Qing's Quest book 2, Chapter 19: Crap Shoot

Qing dove left, missiles of mud slapping the wall behind him.

“There are five!” he said, yelling for the others.

Taj turned and sprinted back the way they came.

“Fuck,” Qing said, scrambling across the slippery stones, gaining distance to the tunnel’s opening, waving for Morgana and Knut to back up.

He counted the seconds in his head.

Three, two, one.

He turned, but there was no monster.

Are they not pursuing?

Then, with a gurgle, a mud monster appeared. He’d been counting too fast. It barely fit on the sidewalk beside the slow-moving river of sewage, head nearly scraping the roof.

At least they can’t come at us all at once…

Qing flung the firebolt with all his power. It cratered into the golem’s chest, mud splattering, and it rocked back onto its heels. But the wound closed in front of his eyes.

“They regenerate!” Qing said.

A soft splat accompanied Knut’s arrow as it bored into its face. If it minded, it didn’t show.

“What do we do?” Morgana asked.

“We fight! Carve it to pieces if we have to,” Qing said, readying his axe.

“Without Taj, we don’t know the way.”

Shit.

“Go get him back!” Knut said as his bow sang.

Morgana turned and ran before he the arrow hit.

“We’ve fought worse before,” Qing said, jumping to the left side of the sewer, landing between his friend and the golem. The monster roared and charged.

This stinks worse than the faeces-covered public toilets downtown. I hope its a quick fight.

Qing slid underneath the strike, air whistling above his head. But this wasn’t his first time fighting hard-hitting monsters.

He reached up to the place of light, pulling on that pure energy, and in the blink of an eye, channeled it through his body and into the axe. He cast Smite and struck the monster’s leg. The axe cut the leg like a katana through a water bottle, and mud splattered the wall as the golem stumbled forward.

Another arrow sank into its head with a splat and Qing held his breath as he ducked a swipe, dragging the axe across its torso.

How do I kill it?

A second golem turned the corner, ripping a piece out of its belly and threw it at Qing. The wound immediately healed, and Qing dodged.

So that’s where they get the missiles. Maybe these die like zombies?

He lept as the first golem punched, and struck horizontally, decapitating it. As the head tumbled into the sewer, the golem grabbed for him.

“Forget their heads,” Qing said, throwing himself backwards and out of reach.

“We need a way to kill them,” Knut said.

“Ideas?” Qing hopped across the sewer to kite the monsters, doing his best to avoid the slime.

He should be terrified, but something about the fight reminded him of snow days at school. Blaine and his thugs would make ice balls and use him for target practice. It felt good to be the most dangerous creature here, and despite the danger, he had no doubt he was. Besides, now he had friends.

Water splashed, and the third and fourth golem appear, wading through the sewage.

“Checking for magical plates inside,” Knut said and started putting arrows into the golem. Neck, heart, stomach, groin, he hit them one by one. Meanwhile, Qing danced on the other side of the river, like some sort of circus performer dodging mud missiles, buying Knut time.

But he could only dodge for so long.

A ball of sludge hit his shoulder, spinning him around and slamming him into the sewer wall. It felt like being hit by a sledgehammer. He barely got his axe up in time to deflect a second missile before a third smacked into his breastplate and he bounced off the wall, falling to his knees.

Shit. If I get stunlocked here…

He rolled left across the slimy cobblestones and pulled on the natural charge in the air, channeling it into his hand. He cast Chain Lightning at the frontmost golem. Thunder boomed through the tunnels as if a cannon had gone off, and he winced, ears ringing. But the lightning had gone straight through its chest before arcing to the others and doing the same, hitting all four.

Around every entry and exit wound, the mud had hardened into dark red clay, and the monsters struggled to move around it. Qing grinned.

That’s what I’m talking about.

“If we can dry them, we can crack them,” Qing said.

“How?” Knut asked.

“Start by shooting the dried parts,” Qing said, jumping. As he was halfway across the channel of sewage, Knut’s arrow pierced the first golem’s back, dead center on the hardened clay, and Qing heard it crack. He landed between the two first golems, sliding on to catch himself with one hand on the wall. He bent underneath a strike, set his feet, and, with everything he had, struck the second golem. Hitting the hardened clay felt like striking a brick wall, but he was no longer a normal person. So hard was his punch that the hardened part was pushed out the back of the golem, smacking into the one behind, making it stumble.

The football-size hole in the golem knitted together with wet mud.

Shit.

But his eyes had caught something sticking out. It had looked like the corner of a waterlogged and rotted book, corner singed, likely from the lightning.

A totem?

He cut diagonally before the golem could recover, carving from neck to hip, aiming for the book. But he was off by an inch, and as the golem slid into two, the part with the book in it stayed standing. The other part splatted to the ground as if it was just pure mud.

Qing hesitated for a moment.

Is it dead?

In front of him stood only two legs, half a chest and an arm.

The moment of indecision cost him.

The golem kicked him in the hip, completely unaffected by the missing third of its body. Qing flew backwards, slamming into the golem behind, who had faced Knut, and got stuck in the mud. He’d felt his hip snap from the kick and couldn’t move his legs.

The golem whose back he was stuck to turned, but like a dog chasing its tail, Qing was out of its reach.

Seems they have a front and a back.

Qing’s knee scraped along the wall, and then he stared straight at Knut with an drawn arrow, before his legs hovered over the sewer. The golems flung mud. It splattered off his chestplate, but one hit his face, breaking his nose and covering his mouth.

As he spat out the disgusting crap and wiped blood, he blinked, pulling into himself. The pain faded, and he peeled back the fabric of the universe, just enough to siphon out arcane energy. He opened his eyes and stared straight at the half-carved golem. Gritting his teeth against the pain that crashed back in, he cast Magic Missile.

Three bolts fizzed through the air, slapping into the golem and carving three holes straight through. But he couldn’t control the impacts, and none hit the book. The golem stepped towards him, arms raised to fling mud, holes already closing.

This isn’t working!

The golem he was stuck on kept turning, and Qing kicked his one good leg into the wall. The golem tumbled forward, pulling him with it. They fell towards the sewer.

He expected to splash into the sewer, but he smacked to a halt, and sank deeper into the golem. The golem lay across the sewer like a log bridge. The others gurgled and growled as they waded closer.

He needed to move, or they’d pull him apart. He fought to roll out, but it was like being stuck in mud. Underneath him, the golem stepped its half-cut leg into the sewed.

No time.

Qing spread his legs as wide as he could, pain shooting from his hip, and chopped down with his axe. He cut of the golem’s, and they dropped into the sewer.

This was a bad idea.

Cold sewage rushed across his face, but as he flailed about, he realized he was no longer stuck to the golem. He got a foot underneath himself and kicked up. His head burst into the air and he spat sewage, before heaving himself onto dry land before the wading golems could grab him.

Why did the golem dissolve? It can’t be the water. Those golems are walking in it. Could it be total damage?

That didn’t feel correct. Four golems remained. Two on land and two in the sewer. The closest one, the golem he’d cut in half, looked like a pin-cushion. Knut had filled it with over a dozen arrows from his never-ending quiver. Despite all the damage, it still approached Qing. He heaved himself up on one leg, preparing to strike, when a mud missile smacked into the side of his head, whipping it into the wall with a crack. He collapsed backward.

“Qing!” Knut screamed.

He needed to heal. But he only had a few potions. Instead, he pushed away the pain, opened himself to the light above, and it answered. Energy flooded to his hands, and he cast Divine Light. The splintering headache disappeared and his hip knitted, just in time to roll away from a massive stomp splattering down where his head had been.

As he rose, he pulled blinked, pulling in heat, gathering in his fist, and cast Firebolt. The golem stood so close he nearly pushed the flame inside its chest. So this time he didn’t miss. The fire blew a hole in the golem, incinerating the old book he’d seen. The golem’s fist that had been flying towards Qing disintegrated with the rest of the golem, collapsing to the ground like a dropped piece of wet clay.

“It is totems,” Qing said, shouting to Knut and dodged two mud missiles.

“What?”

“Totems are powerful them. Separate it from the mud and they die!”

Now that he knew how to defeat them, a sense of calm descended on Qing. Despite facing three monsters that towered over him, he set to carving them apart piece by piece, searching for totems. He carved off the arm of the monster on land. It slapped to the ground and started hauling itself towards him by its fingers, while the rest of the body collapsed into inert mud. Qing bent nearly backwards to avoid missiles from the two in the river, before jumping up and stomping with both feet on the approaching arm. Mud squished underneath his sandals, digging between his toes. A certain AI would have been thrilled, but here, all he found was a six-sided bone die. He kicked it from the mud.

“We’re here!” It was Morgana.

Qing glanced behind to see her hurrying down the tunnel with Taj. The man carried a big clay jar, Morgana a torch.

“We brought fire!” Taj said.

“I’m not sure it’s such a good idea,” Qing said. “We already know how to kill them!”

“No, no! This should work,” Taj said, and lobbed the oil-filled jar.

Qing turned and sprinted towards them as the jar crashed to the stones behind him. The ceramic cracked, and oil spread.

Morgana threw the torch.

It flipped through the air, tumbling past Qing.

The golems roared as the torch landed.

Heat licked Qing in the back of the head with a tongue made from razors, as he was thrown forward to smack into Knut. Fire roared through the tunnel behind them as he hauled Knut up.

Morgana and Taj walked backwards, eyes wide, mouths open.

“What the fuck did you think would happen?” Qing said.

“Not that,” Morgana replied, and pointed behind him.

He turned, and stared. “You made them into fire golems?”