SOM - Chapter 3 - Hammer Time

As Luke reached the front of the train carriage, he caught his reflection in the window and paused. With his bloody shirt discarded on the floor, his bare chest was visible, and his eyes widened at what he saw. 

When he first started working out, Luke had the singular goal of avoiding a heart attack. Fuelled by tragedy, Luke had blown past his original goals and transformed himself. The system had dialled those gains up to eleven. He almost didn't recognise the slab of lean muscle looking back at him.

Each oversized muscle stood out, defined and pronounced like chiselled marble; they bulged with power. He reached out to grab one of the subway’s metal rails. As he flexed, the metal slowly bent towards him, submitting to his might.

With newfound confidence, Luke approached the end of the carriage. The door’s white paint was peeling off at the edges. Over the years different generations of vandals had scratched childish profanities into it. It was funny how much society had changed, yet some things stayed the same. Compared to most trains on the underground it was a decades-old relic, only in use on the Bakerloo line. The handle was stiff to open and made a high-pitched whine as Luke pulled it open. Off to a great start, he thought as he winced at the noise.

When Luke opened the door, fresh air rushed into the carriage. For the first time since arriving, he could hear the surrounding dungeon. The rush of water from the river below was barely audible over a low hum coming from below. Looking down, Luke saw that the strange noise was coming from rows of intricate runic glyphs that had replaced the train tracks. The train itself was hovering several feet in the air, much to Luke’s surprise.

Though the glyphs depicted a completely alien language, Luke could still understand them on a rudimentary level. He couldn't make out the words, but he understood the intent behind them. Quite simply, the runes were telling the train that it should ignore gravity. It was hardly the craziest thing Luke had seen that night, but it still took him a moment to refocus on the task at hand.

Peering ahead, Luke confirmed that despite getting distracted he remained undetected. The closest rat was busy chewing a bone, and the rest were still fighting over scraps. What had once been a person now bore little resemblance to a human being and the sheer butchery turned his stomach. 

Getting control of himself, Luke took a moment to study the lone rodent. It was gaunt, with more missing flesh than the one he had killed. The animal was definitely undead. Its skeletal tail wagged from side to side as it gnawed the bone like a darkly twisted puppy.

How should I approach this? Luke asked himself. Killing one undead abomination had been easy enough, but that was no reason to get careless. He had the element of surprise but all the grace of an elephant. Chrissy always joked he had two left feet, and he doubted his ability to sneak up on anything. Instead, Luke opted for a more defensive ploy. The door was a natural choke-point, and he could use it to fight the rats on his own terms.

After a few moments of deliberating Luke gave the equivalent of a mental shrug. He couldn’t think of a better plan and didn’t have the patience to spend hours scheming. Building a trap had briefly crossed his mind, but he wouldn’t know where to start. No plan survives contact with the enemy, he quipped.

Standing on the gangway Luke drew his arm back, then swung the hammer forward like a pistol at the races. The plexiglass splintered into large chunks and exploded forwards into the carriage ahead. Luke took a step back and tried to control his breathing. 

A chorus of snarls filled the train as the rats rushed towards Luke. The creatures were swift, and in only a few heartbeats, they reached the door. The lead rat slammed into it with a thud, shaking the door from the impact. A moment later, its kin were climbing over it to reach him.

Luke suppressed a yelp as powerful jaws lunged at him through the window, and snapped in his face. Its teeth were as long as his fingers. He instinctively shrank back and stumbled as he tripped over his own feet. This dented, if not shattered, Luke’s deluded image of himself as a fearless warrior. 

Scrambling back to his feet, Luke saw with relief that the rodent had become momentarily stuck in the window. Its torso and head flailed in the air and sprayed yellow-green spittle all over the train. This rat was larger and in a more advanced state of decay than the others. If his first kill had been as big as a Labrador, this one was more akin to a Great Dane.

Before the beast could fully extricate itself, Luke raised his hammer high and brought it down hard. There was a crack. Unfortunately, with the rat thrashing about, he had missed the headshot he had been aiming for. Instead, his blow struck the rat on the side of the neck, and crunched several vertebrae. The rat jerked once, twice, then went limp.

Having learned from his first encounter, Luke didn’t assume that the undead monster was truly dead. His return swing drove the claw of the hammer through the rat’s cheekbone. There was a loud squelch as it penetrated, and grey matter decorated the carriage. Luke hoped that the standard zombie rules applied: remove the head or destroy the brain.

A few frantic seconds followed as Luke tried and failed to remove his hammer from the skull. It was lodged in there so deeply that he struggled to pull it free. While he wrestled with the corpse, his foes were not idle. The next rat scrambled over its dead kin and narrowly missed Luke’s hand with a snap of its jaws. Just in time to avoid the attack, Luke dislodged the hammer. There was a wet pop as he stumbled backward. Unfortunately, he lost his grip and the tool-turned-weapon went flying. 

Mercifully, the last rat seemed determined to batter the doors down with brute strength. This allowed Luke to focus on the one in front of him as it dropped down onto the carriage floor. With his hammer on the floor, Luke pulled out the screwdriver. The abomination had a gaping hole in its left eye socket, so Luke decided to make the right side match. 

As the rodent lunged forward with its yellow teeth bared, Luke met the attack with a jab of the screwdriver. However, the rodent reacted more swiftly than Luke anticipated, jerking its head out of the way. Instead of blinding it, Luke gasped as serrated teeth clamped around his wrist with powerful jaws. He dropped the screwdriver and screamed.

In a blind rage, Luke pummelled the rodent's face with his good hand, but it refused to let go. Luke abandoned any pretence of strategy and fought back with primal ferocity. 

Clenching his jaw, he reached out and ripped out the rat’s remaining eye, crushing it like a grape. He then hooked his fingers into its rancid snout and pulled as hard as he could. 

Exerting his newfound strength, Luke pried its mouth open and wrenched his arm free. Then, he head-butted the vermin with all the force he could muster.

A wave of dizziness nearly overwhelmed Luke in the aftermath of this collision, but he was lucky. His unconventional attack had inflicted more harm to the rat than himself. Its jaw snapped and broke, leaving it to hang at an unnatural angle. Blood trickled down Luke’s forehead as he watched the rat stagger about disoriented.

Noise from behind him sharpened Luke’s mind. Glancing back, he saw the third and final rat forcing its way through the window opening. It was the largest of the three and had to push the dead one out of the window to force its way through. 

Luke would be facing two of the beasts at once if he didn't act quickly. Breathing heavily, he thanked the heavens when he caught sight of his hammer a few feet away on the floor. It had landed on one of the blue seats. 

He lumbered towards the hammer, bending down to pick it up with his left hand. He was right-handed but would have to work with what he had left. A glance at his injured arm revealed a grim sight: muscles torn, tendons ripped. Luke even thought he saw some exposed bone deep in the wound, but it was hard to tell with all the blood. Under less dire circumstances, he would have curled up and cried.

Channelling his pain into anger, Luke swung at the still-dazed rodent with his hammer. The blow was as brutal as it was precise and caved in the rat’s forehead, leaving a crater. Luke grunted in satisfaction and wiped the gore from his eyes. Blood dripped from his hammer. 

A thud on the floor behind told Luke he had no time to celebrate. He turned to face his final foe. Luke spun in time to see it leaping through the air. He caught it in the side with the claw of his hammer and threw it off course. Instead of landing on Luke the undead beast crashed against the wall.

Panting heavily, Luke threw himself at the beast. He pressed its face to the floor, leveraging his superior bulk against it. Over and over Luke plunged the hammer down with brutal savagery. Up close and personal, this method proved sufficiently lethal. 

In the back of his mind, an itch tingled, and Luke recognised this sensation as system messages waiting to be acknowledged.

[You have killed a Level 3 Plague Rat.]

[You have killed a Level 5 Plague Rat.]

[You have killed a Level 5 Plague Rat.]

[Concept gained: Warhammer - Starting rank Bronze, for killing monsters with a Hammer. World’s first bonus awarded for being the first Psion of Gaia to gain this concept. +3 Strength, augments hammers within the psion’s domain. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Accept? Yes/No.]

[You have gained enough experience to reach level 3.]

[You have gained enough experience to reach level 4.]

Notifications rolled in as Luke fought against exhaustion. His last shred of energy seeped into the blood-soaked floor. He had underestimated the undead vermin. All three of them were at a higher level than he had expected. They had been faster, stronger, and tougher than the first one that he met. They had almost killed him, and his arm looked like a chunk of chewed-up meat.

Luke let out a painful laugh. Despite his injuries, he was alive, and the rats were dead. He had won. Lying on the floor, a shade of delirium clouding his thoughts, he replayed the fight in his mind. It had all happened so fast, but with the system enhancing his mind the memories were crystal clear.

Luke checked the attribute tab in his system menu. It confirmed he had two free points to spend from his level-ups. There was a temptation to min-max and invest everything into [Strength], but he held off. Luke didn't think that it was a lack of raw power that was holding him back, and he had more immediate concerns. 

The throbbing pain in his arm made it challenging for Luke to come up with any long-term strategies. Without medical intervention or magical healing, he might lose his arm. The bleeding had slowed down, but he could now see black lines tracking their way up through his veins. Given his dire situation, Luke took a gamble and invested both points into [Recovery]. He hoped it would boost his natural healing like he assumed it would.

Having done all that he could, the last remnants of Luke’s mental energy dissipated. He was exhausted and grievously injured. On top of all that he was still infected with zombieism. The sound of the river below filled his ears. It had been a long day. When darkness beckoned he surrendered to unconsciousness almost immediately. 

I wonder what brains taste like.