I was mortal in this place, but I had no intention of dying here, not today.
I backpedaled away from the orbs, shooting two and destroying them as the other four broke off in pairs to flank me. They arced around the courtyard, hugging the walls on an indirect trajectory to crush me. I waited until the last possible second before diving forward into a roll. They missed, but not by much, searing parts of my jacket, and picking up speed as they blazed past.
The orbs swept across the floor and homed in again. I needed to know if they were on auto-pilot, or if Dex was actively controlling them. I was hoping for the latter, but I needed to make sure.
I opened fire again on Dex, emptying the magazine and reloading as I slid forward, dodging to the side to avoid another swipe from the orbs. At this rate, I wouldn’t last long. The only cover in the entire courtyard was the huge Torii gate at the other end.
Dex didn’t even bother to dodge the rounds I fired. They hit his shield and evaporated with little to no damage. That wasn’t the point; I needed to see if the orb’s trajectories were affected by diverting his attention. If I could distract him, I could make a run for the gate.
I noticed two of the orbs had slowed down.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough. I stood still and aimed for Dex’s head. In my peripheral vision, I could see the orbs closing. They were moving too fast for me to hit now, but if I could slow them down, I had a chance to run for cover.
I fired and missed.
I never miss, not when I’m focused, and there’s nothing more focusing than orbs of death closing in on your location to blast you to bits. I took a deep breath and slowed everything down.
Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.
Everything, except Dex, became background noise: the crackling of the orbs, the ambient energy pulsing around me, the cold stone beneath me. It all blended into the background, unimportant. All that mattered was hitting this shot.
I fired again, twice, and ran for the gate.
This time Dex moved and gestured. The orbs veered away and lost me before regrouping some distance away. He was controlling them, which was both good and bad news. The crackling was increasing in volume as they flew around. Beneath the sound of the orbs, I heard something else, something that kicked me into overdrive.
A high-pitched tone sliced through the air behind me. I slid on my stomach as it got closer, just in time to see an angry, green teleportation circle hiss by. I saw it head for the gate and then veer off to the side, into the courtyard wall, punching a hole in it. After a few seconds, the hole slowly repaired itself. I doubted I would have the same reaction if Dex managed to slam me with one of those circles.
The crackling orbs had reacquired my location and were blazing in my direction. I got to my feet, continuing my dash as I processed what just happened. I had heard a teleportation circle, not something I remember ever doing.
More importantly, Dex didn’t want the gate damaged. He had deliberately altered the trajectory of the teleportation circle to avoid the gate, and smash into the courtyard wall.
The gate was important to Dex, which meant it was important to me. A few seconds later, I slid into cover behind the gate.
“You’ve gotten better at running,” Dex called out. “I would expect no less from a coward.”
Goading tactics. He was trying to get in my head, but I knew this game and had played it all my life. I crouched behind one of the enormous gate legs, the hashira, and tried to catch my breath. The crackling of the orbs diminished and then disappeared entirely, throwing the courtyard into an eerie silence.
If my theory was correct, he wouldn’t fling orbs or teleportation circles this close to the gate. His next attack would be the up-close-and-personal kind. He wasn’t going to risk destroying the gate. At least, I hoped he wouldn’t.
“When Monty needed someone to look out for him,” I called out, facing the nearest wall so my voice would bounce off, hopefully disguising my exact location. “Where were you? Did you even care about him? You abandoned him.”
Silence.
Usually a good thing, but with a master teleporter…silence was a bad thing.
I felt the energy before I saw the green circle form next to me. I dove out of the way as a large mace cratered the ground where I had crouched moments earlier.
Another circle formed under my feet, and I found myself launched to the other end of the courtyard at speed. I bounced off the stone floor and crashed into the wall, managing to twist my body so my shoulder took the brunt of the impact.
There was no flush of warmth to indicate my curse was acting to repair the damage. He wasn’t lying. I was mortal in this place.
“I’m going to do this the old-fashioned way,” Dex said as he appeared several feet away, holding a softly glowing weapon in his hand. “This is going to hurt you, much more than it’s going to hurt me.”
The weapon he held was a nasty-looking hybrid mace-axe.
The two-foot handle of the weapon was covered in glowing, green runes, which matched the symbols along the oversized blade. The mace side, forming the back of the deadly bladed end, was a large semi-circle of steel, covered in spikes.
Getting hit by either side would be detrimental to living. As fearsome as the weapon was, it didn’t compare to the shrieks coming from it. For a moment, I thought I was hallucinating.
“What the hell?” I said, scrambling back and rolling to my feet, putting some distance between us. “What is that?”
Dex hefted the axe in his hand.
“This here is
