With the adrenaline of combat wearing off, I was slowly beginning to feel the pain of the bite-marks in my forearm, the searing agony festering beneath the surface of my skin. Slowly, as I calmed, the pain grew worse - and as I clenched my teeth, I kept myself focused on the darkened road ahead of me. I could see Victoria staring at me, watching me try to keep the pain under wraps.
"You good?" Victoria asked.
"Yeah," I replied. "Good enough to keep going, at least."
Slowing the Buggler, I turned the car around, driving back down the gravelled road as the car's headlights feebly fought against the omnipresent darkness. Rounding the corners and returning to the site where the snakes had fallen, I turned off the engine and ripped the handbrake as the car's high-beams lit up the face of daemon blocking the road, its horrid dead eyes staring straight toward the car. Staring straight into our very souls.
"You going to just keep looking at that thing, or are you going to get out and help me move it off the road?" Victoria asked.
"Just a minute," I replied.
I sighed as I looked at it, before stepping out from the front seat of the car and back out into the cold. With a light thud, I shut the driver's side door behind me, as I stared at the blanched snakeskin of the dead Serpentine. I left the headlights of the car on. Out here, the high-beams and our flashlight were all there was, the only tool we had that could cut through the oppressive permanight. As the two of us wandered the road, walking in the high-beams towards the snake, our silhouettes were cast across the road as our bodies obstructed the light. Staring into the frozen darkness, I sighed.
"You know, when you said luck was all you had," I asked. "You meant that literally, didn't you?"
"Yup," Victoria replied. "It's served me pretty well up to this point too. Pikers have big damage ranges on their spells, that swing wildly. My luck's usually pretty high, so it's not a big worry, but luck isn't reliable - like agility, strength, mettle, or any of that other stuff. Luck's random, sporadic... it isn't something you want to stake your life on, that's for sure."
"Well, I've never been particularly lucky," I said. "I wouldn't bet on my luck, let alone stake my life on it."
"Same here," Victoria replied. "Considering the fact I've got a kid to feed and a missing husband, I've been starting to question that sixteen luck on my stat-sheet. I certainly don't feel lucky anymore."
As we approached the snake, I stared at its teeth. Up close, its head was about as big as mine, but its body was immense. About the length of four or five humans, its thick cadaver was already starting to disintegrate, bleach white flecks turning jet black as they begun to leave the dead snake - returning to the night from which it emerged, the night all around us. Coagulated rouge littered the edges of the creature's punctured figure. Black bruising and lightning burns stretched up the side of the creature, entire sections of its flesh burnt to a charred crisp. With its white snakeskin accented red with its own suffering, the creature was in a horrid state.
As it lay dead against the road, I couldn't help but feel sick to the pits of my stomach - even a monster didn't deserve to die like this.
"You don't know how to loot that thing, do you, Oscar?" Victoria asked.
"No, I don't," I answered.
"Well, think about it like pilfering," Victoria said. "Except instead of touching a pack of toilet paper or some shit, you're touching a dead body."
"That's a... lovely way of putting it," I said apprehensively, revulsion written upon my face.
Placing my hand against the creature, I closed my eyes, reaching into the snake with my mind. Grabbing on, I could almost feel myself tear off the creature's parts from its body - the pieces forcing themselves into my inventory.
Serpentine Looted
Yields: 1 Poisonous Fang, 3 Snakeskin
I lifted my hand from the bloodied creature, averting my gaze as I turned back to Victoria.
"So, what do we do with all of this shit?" I asked. "Do we have some use for snakeskin and poisonous fangs?"
"I don't know, you might be able to make some decent armour if you know how to sew, but I wouldn't do that if I were you," Victoria replied. "If you want to get any real money from this job, you need to be out there selling every little scrap of shit you can find. Unless you've got some hidden talent in tailoring or something like that, then it's damn near useless anyway."
"Yeah," I replied. "That sort of thing isn't up my alley."
As we stood there, Victoria began to push against the snake's corpse, trying to shift it over toward the gutter. I joined her. Together, we slowly shunted it across, scraping across the ground. It was exhausting, pushing it all the way over. Nearly out of breath as we finally reached the side of the road, we stared down at the edge of the road, a small gully between the fields and the dirt path. With a heaving push, we sent the snake's corpse tumbling into that gully - the waterlogged ditch serving as the final resting place for that horrific, gargantuan fiend.
"Well, that's that," Victoria said, rubbing her hands together.
"Next time, let's avoid killing shit on top of the road," I replied. "I don't want to have to do that again."
"If we need to kill something, you don't get to choose where it dies, Oscar," Victoria replied. "Just be glad that the snake died, and not you."
Staring down at the snake in the ditch, I could see its blood draining into the dirt gutter, melding with the soil. It was a revolting sight, and the stench of death was beginning to fester - a putrid combination of flesh and decay wafting upon the air, assailing our nostrils with that vile combination. I covered my nose.
"Damn, that smells horrible," I said.
"I know," Victoria replied. "Don't worry though, you'll still have plenty of fresh air to breathe when we have to shunt that other snake off the road."
Shit, I forgot there was two of them on the road. That was not news I wanted to be reminded of.
"Fuck," I added softly.
As Victoria returned to the car, she opened the door, clambering into the driver's seat. I got in, buckling up my seatbelt. As I sat there, Victoria grabbed my baseball bat, and shoved it into my lap.
"Don't just leave that lying around," Victoria said. "You're as good as dead unarmed."
"Whatever," I replied. "I wasn't going to forget it..."
Turning on the motor, the engine chugged to life as Victoria turned the key. I grabbed the baseball bat, quickly shoving it into my inventory, as the car slowly accelerated forward. Frankly, it wasn't a very good car, and honestly - I'd rather pay a bit extra for a diesel-chugging monster than try and outrun a daemon in this piddly thing. Driving down the road, there was an eerie silence as we shifted forward.
"By the way, you said before that your husband went missing," I began. "What happened to him?"
She sighed, staring out across the plains. The car careered forward along the road as she spoke, taking her eyes off the road for a momentary glance, one that probably could've gotten her killed with the slightest mistake. Luckily, she somehow stayed on the road as her attention was drawn elsewhere.
"Some dumb bitch led him up into the Albersar, now he's gone," she said. "Never follow strangers into the woods. It seems like the kind of advice you wouldn't have to give a three year old, let alone a grown man..."
She tapered off, murmuring the last part under her breath. I could barely make it out, the end of that sentence, even despite the relative silence of the Buggler's interior. However, I managed to catch enough of what she said to piece it together.
"...But I guess that's the man I fell in love with," she muttered under her breath.
Looking back toward the gravel road, Victoria directed her attention back to the road, continuing to drive forward. She began to slow the car as we saw the second snake corpse. Well... half of it anyway. Another Serpentine was gorging itself on the dead snake's remains, stretching its figure to consume the snake from its tail. The live snake seemed to have been slightly damaged, with a small burn-mark against its flesh. It must've been the one that was paralysed by the lightning earlier.
"What the hell is that thing doing?" I said.
"It's giving us a golden opportunity, that's what," Victoria replied.
Opening the door and bursting out of the car, Victoria brandished one of her submachine guns as she exited. I opened the door as well, stepping out into the night and turning on my flashlight with a faint click. The living snake continued to slowly move forward, its maw slowly consuming the remains of its dead brethren, slowly drawing the corpse into the depths of itself. I could see the skin on the dead snake's head slowly beginning to dissipate, as the other one had. I could hear the loud click as she loaded fresh magazines into her submachine gun.
"Aren't you going to go and get the other one?" I asked. "I thought you had two subbies?"
"We won't need two for this," Victoria replied. "I'm not wasting the ammo."
I reached into my inventory, drawing my baseball bat and steeling myself, trying to suck in air with chattering teeth - hoping to suppress the pain in my arm for long enough to land a few good hits.
Item Retrieved
1 Metal Bat
"So, what's the plan?" I asked her.
Victoria looked at me with a puzzled expression.
"Really?" She replied. "Look at the fucking thing, Oscar. It's got half of a snake corpse stuck down its throat. You think it'd be able to just cough it back up?"
As she wandered forward, she knelt down, taking aim toward the beast as she gestured for me to attack it.
"Just start smacking the shit out of it, kiddo," she added. "That fucker ain't moving an inch."
I sighed, waltzing up to the horrifying creature with my bat in hand, trying to use it with one hand to keep some of the pressure off my arm a little bit. It'd probably lower the damage a little bit, but if this thing was going to have trouble moving like Victoria said it would, then that wouldn't be a problem. As I walked up to the side of the beast, I raised my right hand as I brought the baseball bat down against it - hard.
As I landed the strike, I could hear the crackles of gunfire echo out as Victoria packed a set of three round bursts squarely into the side of the snake, impacting mere metres from its gaping maw - bullets tearing the corner of the snake's mouth to shreds, the scar almost like a joker smile. Brandishing the baseball bat, I smacked the snake once again, and again, and again - the numbers fizzling from the bruising section each time. Eleven, nine, fourteen. With the snake motionless, choking as it struggled to disgorge its kin from its mouth, the corpse of its brother had its vengeance in death - trapping the horrid creature against the ground with its lengthy, massive carcass. The snake writhed, trying to smack us with its tail, but I was quick to dodge - and Victoria was far enough away that it stood no hope of attacking either of us; of surviving either of us.
After a while, it began to slow in its movements, as we continued to hit it - losing the energy to cling to life, continually bombarded by the agony of it all. It was impossible to tell at what point it died, but as I kept wailing against the beast, I couldn't bring myself to stop as the snake's flesh turned to a bloodied pulp against my baseball bat. Striking, slamming, in desperation - I screamed to the wind as I brought the baseball bat down, again, and again, tears welling in my eyes as my body refused to stop.
Victoria gripped me by the arm.
"You can stop," she said softly. "It's dead now. Let's loot the area and get going."
I nodded, as I stowed the baseball bat into my inventory, and placed my hand against the snake's bloodied flesh - looting what I could from the two dead snakes.
Serpentine Looted
Yields: 4 Snakeskin
Serpentine Looted
Yields: 1 Poisonous Fang, 2 Snakeskin
As I lifted my bloodied hands from the creatures, I stared down at them. Covered in coagulant, it reminded me of my own blood, of how close I'd come to shedding it just as they had. I had nowhere to clean the blood from my palms - no paper, no water with which to dry it from, and all I could do was wipe the snakes own crimson liquid against its whited corpse. Even for a monster, using its corpse to wipe my hands seemed wrong - so utterly and unthinkably repugnant. However, out here in the wilderness, disgust and revulsion were mere weaknesses.
I wiped the blood from my hands using the creature's body, but I couldn't wipe off the stain it'd left on my soul. I would have to carry that burden with me, wherever I went, as I followed the open dirt road.
