Buttopia
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Chapter 41: A Diredeer Cult
🕑 Added 2024-12-11 00:00:06 +0000 UTC“Sorry, we didn’t realize anyone was living here. We can just head out, no harm, no foul,” I said, doubting that it was that simple, especially as the accusers had yet to show their faces. I heard the brothers drop to the ground behind me.
“Even now, you threaten us! There shall be no escape for you; a sacrifice is demanded!” The figure again yelled from its cover. I looked behind me for a second to make sure they had landed all right, and they both looked fine.
“You two ready? I have a feeling we’ve already found our diredeer,” I asked, knowing it likely made no difference whether we were ready or not.
All around us the figures emerged from the woods, twelve in total. Each of them stood taller than any deer I had ever seen before, closer to the size of an Alaskan moose. Half of them were walking on two legs and carrying torches. All of them looked insane. They were twitching, and some were drooling. Most of them were rambling incoherently. Only the one who had first spoken seemed to be in any control of itself.
“Soon, your blood will adorn our dear deer dreamer, and we will be granted an even greater gift,” it whispered, its voice having dropped to a low snarl as it spoke. I was liking this less and less by the minute.
Elicec was the first to attack as a strong burst of wind erupted all around us, knocking several of them off their feet. I followed up with a hard mallet swing into the head of the one threatening me. It whipped its head to the side, goring me deeply into the arm and throwing me to the side. I realized my mistake as I crashed to the ground. If these things were anything like moose, they were built to take heavy blows on the skull.
“Don’t hit them in the head, too much bone!” I yelled, barely rolling out of the way from being hoofed. Two of the crazed things had descended on me, and I wildly swung my mallet, trying to knock them away. I managed to entangle the mallet into the antlers of one of them as it came down for another goring, and it flung me back into the air, desperate to free itself. It failed, and I managed to get my legs around its neck as I came back down.
I flipped my mana orb over to imbuing and aligned my mallet to fire, channeling as much mana into the head as quickly as I could. The smell of the sizzling hair and antlers told me I was on the right path. It bucked hard, trying to get me off as a second one charged at me. I felt one of the antlers graze past my thigh as the rest of them found a home in the side of my temporary mount. I ripped my mallet free and pushed myself off the monster as the town of them crashed to the ground, locked together, snapping at each other in their rage.
“Two down!” I yelled, spotting the brothers in their own fight with another six with another dead on the ground already.
“Heathens!” the original one screamed, swinging his torch at me. How the hell was it even holding that thing? No, I forced the question down out of my brain. This was absolutely not the time to ponder how an insane diredeer cultist who could speak was also somehow holding a torch. Now was the time to fight, no distractions. I knocked the torch out of its hoof with my mallet and turned the motion back onto the thing with an upward swing, catching it hard in the lower jaw. Unlike my last hit on it, this time, I felt something crack, and it fell to the ground with a scream of pain.
I ran towards the encircled and overwhelmed brothers, swapping to my elemental orb as I did. I swung my mallet hard at the first one I reached while concentrating on concentrating on the fundamental forces of my aether orb. It had to have something that could help here. From inside the ring of diredeer I could still hear the brothers fighting for their lives. I just needed to give them an opening to fight through.
“Forces negate themselves. Free yourselves from the bonds of gravity!” I had a feeling what the words were going to do as they left my mouth. Two of the diredeer rocketed off the ground a couple of hundred feet before crashing back down, all dead. Was aether only this scary because of what I knew, or did it have this potential for anyone?
Once again, I forced myself to save the questions as I entered the new opening swinging. I wasn’t about to let the diredeer a moment to recapture Cecile and Elicec. I saw Cecile’s hoe transform in his hand. He stepped into the now free space, and a gleaming sickle slashed across the necks of three more of the diredeer.
At the same time, Elicec released a glowing ball from his hand that drifted toward the only still-fighting deer. The moment it touched its flesh, electrical sparks leaped across its body accompanied by a sizzling sound as all its limbs convulsed, knocking it to the ground as well. Where had the last two run off too?
“We need to find those other two and destroy whatever false idol they are worshipping!” Elicec yelled, angrier than I had ever heard him.
“Did anyone see where they went?” I asked, not disagreeing, but I had no idea where it was.
“I think they went that way,” Cecile said, huffing heavily. How much had that weapon transformation taken out of him? I wasn’t in the greatest shape myself; that last attack had cut my mana in half and I was bleeding from the gorings, but we didn’t have much of an option but to push through now.
I ran into the woods, the direction Cecile had pointed and was able to spot the diredeer now in a full sprint away from us. We’d never be able to keep up, but we chased after them nonetheless. Elicec launched two balls of light from his hand. One flew after our prey, while the second stayed in front of us as we ran.
“This will let us track them for a good while,” he said, also sounding exhausted. What was waiting for us at the end of this path? We weren’t in the best shape for a dungeon core boss at the moment.
Our pursuit came to an end as we stumbled out of the thick trees into a clearing. The targets of our long run had their heads bowed, whispering to a statue in the center of the clearing. It was another one of the diredeer, only made of stone, and antlers sprouted from all over its body, not just its head. Its stone skull turned to face us. Damn, it was the dungeon boss, and we were more exhausted than ever.
“Are these the ones that killed your brothers, my children?” It asked.
“Yes, we are, to be fair, they did attack us first!” I yelled back, cutting off any reply of their own.
“You speak in my presence? The continued insolence you show must be punished!” It said. I saw two of its legs lift up, and then it was just standing in front of us before I understood what had happened. It checked me with a shoulder that felt like it had the force of a car behind it, knocking me backward into a tree… again. At least this time, I didn’t feel my back break with the impact, but god did it hurt.
Cecile was fighting a losing battle against it while Elicec slung spell after spell, each bouncing off its body. Could we even hurt this thing? I looked at the diredeer still kneeling in front of where the statue had been, and something clicked in my brain. What happened to a god when it had no one left to believe in it?
I activated recall and launched the remaining diredeer skyward as I recited the same words as before. My mana was virtually tapped out now. If my gamble didn’t pay off, we were all dead. I ran up to join Cecile as he tried to chip away at the monster and hammered down with my mallet.
It cracked. Killing the worshippers had changed something, at least.
One of its antlers knocked the sickle from Cecile’s hands, and he retaliated by slamming his own head into the creature’s solid stone skull. To my utter shock, several cracks appeared across its head. Cecile had an impressively strong head. Elicec stuck his hand into the thing's open jaw. There was a small boom from deep inside it, and more cracks appeared all over its body. I swung again, putting all my remaining strength behind the blow. It broke apart, crumbling away to dust.
I fell backward onto the soft ground. The dungeon feeling had vanished, and the area now seemed to have a refreshing feeling about it. What was causing that?
“Dave, eat this; we’re going to have to build camp here once we can move a bit better,” Cecile said as he dropped a large wrapped-up sandwich onto my chest. I was surprised he was the one most able to speak after the impressive headbutt.
“Thanks, just give me a bit, and I’ll see what I can about the camp,” I said, unwrapping the food and taking a bite before swapping over to my life orb. Mana or not, I’d need it eventually.
“I get it, but try not to take too long. There’s something strange about the area. I don’t want to spend the night outside of our tent,” Cecile said.
It's important to remember, when traveling new places, that social norms differ vastly from species to species. A polite gesture in one culture could mean war in another. Even similar species from different universes rarely share cultural norms. One must only look to the goblin wars…
Dame Kchee Locinda Ara’a’s Simple Etiquette for New Spacefarers (Old Version)
Comments
Rod
Hahaha! Great chapter and excrept
