Face of Eternity : The Little Angel

The barn we were taking cover in was really worn down, to the point that the whole ceiling looked like it would collapse at any moment, especially with all the snow piling up.

From here, it wasn’t hard to see the wall we just escaped from, but it was difficult to tell if the crossbows could see us through the blizzard. Chances are, they probably could.

Uncle stuck his hand out as a test.

FWINK!

A bolt flew by, just missing as he retracted his arm.

“Were pinned,” Uncle said.

“And there’s still another wall we’ll have to go through before we enter the town.” Emily said, discovering a smaller, but still formidable wall of stone a little ways ahead of the barn. “This town really is a fortress.”

TINK TINK TINK!

Bolts struck the walls. Bits of old wood began to crumble down on top of us as the barn responded poorly to the assault.

“They’re going to bring this barn down on top of our heads,” Uncle realized. “We have to take their attention away quickly.”

Given our available options, it would make sense to have Uncle and I fly over to the top of the walls and take out whoever was shooting at us. We could survive a little bolt fire.

“Are you ready, Young Mistress?”

“Yeah, Uncle.” I nodded, brandishing my spear. “Let’s take em’ down!”

Both of us ran out into the open, flaring out our wings, preparing to leap into the air.

All enemy eyes turned to us, just as we hoped, letting the barn be a temporary safe place for the others.

My combat mode allowed me to see the trajectory of the incoming volley of bolts, so I had a good idea of how to dodge any major hits.

Now we took to the snowy sky on our wings. Bolts shot up toward us, but we were quick to evade.

One was heading right for me. With confidence, I raised up my spear to strike it away…

PING!

“Ouch!”

But hit me!

Because my skin was impenetrable, the bolt just bounced off. But that hurt a lot!

Contrary to me, Uncle was knocking bolts out of the air with his longsword with ease. I felt jealous that he was so skilled.

“Yalda, shake it off and keep flying!” Uncle called back to me.

“Understood!” I nodded, darting down toward the wall battlement.

Once we were close to them, the bolts stopped and the foes scattered. My map and IFF were having a difficult time picking up on the number of enemies or their info through this blizzard, so I decided to convert the system into a basic motion tracker with about 12 meters of range. That had a much easier time getting through the haze.

We both landed in a clear spot on the wall, I turned one direction, while Uncle turned another.

“Yalda, three enemies at 12 o'clock and nine at 6 o'clock!”

12 o'clock for me was…right ahead! And six was behind me.

"Alright!" I announced.

Uncle took the 9 behind us, I took the 3 in front.

As I ran forward, I stuck my spear out and charged in, easily catching up to the fleeing enemies.

“Haaaaa!”

The demon fog of war cleared as my legendary spear stuck into the blizzard. Before me were some very big looking crossbow turrets with human legs and red laser light coming out of a heat vision scope. What on earth was I even looking at?

-Cross Bowalker demon tagged; Foe-

-Enemy count = 3-

This was a demon? Regardless, it needed to go if that was the case!

“Yahh!”

I spun around in a cool way and swung my spear at the bowalkers. They all open fired point blank!

TINK TINK TINK!

PING PING PING!

"Gahh!" This barrage of bolts was like a thousand giant mosquitoes pelting me all at once!

I ran behind one of the pillars in the battlement. My small size concealed me.

Note to self: Don’t charge at projectile enemies with a melee weapon.

They were all ready to fire on me the moment I left my cover. My motion tracker was picking up their movement, showing that they were cautiously approaching my position.

One of them started to step forward ahead of the others, trying to get an angle on me. In a few seconds I’d be fleshed out.

I couldn’t just run in there again and attack like a barbarian. I had to think of a way to take them out without taking too many hits.

My spear was designed for range, but they clearly had the advantage in that department. The only advantage I had was being able to hide in the gaps in the wall battlement.

Uh-oh! They had me in there sights now!

A swift glide took me off the side of the wall, then I flew back up and dodged a few bolts once I was out in the open again.

A tiny stardust knife-like object spawned in my hand and I threw it at the bowalkers. They scattered, causing enough chaos for me to swoop in for a strike.

I poked my spear in, jabbing one of them in the confusion!

The other bowalkers started running around like chickens, bumping into themselves. The confusion gave me another chance to strike.

I flew in once again and stabbed my spear into one of the other crossbow demons, then used the momentum from pulling out the spear to swipe at the last one, but I missed him. The two I’d hit started glowing with stardust energy, eventually exploding into a cloud of ash and brimstone.

Two down, one to go!

I was ready to attack the last one, but wait! In the midst of the explosions of dust, two people fell down in fetal positions, like they had been stuffed inside those turrets.

While I was distracted, the final bowalker sent out a few shots at me. I had to take cover.

A bolt, steaming with shadow, loaded up to fire. But the bowalker took aim at one of the people on the ground.

FWOOP!

The bolt phased right into the head of the person and they were enveloped in darkness. The darkness forced light out of their mouths. Moments later, the person transformed back into a bowalker demon.

“What in the world?”

Not that I didn’t know that people could turn into demons, but this made things a lot more complicated if they could change back on the fly. I’d have to take the demons out all at once.

All three bowalkers were restored and open fired. I noticed that the ammo of the rejuvenated ones looked more like wooden arrows than bolts. Each time their shots missed me and hit the stone, they’d shatter into brittle chunks.

I assumed that meant they were weaker, which wasn’t much less stress on me, considering I still had to defeat them. And getting hit by one of their shots still hurts a lot!

There was an idea I had to potentially give myself a little more leeway over the battlefield. While playing in my room one day, I threw stardust around like a glitter wonderland. It was like a fine powder that hung in the air for a few seconds. Maybe that could weaken the enemy a little bit.

PEW PEW!

Little clouds of stardust shot from my hands and scattered into a sparkly fog around the bowalkers. It burst with a big puff and scattered all sorts of shiny particles in the air. They were stunned long enough for me to fly in and slash them all!

“I love glitter!” I shouted, victoriously.

Three unclothed people were returned to their former status as humans. It was like back in Urnan when we saved a few people.

I didn’t intend to leave them here, but they were adults, and trying to carry them was going to be really hard for me, since I wasn’t very big.

Dragging them wasn’t a smart idea either, because their skin would drag against the ice and stone of the wall. That being said, it was cold out. They’d get frostbitten if I did nothing.

I ran to reinforce Uncle, hoping he could help here.

He was doing well on his own, but those bowalkers were peppering him with shots. I flew around and flanked them, cutting the suppressive fire down by half.

Uncle used my distraction to finish off the rest of the demon turrets, then quickly checked on the people laying across the stone wall.

“They’re all still alive,” he said.

“You don’t want to leave them do you, like all the people we left in their cars?”

At least the people in those cars had some sort of protection from the elements. All these humans were bare to a cold and unforgiving world. If he wasn’t going to answer in their favour, I’d be the one to carry them all.

Uncle had a mildly shameful look on his face, trying to cover it up with his fedora.

“They’ll die in this cold,” he said. “We can’t leave them here. Gather them all for me. I can hold them.”

I took a deep sigh, thankful he wanted to help these people. We might have been pressured for time, but that wasn’t an excuse to allow any more suffering.

~☆☆☆~

Uncle carried all the people back to the barn, Marek and Emily were scavenging anything they could to wrap around those poor cold souls.

“I’ll warm them up,” Indena nodded with a serious gaze, knowing her role as a fire mage well.

“Be careful.” Uncle was laying them all down in a bedding of hay. “If we heat them up too fast, their bodies will go into shock.” He put a hand over a woman's forehead. “Hypothermia is setting in. We have to act quickly.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve been training my whole life for this.”

Indena had to nurse the people, two at a time, by gently placing her hands on their foreheads and pulsing a weak amount of orange heat energy into them. 12 people were here in total.

“Slowly raise their body heat up, I’ll tell you when to stop,” Uncle said, keeping an eye on their temperatures.

“Alright.” Indena responded. “Nobody’s freezing on my watch.”

With Uncle’s precise instructions, and Indena’s caring heat, they both were able to keep the survivors from perishing from the cold.

Outside however, white fluff had blanketed over everything, making the ground look like a fluffy canvas. Snow was also coming down from a hole in the ceiling, but Indena’s heat was melting it quickly.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked her, remembering her phobia of snow.

“I told you before, don’t worry about me. I’ll beat this fear on my own.”

She could be so stubborn. pigheadedness wasn't a good way to overcome her fear of the snow. It's a quick way to ensure she pushes people away who want to help. But her heat wouldn't melt me away that easily.