Elizabeth looked at a small painting of her father. Persevered with magic and kept in her pocket. “He's got three more months tops, he had just a year and I've spent most of it with you guys.” Racknar let out a growl noise. “I'm not holding you hostage Eli. Honestly, if I were you I think I'd go out of my way to not be there. I don't think I could watch my own parents slowly deteriorate knowing there was nothing I could do.” Elizabeth let out a short laugh. “Oh, so there is a heart under that hard armor of yours.” Racknar pointed to his thorax. “I have two actually. One of them in my slider butt.”
Elizabeth let out another short laugh. “That's not what I meant and you know it.” Racknar chuckled. “Just trying to help in any way I can.” He ran his hand on her’s. “Now let's find the source of that damn shaking.” Elizabeth nodded. “Right. Earthquakes in Bramble aren't normal so it's definitely something strange.” Davy rolled his eyes. “Are you done flirting? Can we focus?” Racknar growled. “This isn't flirting. Besides, you're one to talk. You've been laying it on thick with Krys'tal for days.” Davy grumbled. “That's not what's going on and you know it.”
Krys’tal looked at Davy. “It's not? Because here I was starting to think you finally settled on a decision.” Marionette chuckled. “Hehe, man I love hanging out with you guys. It's never dull. So I know Krys here isn't into polygamy but out of curiosity what's everyone else’s stance?” Davy shrugged. “I mean if everyone is okay with it I see no reason against it. I get it's against many religions but outside of that there's really no reason to stay monogamous outside of personal wants.” Racknar nodded. “I agree with Davy. If everyone involved consents it's fine.” Ariagoria sighed. “I know I'm celibate but I personally would stick to just one person if I decided to go against that.”
Elizabeth rubbed the back of her head. “I'd rather have my partner faithful to just me, I think.” Marionette nodded. “I personally don't have anything against poly relationships but probably wouldn't have one myself.” Racknar grumbled. “Is this some roundabout way to get me into the subject of romance and settling down with either you or Eli? Because we've got more important things going on than ship wars. Especially considering I personally feel Elizabeth should be thinking ahead. Even if Bramble becomes a democracy after it gains independence there's still the question of leaving an heir.”
Elizabeth sighs. “I mean I'm still far too young to be thinking about motherhood right now in my opinion. I'm only sixteen going on seventeen biologically. However, I'm not surprised you'd think generations in advance. What about you? The odds of you meeting someone who's compatible enough to have kids is-” Racknar interrupted her. “Considering how flexible demons and angels are, surprisingly high actually. There are demon-bloods and angel-bloods of basically every race as they aren't beholden to the same restrictions as mortals.”
Elizabeth frowned but she couldn't be mad at Racknar because she knew he wasn't saying that to harm her feelings but was simply stating a fact. “That's… damn it, I don't really have a counter.” Davy chuckled to himself. “Ernie just told me magic can bridge the gaps for normally incapable specieses. Meaning with a ritual Racknar could have kids with any fertile female he settled down with that has the working equipment.” Elizabeth gave Marionette a smug smile. “Oh, I see. So if Racknar stopped being a turd and chose me we could have kids if we wanted.”
Racknar growled. “Davy was right, we should focus on the mission.” Elizabeth crosses her arms and pours. “That's what you always say.” Racknar lets out a low growl. “It's not my fault this world is such a hot mess. I'm just doing my best to improve it as much as I can as fast as I can.” Elizabeth raised her voice. “The world's problems are not your responsibility.” Racknar kept his voice low. “Well someone has to step up. Every revolution starts with a single voice. Every journey starts with a single step. I won't stand by and wait for someone else to make the first move.”
Elizabeth kept her voice raised. “What about you? When do you get to be happy? When do you get what you want? When the job is done? You might not live to see that day.” Racknar grumbled for some time. Stopping and starting again while making several different thinking faces. “Fine. After this mission we'll take a week's vacation so everyone in the party can do whatever they want in their down time. You can visit your dad, Krys can visit their family, whatever. I'll find something to do for fun and try to relax. Happy?”
Elizabeth pouts. “I guess. It's probably the best I'm going to get.” The occasional shaking got stronger and more frequent as the party moved. “We must be close now, but I can't see jack through these damned trees.” Racknar comments before the party comes to a massive clearing. The clearing wasn't natural as it looked like the trees had been knocked down and trampled in by something colossal. The party could see the culprit from a distance. A large scaled quadrupedal monster that looked like a tall, wide, muscular dragon with tusks.
However, its scales didn't look right. In fact they weren't even scales. It had thick skin like a rhino or elephant. Although it had some of the form and the bat-like wings of a dragon, Racknar knew it wasn't a dragon. “N-no. We are not anywhere close to fighting the pseudo-terraque let alone the improved version. The only thing worse would be Tarrasque the World Eater. This thing is beyond us, even with all our gear and potions I don't think we could kill it. Our best bet is to report it and hope someone stronger deals with it.” As if on cue the monster started limbering its body to turn around and looked in the direction of the party who all froze in the hopes it wouldn't notice them and move on.
It roared at them as energy swirled around it in a rage of power like a personal storm. Ariagoria looked to Racknar. “What exactly are we dealing with? Give me the rundown.” Racknar started talking quickly to try and list everything off. “Colossal monstrosity. Strength, thirty five. Constitution, thirty five. Intelligence, five. Frightful presence to induce fear, aura of pain to damage anything in melee range, flight speed, breath weapon. It's basically a dragon on steroids. Resistance to all physical damage types both mundane and magical. It has immunity to poison as well as the poisoned status effect. Immunity to stun, sleep, and petrification. It also has natural armor with its armor ranking being forty and a separate damage reduction of five.”
Davy went slightly pale. “Wait… but you told me armor here worked differently and acted more like a damage resistance stat that gave you one reduction for every second point above ten. That would mean it reduces any physical damage we do by twenty, then divides that by half.” Racknar nodded. “In addition to that, its health pool is insane. The thing is a fucking sponge. There's only one other monster with an official stat block that has higher numbers and it's another Tarrasque. There's three different kinds and this one is the middle child so to speak. We might be able to kill the lesser version by gaming the fact it can't fly and doesn't have the aura of pain, but not this guy.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Understood, so your suggestion is to run.” Racknar grumbled. “Yeah, our objective is to survive.” The monster suddenly charged at them at a surprising speed for something so big. The party barely dodge the thing with Racknar taking some damage from it getting too close to him. Racknar groaned as several small cuts could be seen in his chitin. Despite his own resistances he was obviously injured. Small blood red flames formed on his arm, Racknar activated his rage for the defensive abilities more than the damage boost.
Davy reached into his bag of holding. “Maybe if we drink a potion of haste we can use the increased movement to help us escape.” Racknar nodded and indicated everyone should do so. The party seemed to blur after they downed haste potions. Racknar tossed his shields at a range to gather its attention and create an opening for everyone else. “Hey ugly! You've got a face not even a mother could love!” He shouted at the monster who was probably too stupid to even know it was insulated but still turned to face him after getting hit with elemental damage enhanced saw-blade shields.
Racknar waved. “Run everyone. Run! I'll be fine.” There was some hesitation but Davy grabbed Krys'tal by the arm and started running. Marionette followed shortly after with Ariagoria and Elizabeth lagging a bit behind. After all, Racknar would likely need healing. The monster breathed in as energy gathered at its mouth. Racknar summoned two more shields and became a wall blocking the incoming breath weapon and protecting the party. Cuts opened up on his body as he took damage from the attacks with both Ariagoria and Elizabeth casting healing spells on him.
Racknar tossed all four shields at it this time, summoning them back right after. Racknar grumbled knowing he was doing little to no damage to the monster. His ranged attacks only did an average damage of thirty, meaning each attack was only doing five damage after reductions. “(I would have to attack this thing two hundred times this way to kill it. I can't use reckless attack or infernal strike with ranged attacks and my strength isn't added to them either.)” The monster once again tried to charge at Racknar who barely dodged and once again took damage.
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Krys'tal, Davy, and Marionette started hitting it with ranged attacks while Elizabeth and Ariagoria focused on keeping Racknar healthy. Marionette's daggers simply bounced off the monster, Krys'tal’s ice knife did minimal damage while the other two arrows simply bounced off. Davy, remembering that Racknar specified it resisted physical damage, got the idea that it wouldn't be resistant to psionic damage. “Maximize twin magic, Psychic Lance!” He conjured two purple energy lances, one in each hand and threw them at the target. Thanks to being under haste he was able to maximize the twin spell attack a second time.
The thing roared and turned its attention to Davy who was actually dealing noticeable damage to it and started charging a breath weapon. Once charged it fired only for some spell to go off and swap Davy and Racknar allowing Racknar to take the hit using his shields. He grunted in pain. “This thing is hurting me faster than you two can heal me. You should all be running. Davy is the only one of us that can deal real damage to this thing and he only has so many spell slots.” “(He'll run out long before it dies.)” Elizabeth shouted at Racknar. “If we leave you'll die!” Racknar shouted back. “If you stay, so will you! Please, Eli, just teleport everyone out of here!”
Elizabeth suddenly got an idea and chose not to help heal this time. Instead she cast a spell aimed at the monster. “Be gone foul monstrosity! I banish thee!” There is a slight flicker of the creature, but nothing happened. Racknar shouted. “Even if it fails the save it can auto succeed up to three times.” Elizabeth growled in frustration as the monster suddenly turned its attention to her. As soon as Racknar noticed this he let out a mighty battle cry. “Leroy!!! Jenkins!!!!!” Before charging at the monster as it charged at Elizabeth.
Racknar met the monster halfway with his swords already swinging at it, blazing in an intense blood red fire mixed with some purple lightning. “Infernal Bloodlust!” he shouted as he struck it with two ability and elemental damage enhanced attacks followed by ten more attacks thanks to a combination of haste, flurry of blows, and his extra attacks from having extra arms. [434] Racknar then had several deep cuts open on his body and was clearly in rough shape. Ariagoria and Elizabeth both focused on healing as he backed away and the monster faced him again while charging another breath weapon.
Racknar brought out his shields again and didn't bother to dodge as the energy impacted his barrier and affected him. Racknar was bleeding profusely and was likely near death despite the best efforts of the healers. He took out a potion and downed it, causing the wounds to mostly close, before charging in for another attack. However, as he made his approach there was a glint in the monster's eyes and suddenly Racknar stopped moving and the fuzziness ended. Somehow, the potion of haste had worn off early.
Racknar looked at himself and cursed. “Fuck.” The monster raised its massive front leg and moved to stomp on Racknar. Without haste he didn't have the speed to dodge, there was nothing he could do. As soon as the monster was in range Racknar had taken damage from the aura in addition to what wasn't healed by the potion. He definitely wasn't at full health and knowing the stats he knew exactly how much damage the attack could do. Having kept track of damage and heals with the assumption of average with the exception of the maximized heal spells Racknar knew the odds of him surviving. They were low.
Elizabeth saw the attack and heard a small voice in her head. “(If that attack hits him, he's going to die.)” There wasn't anything she could really do though. She couldn't cast fast enough. Whatever ability was substituting Racknar with someone else would simply just change who dies. From what she remembered of Krys'tal’s subclass Elizabeth knew they should have access to other modes of teleportation but like her own had limits. If she could only cast a little faster she could save Racknar but she had just finished casting a spell just a second ago. This was it. The person she cared about would die again before she could ever truly show him exactly how she felt.
Something seemed to snap inside Elizabeth. She blinked and suddenly she was at the complete opposite end of the clearing with Racknar in hand and what looked like angel wings made of light on her back. This was an ability of an angel-blood, but she was too far removed from the divine source of her family's magic on her mother's side to access it. The wings flicked away and Racknar pushed Elizabeth away and stood on his own feet. “Why didn't you run away when I said so?! You people should be far away from here by now!” He scolded.
Elizabeth looked at the ground, then looked him in the eyes. “I can't… I can't just let you die again. I… I love you!” She shouted, her face turning red. Racknar’s voice became low, stern, and extremely serious. “No, you don't. You're in love with an idea, one you've held into for two lives. I was the first guy to not be at your feet, the first to treat you like a normal person. You romanticize that for so long that you believed your own lie. You don't love me, you love the idea of me.” Elizabeth didn't have a response as the earth shook beneath them. The monster lumbered and turned to face them. There wasn't time for this conversation, they had to get out of there.
Suddenly the group heard a new voice, shouting from a distance. “Excalibur!” The male voice said in an exaggerated fashion that was familiar to Davy. Then, several arcs of white light screamed forward leaving scars in the ground. Impacting the monster it roared and turned its attention to the new enemy. It charged up a breath weapon and hit the heavily armored man with zero effect. He just stood there and let it hit him. He let out a disappointed sigh. “Too bad I couldn't have gotten here sooner, before the sunrise. Then this might have been a challenge.”
Racknar recognized the swords and armor, and knew it should not have been possible for this man to have them. All four shards of Excalibur were at Londinium castle, locked away or at least guarded. The armor of Gawin was already in use, kept in the personal possession of King William himself. There was only one copy of each of those items in the entire world. There was only one way for this man to have them. This man was the legendary summoned hero he had heard about in passing. The strongest fighter in all the lands, even stronger than all the previous summoned heroes.
The man continued to send sword arcs when the monster charged at him and forced the man into melee range. The damage aura did nothing to the man. The monster clawed and bit at the man with the man only moving to dodge the bite. When it went for a stomp it looked like he wasn't going to bother moving but Racknar shouted at the man. “If you let that hit you, it will do damage despite your armor! Move!” The man looked in Racknar's direction before slicing into the bottom of the monster's foot after being covered in a blur effect of a haste spell cast by a light elf mage that came in from the tree line with several other women and a knight. Racknar became extremely self aware that his illusion ring wasn't active right now.
The man sent another series of energy arcs, then another. He was out of uses of that ability, but it didn't matter. The monster fell before the feet of the hero while the hero himself had not been scratched or broken a sweat. “Damn thing must have taken some damage before we got here.” He grumbled as if disappointed. Racknar scolded the man. “Well excuse me for doing my best to not die. We can't all be rocking Gawain's armor making us immune to all physical damage as long as we stand in the glory of the sun.”
Kenshi was taken aback, not just by the appearance but his use of the exact wording on the item description box. “What… are you?” Racknar looked at himself again. “I'm a black iron spider beast-kin. To answer your next question I'm the only one of my kind as far as I know.” The party could practically feel the disgust on the face of the night despite him wearing a helmet. “Sire, I say you should rid this world of this monstrosity as well while it is weakened.” Kenshi scowls. “I've told you before; I don't care what your religion says, I'm not killing a sentient person.”
Racknar growled. “Then why have I heard rumors that you've been clearing every kobold and goblin den in the country of Ran? They have culture and language. Or is your definition different then mine?” Kenshi snapped back. “Goblins and kobolds are just disposable trash mobs. Something games throw at you in high numbers. They're basically bipedal rats.” Racknar growled out his response. “Oh, so then killing ratmen must be perfectly fine then. How convenient must it be to be able to redraw the line and continue to talk like a paragon of virtue. You're no better than the crusaders.”
Kenshi gets slightly heated. “I was summoned here, I was chosen. This is my isekai story, I'm the main character, the protagonist. How dare a mere NPC tell me how to interact with my story. I'm the hero, the chosen summoned hero of legend. I am the magnetic point that guides the moral compass, the definition of what is right and good. How dare you question me.” Racknar sighed, his fangs dropped as if he was suddenly tired. “As I looked back at human history I realized a dark truth. One didn't need to be a psychopath to celebrate killing a thousand people. All they needed was to believe that what they were doing was right.”
Kenshi blinked a few times. “Did you… did you just quote Yoko Taro-Sama?” Racknar didn't respond to Kenshi, instead choosing to address Ariagoria. “Hey Charity, I'm still in rough shape here.” Kenshi then looked at the rest of the party. In addition to the man spider there were two other non-humans. A female demon-blood in a nun habit with the symbol of the church of Longinus on it who was geared up like a cleric and an androgynous looking Shatterkin. Both races he had yet to add to his harem. Suddenly he didn't care about the man spider and turned his attention to the healer. “I feel as if a white mage of your caliber is wasting her talents here.”
Ariagoria continued to heal Racknar. “I go where I feel I can do the most good.” Kenshi looked at the party. “So instead of being on standby for natural disaster relief you're following around this… thing around and keeping it from getting itself killed in suicide missions.” Elizabeth felt her blood start to boil. “We didn't know it was a tarrasque and as soon as we did we started trying to escape until we realized Racknar was willing to sacrifice himself to buy us time. I sure as shit wasn't going to let that happen.” Kenshi blinked. “Racknar? As in the Black Knight Racknar Aradae?”
Kenshi took a second look at Racknar, as did the knight who spoke first. “You're telling me this abomination is the duke of Camelot and future king consort of Bramble? How could the princess possibly agree to such a marriage?” Elizabeth was about to speak when she remembered she had an active illusion to hide her identity. Racknar crossed his arms. “It's not exactly something I wanted either but her father requested she be engaged to someone of noble blood who could pull the sword of selection. He didn't specify it had to be human so I did what I had to to help maintain her spot as crown princess.”
Kenshi and the knight were both stunned. “Well if you or your Shatterkin friend ever want to be with a real party run by a real man feel free to reach out. That also goes for the rest of you ladies.” He then swapped to the staff of Merlin and teleported his group out of the area with the corpse of the monster. Racknar grumbled for some time with his fists clenched. “Let's go home. Now I definitely need that vacation.”
