SlaughterBot

125: Titan's Debt

Nicolai avoided the undead guards with ease, his shelled Soul Sense allowing him to spiritually blend into the background while the poncho hid his form, and after scaling a series of stairways he looked into a large, ornate room.

He’d expected the head Warden to resemble the rest of them,...

124: The Titan Speaks

The warden’s chains didn’t loop around throats, the blades on the ends didn’t cut and slice. Instead it just gripped the others tight and began to pull, dragging them stumbling after it, Perro yelping as he was dragged over the stone.

Nicolai followed at a distance, pleased to find th...

123: Back in Jail

Nicolai sat himself by the desk in his room, looking to Kleos. Onwards and upwards. All of this was only a minor event. His course was unchanged.

‘You felt the castle shake?’

‘Hard to miss it.’

‘What does it mean?’

Kleos looked uncertain, chewing on it...

122: Fallout

They all emerged onto the tower-top of the safe-place, peering out over the wall. Slow moving clouds of dust choked the castle lower down, thrown into the air from places where chunks of the castle had toppled and crumbled.

‘Seem’s like this castle isn’t as safe as we all assumed,’ ...

121: Tremor

Nicolai grinned at Karl through the shimmering disc of energy, staring down the man’s gunbarrel. Naturally, he’d charged his shield in readiness of something like this.

He crouched down so the shield covered his whole body. The shield was visible, rippling the air, and Karl was smart en...

120: Follow the Leader

Nicolai emerged from the painting to find guns pointed at him, and his shield snapped into existence as he sidestepped, raising his gun-limb. He recognised an ally and connected to them over Local, querying them as to what was going on.

‘What?’ they replied, in a manner that su...

119: What am I?

Everything around him was transformed, oddly surreal and dreamlike, vague and shifting. The ragged dark of the enemy retreated out the corridor ahead of him, into the area beyond, and Nicolai pursued, hungry to finish it. A world of imagination, Kleos had said, in a tone of warning. What did that...

118: Into the Painting

‘Come, finish your part,’ hissed the painting to Nicolai, Jo, and Kleos who Nicolai held in his hands, as they stood before it.

They’d gotten away without issue, and now Nicolai needed to work out just what would happen if they did as the painting bid. His eyes rested on it, observing...

117: Teamwork

‘The paintbrush is there,’ Nicolai told Beth over Link, indicating the spot, keeping his eyes on the two armoured knights across from them. ‘These things are very hard to kill, but that’s not our goal. We get the paintbrush, we get out, and we win.’

His Node was ...

116: Chivalry is Dead

Nicolai paused just short of the tunnel exit. For this particular operation, he’d successfully taken a kind of temporary, operational-only leadership from John, with the man and the others agreeing to follow his directions. John had given this up surprisingly easily, which told Nicolai he was u...

115: Attack on Tower

Cyberwarfare sunk spiritual claws into the thing and dragged it from where it had hidden, leapt at it and savaged it like a wolf, but the thing, which appeared as a little ball of slick, oily darkness in his Soul, struggled and resisted, trying to dig back into him.

Nicolai immediately turn...

114: Demonic Artifact

‘Yeah, I remember. What about it?’ Kleos responded to his question about the Demon, Paxolnaz.

‘It mentioned a sword to me. It told me how to get to that sword.’ The memories resurfaced, almost as fresh as when Paxolnaz had given them to him. A route through the castle, winding down ...

113: Spiritual AIs

Torches dulled from yellow to orange, the sun kissed the horizon, and Nicolai and Beth returned with more purchased items to find John and the others were back from their trip. Nicolai didn’t ask how much progress they had made, but they seemed pleased with themselves, and they asked Ben whethe...

112: It Writhes

Nicolai was already up and launching himself over the edge of the tower after Beth, falling into open air. As gravity seized him he clutched the three rings tight and injected a surge of Oma into all of them, using them for once not to rise up but to shove him faster down after Beth who was flail...

111: Sunny Soulful Skies

Beth came at him, and she’d learned from his tricks. She feinted at him with a cutting strike then switched to crushing, but he’d seen it coming and a Loose Guard awaited her, the blow glancing off with minimal effect. She kept going, and now she was rapidly switching between the forms; Pierc...

110: Souls Collide

Nicolai reacted to Beth’s Soul Sense attack immediately. He formed his own into the tight sphere around him in time to endure the attack, and worked to keep it solid and concrete while she struck and tore at it.

He didn’t struggle, his Soul Sense sphere holding firm until Beth pulled ba...

109: Mysteries of the Soul

As he entered the safe-place and looked upon those within, he could feel the Modules stirring within him, watching out from his eyes and ears with interest.

‘Perro.’ Nicolai gave the youth a friendly smile as he entered the room, seeing Azure lowering the speakers volume to almost zero....

108: Bleeding to Death

Nicolai almost laughed but inside he knew this was wrong, his Mask was still there and it was fighting hard. He couldn’t kill them. The Contract prevented it. The darkness writhed through him, pushing and pushing, but it met his drive to survive, slipping out from the depths of his mind and Sou...

107: Angry Bird

Some of the deafening boom of the chaffbang and a flicker of the blinding light made its way through his hands and eyelids, and Cyberwarfare growled at him when his Link connections fuzzed, the result of the anti-network filaments contained in the grenade. Not something he’d needed at this mome...

106: Pegasi Ring Hunter

As the three of them made their way outside and looked over the bridges, Nicolai noticed something had changed.

There were no longer any archers floating over the largest bridge, and there were also fewer undead on that bridge in general. Looking further afield, he noted other bridges, all ...

105: Hacker

Half an hour later found Nicolai floating beneath the bridge over the chasm to the Trade Link.

He finished shaping and squeezing the C4 into one of the bridge supports near the centre, then stuck the triggering device, a small boxy unit, beside it, and from it he drew two needle-like activa...

104: Still a Killer

Nicolai crept up the ladder, the other two following after him. He was almost at the top, close enough that his Soul Sense was able to push up and slip around the tarp and check the area. Nothing in the bush, but the gunshots continued, steady rapping sounds, occasional bursts and booms.

He...

103: Old Friends

Nicolai awoke, cushioned by air, floating, staring at the ceiling.

He was changed. It distinctly reminded him of waking up in the white void that first time as a human, everything different.

For a moment fear and rage twined through him, but tilting his head he saw the Cherubic Surgeo...

102: Cherubic Surgeon

Nicolai glanced at the area before him, thinking of how this would work. He was going to use the permit, and have the surgeon install one of the augments he’d bought. Beth would have a BIS and Network Link of her own and didn’t seem to suffer any problems, but even so he’d do a quick test f...

101: One Step Program

The black metal of the Trade Link seethed before him, shifting like a mirage, strange patterns forming in its surface. A handle rose from the metal, a square indentation forming around it.

Nicolai tugged on the handle and the metal hinged open in that square shape, revealing a cubby-hole. T...

100: Big Spender

Welcome, User #53,217, to Trade Link Access.

You have one (1) Market available.

The words on the screen faded away, then it bloomed with light anew.

Trade Link Interface | User #53,217

Market Designation: HU...