Triumvirate's Tactician: Enchantrix C7

Hey what's up? Came up with a working title for the series and the book, so we'll be using that from now on. Triumvirate's Tactician is the series, Enchantrix is book one. I'll be unsing TT:E for the shorthand. One of the following series for her two brothers has the current working title of Triumvirate's Wizard, and I'm thinking of a good word for the other brother following the same naming theme. Also, first pitch with the publisher for the idea went well, so things look great in that direction.

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The armor descended the steps toward Alex one at a time, slowly enough that Maeve felt that it was trying to heighten their dread. It stopped after the last stair, keeping a few feet of distance from Alex as the empty hole where a face should have been pointed in his direction. After a few seconds it raised the sword in it’s right hand up in front of the helmet and settled into a ready pose, it’s left hand coming up to grasp the bottom of the handle, the blade centered in front of its head and the flat of it pointing forward. It just sat there, unmoving as the group stared back at it.

“What is it doing?” Amelia asked.

“It’s waiting for us to make a move.” Alex brought the sledgehammer up, resting the handle partly on his shoulder, the muscles in his arms tense and ready to swing. “Spread out as best you can. It probably won’t let us and its keeping the stairs at its back to make it even harder, but try and get behind it.”

“Why is it waiting for us?”

“Because we outnumber it.” Maeve answered, shifting to Alex’s left. With no eyes she couldn’t tell if the armor was watching her, the helmet unmoving. “If it gets caught in a bad position we could gang up on it all at once like we did the painting, and it looks like its smart enough to know that.”

“Right, right.” Amelia tightened her grip on her fire extinguisher and kept the nozzle pointed at the enemy. “You’d think that as many times as I’ve seen Alex fight and listened to him talk about it I’d know that.”

“This is a brand new and stressful situation, nothing wrong with forgetting a thing or two that you haven’t practiced yourself.”

“Maeve,” Alex called quietly, interrupting their nervous banter, “What can you tell me about this thing?”

“Nothing definitive, obviously since we don’t know where the game-like elements diverge from our new reality, but I can make some guesses.” She stared really inspecting the armor facing them, trying to find anything that would give them an advantage or tease out some hint that her data from dozens of games would be useful. “We haven’t had any evidence of ghosts or similar, assuming those exist now, so sticking with the idea of inanimate objects animated by magic, like the name ‘animated cannonball’ suggests, that leaves us with a few options. This wasn’t made by a wizard or whatever, so it probably doesn’t have some kind of glowing weak spot like a rune or a word we could carve a letter out of. Some kinds of animated armors have a specific part of them that is the core and powers the rest, but we have no way of finding it or relying on that being the case, so I’m assuming that the whole thing is one complete monster.”

“So we have to beat it to death like the cannonballs.”

“Unless one of us suddenly developed a power to drain this ‘Quezeuq Energy’ thats making it move out of it, yeah.”

“Right.” Alex’s knuckles went white as he tightened his grip on the handle. “Any plans?”

“Maybe, but I’m worried about it understanding us.”

Scarlet nervously shifted her grip on her flagpole. “A monster that speaks English?”

“Why not?”

“… Shit.”

“Yeah.” Maeve glanced behind the armor and shouted, “Dave! Hit it now!” Everyone tensed, but the armor did nothing. Maeve hefted her fire extinguisher and pointed the nozzle at the armor. “I’m going to make it snow, everyone get ready for something to happen.” She hit the lever and sent a pray of foam at the knights face. It covered the open helmet and some of the foam fell down into the body of the armor. The liberal coating Maeve applied covered the entire front of the helmet and Alex took a step forward, hefting the sledgehammer to attack. The armor took a step forward of its own, mirroring Alex with its sword held at the ready. They both stood stock still, watching each other.

“It’s like the cannonballs.” Maeve muttered, “It has some kind of blindsight or whatever with a lot longer range. We aren’t going to bait this one into a wall.”

“What do we do?”

“We listen to Alex and Ed. They know this kind of fighting better than us.”

“I wish I had my armor.” Ed whispered. “Alex, you’ve got the only weapon thats actually going to hurt this thing and you’ve got to take the risk of getting in close, you call the shots.”

“Alright.” Alex took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Scarlet, you and Ed get on either side of it and try and tangle up its arms with the poles. Keep your distance and don’t try to keep hold of the pole if it grabs at it. Don’t focus on a specific target, just make it awkward for it to move its arms. Ed, you’ve done this before, try and get the sword.”

“Right.”

“Okay…” Scarlet trailed off nervously as she stepped to the side.

She waited until she and Ed were both in position before swinging the flagpole down like a giant piñata stick. The decorative head of the pole snapped against the armor’s arm as brought up one forearm to block the strike. Ed timed his attack so he hit the sword’s guard right after Scarlet’s blow landed and he managed to off balance the weapon in the armor’s hand and it had to shift its grasp to keep hold of the sword. The helmet, still covered in foam turned toward Ed as the armor shifted its balance. In the same moment the helmet rotated at high speeds toward Alex who lunged forward and swung the hammer up at the armor’s unguarded side. It managed to get its free arm up in a partial block that deflected the blow into its leg, leaving a dent in the plating. It firmed up its grip on its sword and started bringing it down toward Alex, who darted out of the way. Everything reset as Scarlet and Ed both took a few steps back and Alex got back into position, ready to attack or defend as necessary.

“It didn’t know you were going to come in like that,” Maeve commented, “It either can’t hear or can’t understand us.”

“Good. Then we can keep going like this.”

Scarlet scowled at the armor. “Sorry, I couldn’t keep it engaged on my side.”

“Don’t worry about that. You gave Ed the opening to mess up its grip on that sword, which is more important than an empty hand. Keep that up.”

“It’s smart, so don’t do the same thing repeatedly. Also, can you try and aim at other places and see if we can find any part of its body that it has to defend?” Maeve asked.

Alex grinned as he nodded. “That’s smart as hell. Ed, feint at the sword and then go for the head this time. Let’s see if it can survive being decapitated. Scarlet, same thing but add a little variation, your choice.”

Jabbing forward in a stab instead of a swing Scarlet aimed for the small gap of empty darkness between the hand and the arm of the moving armor, where flesh would have been barley visible had a person been inside. The armor ignored the blow and turned instead to reach out toward Ed’s flagpole that was swinging at it’s sword. At the last second Ed heaved and changed the trajectory, clipping its helmet and sending a burst of the fire extinguished foam tumbling off onto the ground. The sword hand jerked the weapon up to block and Alex went low this time, managing to get a good hit into the same spot he’d clipped earlier, deepening and widening the dent from the first attack.

“Maeve, how did that look to you?” Alex asked after he’d pulled back again, “That seemed more reactionary to a normal attack than panicked about losing its head.”

“I agree, and the helmet didn’t seem to move. If there is a key piece it has to defend, I don’t think its the helmet.”

“Let’s keep going then.”

Alex gave out instructions for each engagement, letting Ed mostly work on his own initiative to achieve the goal while Scarlet got simpler instructions with added details when necessary. For whatever reasons it had, the moving armor only reacted, it never attacked on its own which let Alex set the pace of the fight. It never seemed to care about where it was struck, treating each piece of its body the same and disproving the idea that it had a core of some kind. Working together the three of them managed to work their way up and down the armor, leaving dents and small scrapes all over it.

“That was good.” Alex complimented the other two after getting a great hit in against one of the arms, heavily denting it and making its movements awkward. “Let’s try that again, but Ed this time see if you can trap that sword for longer ad let me see if I can finally get it in the chest.”

“Right.”

Scarlet nodded firmly, having shored up her confidence after several successful sorties. “Okay.” She whipped her pole down into the damaged arm and jammed it backward, trying to cause the metal to pinch against itself.

At the same time Ed added in a solid one-two combo, swinging the head of his flagpole up into the hilt of the sword clutched in the armor’s grasp then ramming it into the flat of the blade. The armor had learned early on that they wanted to disarm it, but it couldn’t always keep the sword in its grip. This time it overextended trying to keep hold of the weapon and Alex pushed in close, swinging the hammer like a baseball bat into the chest of the monster.

Screeching like sheet metal being torn apart in an industrial shredder, the breastplate of the moving armor opened into a sharpened flower. The sledgehammer slipped right into the hole and the spread petals of metal spun shut, shearing the handle off with razor sharp edges. Alex stumbled, thrown off by the sudden lack of weight at the end of his hands. With alarming speed and a sure grip that belied its earlier clumsiness the armor swung down with its sword in a short arc. Amelia screamed as the blade cut into Alex’s chest and he fell to the ground. The blade swung around so that it pointed downward and the knight slammed its hands onto the handle adroitly. In one smooth motion it raised the sword up and stabbed it downward.

Completely distracted by the potential kill in front of it, the armor ignored Ed’s charge, which saved Alex’s life. Ed slammed his shoulder into the side of the armor, unbalancing it and causing the sword to hit the stone tile floor with a chink. Maeve and Amelia rushed forward to grab Alex. They took him by the shoulders and dragged him away from the fight. Pulling him to the doors and flipping him over, they found a thin cut across most of his chest that was bleeding profusely, and a shocked Alex staring up at them with wide eyes.

Maeve snatched up the first aid kit and shoved it into Amelia’s hands before turning and sprinting back toward the battle. Grabbing her fire extinguisher she held it forward as a battering ram, aiming it at the chest of the armor. The knight, holding its sword aloft and bringing it down at Ed’s dodging form turned it’s helmet to face her as she charged. The same ear splitting noise rang out as metal wrent from metal and a bladed opening was made.

“Get down!” Maeve shouted as she turned the ramming attacks into a throw and tossed the extinguisher into the opening, throwing herself to the side as the extinguisher left her hands. The bladed edges of the armor snapped shut on the extinguisher, slicing open the pressurized container. A dull thud announced the extinguisher exploding as bladed metal sliced it open and Maeve glanced up to see the armor reeling and falling backward onto the ground.

Ed sprang up from the floor where he’d dived and grabbed the sword the armor had dropped. Holding it in both hands he fell to his knees next to the armor and began slamming the pommel into the helmet over and over. When the helmet was all but scrap he moved onto the next piece, keeping his body away from the chest area. After bludgeoning a few more spots the desperately hoped for message came.

__

You meaningfully contributed in defeating:

1x Empty Knight

You receive: 50 XP

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Maeve’s entire body turned to jelly and she slumped bonelessly to the ground, completely exhausted. As tired as she was, it took a few seconds for anything like a coherent thought to make its way through her mind. When it did, she jerked upright. “Alex!” She pushed away a screen telling her she could get her first level up when it was safe for her to do so, focusing on her hurt friend.

“I’m alive!” He called back.

She pushed herself to her knees and spun to look. Alex was propped up against the doors with his shirt ripped off with blood dripping down onto his stomach. Amelia was staunching the bleeding and pulling out bandages to wrap him as he sat there, staring down at his chest with bemusement.

“We need to get to somewhere safe and level.” He said slowly.

“That’s what you say after getting cut open like that?”

“This is supposed to be a medium danger area,” He rebutted, “And that thing could have taken us apart if it wasn’t playing around and if you didn’t use its habits against it. And I’m not as big into that genre of books as you are Maeve, but I’ve read some, and doesn’t the danger usually get worse as time passes? Our world just got integrated into this multiverse and we just got this Q-whatever energy. I’m assuming that that thing was a baby of its monster species and it did this to me in one hit.” He gestured at the wound, causing Amelia to hiss angrily at him for moving. “We need to get stronger.”

Scarlet walked over, using her flagpole as a walking stick. “Wasn’t that the plan in the first place?”

“Maybe, but I’m putting emphasis on it.” He very carefully nodded at his injury again, keeping one eye on Amelia as he did. “This should have been much worse, which is a big motivator to level up and start using the System in full.”

Amelia pushed her face right up against his, her eyes wide with fear and anger. “How is you getting hurt a motivator!?”

“Because it should have been worse,” He replied gently. “That blow should have cut me a lot deeper but it was like my body was tougher than it should have been.”

“The Q Energy,” Maeve said slowly, “The System said it was attracted to sapients and we’d pull it out of monsters we kill. That’s what XP is. The System uses leveling to direct it to how we want to improve ourselves, but it probably passively increases our bodies by small amounts as we take in that energy.”

“That’s more than I was thinking, but yeah. I just thought that we must be getting stronger when we beat monsters.”

Maeve zoned out as she thought about the possibilities, then violently shook her head as everything caught up to her. “Scarlet, keep an eye out while Alex gets bandaged up.”

“You got it, boss.”

“Ed, how’re you doing?”

“Better than Alex is. Tired, mostly.”

“Rest, then switch with Scarlet when you’re ready.”

“Alright.”

She pushed herself to her feet and turned to look at the empty knight. The armor was visibly corroding away as it turned into black flakes that peeled from the body and vanished. “What the fuck is that?”

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In an effort to recoup energy costs, the System will consume the bodies of monsters that do not have uses after death, including but not limited to: harvesting for meat or other body parts, being turned into fuel, or direct value. This helps keep the System running in areas with low ambient Quezeuq energy and helps fuel the loot system.

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“Thank you for that, System. Why haven’t we been getting loot?” Everyone snapped to look at Maeve when she spoke.

__

Universal Integration has not progressed enough for several System programs to be implemented yet, including the loot system. You will be notified when each System program becomes available.

__

“Great.” She muttered sarcastically. “It’s not like we could use some weapons or armor dropping from monsters right about now.”

The System didn’t reply. Maeve quietly explained what it had told her while she helped Scarlet keep watch. They all waited there with the sealed doors at their backs until Alex was bandaged enough to move.

“I won’t be using my arms for much in the next bit.” He said as Amelia gingerly helped him to his feet, “But I can walk.”

“Good.” Maeve strode purposefully to the nearest fire alarm and yanked the handle down. Nothing happened. Stone faced, she turned and pushed against the doors, finding them still stuck fast. “I’m sorry,” She said to Ed, “Your idea was the best one and if I’d listened we wouldn’t have ended up with someone hurt like this.”

“There’s know way you could have known,” He said as he did his best to comfort her, “You were totally right about the alarm going off being a potential danger, and none of us had any idea that these doors would be stuck.”

“Thanks,” She sighed, “Let’s go to a fire door and get outside. The security system Miss Stations bought didn’t put any locks on those.”

“Where is Miss Stations?” She asked, turning to Scarlet, “Last I knew you two were together.”

Scarlet shook her head in response. “That shitty donor finally left and she told me to go ahead and go home. Said she was going to find you two and let you leave as well. I went to use the nice bathroom by the restoration rooms and then all this shit happened.”

“We need to look for her.”

“We will.” Maeve assured her friend, “After we get better gear. We can’t get in another fight like that without something to protect ourselves with and actual weapons.”

The closest fire door was a few hundred feet away, and it swung open as Scarlet bumped into the push bar. No alarms went off as she carefully swung the door open and glanced around for movement. There wasn’t any, so the group moved outside into the parking lot, scanning for enemies as they headed to Ed’s car.