!”

“What!? But someone’s in trouble!” Alex thrust his arm toward that direction. “We need to-“

“We need to stick together and watch for another ambush!” Maeve tried to keep her volume below a shout but the sudden rush of fear based adrenaline in her body made that difficult. “That monster we just killed was called an ‘Ambush Painting’. That scream might not even be a real person. We can go, but we go cautiously, we look out for an ambush, and we don’t go charging off and splitting up!”

Alex stared at her with wild eyes as she lectured him, but he nodded in agreement after she finished talking. They hustled down the hallway at a medium jog, keeping close enough together that they could cover each other if something happened but not too close that they could all be taken out in one fell swoop, at Maeve’s insistence. The pushed through the medieval history hall, normally one of Maeve’s favorite places in the museum thanks to the surprisingly robust collection of weapons, armor, and other artifacts from multiple places in Europe that couldn’t be found in any other museum as small as theirs. In that moment, it wasn’t the pride of their curator and a fun look at European history but a creepy and frightening hall filled with objects that could suddenly come alive and attack them.

Alex slammed his feet down and skidded a few inches against the floor as he spread both his arms out to stop the group. They all ended up clumped together as they tried not to run into him and stared ahead to see what he’d seen. Lying on the ground a dozen or so feet from them was a body lying on the ground, completely still There was a large pool of blood dripping outward, and the body had hit the ground at just the right angles to let them see the person’s face, and the gaping wound in their chest.

“Oh fuck. It’s Parker.”

Maeve’s annoying co-worker was lying dead on the carpet in the medieval history hall, with a wound big enough to put her hand in leaking blood and what might have been some of his organs from it. Nausea rippled through her as a wave of vomit tried to crawl its way out of her throat.

“Fuck, thats-“

“Back up, we need to back up!” Alex started pushing at them as he turned around, he head still pointed over his shoulder.

“What, what’s-“

“That’s a sword wound! We don’t have-“

Making a loud clanking sound as it stepped into view, a set of the museums armor moved forward with a blood covered sword in hand. The helmet turned toward them, the visor open, revealing nothing inside wearing in the armor. The completely empty suit of plate mail rotated in their direction and began implacably marching toward them.

“Shit. Run! We don’t have any armor or defenses and it has a sword, run!”

They burst apart like a school of fish being chased by a shark and ran back the way they’d came. The armor kept coming at the same pace, not a run but still faster than a walk, the metal boots clanking as it followed them.

“We’re faster than it if we run!”

“Where are we going to run to? Sprinting around with monsters everywhere is a bad idea!”

“Outside! If we get our armor from my car we’ll have a better chance!”

“It takes forever to get our armor on! It’s not that slow!”

“I have shields, which are better than nothing! And I can get a weapon thats better than this cheap piece of wood with a dull piece of cheap metal stapled to it!”

The stampeded down the stairs toward the entrance. Scarlet, at the front of the pack, slammed into the push bar on the closest of the doors and bounced back from the completely unmoving door, slamming back into Ed’s chest. “Ow! WHat the fuck?”

Ed slammed against the push bar, then tried another. “Why aren’t the doors working!?”

“Oh no.” Amelia breathed. “The security system. If the security system gets cut off then the doors all seal shut. It’s supposed to prevent thieves from getting away with anything they’re trying to steal.”

“That is a massive fucking fire hazard!” Ed bellowed, “How the fuck was that allowed!?”

“We can pull the fire alarm to get out, but then it calls the police and the fire department.”

“Who cares!? We’re being chased by a monster!”

“If we set off the alarm and something even scarier comes looking at the noise, won’t we be in even more danger? Shit, we don’t even know if that will work! One of the things that seals the doors is if we lose all power! The fire alarm might not go off!”

“Ah shit, what if we-“

“Too late.”

Everyone turned to look where Maeve was already staring. The suit of armor stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at them. Or at least aping looking at them, it had no eyes or head, just an open visor on a helmet pointing at them. One at a time it took slow steps down the stairs, making more clanking and jingling as its feet landed on each stone step.

“What do we do?” Amelia whispered.

Alex stepped forward, the sledge hammer held out in front of him. “We fight.”