The Legend of William Oh

Hushed whispering and muffled weeping filled the side room they’d been corralled into. The hapless waitresses curled in on themselves fearfully. Well, the blond one did. The other looked actually…eager?

She was taking off her apron, tying up her hair, and rolling her sleeves…like one might do before taking out the trash…or picking a fight.

Reggie and June each dealt with barely contained nervous energy, while Alicia stared at the wall, her eyes flickering as she no doubt watched what happened in the main room.

Their kobold was nowhere to be seen.

I need to do something. I’m the only one who can… Mason thought, the fire crackling on the tips of his fingers, hand hidden behind his back.

As far as combat effectiveness, nearly all of them were screwed without their relics, but since Mason’s primary Abilities were direct damage and shielding, he had all the ingredients he needed to lay a beatdown regardless of his kit. His fire might be a small fraction weaker than it normally was, but that was about it.

He watched one of the faceless minions surrounding them walk just a bit too close to another two of them, creating a three-person cluster.

Here we go…

Mason felt a hand clamp down over his wrist, and he nearly incinerated it before he realized it belonged to a hostage.

The man was older, with fine clothes, darker skin and drooping jowels.

“Wait.”

Mason hissed quietly in frustration and glanced back up at the minions, where they had drifted apart again.

“Why are you stopping me?”

“Because you were about to screw things up.” The old man said with a shrug.

“I have to do something,” Mason whispered. “I’m the only one who can!”

“You act too soon. A Nuker waits until he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that his actions will strike a critical blow, not muck things up. Even if that means watching your friends suffer. How many of them are there? Three dozen? And they’re not even the commanders. You want to expose your queen to take three pawns?”

“Something’s happening,” Alicia said, her gaze flicking up to the ceiling of the next room over, then down and to the left.

She glanced back up at the ceiling and frowned, before turning and staring at the guests, several of whom were arguing with each other with gradually increased fervor.

“Yeah, well if it wasn’t for YOU, we never would’ve been here!” A brown-haired woman in an evening gown shrieked, backing away from her husband as her voice rose above the growing clamor.

“ME!? You’re the one who wanted to go to this damned party, I just paid for it!” the husband said, following after her with a thunderous expression.

It was strange. Four women were backing away from four men, arguing about similar things as the woman’s back hit the edge of the imaginary line their captors had defined for them, all at the exact same time…An uncanny synchronicity.

Alicia’s right. Something is happening.

The minions approached and restrained the women, wrapping their arms around them, pinning them to the side.

“Calm down or-“

The four women slipped effortlessly out of the masked men’s grasp and spun around, their hands morphing into blades as they latched on and began sawing away with what Mason could only describe as feral rage. 𝐑

The other minions watching them ran to their aid, but their ‘husbands’ charged forward, hands morphing into something black, shiny and pebbled, like the shell of a beetle.

The mask-wearing minions were blasted back, but they didn’t seem to be receiving any damage.

“I got these ones!” the eight guests spoke as one. “Go!”

“Will’s about to die. Nevermind.” Alicia whispered, her gaze flickering around the main hall on the other side of the wall. “No. Yes.”

Mason and Reggie shared a glance before Reggie used T.O.F.T. on him, and Mason began sprinting down the hall, June running beside him, kicking off her heels as she ran.

Mason glanced to his left with astonishment as the taller, more athletic baker girl tore the platters off her steel tower of baked goods, leaving behind the pole, turning it into a metal cudgel as she ran beside them.

Jun took a pin out of her bun, allowing her brown hair to cascade down over her shoulders for the first time since he’d met her. The brass pin began to glow as she imbued it with magic using her secondary Ability.

“I’m only gonna get one shot before I have to run,” she said as they sprinted. “I’ll shoot first, then you rain hell.”

Mason nodded, screeching to a halt as they arrived in the main hall.

All the masked minions were facing away from them, clumped together…Mason nearly reflexively threw a Conflagration out before he noticed they were all paralyzed.

Motion caught his eye, and Mason spotted Will scampering up one of the pillars supporting the massive main hall before he tossed his tomahawk down at the Boar-masked colossus chasing him.

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The boar dodged the weapon and much to Mason’s surprise, the tomahawk halted in midair, smack-dab in the middle of the cluster of paralyzed minions.

In single a heartbeat, three waves of lightning-laced sound burst out from the tomahawk, and as one, the masked minions toppled to the floor, wisps of smoke emerging from beneath the mask.

The red demon-faced mask grabbed Will’s axe out of the air, and wrestled control of it away from whatever Effect Will was using.

Will fell off the pillar, clutching his chest as he impacted the marble before scrambling to his feet an instant later.

As Will’s axe began to circle him, June tapped Mason’s shoulder and pointed at the one with an arsenal of weapons floating behind him like a cape.

She cocked back her arm, and the glow of the hairpin began to gradually increase as she waited for the perfect moment.

Mason’s heart leapt into his throat as the boar-face caught Will by the ankle and swung him at the ground, only for the ground itself to bend away, refusing to receive him. Will swung down between the boar-mask’s legs and jabbed a previously unseen blade into the man’s leg, an undoubtedly lethal attack, were it not for healing potions.

Will was assaulted by dozens of blades from the demon mask, as well as a couple more attempts by the void-mask to stop his heart or summon ghosts from the floor to grab his legs. Try as they might, they couldn’t quite pin him down.

“That is one slippery son of a bitch.” The jowel-faced old man mused with admiration as he arrived behind them.

“Tell me about it,” The athletic baker girl said sourly.

Will scrambled across the floor, juking left and right with unnatural speed, sometimes shifting direction in midair to throw off the floating swords assaulting him, forced to back away from the boar-mask, who seemed to grow even angrier and more muscular as he drank his healing potion.

A potion of Fury, or does he have a damage-based boost to his stats? Mason thought as Boar charged after Will, plowing right through the pillar he was hiding behind, the demon-masked Climber bending his knees to follow after him and provide support.

“Now.” June hissed, her arm quivering with the strain of holding her shot so long.

Hunter’s Patience triggered, and the brass hairpin flew forward with startling speed and accuracy, shearing through the air in an instant.

One of the floating weapons raised itself to block the shot, and partially diverted it, exploding into Relic dust as it was destroyed in the process.

Instead of instantly severing demon-mask’s spine, the pin went through his windpipe.

June didn’t hang around to see if her attack landed, already sprinting the other direction.

Meanwhile, the baker girl was charging the pincushioned devil-mask as he clutched his neck, wielding her heavy steel serving tower.

The void-masked enemy whipped around towards them, his hand coming up, brimming with that ominous, lethal energy.

That’s my cue, Mason thought, bringing his own hand up to match.

***William Oh***

Will’s bones creaked in protest as Boar broadsided him with a fist the size of his head. His lungs were paralyzed by the blow, and the force sent him flying backwards, the mansion cartwheeling around him. Will blasted through a wall, rolling to a halt in some kind of sitting room with dozens of old-timey paintings lining the walls.

Will climbed to his feet, struggling to breathe as he looked back at the Will-shaped hole in the wall, spotting a faded painting of a young man leading the charge of thousands of soldiers against the enemy forces, pointing the way with his trusty, familiar axe.

Ezykial the Serpent leads the-

The painting dissolved into scraps as Boar exploded through it.

Will raised his arm, but it didn’t seem to want to move, as the muscles of his right side had been crushed by one strike. He glanced down and spotted a bruised mass. Definitely broken.

If not now, when? Will thought, releasing a potent cocktail of Potion of Fury and a Potion of greater Healing from his Phantom Hand into his mouth, using Sourdough to save a portion to regrow.

23->21 charges remaining.

His body would pay for it later, but the immediate situation was much more concerning to him.

Really wish I’d taken the Clay Idol with me. It didn’t have a permanent home in his Phantom Hand, like the tiny potions did.

“GRAHH!” Boar saw his arm straightening out and charged.

That made Will angry. The whole situation made Will angry. It was pointless combat with no benefit to his team in sight. He had failed as a leader when he’d gotten his party tangled up in his own business. He’d failed when he didn’t ensure they had the tools they needed to get the job done.

But most of all, what made Will angry… were the drugs flooding his body.

+10 Strength

+10 Resistance

+10 Kinesthetics

Luckily there was a convenient target charging menacingly towards him.

Even with the boost to his strength, Will knew he had nowhere near the same sheer force as Boar, so he resolved to make this a dance.

“Where’d you get the mask, boy!?”Boar demanded swinging the meaty fists at him, which Will flowed around. “They aren’t exactly common.”

“I think you know.”Will said back as he danced around the swings, unleashing a chef’s knife from his Phantom Hand behind his back and whipping it forward, scoring a shallow cut on Boar’s forearm.

“Dragon of Akul, my ass. You’re William Oh!” Boar said, his red aura growing as he swung faster and faster.

I think his stats grow the more pissed off he is. A very Boar-like trait.But what does he pay for it? Nothing was totally free.

Boar’s skin was nearly as resistant as the Tangled, shrugging off damage from Will’s nonmagical weapon without much effort.

At least he’s not healing too, Will thought, weaving around a flurry of blows as he studied the wound on Boar’s forearm.

Will didn’t have the Serpents axe on him to try a psychic attack against the physical-aligned adventurer, and even if he did, he had a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t work. Boar was a product of Climbing, rather than someone’s weaponized science experiment.

“Hold still!” Boar shouted, kicking a nearby chair up and at Will.

Boar was expecting him to dodge it, but as long as the chair was made of plain wood…

Will smashed his hand down through the wood, parting the missile around himself, keeping his footing, which allowed him to sidestep as Boar crouched down, his back growing spines.

An instant later, the warrior flickered forward, barely brushing against Will, but sending him staggering backwards.

As Will staggered, he threw his knife at Boar, who leaned out of the way.

Phantom Hand caught the knife and attempted to stab the warrior in the back.

“Saw that trick already,” Boar said, twisting around with unexpected grace and catching the knife by the blade, twisting it into a useless coil of steel.

“You gotta be one dumb sonofabitch, to try and take on all three of us!” Boar said as he drove Will into a corner.

“That’s odd.” Loth’s voice sounded from the center of the room, halting Boar mid-strike.

The black kobold scanned the room with clinical deliberation before returning her gaze to Boar.

“I don’t see the other two.”

The three of them peered at the hole in the wall leading back to the main hall, hearing the ring of steel, shouts and explosions from the main hall. Boar’s Party was obviously busy.

He was alone, and outnumbered.

“Ah, crap,” Boar muttered, red aura fading as his legs bunched beneath him.

Yes, run for one of the exits. There’s no way Loth hasn’t trapped-

Boar leapt straight up, blasting through the ornate ceiling to land on the second floor and immediately begin running.

A decisive retreat in an unexpected direction, showing how much experience Boar had. One look at a kobold and he knew any easy way out was a trap, and had acted on that knowledge.

“Shame. I didn’t trap the second floor nearly as much,” Loth pouted before glancing back down at Will. “Shall we go Boar hunting?”