The Rifleman - Ch.39 (Patreon)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

The Unexpected.

Malia and Wesley entered the Outpost, weapons in hand as they came through the door. The common room itself was completely empty, just as it had been every time they had come in here, but this time, there was a set of wet shoe prints heading behind the curtain.

“Claire?” Wesley called.

“Oh, hey,” Claire’s voice came from behind the curtain, but she was close enough to be on the other side of it. “Back already?”

“Can you come out here a minute?” Wesley called, trying to keep his voice concerned but friendly. “We think there might be a bit of a problem.”

“Uh, can it wait?” Claire asked. “I’m sort of busy back here.”

“It really can’t,” Malia called, not sounding anywhere near as friendly.

“Fine!” Claire huffed. “I’ll be out in a second.”

Malie nodded to Wes and gestured for him to back up a little. Wesley did as she asked, moving a little bit further across the pristine room, but his eyes were constantly drawn to the wet boot prints.

“Now, what is so gosh darn important?” Claire asked, pushing through the curtains and stopping when she saw their drawn weapons. “Uh, problem?”

“We know about the Golem,” Malia said flatly. “It needs to be destroyed.”

“Yeah, no,” Claire said with a little chuckle. “It’s mine now.”

“Claire?” Wesley called as Malia opened her mouth to shout. “It’s really dangerous.”

“Oh, is that right?” Claire rolled her eyes at him. “Like anything in this world isn’t?”

“It’s killed and enslaved people, Claire,” Wesley tried. “They deserve some form of justice.”

“Who cares?” Claire asked sweetly. “It’s mine now, so you can’t have it.”

“Who’s boot prints are those?” Malia asked, pointing at the floor.

“A customer,” Claire said with a giggle. “He’s gonna be staying a while, too.”

“An Outpost customer?” Wesley tried to get her attention again while Malia edged towards the curtain. 

“Naah,” Claire replied. “I have this whole side business going.”

“Oh? Anything cool?” Wesley asked, “Something from Earth?”

“Sort of!” Claire turned to look at him directly, and Malia ripped back the curtain.

Wesley stared at the flank faces on the wall. He wasn’t even aware he was lifting his rifle until Malia yelled to warn him.

“Stop! You can’t hurt her unless she attacks us!” Malia’s voice was urgent, almost frantic. “Stop!”

Wesley lowered his rifle as he felt a wave of overpowering nausea sweep through him.

“Isn’t it something?” Claire asked, her eyes wide and glassy. “I was having so much trouble finishing it, but then the golem sorted that out!” She waved proudly at her work. “I got so tired of that cold stonework, I can tell you!”

Wesley swallowed hard, forcing himself to turn his eyes back to the walls. Beyond the curtain, the white marble had indeed been covered. The pristine stone gave way where the skinned hides of over two dozen people had been painstakingly stretched and nailed over it before being sewn together with a bright-colored, thick twine. Empty eyelids and obscenely stretched mouths, every hair removed, yet the skins were complete, not an inch left on the people from which they had been taken. The more private areas had been carefully covered with bits of cloth in almost cartoonish designs. 

That was all bad enough, but there was worse for the eyes to see than mere human skin. Someone had taken that same bright thread and embroidered happy little slogans across the walls. 

“You can do it!”

“Live, Laugh, Love!”

“Never give up!”

“Hang in there, baby!”

“Tomorrow will be better!”

As for the floor… it was a nightmare. A dozen rugs of carefully woven hair surrounded a pair of deep pits. In one, piles of bones. In the other, a mess of decomposing flesh was being consumed by some kind of beetle swarm.

“See what I mean?” Claire skipped over the hair rugs, illustrating the rows of potions arranged on a table. “The curse was super basic, so I just reconfigured it. Now, people will just come here, where they can be part of my lovely decorations!” She gushed as she reached out and absently stroked the skin on the wall. “I’ll be totally busy, isn’t it great?”

Wesley’s horrified eyes finally saw the Golem. It was standing in the far corner, deep in a shadow. A slightly faded red clay statue covered in chips and cracks. 

“Claire, we are taking the Golem outside,” Malia insisted. “You have no choice in this matter.”

“NO!” Claire stomped her foot, and a single, unblemished piece of white marble replaced the door to the outside world. “I told you I NEED him.”

“Claire,” Wesley called. “You know you are nuts, right?”

“Not helpful,” Malia said calmly.

“I am not nuts!” Claire laughed.

“Girl, you nailed skins to the walls,” Wesley said simply. “That ain’t exactly normal.”

“I’m creative!” Claire insisted. 

“You’re round the bend,” Wesley insisted. “Claire, please. Just let us take the Golem, and we can get you some help.”

“What?” Claire laughed. “You think you can help me?”

“I’d like to try,” Wesley said. Honestly, he was pretty sure that would involve asking her to look at some flowers while he put a bullet in her head, but he was open to other options as well. 

“How?” Claire giggled. “You can’t even hElp yoUr SelF!”

“Oh, shit!” Malia leaped back from Claire as the girl's skin began to bubble and run.

“What the fuck now?” Wesley scrambled backward.

“She’s corrupted!” Malia placed herself in between them. “Think insanity that turns the flesh to… well, that.”

Wesley looked back at Clair, seeing her form stretch and grow as her fingers elongated and her body thinned. Spines burst from her back as her eyes rolled in their sockets, and a sickly sweet stench filled the room. 

“Yeah, fuck this,” Welsey mumbled. “Does this count as an attack?”

“YES!” Malia snapped as she summoned more and more armor onto her body.

“Bye, Clair,” Wesley muttered, raising his rifle, leveling the sights between her rolling eyes. 

He fired, the bullet slamming into a thick growth of bone that was forcing its way out of her forehead and lodging there.

“I’m GonNa MaKE a CusHiOn!” Claire cackled before her jaw unhinged, her tongue elongating and thickening obscenely.

“Fuck I hate this world,” Wesley muttered as he cast both charges of Armor Piercing Round at once and crossed his fingers that the bonelike growth counted as armor, then pulled the trigger.

The bullet that emerged from the M1 was almost twice as large as the barrel should have allowed, and it left a spiral behind it in the air as it raced across the room, hitting the thing that used to be Claire right between the eyes. 

Its head exploded like a burst grape, spraying blood and brain matter across a wide area as the body flopped forward, falling into the pit of beetles, which swarmed it immediately.

“Don’t let them eat the body!” Malia cursed.

Wesley immediately fired three charges of Improved Flare into the pit, the glowing orb hovering over the pit for just long enough for Malia to turn a horrified look his way.

Then, with a slight whoomph… the entire pit exploded.

Wesley remembered the gasses released by decomposition just in time to shield both of them with his My Shield spell. It wasn’t enough to completely absorb the explosion, but it was enough to leave them standing, even if they were slightly singed.

“I am so sorry!” Wesley yelled past his ringing ears, casting Lesser Regenerate on himself and Malia as he yelled.

“I’m going to cut off your–” Malia stopped yelling as their ears both popped.

Wesley winced as they both heard the clay-like scraping noise coming from the other side of the long room.

The golem stepped out of the smoking wreckage on the far side of the room, glowing blue eyes focusing on the pair as it worked its hands into fists.

“Got any more of that thing you used on the corrupted?” Malia asked tensely.

“If it stands there for an hour, yes,” Wesley said. “Otherwise, no.”

“Get your friends,” Malia said. “This is not going to be fun.”

//////////////

Wesley launched himself forward as the Golem slammed his fist into Malia’s sword, sending it flying from her suddenly numb fingers, jabbing forward with his fixed bayonet, aiming directly for the shoulder joint. 

“Double tap!” Wesley yelled at his sims, who both fired their own, lesser version of Armor Piercing Round into the glowing blue eyes. The effect was less than impressive. Two large holes opened on the back of the clay head, but the golem seemed unaffected other than a momentary stumble. 

His bayonet dug almost an inch into the thick, tough clay and stuck there.

“Shit,” Wesley yanked the rifle back, the bayonet remaining stuck in the golem, which snatched the knife by the handle and, in one smooth move, stabbed it into Wesley’s shoulder.  

Wisp form let him kick away, but he left the bayonet behind. Apparently, it didn’t change with him if he was stabbed with it. 

“Ideas?” Welsey called across to Malia.

“Yeah,” She straightened and held out her hands, summoning a massive warhammer into them. “Don’t let him stab you with your own bloody knife!”

“Thanks!” Wesley yelled back, “I’ll make a note of that.”

“Good,” She cracked her neck. “You do that, I’ll batter the bastard to death!”

She took a few steps back. “Valiant Charge!”

Malia slammed into the golem halfway through a massive swing with the giant hammer, sending it flying into the back wall, which cracked. “Valiant Charge!” She closed in a second, bringing the hammer down in an overhead smash.

The clay head was reduced to dust.

“Volley Fire!” Wesley called as she stepped back. He and the two sims unleashed a hail of bullets on the downed golem. Wes had figured out that as long as he knew what he wanted them to do when he spoke to his Simulacrums, they would, too.

Halfway through his second clip, the golem started to rise. The lack of an actual head didn’t seem to have slowed it down much, which, now that he thought about it, made sense. According to Earth lore, golems were made by animating what was basically a clay statue with a magic scroll. 

If it wasn’t in the head, then surely the chest was the next most logical option.

Almost an hour passed while they disassembled the golem, one limb at a time. Finally, Malia cracked open the chest, and Wesley emptied a half-clip of Improved Flare-infused rounds into the space inside, and the golem shattered as a small slip of paper caught fire.

“Well, that was something,” Wesley said weakly.

“My favorite part was when you almost blew us up,” Malia said, raising her eyebrows expressively to emphasize her point.

“Yeah, not my best moment,” Wesley admitted as he cast a charge of each of his healing spells on both him and Malia. “Not my worst either, to be honest.”

“Something to look forward to then,” Malia gestured, the massive warhammer vanishing like smoke.

“How do you do that thing with the weapons?” Wes had to ask; it looked amazingly useful. 

“Knight’s Arms, a class skill. It lets me store up to seven weapon sets to be summoned or dismissed at once.” Malia shrugged. “Come on, we better get out of here before this place shifts.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Wesley headed for where the door used to be.

“It’s not,” Malia paused. “What are you doing?”

Wes stopped hammering on the piece of stone that had replaced the door and turned to see her climbing out a window.

“Uh, just checking,” Wesley tried.

“I can see being your partner is going to be amusing,” Malia chuckled as she hopped out into the snow. 

“Speaking of which, let’s talk about how often you’re hitting me,” Wesley suggested as he shifted to wisp form and drifted gently through the window. “For the record, I’m in favor of it happening less.”

“You just almost turned us into red mist,” Malia cocked an eyebrow at him. “I’m currently in favor of doing it more.”

A half-hour later, the two of them were relaxing in hot baths on either side of a screen in his safe room, seven charges of My Shield sealing the doorway tight against the cold winds. 

“What did you learn?” Malia called. 

“What do you mean?” Wesley had almost drifted off in the warm water.

“Earlier, you said you were thinking about what you wanted to learn,” Malia said. “I just wondered what you learned you need.”

“Ah, right. Well, first of all, I need to learn to actually fight.” Wesley admitted. “You proved I suck. I mean, I assume you are good, maybe even great, but I don’t want to bet my life on it. Also, I need better gear. Armor that works, that kind of thing. Last, I need to be aware of how dead I am if caught in melee combat with a skilled enemy.” Wesley counted them off on his fingers.

“And your shapeshift?” Malia called over the screen.

“Good skill doesn’t make me immune to being hurt or killed,” Wesley noted sourly.

“Glad you remembered,” Malia sounded like she was smiling.

“Yeah, something about coughing up a chunk of lung really drove the point home.” Wesley wanted to flip Malia off through the screen… but didn’t quite dare, just in case.

“There is a city a couple of zones over,” Malia said thoughtfully. “We can see about claiming the contract, plus a nice reward for killing a corrupted. There should be somewhere there to get you some gear or at least a few upgrade tokens.”

“Sounds great,” Wesley said honestly, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Malia sighed. “You’re my partner for as long as that lasts. You need good gear to watch my back.”

“As long as it lasts?” Wesley asked. “You can’t possibly be sick of me already.”

“Not yet,” Malia chuckled. “But you will move on or die. It’s just what happens.”

They set out early the following day. As they had no reason to hurry, he stayed out of wisp form, and they walked through the snow, headed for the zone border. It wasn’t the most pleasant trip, with the cold and the constant struggle against whatever enchantment or effect was on the snow, but it sure beat traveling alone. 

While Malia wasn’t exactly talkative, she did help to pass the time by giving him various tips about his fighting style and telling him about the area they were about to pass into.

“These edge zones are pretty reliable.” She told him, “The Players settled ownership of them long ago, so they only change over every ten shifts or so. They trade them back and forth between allies to avoid a Sundering. During this time of year, the next zone will likely be held by the ForgeMaster. So we are talking lots of black rock and rivers and pools of lava.”

“Sounds grim,” Wesley sighed.

“Mechanical beasts and insects, occasional rock elementals, and frequent earthquakes. So, yeah, pretty grim.” Malia nodded. “At least it’s warm.”

“And the enemies won’t drop much because we are NPCs.” Wesley shook his head. “That just seems unfair.”

“We didn’t design it; we just have to live in it,” Malia shrugged.