Malady's Rain

Citizens of Kellansburg watched the pillar of ichor shoot into the sky like a geyser. Everyone in the town watched as the ichor began to rain down.

“Take cover!” A guard shouts.

Men, women, and children go running for cover in nearby buildings as ichor began to coat everything in range. The smell was so intense that some started vomiting on the streets. Milq and Emerald held up at his office, watching the ensuing chaos from the window. It rained for a full half hour before the ichor finally finished.

The town hall was completely destroyed and buried under rubble. Pieces of it shook before being launched away from the pile. It crashed into another pile of rubble nearby. Leo and Arte crawl out with several of the guards. While standing atop the rubble, they get a good look at the town covered in ichor. Filled with the stench of defeat. Arte sheathed her sword while biting her lip.

“If he were here, this never would’ve happened.” She muttered.

Leo grabs her shoulders.

“Arte, everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. The hero was able to resolve this situation without this happening because he was designed to have exactly what he needed. Give yourself some credit. A little more than a week ago, we were sitting in an office typing for hours at a time. Now we're slaying monsters and adventuring! We do the best we can with what we have and strive to do better than before.” He explains.

“I know what you’re saying, but…” She begins.

The bells from the town’s watchtower ring out loudly, alerting everyone in town. A nearby guard drops to his knees.

“T-three rings. It’s the highest alert… A bloody stampede.” The color drained from his face as he started laughing. A bloody stampede is a giant herd of monsters that attacks a particular location. Named for its particular viciousness, no town has survived one alone, less one in Siladhi, where the monsters are more dangerous than normal. Arte is still stuck in her thoughts as the other guards start panicking.

“Everyone focus!” Leo shouts at the top of his lungs.

Everyone in the rubble and even nearby citizens freeze.

“Don’t give up! The only thing you can’t come back from is death! As long as we’re alive, we can make it out of this!” Leo shouts.

Leo grabs the guard captain’s armor and pulls him to his feet.

“Can the walls surrounding the village handle a stampede?” Leo asks.

“There’s no way. It’s only wooden; at most, it’ll hold for a few minutes at most.” The captain replied.

“That's more than enough! Gather your troops, start collecting supplies, and urge citizens to go to the docks. This village uses trade ships to trade with Valmanhym, right? Then we’re going to use them to escape.” Leo states.

The guard captain snaps back to reality after hearing him and gathers the guards to direct the citizens and supplies. Leo walks over to Arte and whispers in her ear.

“Act two, chapter nine. That was the hero’s first taste of defeat. This resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. We just got an early taste of it. Even heroes fail, but a true hero keeps rising no matter the pain or danger and pushes forward against the odds.” Leo explained. “Are you gonna keep sulking? Or are we gonna save some lives?”

“Sorry…” She says with a sigh. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re leaving this place. We’ll have to put the dungeons on hold; saving lives takes precedence.” He shrugs.

“Then let's get moving.” She says.

While Leo is directing citizens and working alongside the guards, Arte grabs their bags from the inn and heads to the clinic. There, she finds Milq and Emerald, filling briefcases with medicine.

“You two have to evacuate now, there isn’t much time left,” Arte says.

“We’re working on it. There are many sick and elderly who would be in terrible shape without their medicine.” Milq explains.

“I understand, but we need to go now,” Arte says.

“Just a few more.” Milq goes through his medicine cabinet, and the bell rings four more times.

Emerald clutches her chest.

“They’ve entered the village!” She exclaims.

“Let's go!” Arte draws her sword and steps outside.

She, Milq, and Emerald quickly run through the village, but an insanicorn stands before them. Emerald trembles, and Milq appears visibly shaken. Arte remains calm, waiting for the creature to attack with its horn in a series of rapid thrusts. She adeptly steps to the side, kicking the creature’s head and following with a downward cut that severed its head from its body. They both look at her in awe as she wipes the blood from her face.

“Let's keep going.” She says.

They continue heading through the heart of town so they can arrive at the docks. On Leo’s end, he was near the mayor’s estate, getting his wife and daughter out of the mansion. Monsters began to pour into the city like a flood. Leo was slicing through as many as he could, through a barrage of horizontal and vertical slices. The guards finally remove them both from the mansion and quickly take them.

“Hurry, they’re closing in!” Leo shouts.

He punts a goblin into the others, causing them to fall over before sprinting to catch up to the guards. The other monsters trampled them to death trying to enter the village. They were in a frenzy attempting to devour as much of the ichor as possible. Their veins began to show through their skin and turned black. The guards were slow due to their armor, forcing Leo to slow down and slow some of the monsters by quickly eliminating them. But the constant changing of speed, combined with the exhaustion from earlier, began to weigh on him, causing him to breathe heavily. He tightened the strap on his boots and gripped his daggers tighter.

“I can do this all day.” He says.

An insanicorn and a pair of skelescorp approach him. He weaves between the skelescorp as they try to impale him with their stingers. At his speed, he narrowly avoids them, causing them to skewer each other. He hops on the insanicorn’s back, tightly gripping its mane as it bucks wildly to get him off, stomping and kicking other monsters simultaneously.

“Easy there, boy. You’re making a mess.” He joked.

He hung off the side of the insanicorn, using its momentum while spinning and bucking to cut through multiple enemies surrounding him. After it grew tired, he stabbed it through the head and jumped into the air, landing on the balcony of the inn.

“Time to go. They should’ve made it by now.” He thinks.

Leo runs across the gooey rooftops, making sure there weren’t any stragglers with the higher viewpoint. He leapt off the roof and across the gap of the town square onto the Brave Organization and then ran across that, landing at the dock. The boat had already taken off, so Leo ran down the dock. With each step, he felt his body growing exhausted, and with a group of monsters on his trail, stopping meant death. Running out of the dock to run on, Leo jumped with all the strength he had and reached for the boat.