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Chapter Type: Conflict (vs other)

The Gray Man, or living statue, is the wingless cousin of the gargoyle. Inanimate in sunlight, and murderous when not. Some have weapons, but most, like the one smashing my shield to kindling, strike with bare fists and kicks.

He wasn’t particularly skilled, as a professional would be, but he was fast. Add that speed to his extra body mass, and he was able to generate blows the equal of the strongest humans. Add to that his natural armor, being made of stone, and he was formidable. Easily the equal of most combat champions, and more than I could deal with on my own.

“For the love of the laughing gods!” I shouted. “Do something magical!”

They did no such thing, and the Gray Man forced me up the stairs.

I dared not look, but I knew. They had already fled, and were, perhaps, sending soldiers. Soldiers who would be just as ineffective against the Gray Man as I myself was proving to be.

Even the hardest of iron blades is not meant to cut stone. That took specialized tools, things which I just didn’t have immediate access to. Already, my knife was dull, useless.

And then, the last of my shield broke. In good times, I had two or even three backup shields in inventory. This siege was not good times.

.....

His base damage was twelve, cut in half when I parried. Even with armor and scales, that was two points of damage on a solid hit; even the parries were more than the threshold of my armor, and its condition was rapidly dwindling.

I struck a counter-blow that snapped the point off my knife for seemingly no damage to him; he continued striking at me, except that now he was also trying to grab me.

How intelligent were the Gray Men, I wondered? Obviously enough to change tactics as required.

I sent.

His response was to resume hammering away at me. He was very much like the golems I had heard of, except made of solid stone rather than clay.

“Hi-yah!” A woman screamed, as a cleaver nearly hit my head, to deflect off of his chest. “What in the hell of vanity is that?”

“Living rock.” I said. “We need mauls and pickaxes.”

Even the best of warriors cannot both attack and defend constantly. As he deflected blows from spears made using my shoulders as resting spots, I got to take about half a breath. I still dared not to take my eyes off him, even as his grasping hands shattered the blade of my knife.

[You have taken a YELLOW critical for double damage. You have taken 24 crushing damage; after armor and abilities, you have received 14 points. 33/80 health points remain.]

I coughed up blood as he slammed a fist into my breastplate, rolled aside to avoid the follow-up blow. My ankle twisted as I fell, and nearly tumbled headlong past him.

“Shade of evil! This thing strikes with the force of a trampling horse!” one of the soldiers screamed, as splinters flew off his shield.

By all rights, I should have fled upward, rather than just squeezing past two ranks of soldiers. Gasping, I rose with the help of the wall. No weapon, no shield; what could I do against such an opponent?

Could I lower his defenses? How would I even do that?

[You cannot tap living beings for elemental mana.] my System told me. Well, okay, what else?

“Spirits of earth, heed my call. I am Rhishisikk, Shaman, Truthspeaker, Blood of Titans. Rend the flesh of my enemy. Move Earth!”

[This spell cannot directly affect living stone.]

Cripes! All I had was earth mana, and just a lack of spells...

But I did have development points, or rather experience points. I called up a list of available spells that would affect him.

“Spirits of stone and earth, hear me, grant my request. I am Rhishisikk, Shaman and Blood of Titans, and I call upon you to aid me in focusing the power of the earth. Make my hands as tools against stone. Split Stone!”

Wait, make my hands... My hands were sheathed in earth power, but I had to make my way back toward the Gray Man in order to use the spell.

Lesson learned, combat isn’t the time to purchase things without time to fully read the description text.

The other part I should have expected. When I struck his side, causing a cracking sound, his attention focused on me. When I fell back, he followed, ignoring the blows of the normal soldiers around me. Another chip off of him, as his wrist struck the very edge of my invisible gauntlets of mana, and then I had nothing left to power the spell.

Once, twice, and another half, he chased me full circle, step after step, and then we were surrounded by soldiers. He still hounded me as though I were the only opponent of note.

It was a slower process than with Xinyi Shi, but it was just as certain.

When you ignore opponents, they can more easily strike you in places and ways that it is more likely to score critical hits. Criticals multiply damage, and damage, as I’ve pointed out before, adds up.

The setting sun cast him into shadow, but there was enough light to see clearly.

His face was what was most unsettling. Even in the twilight of near-dusk, it was an emotionless mask, neither happy nor sad. Not vengeful or desperate or grim or even anything else.

He struck me once across my face, another yellow critical. But it was his last. I may have been wobbling unsteady on my feet with eleven health, but in the end I was standing as he came apart under repeated blows.

“Keep striking!” Du Jing ordered. “Break it into pieces no bigger than a thumb-joint, or each piece will grow into a new Grey Man, as fierce as this one has been.”

That couldn’t have been true; Gray Men would have over-run the world if it were.

Someone was helping me stand upright; I turned my head when I coughed up a red mist, so as not to cover them with blood.

Do Meng made his way through the soldiers, a torch in his left hand. He looked first into one eye, then the other. “I can’t see his pupils.” he eventually said. “I cannot tell his condition.”

“The internal bleeding is diminishing; I should live.” I told him. “But hey, no concussion, so that’s good news.”

I slapped my cheek to restore feeling, and one of my teeth fell out. Not a major problem for me, just a bunch of calcium that I’d need to include in my diet. With an evolution from a species of rodent, I had small proto-teeth just inside the main ones, ready to grow to full size as they slid in to replace the missing one.

All told, I was profoundly happy with the outcome.

Du Jing was not. “Fool! You’ve expended yourself! It will be days before you can serve as an anchor again. This task was nearly impossible with just four of us, and now it is down to just two.”

“Actually, I think...”

She waved a hand dismissively. “No one cares what you think, you oafish buffoon. By focusing on this one enemy, you’ve doomed us all.”

“There’s more than one!” a soldier called. “They’re right behind me! Fall back to the inside ridge, fall back!”

The man wasn’t a sergeant, but they took up the call, and ushered everyone back. My supporter and I helped each other up the wall, just slightly before two of the Grey Men could reach us. There were a total of five that I could see, and the sound of combat from places I couldn’t.

“Here!” a sergeant said, shoving a spear into my hands. “Shove them back! Keep them in the pit.”

It was a handful of them against perhaps sixty soldiers, all told. At the end of it, I was breathing raggedly, sweating so profusely that it felt like it had to wash the blood off me.

Twitching pieces of masonry were fished from the pit, where soldiers equipped with heavy sledgehammers made short work of them.

The unit around me was relieved by the night shift, and seeing no sign of Ju Ding or Do Meng, I made my way four steps toward the inn before thinking.

“There are bodies in the pit, and in the staircase to the below.” I told the nearest sergeant.

She shrugged at me. “Those will wait until we know whether the enemy is assaulting this position tonight or not.” To her soldiers, she said: “Nobody enters the pit tonight! We don’t have the numbers to fight it out in the dark. Assemble what fortifications you can. If we are pressed, it will be on this side only! There is only the one line, and it is here, and we SHALL hold it.”

Her soldiers responded with enthusiasm, vigor, and eagerness. Okay, this area was in good hands.

I limped off toward the inn, tapping Disease mana from one of the nearby medical tents.

I might not have the energy to continue tonight, but I had no doubts that the siege would still be here when I did.