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[Omen of the Witchblade] Chapter 50 — The Bloodletters
🕑 Added 2025-01-07 00:27:49 +0000 UTCTodd grinned toothily beneath his helmet. He could feel the girl was near. The leather in his gauntlet creaked as he tightened his grip on his sword. He knew he was a little slower than the others, but he also was certain of the last position his tracking axe had reported.
She was just a few feet away, hiding in the mist, hoping they would go around her. She was trapped. They would have heard her running off into the rest of the swamp, and Todd had a sixth sense about this sort of thing.
His days of being a simple data-entry clerk were long gone. He had more power and respect than he knew what to do with. Raising his sword, Todd knew he would need to strike first before Anthony or Harvey got closer.
This kill was his! He salivated over all those precious runes.
Just as they closed in, Todd lunged forward and stabbed down. He kept his shield close and tight against his body in case she tried to attack him. He had no idea why most people didn’t use shields. You could just hide behind them, taking no damage, then hit back when your opponent tired themselves out. Sometimes he even stabbed past the raised shield. Sure, the strikes didn’t do much damage, but chip damage was chip damage!
He conveniently forgot the sheer number of times somebody called him a cowardly, poking wimp.
This one was wily from everything he had heard.
That she had survived their ambush was proof enough of that.
A black orb of darkness punched through the thick mist, covering all five of them. Todd, already committed to his attack, couldn’t pull back fast enough to look for the new threat.
A piercing pain entered just above his hip, where his breastplate rode up uncomfortably over his leather jerkin. My shield!
If he had his shield out to the side as he usually did, he would have protected that vulnerability. The pain was extreme despite the minor hit to his health. [Stout Heart] made a mockery of the damage, but he had to bite down on the inside of his cheek to stop from screaming like a bitch.
[Stout Heart]
(Class Skill)
(Trait)
Defenders are the first and last line of defense for their allies. They must be ready to put their very life on the line to stand firm against all threats. Such dedication, perhaps paradoxically, has given them more blood to shed for their fellows.
Imprint: Increased maximum health.
Todd tasted blood, but he was more concerned with the affliction he just received. [Marked for Death] was different from many of the other afflictions he’d suffered so far.
Despite the pain, he grinned victoriously. Todd turned the lunging strike into a pivot. How she had gotten behind him was irrelevant. She had shown her hand, and he wasn’t one to lose a trade.
Whipping around, Todd lashed out with his sword. A figure in the mist bobbed back, but didn’t get hit. He blinked sluggishly, confused. She wasn’t that much faster than him, was she?
Behind Todd, the screams of the damned filled the swamp like something out of a horror movie. He took a step forward, then another, and found he couldn’t feel his legs anymore.
The blonde-haired woman watched him with clinical curiosity. Braids covered in muck hung from the side of her head as she tilted it to watch him. “Pretty tough,” she muttered, slipping back into the fog. “But you’re already dead.”
Todd snarled, then stopped immediately as he realized the sound was off. It was like he was blowing bubbles through a straw into a glass of milk.
A glance at his health showed him that it had been rapidly draining ever since she stuck him. He was bleeding like a pig! How had she put so many bleed affliction stacks on him? And what was that other thing? What was [Decay]?
His breaths came in shorter and shorter gasps as he tried to understand how she had done this. He fell over, still wondering, drowning in his own blood. He scrambled numb fingers into his pouch, seeking a potion.
Todd gripped it as tightly as his cold fingers would let him, afraid that the Emerald-eyed Demoness would kick it out of his hand. The shouts of his brothers and the clash of steel told his addled mind that he needn’t have bothered.
The delay cost him greatly. Before he could even get the cork out of the bottle, Todd was dead. The potion rolled free of his grasp and plonked into the bog.
***
You defeat the [Bloodletter Stolst Gang Defender (Copper Rank)].
You gain runes of Divine, Mist, Blood, Serpent, and Omen aspect experience.
You gain Battle points.
Mel brushed the notification away. She knew such an exacting strike would be impossible to repeat now that their defenses were up. She danced through the fog, slicing and attacking with her twinblade wherever she could find an opening.
With one down, it was now four against one.
[Omen Mark] shifted to her latest target as Mel cut low, slicing into his exposed calves. His armor was heavily plated on the front, protecting his delicate shins. The straps on the back of his calves were far easier to assault.
[Omen Mark]
(Omen Aspect)
(Copper, Yellow/Spell)
(Grade 3 [84%])
Cost: Modest Mana & Stamina
Cooldown: Short
Single out a target for death, marking it with an ominous and debilitating sign.
Imprint(Copper Rank): Mark a target, enabling you to sense where they are within a 100-foot radius and triggering the [Marked for Death] affliction. Only one target can be marked at a time. Upon the death of a target, the mark can be moved at no additional cost.
[Marked for Death]: Creates a glowing sigil above the target’s head that only you and those you choose can see. Reduces the target’s physical and magical defenses proportional to your own. Afflictions placed upon this target will stack regardless of their original properties. Physical contact applies stacks of [Decay].
[Decay]: Withers the physical vessel of a target, dealing stacking damage-over-time and depleting stamina. Stacks accrue at a greater rate the longer you remain in physical contact.
Just to add extra insult to injury, Mel reached out and touched him on the hip to add a stack of [Decay].
Before he could retaliate, she slipped back into the mist. Her mist.
Mel still couldn’t help but wonder why she had chosen this spot to stop at, or why she had resisted going into the bog so strongly. She wasn’t usually squeamish if it meant she would survive.
When a distant cord twanged through her middle, Mel understood what her conscious mind had not.
Just a little longer.
Initially, Mel had thought she could reverse the tide of the battle by taking one out and wounding another. Even though four on one wasn’t much better, she had held out hope.
Her strategy had since evolved.
As the battle wore on, the other four recovered wonderfully. They hardly noticed or cared that one of their friends was dead, which struck her as odd considering how well they worked together.
Maybe he was the annoying one in the group, Mel guessed.
Aspect Skill: [Raging Axe]
Mel shifted her stance, twisting her twinblade back and forth as the sudden barrage of axe swings put her back on her heels. As she was busy with the axe-wielder, another man in plate armor put his shield and sword in line for a strike on her right hip.
As skilled as her opponents were, they still thought of her as nothing but a woman from ordinary Earth. She was smaller than them by a considerable amount, barely coming up to their chest.
Which only worked in her favor as she parried aside one axe, twisted, parried a second, and then dismissed her twinblade in a rush of silver ash.
At the same moment as another two assailants cut off her retreat, Mel summoned her [Exile Twinblade], used [Quickstep], and dove forward with enhanced speed. She dove right between the wide stance of the axe-wielder and came up behind him.
She dismissed her exile blade and summoned her frostbite twinblade as she twisted about on one knee to line up the strike. Mel slashed for all she was worth, hitting the man on backs of his calves, shredding them to bloody ribbons and stacking up bleed on him at the same time.
[Windstorm] summoned once more, Mel leapt away before his buddies could come to his defense. Being on her knees while three proficient killers bore down on her wasn’t a position she would survive for long.
Back on her feet, Mel whipped the mist around her to shroud her form. She would be visible through the mist at a close distance, but it would be hard to land a proper blow on her.
It was her only defense now that she had committed to the offensive.
Unfortunately for Mel, she had forgotten something vitally important.
***
Jimmy wasn’t the strongest or the best, but he was sneaky. He knew the value of taking out somebody who couldn’t fight back. Most people thought that was cowardly, but they were dead and he was not. So who cared what they thought?
When it was a winner-take-all world, why would you hold yourself back for something stupid like honor or fairness? All that mattered was power and taking as much of it as you could.
The Bloodletters had abandoned him the moment the trap had gone off. In typical Bloodletter fashion, they had killed their own people, so there would be no witnesses.
Jimmy had hidden under the bodies left behind by Mel’s horrifying attack.
He crawled out and followed the sounds of pursuit, then the sound of combat. At first, he thought only of escaping with as much loot from the caravan as possible.
If he was going to survive in the wilds far from the Bloodletters, he would need supplies. But that plan changed when Harvey saved him. Why, Jimmy couldn’t figure out for his life.
Instead of sending him out like a lamb to the slaughter, he had used some aspect power to make a facsimile of him. Jimmy watched from a safe distance as Mel came out of nowhere like a bat out of hell and killed his double.
For some reason he couldn’t understand, that single act of kindness had changed him. He summoned his dagger and followed the sounds of battle.
When he arrived at the small misty clearing, he could hardly make out anything. Then one of the Bloodletters screamed like a banshee. Jimmy cried out in pain, dropping his dagger and clapping his hands to the sides of his head.
Aspect Skill: [Shriek of Denial]
The pain was intense, but it vanished shortly after, along with the sounds of the world. A warm trickling wetness ran down from his ears. He didn’t let that stop him. Jimmy picked up his weapon from the ground but paused when he looked up.
That she-devil’s mist was gone. Not completely, but there was a clearing around the fighters. Jimmy only counted four of them, and it looked like Anthony was badly wounded. He limped forward, leaving a trail of blood that ran down his legs that never seemed to slow.
Jimmy watched, mesmerized, as he moved in an oblique path around the fighters. The blood ran in ruby rivulets down into the bog waters behind Mel. She had nowhere to go. Jimmy knew that even if the Bloodletters had saved him, they surely wouldn’t tolerate him getting in their way.
That was fine by him. He intended to stay very far out of the way.
Slipping into the frigid and turgid waters, Jimmy gasped, unable to control the sudden shortness of his breath. He used his hands to guide himself along the edge as slowly and quietly as he could until he was right behind Mel.
The woman was far too busy deflecting and dodging, but the Bloodletters were consummate professionals. They could tell the battle had come to a timely end.
If she jumped into the bog, they would be able to kill her before she was out of reach. Only her frenetic deflections and blurring motions kept her alive.
That would soon change if Jimmy had anything to do with it.
Pulling himself silently out of the muck behind Mel, Jimmy gripped the filthy weapon with both hands and drove it into her exposed back.
Mel jerked sharply as he drove the dagger deeper into her kidney. She didn’t scream out, which was disappointing. He was expecting something more than a faint grunt. It was unsatisfying. For added measure, he leaned in close to her ear and twisted the knife. “I told you I would get you, bitch.”
Again, she didn’t scream.
He was so focused on the sounds she wasn’t making and the victory that would be his, he didn’t notice her arm coming up alongside his cheek.
She latched her fingers into his filthy hair, pulling down hard and painfully until his chin crashed against the top of her shoulder. He whimpered, coppery blood filling his mouth.
My tongue!
Before he could think of why she had him in such a strange headlock, her legs coiled with power. Mel flipped over Jimmy like a gymnast. His body was frozen to the spot, but the force on his neck was excruciating.
The pain suddenly vanished with a faint, almost satisfying, crackle-crunch, like when he used to go to the chiropractor. Jimmy only had a few moments to contemplate the darkness closing in before he knew no more.
