Chapter 15

  Status update: Joan was unconscious at the far end of the Icosagon, I was shaken up but mostly unharmed, the Shambler was missing half of its left arm, and Dalos needed to floss in order to get chunks of Shambler-arm out of his teeth. My dexterity and constitution were very high, but the Shambler's two skills completely negated my advantages. High dexterity meant nothing since my opponent could instantly appear anywhere in the ring by using its Dimensional Leap ability. If it was able to grab my face, its Abduction ability would drag me into another dimension to kill me regardless of my constitution.

  Dalos had landed a pretty significant blow, shredding through the Shambler's arm just below the elbow, but he had only been able to land the attack because the Abduction ability took some amount of time to activate.

  In the moment before restarting the battle, I wasn't sure how much the missing arm would hinder our foe's attacks. During the last attack, it had used its right arm to grab my torso and pin down my arms, then it gripped my face with its left hand to activate Abduction. In a best case scenario, it would either need two hands to hold me in place for Abduction, or it could only trigger the ability with its left hand. Of course, planning for the best was pointless.

  With Joan currently unable to contribute to the fight offensively, she was still a liability. The Shambler would have to put in some effort to catch me, but Joan was a stationary target. It would make sense for it to go after her first, and I couldn't let that happen.

  "Dalos, we need to keep that thing away from Joan." I wasn't sure how much he understood, but I gave the order anyway. "Look for any chance to attack, I'll see if I can keep it occupied."

  Even without eyes, I could tell the eldritch abomination was staring at me. It was waiting for one of us to move before it made an attack. Landing the opening attack meant nothing, it was trying to lure me into a counter. Since it knew its Dimensional Leap ability was faster than anything I could offer, it would watch my movement and catch me in a position where I couldn't evade.

  If I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid its attack entirely, then I'd have to focus on minimizing the damage. Since it only had a single hand to work with, all I needed to do was avoid having it grab my face. The two times it attempted Abduction, it grabbed my face, so I could safely say that was one of the conditions for the ability to work. If it grabbed anything other than my face, it wouldn't be able to use Abduction, so it would be a minor victory. As long as I moved in a way that would allow my upper body (specifically my head) a chance to drastically shift, I might be able to avoid the fatal blow. The obvious thing to avoid would be the action that resulted in my downfall last time, getting caught airborne. While I was in the air, my trajectory was mostly set. Any sudden shifts would be significantly diminished compared to if I were on the ground. Along the same lines, I should avoid sliding. In a slide, it would be too easy to have the Shambler simply pin me to the ground.

  Of course, the primary objective would be protecting Joan. If she regained consciousness, she could be a huge asset to the fight, but my strategy would assume she remained out for the remainder of combat. One of the very limited observations I was able to make about its Dimensional Leap ability was that it only ever leapt into spaces that weren't otherwise occupied. I would guess that if it teleported into the same space as the cage wall, it would at least accumulate some damage. If it was able to harm us by overlapping with our space after a leap, it would have used that attack already. So I had two options for protecting Joan, I had to either draw its aggro so it only focused on me, or I had to occupy the space near her to block any teleportation attacks to use Abduction on her prone body.

  Deciding it would be best to position myself between the one-armed face-groper and my favorite blonde party member, I used Pathfinder to chart a course. Instead of forming a single line to my desired position, I was rewarded a notification that I'd hoped to never see again.

  Error

  Unable to use Pathfinder at this time.

  Pathfinder is unable to find a non-lethal route.

  When I first witnessed this message, I found myself trapped in the underground settlement surrounded by an insurmountable number of surly fish guys. At that time, it had failed to function due to the sheer number of opponents swarming me. This time, I assumed the Shambler's Dimensional Leap ability was causing it to be unable to predict a safe route? I didn't understand the exact mechanics of the ability, but it seemed that it was based on the probability of my safety for simulated routes. Apparently a gigantic teleporting eldritch abomination messed with its prediction function.

  Without use of my Pathfinder skill, I'd have to do my best to manually make my way to Joan. I took the obvious path of running along the edge of the cage. As soon as I took my first step, I massive fist appeared in the space directly in front of me. The powerful uppercut to my body launched me helplessly into the air. Before I hit the top of the cage, the same fist, appeared in the path of my body, clubbing my back and sending me plummeting toward the ground. Caught in midair, I was helpless to do anything as the massive Shambler teleported directly below me, reaching its hand toward my face.

  Luckily, I had prepared myself for attempts the Shambler would make to grab my face. Predicting the end result of its attack, I positioned my hands to grip the Shambler's wrist at the last moment. With my grip on the sinewy wrist, I relied on my Parkour! Parkour! ability to leapfrog the fist, launch my foot into the side of its head and use the momentum to get clear of its immediate attack.

  As I hit the ground with a quick roll, I was able to immediately climb back to my feet in full sprint. Without a single moment to rest, a terrifying open palm materialized in front of my face. Now that my feet were on solid ground, I quickly shifted my head to the side. One of its claws cut another gash in my face, but I managed to avoid the attack.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I knew that there would likely be no end to the attacks, so I had no chance to catch my breath before the Shambler shifted into its next series of attacks. An acute pain erupted in my right side as a set of sharp claws sliced through my favorite Critical Failure shirt.

  Dammit! Did that bastard realize how hard it is to find a table-top gamer themed novelty shirt store in a recreation of 1930's Boston?! I hadn't actually looked for one, but I assumed it would be quite difficult.

  Slightly more impactful than my torn shirt were the deep wounds covering the right side of my torso. For the moment, I'd have to put my clothing-based frustrations aside to deal with this new challenge. My mobility was drastically lowered since a fairly significant number of my muscles were damaged, or worse, along my right side. Once again, I found myself wishing we had someone in our party with a healing ability. Unless Scary Shambling decided to pause the fight to let me take a nap, I'd have to carry my wounds through the end of the fight.

  I hadn't anticipated it attacking with its claws. The modus operandi of Dimensional Shamblers involved teleporting their victims away without leaving a trace behind. The vampire fuel gushing out of my side would definitely leave a pretty noticeable trace of the battle.

  Did this mean I had it on the ropes? Was it getting desperate?

  Probably not...

  Maybe after they spirited their targets away, they hired inter-dimensional crime scene cleaners to tidy up after them. I couldn't help but imagine a bunch of Tindalos Hounds with sponges helping to cover up a murder. If I ever escaped this shithole of a world, I needed to reach out to the creator of the Crime Scene Cleaner video game and propose a Inter-Dimensional Tindalos Hounds DLC.

  Doubled over from the pain, the giant palm flashed in front of my face. Since my momentum had stopped, its slow reach gave me a moment to react. Unfortunately, due to the severity of my wound, my body wasn't responding how I wanted. I was a sitting duck. The hand clamped down on my face, but the moment before it made contact, it vanished.

  Chomping into the afterimage was my trusty animal companion, Dalos. Sensing my impending doom, he'd taken advantage of the slower attack by our opponent to launch an attack. If the Shambler had been a thousandth of a second slower, it would need to use the special accessibility features on their phone if they wanted to doom scroll... Because they'd have zero hands.

  As I tried to regain my bearings, I scanned the Icosagon for my one-armed buddy.

  I found him.

  My vision twisted, the blood loss had likely started to catch up to me, but that wasn't the only reason... On the far side of the cage, the Shambler had its hand held out, blonde hair tangled between its grotesque fingers. It had Joan!

  A massive pounding rocked through my head as the world swirled around me. Had I really lost that much blood? My feet refused to work. Not only did my legs fail to propel me to rescue Joan, but one of them gave out under me, dropping me to a knee.

  Was I going to die?! What about Joan?!

  If I didn't do anything, Joan would be dragged into another dimension with the Shambler and snuffed out of existence.

  Why did my body choose this moment to give out on me?!

  I really was the absolute worst...

  Dalos was charging to Joan's aid, but because of their positioning, he wouldn't be able to get a clean attack in time. I needed to do something...

  If only I was stronger...

  Why couldn't I save the people most important to me?!

  Joan didn't deserve to die because of my failures. I wished it was taking my life instead of hers. It would have made more sense that way.

  I needed it to be ME! I needed it to take ME!

  Congratulations!

  +h3 /\/u11 has unlocked a new ability!

  Annoying Idiot (Level MAX)

  Unlimited uses.

  User draws the aggro of any targets in battle.

  As long as User is alive and using ability, all targets will only attack User.

  If User stops ability, previous targets will not necessarily shift focus away from User.

  Requirement: Only works on hostile targets.

  Current range: Target must be able to see or hear User.

  I didn't have time to consider the consequences. I immediately used my new ability.

  "Technically this isn't an Icosagon since it is three dimensions instead of two." I had no idea what I was saying, but somehow my mouth wouldn't stop. "Because it has a top and bottom, those are two extra sides... So it is more of a Doicosahedron."

  Joan's body dropped to the ground as the Dimensional Shambler lost all interest in her. Its entire essence radiated with a deep need to put an end to my existence.

  "If we wanted this to be an Icosahedron, we'd need it to have eighteen sides along the edge." I continued, completely unable to control my speech. Even I was cheering for the Shambler to shut me up at this point. "I mean, who even named this thing? Talk about embarrassing, am I r..."

  Thankfully the Dimensional Shambler's palm appeared on my face to shut me up. The familiar sensation of the Abduction ability starting to activate flowed through my mind and body.

  This time, Dalos wouldn't be biting through the arm before I was dragged away to be slaughtered...

  He wouldn't be biting through the arm, because Dalos was too busy brutally ripping out the no-necked Shambler's throat. I was impressed with my Tindalos Hound familiar's uncanny ability to find the throat on everything and rip it out. In a peaceful society, that skill would become problematic, but for the time being I was grateful.

  The disgusting long fingers slackened around my face as the massive Shambler's body toppled to the ground.

  We had managed to win.

  As the adrenaline left my body, I collapsed next to the corpse of my nemesis. A slick layer of black goo coated the ground, covering my face and body as I laid motionless. I hoped the black goo was the Shambler's blood, because I didn't want to guess what else it could possibly be. At this point, I was becoming desensitized to eldritch viscera. Like a person who marathoned the entire Saw series, the gore just didn't bother me anymore.

  I lied... It was really really gross. Like, super gross. It smelled, and was sticky. Ugh!

  I threw up.

  Chocolate martinis tasted better going down than coming back up...

  My eyes caught a small Tindalos puppy lapping up the black goo (and probably some of my vomit). I wanted to say something to stop him, but my body just wouldn't respond.

  Whatever... I guess he earned it. If this was what he wanted, who was I to stop him.

  I decided to rest my eyes for a moment...