[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 48: It’s All Ogre

Matt barked a short, piteous laugh. His fingertips were broken and bloodied from scrabbling at the stone door blocking his way.

The poison ravaged his body, rotting it from the inside out. And all the while, he could only think of one thing: I just want to feel the sun on my face one more time.

All the loot he had? He would gladly give it away. Every last bit if it meant a few more seconds of life.

The disc-shaped elevator had risen as soon as he had stepped off it into this lightless abyss. He had stumbled and fell more times than he could count.

Pretty damn sure I broke something, too. But the most concerning thing was that he couldn’t feel it. In fact, most of his pain was gone now.

In its place was a weariness that crushed his soul. He knew he was going to die. That much was obvious by now. Nobody was coming to save him.

There was no last-minute miracle.

Perhaps this is what I deserve, he wondered, idly pounding against the door. Each thump of his fist grew weaker and weaker, but he never truly gave up.

There was something within him that refused to admit defeat. To admit the logic of the situation.

He was dead, but refused to acknowledge it.

At least I’ll go down fighting… not that anybody would know.

Even if he wasn’t poisoned to the point of numbness, Matt knew his injuries were bad enough on their own. How he managed to survive this far was anybody’s guess.

And just as the last ounces of willpower drained out of him, joining the puddle of blood at his feet, a glorious light blinded him.

Blessed, holy light filled his vision and brought tears to his eyes. All his life, he wondered if there was truly an afterlife. And now he was seeing the fabled gates of Heaven open before his very soul.

If this was the end, then perhaps it wasn’t so bad to finally let go….

***

Faces, both new and old, poured out of their claustrophobic coffins and spilled out into the room. Sam just barely managed to keep on his feet. He felt drained to the bone and even the [Archflame Coal’s] comforting presence did little to combat his fatigue.

A range of emotions plastered across the crowd’s faces. Shock and confusion were mixed in there, but most predominant of all was hope.

Directed at Sam, as if he was their savior, and had all the answers to boot, too. And like most crowds, their collective intelligence plummeted below room temperature.

“It’s coming, the ogre is coming!”

“We’re [Marked for Death]!” somebody hysterical in the back cried.

“Who the hell is this clown?”

“He’s hot! Can I have your number?” A gust of wind immediately knocked that Mage down.

“What do we do?”

“We have to get out of here. Where do we go?” another man shouted.

A deluge of voices assaulted him, until Raiko’s voice of authority and rage drowned them all out, demanding silence.

“Listen up, cohorts!” With Raiko floating above them all, wind-imbued katana out, she was hard to ignore. “Sam Hunter saved you. Now throw your spare loot at this incredible man and flee to safety. There are islands past this chamber that you all can scatter to and escape the ogre’s wrath.”

“No,” Sam said as people began to rifle through their Inventories. “Just go. You don’t have time. Raiko, show them to the islands.”

With two voices of reason, people started to get some sense and re-organize back into their respective groups. They followed the strange floating woman out of the small chamber, leaving Sam alone with the Komachi, an unconscious Kai, and an utterly bewildered Matt.

“Take care of your wounded!” Raiko continued to command them. “Clerics, aid your fellow cohorts. If you need mana, eat these fruits. No one is in this alone. We will survive if you work together.”

Sam’s look of shock was nothing compared to the tear-streaked look Matt gave him. He looked like a corpse. Black and green veins crisscrossed all over his face and the exposed bits of skin visible through the tears in his clothing.

“…Matt?” Sam helped him to his feet. The man was skin and bones and felt like an oven just standing next to him.

Komachi wailed piteously, shaking like a kitten.

“I don’t know if you can do anything for him,” he said to Komachi. “But if you can try….”

Terrified, Komachi dropped her wand trying to cast, but hastily picked it back up and tried again.

Matt, his eyes glazed and still weeping, looked from Sam to Komachi, then back to Sam. Lucidity swam to the surface of Matt’s eyes. He gripped Sam’s arm like a vise and stared with horror and pain into his eyes. “I don’t want to die… alone. Please.”

As the last words dripped from his lips, Matt collapsed into a boneless heap and began to seize and foam at the mouth. Sam dropped to the ground and rolled him over onto his side, his other hand guiding Komachi closer.

“It’s okay,” he said soothingly to her. “Just do your best, all right? We only need to stabilize him.” And hope that Raiko knows what she’s doing with the islands, he added mentally.

***

The rest of the group followed Raiko down to the docks of tiny islands. Most cohorts were only a fraction of their former size, which in Raiko’s opinion was a good thing, as grim as that was.

Each of the islands could only support four to five people by the looks of them. It wasn’t just from sheer size, but from the island’s natural mana density.

People started to queue up for islands in twos and threes then, against all reason, they looked at Raiko.

“What now?” one of them asked.

Raiko stared at them. “How the hell am I supposed to know?” Do I still look like a Sage to people, or is this just because I told them what to do and they still expect more?

She floated over to a stone obelisk. Each island had one near its dock, and with over a dozen eyes on her, she began to hit things until something happened.

If there was one thing she was good at, it was hitting fast.

This was like trying to use a life raft as a houseboat. These islands were clearly designed to be able to get away from the main island, but you would be hard pressed to thrive on them even if you were by yourself.

One of the small Isles began to tremble and then disembark, vaguely like an unmoored boat. That was good enough for Raiko to get people going.

With Raiko’s urging, though she had no idea why these people were still listening to her instead of figuring it out for themselves, they separated onto the various tiny islands.

Cohort after cohort drifted away on tiny pieces of land of their own, leaving the starting island behind and venturing into the vastness of the realm’s First Layer.

***

Komachi cast [Regen] after [Regen] on Matt, but nothing seemed to work that Sam could tell. The man, however, was clearly alive. As tired as Sam was, he struggled to keep Matt’s seizing under control.

Eventually, whether by Komachi’s magic or otherwise, Matt fell into a deep slumber. For a moment, Sam thought he had truly died. The man had a nearly non-existent pulse and his chest barely rose, but he was alive.

“Good job, Komachi,” Sam said, scooping her up and hugging her tightly. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, yeah?”

Then, as the realization dawned on him, he noticed the problem. Settling Komachi into his armor, Sam bent over each of the prone men and hefted them up onto a shoulder each.

It was surprisingly easy to do, even in Kai’s case. The islands breed them big, and Kai was large even by native standards.

Still, it was easier than lifting a sack of flour thanks to Sam’s high Strength. He had prepared for the difficulty and found himself laughing as he carried the two unconscious bodies out onto the docks.

Several of the islands were cheering and waving at Raiko. Shouts of thanks filled the air and doubled when Sam appeared next to the floating ghostly vision of Raiko.

“People being happy? Huh, feels weird,” she said.

Sam nodded as the islands dropped and were whisked away into the rainstorm surrounding the island. “I’m assuming you kept the best one for us?” Sam asked.

Raiko looked at him. “Of course I did. I’m not dim. Over here.”

While Raiko busied herself with whatever it was she did to untether the island from its stone dock, Sam gently set both Kai and Matt down at the center of the island.

It was a little roomier than the others he had seen, and there were a few small boulders, enough to shelter in the lee of but little else. Sam wasn’t looking forward to flying out into the storm that was beginning to kick up.

Especially when he realized that they had no way of steering the damn thing. There was no control system, nothing that he could sense or see that would allow them to do anything but float in the sky like a raft out at sea.

But it would be better than staying.

Raiko joined him a moment later as the island began to drift free of its moorings and fall below the starting island.

At the same time, several tons of stone began to rain down on the docks, shattering them and their islands into fragments that drifted listlessly about the space as if caught in some sort of gravitational anomaly.

As they drifted farther out from under the sheltering overhang of the starting island, the rain pouring across the four of them, Sam saw the dreaded, red-eyed gaze of the ogre break through the docks.

It roared a challenge at him and looked ready to leap the distance.

Given its size, Sam wasn’t sure if it could or not, but that hardly mattered. If the ogre managed to land a single foot on the island—that was about as much room as the island had, with or without the four of them—he doubted the island would stay afloat.

At least I’ll take it out with me, he thought, getting to his feet and ripping free his [Charred Claymore]. Sparks sizzled in the rain as Sam stood there in open answer to the ogre’s challenge.

For a moment, he thought it might take the bait, but even an ogre had to have some sort of brain. And right then, the ogre seemed to realize that Sam had won this round.

It would have been nice if the ogre decided to end it then and there. He could have turned around, climbed back through the hole it made—an impressive display of strength that even Sam feared—and gone back to sleep.

But things didn’t quite work that way in Sam’s life.

With its baleful gaze never leaving Sam’s, the ogre climbed up the underside of the island like the world’s largest spider.

Their little floating island had gone far enough out into the storm that even getting closer as the ogre had, was still not close enough to jump to his Isle.

The ogre didn’t seem to care. It climbed up the lip of the island and stood there, watching. As their tiny island rocked in the storm, buffeted and lashed by rain, the ogre sedately strolled across the rim of the starting island, always staring, always watching.

“You just know that boss monster is going to come after us,” Raiko stared at the menacing ogre. “Somehow, it will find us.”

“Yes, Raiko,” Sam said. “Thank you for that foreshadowing.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you can just Break its giant ankles and then drown in its Experience.”

“Get me a basketball large enough, and it’s a done deal.”

“What.”