Echoes of the System by Carrie Summers

Author:Carrie Summers [Summers, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lonely Crag Press
Published: 2019-12-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

WITH HER LEGS almost numb from mid-thigh to her feet, chilled by the siphoning tendrils of the nearby Devourers, at least Devon couldn’t feel much from the gashes in her calves. When she looked down and saw the streams of blood running over her Big Girl Pants then yeah, it hurt. But that was just her imagination filling in the gaps.

She stomped on another Mana Weevil just in time, preventing it from striking out and chewing another notch in her shin. Freaking ankle biters.

With a piercing shriek, a Mana Leech struck from her flank, catching Devon off guard. The mid-level variety of mana-eaters favored tail slaps, attacking with the razor-sharp fin that ran the length of the rear half of their spines. Thanks to her Dodge skill—and the combat reflexes she’d gained after practicing under Aijal’s tutelage the last few weeks—she managed to jump aside just enough to take the flat of the creature’s tail against her hip. Much better than a fin-slice through the belly.

As she took a step back, giving up precious ground but recovering her balance, Devon took a shaky breath. The player force had been battling in front of the camp’s defenses for less than five minutes, but already they’d been pushed back around a third of the remaining distance between the front lines of the fight and the bulwark.

She gritted her teeth and dropped back into a combat crouch. A quick glance at her hitpoint bar showed that she had around 50% health remaining. Not great, but better than some players had fared. At least half the raid had already died once or twice, and now those people fought with reduced effectiveness, their attributes lowered by the death-penalty debuff. So far, most of the random items dropped at the site of a death had been recovered by other players and returned to their owners after respawn, but that wouldn’t last forever either. The weaker the player force became, the harder it would be to hold the line while retrieving lost gear.

She aimed a hard kick at a Leech. Mana sprayed from the point of impact, and the front end of the thing twisted hard to the side—she hesitated to call the front parts a ‘head’ when the only feature that distinguished it from the tail end was the circular rows of teeth lining the mouth opening. The stupid thing didn’t even have eyes. Just a wormlike body, razor-sharp fins, and that awful mouth. As the Leech recovered, she glanced again at her bleeding legs, wondering whether it was worthwhile to retreat and bandage the worst of the gouges and have longer to fight at full strength, or whether she should hold whatever ground she could manage.

Beside her, Torald grunted as a Leech surged forward, gruesome mouth wide and bloodied from a previous attack. Like her, the paladin was still standing—on his first life, as it were. But his health was down to maybe 15%, and his swordwork wasn’t nearly as deft as usual. Without

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