Survivor: Definitely Not Minecraft

The torch was at my feet, and I had to squint to look at it. It hadn't gotten brighter. My eyes were more sensitive than they had been before. It bathed the surrounding stone in near daylight, just strong enough to illuminate its full width. Had we been in an open field, the mobs could have gone around me to continue their assault on the lillits, but here, the only other way was down. I picked it up and eyed the nearest zombies.

They still reached for me, but it was like they were doing so through a fence. The enchanted light presented an almost physical barrier for them. Their gray, too fleshy bodies shifted back and forth, testing its strength. The notification had mentioned monsters being driven by rage to attack me, but the zombies didn't appear to be any more hyped up than usual. The troll, however, was plenty hyped.

It pushed its way to the edge of the light, ten feet of towering muscle and tough skin, and hooted a challenge. I stepped back to a section where the bridge was mostly clear of gore, and it followed. Some lillits had turned around to watch me. Their eyes were wide, their faces pale, and there was a shade of hope glimmering behind their fear. I wanted to say something to encourage them, to tell them they were safe, but they weren't. The way the night was going, it could still end badly for all of us.

The troll inched forward, growling from deep in its chest, its beady eyes squeezed into malevolent slits. Harpies cawed, and phantoms screamed. The night air was cool against the wetness of the blood on my cheek. I lifted my sword and met the troll's gaze. We were both squinting, and it bared its teeth, bounding forward. Whatever pain or resistance the light offered was not enough to stop it.

I slid to the left of its charge, slashing it across its flank. The cut was shallow but long, opening a line in its thick hide. I tried to stab, but had to shuffle back to avoid a wild swing from its heavy fist. The troll barked, rushing me, and though I slashed it again, I wasn't fast enough to get completely out of the way. It had lowered its shoulder so that it slammed into my breastplate, hitting me like a giant linebacker, and I tripped back almost to the edge of the road.

When it came at me again, I shoved the torch into its face, and it stopped short, turning its head aside with a grunt. I drove my sword into its chest, puncturing muscle and hide, but the point jammed against its breastbone. It struck blindly, and its arm hit me like a swinging tree trunk, knocking me back. My boots clipped the edge of the bridge, and I fell into the open. Feather Fall kicked in, and I drifted down onto a dune on my back.

I heard the troll hoot, and then it leaped off the bridge. I rolled. It came down like a meteor right next to me, flinging sand in every direction. Still clutching the sword in one hand and my torch in the other, I pushed myself up and was back on my feet. It beat its chest and charged me again. It was higher on the dune than I was, and twice as tall as me. Rather than try to escape to one side, I ducked low under its arms and thrust my sword into its belly. It kept coming, running me over, and I tumbled down the slope under the bridge. My pack came open, and coins scattered. The troll slid to a stop and shuffled around, the fiery gem in the pommel of my sword an ornament on its stomach. Wisps of pink light flowed out, dispersing into the air.

I lunged for the torch and wrapped my hands around its shaft. The troll's fists slammed into the sand as it drove forward, ready to crush me. It stopped five feet away as I brought the torch up in front of me, again on my back on the slope. It turned from the light, issuing a long, low moan. Its massive hands fumbled at the sword hilt protruding from its abdomen, and it sat down, appearing for the moment like an oversized gorilla at rest.

It pulled out the sword, trailing blood and light, and dropped it, but didn't stand. Instead, it rolled back onto the sand, its chest heaving, and made pained, whimpering sounds. Slowly, I approached, watching for movement, but it didn't react when I picked up the sword. Before I could finish it, zombies started raining down.

We were under the bridge, and the zombies dropped in singles and pairs from the nearest side. I jogged ten paces out from the other end and started waving to the monsters up on the bridge.

"Hey!" I shouted. "Sworn enemy here! Come on down!"

There was nothing blocking the mobs from reaching the lillits, but my voice, and the light, got their attention. The entire monster regiment, such as it was, poured over the edge of Redroad. It was a waterfall of zombies. They piled on top of each other and started crawling and shambling toward me. I crept away, still shouting and waving, drawing them after me, and they continued to empty off of the bridge. Fifty, a hundred. It was a lot of zombies, but I could lead them around all night. Lillits who had jumped were nearby, limping away. The mobs ignored them in favor of pursuing me.

The silhouette of the chimera rose at the verge of Redroad, silent and huge, backlit by the moon. It came down as easily as a cat hopping off a table, its legs absorbing the shock of a fifteen-foot drop with barely a shiver. It stalked around the zombies, circling behind me, and I turned to follow its movement.

Three heads, a goat, a lion, and a lizard. The lion was looking straight forward, guiding its movement, and the lizard was on its left side, searching the desert. The goat, however, was all eyes on me.

"Hey there," I called. "You don't talk, do you?"

It bleated. I kept walking to keep the distance between me and the zombies, and it circled closer. My torch illuminated the area in a twenty-foot radius, and the Shadowbane effect seemed to intensify the closer they came to its source. The chimera edged in cautiously, and when it was only ten feet away, turned to face me with all three of its heads. The lion roared, its voice echoing over the desert, and it pounced. Its leap carried it across the distance between us in a blink, with no time for me to react. I might as well have been a rabbit being taken by a fox.

For what seemed like the thousandth time, I was prone beneath a monster about to eat my face. I didn't have space or leverage to jam my sword up into its body, and the only thing that had saved me from having my head instantly bitten off was the torch. The lion was its center head, the one driving the pounce, and it had twisted away from biting me in the last fraction of a second before landing. Enchanted quartz was in front of my face on the end of a stick, blazing like a star, and functionally blinding me. The lion growled, and the lizard hissed, as the harpies swooped in.

Wild shapes, wings and feathers, the chimera shifted off of me, swiping at its attackers with thick, claw tipped paws. I slithered further out from under the beast's legs and flipped over onto my knees. Harpies shrieked, and a bird's body hit the sand after it was unlucky enough to be struck. They were diving in from all directions and slashing with their talons before pulling back up. They couldn't kill it this way, and if any of them got too close to one of its heads, the other two would tear them apart. But they were keeping its attention.

The lizard snapped at a retreating bird, and I swiped my sword across its neck. Its scales parted like paper, and the head dropped. Birds or no birds, that marked me as the real threat, and its claws raked across my breastplate, leaving behind white lines in the iron. A harpy alighted on its back, latching onto its hide and digging its beak into the goat. The lion kept attacking, pushing me back, and its claws tore into my right hand. The torch dropped out of lifeless fingers, but I barely felt the wound, slashing across its eyes.

The lion shook its head, its legs apparently trying to take it in two directions at once. The goat was attempting to twist around to deal with the bird on its back, and the lion was angling for a pounce. It ended up going nowhere, and I kept slashing. The seconds dragged on, my breath coming in ragged gasps, and my remaining hearts flashing in the corner of my vision. One more slice from those claws, and I was finished. Was the health bar a benefit of my System or a drawback? It didn't seem like it was doing me any favors.

Though it felt like it went on forever, the encounter only lasted another minute. I got in a lucky stab, and once the lion was dead, the goat took control, turning tail and galloping away across the sands.

The harpies scattered, and I found myself surrounded by zombies. They crowded around the edges of the torchlight, their moans filling the night. Looking up, I saw that the bridge lined with faces, hundreds of lillits, dozens of soldiers, all watching me. I waved. The zombies wouldn't willingly approach any closer, but I had to proceed carefully. Gastard was on top of the tower, but with so many lillits below the bridge, I couldn't afford to ditch the zombies and climb up. The mobs followed me to a dune a few hundred yards from Redroad. Most of my coins had gone missing, and those that remained were mixed up in the pack. The chimera's claws had shredded my right hand, and I had a hell of time keeping the torch up with the other while I fished out the coins I needed.

A few beets later, all my body parts were working properly again, and I stacked a few granite blocks to have a place to mount the torch. We had won, but with my friend wounded, and no way for me to help him, it didn't feel like a victory. I watched a few lillits using my spiral steps to get back onto Redroad while others were too injured to ascend. With the torch in place, I set to work killing zombies.