Disclaimer: I don't own Darkest Dungeon or any of the mods associated with it. All rights to Red Hook Studios and Muscarine.
This is mostly an experiment in writing something I'm not used to (dark/combat-focused stories) and… it's okay. I didn't go as far as I could have I suppose. Also, here's to hoping I'm representing the Shrapnel somewhat correctly. The Shrapnel is a fan project, a project of passion, so I'd feel a bit bad at horribly mangling her representation or something... so don't take this version as entirely accurate to how the mod actually portrays her personality.
"There's something in the Warrens. Something terrible. The swine people protect it with a fervor, rallying their strength whenever they suspect us to be pushing too far into their territory towards it. They allow us victories on the fringe of their domain because it doesn't strike at their heart."
The heir pauses for a moment to allow that to sink in to the four individuals before him. He paces back and forth in the meeting room, and then speaks again.
"I need you four to find it, and destroy it. You're some of our best, and I'm convinced you can handle this. This is not a treasure run or an extermination mission. Your goal isn't money or culling their numbers. All I need is for you to find whatever this is, and destroy it."
"Well since ya asked so kindly." Audrey snorts. "I'm guessin' I'm here 'cause Dismas is busy, huh?"
The heir purses his lips and glances at the old soldier standing next to the other three. The man gives a nod, and the heir murmurs. "Not quite. I gave Sir Barristan here his choice of team to lead on this mission, and he chose you three to accompany him."
"Oh, I understand then old man." The grave robber smirks with a joking tone. "Wanted someone pretty to look at while you're stuck in the wild huh?"
"You know better than to accuse me of that Audrey." The old soldier snorts. "Fishing for compliments ill suits you. We both know your strengths, you don't need me to recount them to you."
"A lady loves some compliments though." Audrey grins.
"Well, I too am more than flattered to have been chosen for such and expedition." Alhazred says with a bow to the older man. "Me and my magic will serve to the best of our abilities."
"I'd expect no less." Barristan nods.
"This is some sort of joke, right?" The last person snaps. "You don't seriously expect me to believe that you chose me. We've only been on one mission together, and I don't exactly recall us becoming fast friends or anything."
Lucy is very much correct. She's one of the newer heroes in the hamlet. She's been on only a few missions, and only one with Sir Barristan and none with the other members of this team. Her being chosen for this, especially by the old soldier and not the heir, is questionable.
"I determined that you were the best for the job. Our lack of interaction has little to do with this." The soldier says curtly.
Lucy narrows her eyes suspiciously, but says no more.
"You will all leave tomorrow morning." The heir informs them. "I'll leave it to you to make a plan of attack Sir Barristan."
"Of course my lord." The old soldier nods. "We will not disappoint."
"I expect no less." The man says with a neutral expression. "Feel free to take as many provisions as you see fit tomorrow. Dismissed."
###
"That's it. All your parts are repaired and your machinery is oiled up." The blacksmith grunts as he carefully tightens the last bolt for Lucy's gun arm. He pulls back, and the girl experimentally retracts and extends it a few times. She nods to show her satisfaction with his work. "Gotta say you're certainly the most interestin' repair job I've ever done. If yer gonna be stayin' in this hamlet for awhile, I'd appreciate havin' a copy of yer design for future repairs and possible upgrades. After your mission o' course; one o' your teammates might need it if you get damaged."
Lucy nods curtly and mutters "I'll have someone draw up a copy afterwards". She hops off the table she was sitting on and stands up straight. The blacksmith reattaches her backpack's winch to her back once more, and the massive pack is drawn up flush with her back once more. The two flaps near the collarbone drop over the metal clumps that make up her shoulders, hiding them from view.
It still frustrates her that she can't repair her own body when needed. Not having arms really makes things difficult. Even things like eating and drinking are a hassle without hands to hold a fork or a cup. She's had to eat and drink like a pig more than once in her life.
At least it's not as bad as it used to be. Without arms to keep her balance she used to fall down all the time, and she can open doors and such now without help. That was long before she came to the hamlet as a hired hero though.
The pink-haired girl marches out of the building to the sight of the setting sun. Repairs and oiling aren't a short process, Lucy was at the blacksmith's for a few hours.
"There should still be time to get a drink at the bar though." She convinces herself tiredly. "Just don't go too overboard. The old man wants us to leave bright and early."
###
Lucy blinks awake the next morning with a pounding headache… or is that just someone pounding at the door?
"Get up girl, it's time to go! Sir Barristan will be on your ass if ya ain't ready soon!" Audrey's voice calls from the other side of the door.
"Fine…" Lucy grumbles. Her head aches slightly, but it's not too bad. Maybe she's a bit hungover but not too badly. She should be fine by the time they get to the Warrens. "Don't call me 'girl'! I'm older than you!" She barks as she shoulders open her door.
"What, ya want me to call you 'old lady' instead?" The former noble laughs. "C'mon. The rest of us have been up for an hour already, and I'm not carryin' ya around like I did last night."
Lucy pauses. "Wait, what?"
"You drank a bit to much last night old lady." Audrey smirks. "I carried ya back here. That backpack o' yours is heavy ya know? Do you carry that thing around every mission you go on?"
"Yes."
"Well damn, I don't envy you." She huffs. "That explains why the rest o' us are carrying all the supplies though. Alhazred was gripin' a bit about that."
Lucy could not care less what the occult professor thinks. She doesn't continue the conversation when Audrey finishes speaking, and the two walk in silence from the barracks down to the ruined statue in the center of the hamlet.
Sir Barristan and Alhazred are there already, waiting. The old soldier nods quickly to Lucy when she approaches. "Good. You're here. You have everything you need?"
"Yes." Lucy nods back. "I'm ready."
"Then we'll be off." He says, and addresses the group. "I'll lead, then Audrey, then Alhazred, then Lucy. Understood?"
"You got it old man."
"Of course Sir Barristan."
"Sure, fine."
###
The warrens has a number of entrances due to it being the remnants of the old aqueducts and sewage tunnels. There are a number of doors and maintenance hatches littering the entire construct for entrance, though many have been destroyed, overgrown, or obscured to the point that one never really knows if this random hidden hole in the ground is just an old hunting trap or a one-way trip to pigman hell.
That said, the area around the hamlet has been diligently mapped by the earliest heroes in the hamlet (Dismas in particular is credited with spearheading the operation, as he is with most important operations. All the heroes are well aware that Dismas is somewhat of a favourite of the heir so this is no surprise) so the group has several entrances to choose from.
Barristan chooses an entrance that puts them near the edge of the infested area rather than right in the middle of the fray. "We need a path to retreat on if need be." The man-at-arms explains when Alhazred asks. "It won't do to finish our objective and not be able to get out. We'd have no way to relay our success back to the hamlet."
They enter the warrens relatively safely; from a small stone door hidden just a small distance off the main path leading to the corrupted mansion (renamed ominously to the "Darkest Dungeon" by the heir). Barristan roughly pulls open the stone door and they all duck inside the cramped access tunnel. No squeals greet their ears and no vomit comes flying at their faces, so they're not in immediate danger.
Barristand insists on thorough check of each room they come across and a careful advance down the halls. It takes a full hour before they reach a location which the map indicates may have swine present.
Conversation fills the time spent in monotonous walking. Audrey is by far the most chatty. She and Alhazred spend a long time in conversation about intellectual subjects. As a former noble Audrey is well educated enough to hold her own in such a talk, and the two have a lengthy talk about the influence of occultism on art.
Lucy think's it's boring as hell. Barristan doesn't seem to mind until they get close to swine territory, upon which he shushes the occultist and the grave robber and everyone (minus Lucy) walks silently with weapons at the ready from then on.
The first group of swine catch them off guard. Everyone in the group had ears out for them, but swine scouts are nothing if not stealthy. That said, they're also lightly armored and not that tough. With only two of them, Lucy doesn't even bother to unpack and lets the others tear apart the unfortunate pigs.
"Well, here's our first bit of treasure." Audrey notes as she extracts the gold coins from the pig's coin pouches.
"Remember, this isn't a treasure run. If it gets in the way of carrying provisions, provisions come first." Sir Barristan reminds her.
"I hear ya old man." The lady chuckles as she slides the coin into her backpack. "But we got space at the moment, don't worry 'bout it."
The group is cautious from then on with the knowledge that they are officially in pigman territory. Traps are now a worry, and Audrey becomes critical in not getting them pierced by hidden spike and dart traps every few dozen meters.
They don't find another fight for a good few hours, but in the meantime they're constantly on edge for a possible attack. They start hearing shufflings or the occasional distant squeal, and Alhazred diligently keeps their torch burning so they can see as much as possible.
The next encounter they have they know is coming. They hear the grunts and squeals coming from the next room. The smooth stone walls make for effective echoes, so they have to be as silent as possible in their approach.
Barristan slides right up against the door, nods to the other members of his group, and slams the door open and charges in. Audrey is throwing daggers before she can even see her targets, and Alhazred drops giant eldritch tentacles from the ceiling.
Lucy's start of the battle is much less intense. She calmly drops her backpack, extends her gun, and powers up her internal engine. Steam vents furiously from her left shoulder as she takes aim into the open doorway, loads some bullets, yells "frag!" and unleashes a blast of shrapnel into the room.
Lucy's approach to battle is much more methodical than her teammates. Her attacks his a massive area and she has to time and telegraph them carefully or she's likely to accidentally injure the other heroes. Combine this with the fact that she can only see a small portion of the room, and she's heavily reliant on her teammates to tell her when and where to shoot in this confined space.
Only Barristan seems to know that though. The others have never worked with her before, and so they fight without relaying any information to her and make her ability to help them exponentially harder.
"Left! Focused!" Barristan's voice calls from in the room. Lucy quickly swings her gun about, ignoring the fact that her target is partly blocked by the wall, and pumps two dozen bullets through her gun in a narrow line of fire. Some are blocked by the wall, but the force of their impact shatter the stone and allow the others to strike true into an armored swine and a wretch's backs.
It's a strange thing to fight in a battle you can barely see, but Lucy has done it several times by this point. It's annoying to explain her system of quick commands to every single person she works with though. The bounty hunter Tardiff and the arbalist Missandie caught on the quickest, Lucy thinks they must be familiar with these sorts of quick orders.
Neither of those two are with her now though. If it weren't for Sir Barristan she would be nearly useless here.
Inside the room is chaos. The old soldier stands tall with shield and mace in hand, taking the brunt of the assault from the four pigmen and swinging back with a fury whenever they cross his path. He has the difficult task of protecting both the doorway and Alhazred at the same time, and inevitably the occultist is taking hits as he's still very much in the fray. The poor man is getting targeted by the remaining swine wretch (a small, atrophied creature that fights by vomiting at its foes) and is grimacing in disgust as the stench of vomit enters his nostrils and the vomit itself stains his clothes.
Barristan knows from experience that such a thing is unpleasant at best and traumatizing at worst. He hates to leave the doorway (and by extension Lucy) exposed, but Audrey is combatting the only other swine so he places his trust in the grave robber and rushes to Alhazred's defence.
Combat ends quickly after that. The wretch dies to a solid swing of Barristan's morningstar, and the slasher goes down to no less than ten daggers. A tough creature to be sure. That small shield can be deceptively efficient.
"Lucy, we've finished!" The old soldier calls to the girl outside. "Help Audrey search while I look over Alhazred!"
There's a telltale noise of steam venting and the clank of metal as Lucy retracts her gun and winches her ammo pack up onto her back once more. As her coolant tempers her heated machinery she lets out a long sigh of frustration. She did much less than she would have wished to in that fight. She'll have to have a talk with Audrey and Alhazred about helping her to help them… which is to say letting them know about her system of battle commands.
What a hassle.
###
Alhazred coughs loudly once more and leans against the wall for support. His insistence that it's "just a dry throat my friends" has never sounded less credible than when he spouts it this time. Audrey has had quite enough, and puts Barristan and Lucy up to guard duty while she gives the scholar a thorough lookover.
For all Barristan's military training, it's Audrey that knows more about sickness than him. This is mostly due to all her time spent grave robbing, and therefore looking at corpses. She learned how to distinguish one sort of death from the other, especially when it came to death by disease, for her own safety and can identify it in others rather easily.
"Alright, I see it." The lady says with a sharp "tsk" of her tongue. "Some fast-acting variant of spotted fever. You got the usual marks on your leg."
"Ah." The scholar mutters. "I-I see."
"I'll lend ya my box when we bed down for the night." The lady offers. "Should fix ya right up… or at least keep you on your feet long enough for us to get our job done and get ya back to the sanitarium for a patch up."
It's no wonder he's diseased. He's been getting barfed on by wretches continuously throughout the day. Lucy is inwardly glad that he took the hits and not her; and no, she doesn't care how selfish that is.
Barristan has his usual stoic reaction. "That's unfortunate. However, unless it is critical, you'll have to tough it out until the end of the mission. I'm sorry Alhazred, but there isn't much we can do at the moment."
"It is fine Sir Barristan. The mission takes priority over a minor illness. I have seen the sanitarium treat worse, I will manage." The occultist grimaces. "I wish to be rid of this place as soon as possible though. The scents and sounds gnaw at my mind…"
"We all share the sentiment." Barristan says and pats him on the shoulder. "Only a few more rooms, then we'll bed down for the night. Then we can make you some soup from the medicinal herbs and hopefully Audrey's box will take the edge off your illness."
Lucy stays silent as they talk. She doesn't know these people, and doesn't care to feign politeness or concern. She stands a bit further back from Alhazred than usual as they explore from then on, she doesn't want to catch his illness.
"Last room." Audrey whispers after a few rooms of nothing. "I can hear somethin' in there. More swine." She turns to look at Lucy. "You wanna set up before we open the door this time?"
"Yes." Lucy says curtly. She unpacks herself, dropping her ammo back to the floor and extending her gun. Her steam vents a bit louder than they all would have hoped, but there's nothing Lucy can do about that.
"Ready." She says after a few seconds. "You all know how this works by now I'd hope."
"Of course Lucy." Audrey nods as she pulls her daggers out. "Sir Barristan, you're goin' first again, right?"
The old man nods. He's already leaning against the door, ready to kick it down. Everyone else readies up behind him, he counts down to three with his fingers, and bashes in the door with his shield.
They find immediate retaliation in the form of a large swine with a giant pig lower body charging at them with a lance. Everyone dives out of the way, but the lance still finds a home in Lucy's right shoulder and she tears the muscle and bone apart with the force of impact.
"Ffff…" Lucy hisses as she scrambles up. Her heavy ammo pack, still attached to her back, by the winch chain and the ammo belt, inhibits her ability to run away from this swinetaur. Instead she swings her gun around and shoots a hasty blast at the creature's face, only to miss entirely due to being in such close quarters.
"The flesh is knit!" Alhazred snarls as he raises his skull and healing magic pulses through Lucy's body. The healing is painful, but it's effective.
"Fuck off ya lout!" Audrey shouts as she nails the creature in the neck with a poisoned dart. "Barristan! What are you-?!"
"Busy!" The old soldier snarls from the doorway. He's currently occupied dealing with a drummer and a slasher inside the room.
The swinetaur wheels about in the hallway; knocking over a decrepit stone side-table and blowing up dust and pebbles as it skids to a temporary stop. The lance comes down again, and the creature dashes forwards once more.
The heroes scatter again in a mad rush to avoid getting impaled. Once more the lance hits Lucy, this time in the chest. It goes right through her ribcage and out her back before the swine yanks it from her body and she falls to the floor gurgling up blood.
"Alhazred!" Lucy snaps after rolling to her feet.
"I am aware!" He grunts and raises his skull again. This time the healing isn't nearly as powerful, though the pink-haired girl is at least on her feet again. "Blast it…"
"Stop… it!" The gunner snarls. "Can't shoot... from this close!"
That might sound like a complaint, but it's not. That's an order. Audrey lunges forwards with dagger in hand and slashes furiously at the swine's leg, hoping to stop it in place, and Alhazred contributes with a orange hex that slows the swine considerably.
That's just enough for Lucy to do what she needs. Her internal machinery whirs at a lightning pace as several dozen bullets are funneled into her gun, and she expunges them all in less than a second with a deafening "BOOM!"
The swinetaur keels over from the sheer impact of the bullets, and when Audrey runs to it's side to stab it in the neck she notices that the head has already been blown apart by the dozens of bullets pumped into it.
Lucy, for her part, suffers the recoil of her attack. The force of the shots send her sprawling onto her back, agitating her injuries, and it takes a solid few seconds for her to pull her heavy gun arm back into firing position.
The three turn their attention back to Sir Barristan, who is not faring so well in his two on one fight. He has, however, valiantly held his position despite a number of cuts courtesy of the slasher.
Compared to the swinetaur, the other two swine should be trivial, but nothing is ever that simple. The drummer instantly turns his attention to the three other members when they push into the room, and when Audrey misses her first dagger throw Alhazred breaks.
"Your incompetence will be our undoing!" He moans. "First the large creature, and now we struggle even against these pawns?
"Shut yer trap Alhazred, complain after the battle's over!" Audrey responds curtly. She throws another dagger, this time at the slasher, and Barristan follows up with a quick swing of his morningstar to end the thing. "Lucy! Right, focused!"
A stream of bullets shatters the flimsy stone walls and several clip the drummer, taking chunks out of its ear and shoulder. Rather than healing like he should (as combat magic relies on adrenaline, and therefore can't be easily used out of battle) Alhazred leaps forward with his knife and stabs the creature to finish it off.
"Nothin' else?" Lucy asks the old soldier, who shakes his head. "Alright Lucy, get in here! There's nothin' else around."
The girl packs up as Audrey turns to Alhazred, who wears an intense grimace as he dusts off his skull.
"Alright Al, what's up? You know Lucy still needs healing, you shoulda let me or Barristan take care o' that thing."
"You missed! I could not trust that you would do your job properly, and as such I had to do it." The occultist grumbles.
"Excuse you, not like you've hit every tentacle you've slung around." Audrey huffs.
"Enough, there is little to be gained by argument." Barristan says firmly as he steps between the two. "We're setting up for camp here. Alhazred, you come with me to sweep the area for threats. Audrey, I trust you and Lucy to set things up properly."
The grave robber recognizes what Barristan is doing: he's separating the two of them and probably going to have a talk with Alhazred. Lucy is rather useless in setting anything up due to lacking arms, but at the very least she doesn't complain… or talk in general.
Yeah, Audrey is fairly sure the pink-haired girl doesn't like her. She doesn't say so out loud at least. She just kinda sulks in a corner. Glowering at anything and everything.
Audrey can tell this is going to be a fantastic night.
###
"Ow." Lucy growls.
"Yeah, I know. Gonna sting a bit more." Audrey apologizes as she applies more mashed herbs and bandages. "Not much we can do without a healin' ritual. Just gotta make sure these cuts don't get infected overnight."
The gunner purses her lips and says nothing more. She knows Audrey is right.
The cooking fire flickers low, it's purpose fulfilled long ago. If there was one benefit about having whatever provisions they wished for, a choice of good food is certainly it. Sir Barristan is currently tending to it, having completed his instruction to the group on tactics to hopefully keep them alive through the next day.
Alhazred is absorbed in his own thoughts. He's off in his own corner murmuring to himself and the skull in his hands. The rest of them are generally leaving him alone, he's stressed.
"There we go, done." The grave robber sighs. "Don't move the bandages around too much, 'kay?"
"Fine."
"I'm gonna try and get Alhazred to take a sniff." The lady says as she stands up and pulls out her snuff box. "If somethin's wrong or botherin' ya with the bandages, talk to Sir Barristan. He knows bandages just as well as me, maybe better."
Lucy doesn't say anything, and the grave robber walks over to badger the occultist. The gunner carefully looks over Audrey's bandaging job, and reluctantly admits the lady did well. She almost wishes there was a mistake she could complain about, but the former noble knows what she's doing.
There's still something Lucy has to do before night falls though. She needs to do a systems check and run through all her functions to ensure they're still working. It's a good habit just to ensure her gun and ammo belt and whatnot are still working for tomorrow.
So, being careful of her bandages, she slowly extends her gun and drops her ammo pack. Her left shoulder vents a small amount of steam, reflective of the low setting her systems are running on, and the collant doesn't kick in because it's unneeded. However, there is an issue when she tries to rotate her ammo belt. The track locks up, not quite rotating as smoothly as it should.
"Fuck." Lucy grumbles as she futilly tries to glance over her own back to see the problem. "Fuck…"
She's going to have to ask for help, isn't she? Lucy hates asking for help. Can she even trust these people to fix her systems? They're not trained for these sorts of repairs.
What choice does she have though? There's no one else that could help her. Alhazred is stressed, Audrey is bothering him, so Sir Barristan is the only choice left.
"Barristan. Old man!" Lucy barks, grabbing the man's attention.
"What is it?"
"I need… assistance." She sighs reluctantly. "My ammo track is locking up, I need you to repair it."
"I see… will you be able to direct me? I am not proficient in such things." The old man says. He grunts as he stands up and moves over behind her so he can see the track.
"There's schematics in my pack. You're going to have to be my eyes and hands." She sighs. The old soldier digs around in her pack for a moment and procures the schematics in question and lays them out so she can see. "Okay, so, first I need you to check the loading system…"
The repairs are neither quick nor elegant. Barristan is old, and while his eyesight is far from horrible it is starting to go which makes noticing fine details of her machinery an issue. There are several times where Barristan cuts himself on a sharp piece of metal or gets his fingers pinched.
Eventually her ammo track is fixed, and it whirs through her systems unimpeded. A bit of oil fixes most of the lingering issues, and those that remain aren't serious and can be repaired back at the blacksmith's later. Barristan does have to bandage up his own hands afterwards though.
Lucy doesn't want to say it, but she feels she has to. "Thanks…" She mutters reluctantly.
"Of course. Any time." The old soldier nods. "I trust you would do the same for me."
The fact that Lucy would probably be physically incapable of helping him is left unsaid.
###
"Up an' at 'em girl." Audrey whispers in Lucy's ear. "We can hear swine movin', an' we need to be ready."
The pink-haired gunner growls something foul under her breath, but listens to the grave robber. She hauls herself upright and out of her bedroll, and accepts Audrey's help in attaching her ammo pack.
They're low on food, but today shouldn't take quite as long as yesterday. Their objective should be in this general area if their information is right. Barristan is hopeful that they'll be back at the hamlet before dinner.
However they are out of herbs, and their antivenoms are running low. Staying too long could be dangerous if they don't find more. They really do need to find their target, whatever it is, and get out.
"Alright, so when you lot were noddin' off yesterday I was doin' some scoutin'." Audrey reveals. "You knew this Sir Barristan."
The old man nods.
"I think I've pinpointed a few rooms we should be checkin'." She says as Barristan pulls out the map. The rooms in question are indicated with tacks. "We should be makin' a line for them. Don't wanna stay here longer than we need to."
The last day could be considered rough, and this day is looking to be the same. Now that they're solidly in swine territory there are fights around every corner, and sometimes they find themselves outnumbered as a squad of half a dozen swine might confront them on occasion.
It's in these occasions that Lucy's contribution to the group becomes most apparent though. Her shrapnel blasts tear apart all foes regardless of their numbers, and many fights come down to simply letting the pink-haired girl mow down their foes as the others do their best to keep her safe.
The noise, the smell of gunpowder and dirty flesh, and the taste of blood in the mouth all combine for a somewhat surreal experience for every fight. It's a mad rush of adrenaline as the heroes desperately repel the swine with each hero having their part to play. Lucy deals massive area of effect damage, Alhazred keeps them all on their feet, Audrey takes down particularly tough targets, and Barristan holds the line with his shield taking the brunt of every assault. Even the monstrous swinetaurs fall before the shrapnel, daggers, and swings of Barristan's morningstar.
The first marked room turns out to be a treasure hold of sorts. Audrey stuff their bags as full as she can of gold and gems before they move on. They leave thousands of gold behind, but they simply don't have the space to spare.
The second marked room is a food storage filled with rotting corpses of man and animal alike. The group doesn't even bother to set foot in there after opening the door, and just toss in a torch to burn the place to the ground. They already have one disease to worry about, they're not going to risk another by searching through the stuff.
The third room is a weapons locker of sorts. There are racks upon racks of shoddy weaponry including a few peculiar choices like a man-catcher and a cleaver half the size of a person.
The fourth room is the most heavily defended of them all. Nearly a dozen swine stand guard outside the door, including two swinetaurs. The battle is grueling, and Barristan teeters on death's door several times due to taking so much of the assault on himself. Alhazred spends the entire fight doing nothing but healing, and Audrey has to focus solely on the swinetaurs to get those threats off the battlefield.
Lucy has to pump out shrapnel to an absurd degree, and by the end of the fight she suspects that she might actually be getting low on bullets (which is crazy, because her entire backpack was filled with bullets at the start of this mission, and it is indeed considerably lighter now).
At the end of the fight Barristan is still severely wounded, and the last of the group's bandages are used to keep him from bleeding out. Alhazred's magic is gone already, his adrenaline dropping below the necessary threshold, so the old man-at-arms is unfortunately left in his injured state as the group enters the last pinned room.
What meets them is terrifying, and unmistakably their target.
A giant pigman, easily thrice their size, towers over them. It's lower body doesn't have legs, and instead is a mess of entrails and organs. It looks like some sort of half-finished mad science project, especially when Audrey notes that the creature is missing one eye and the other is mostly clouded. It has a humongous cleaver in one hand, and a particularly small pigman scurries off the other onto the floor. The small pigman has a pair of flags in hand, and screeches in their direction the moment it lands on the floor while waving its flags at them.
Then comes the massive cleaver, and the group scatters like four panicked mice to avoid getting hit by that thing. It crunches into the stone where they stood a moment before, leaving a deep indent.
"Here foul creature!" Barristan barks. Despite his numerous injuries he stands tall, shield in hand, and bangs his weapon against it to draw the giant swine's attention. "Your end lies with me!"
"Gonna get yourself killed old man…" Audrey grumbles as she chucks a dagger at the giant swine. "Alhazred-"
"I know!" The scholar snaps in irritation. "I'll attempt to keep him alive! Focus on your job!"
Lucy ignores the both of them as she sets up in a corner of the room. As soon as her gun extends she's already firing shrapnel at the giant creature. The metal shards pierce the skin, leaving a dozen cuts with each blast. Audrey's knives have a similar effect, though they're more specifically targeted towards the throat, eye, and heart.
And then something happens. A sharp squeal rings through the air as a piece of shrapnel hits the small swine behind the giant one. The large creature lets out a particularly ferocious snarl, and with a surge of adrenaline it swings it's free hand in a massive swipe that leaves scratches across everyone even remotely close to it. Barristan is launched against the wall, and Alhazred's robes are torn and his body bleeding by the scratches he maintains.
"Alright, uh, let's not hit the small thing." Audrey grunts.
"Ya think?" Lucy grunts. She squints against the dust the monster's swipe stirred up. It doesn't help that her right eye isn't perfect. She's never mentioned it, but the burns that encompass the right side of her face also affected the vision in her eye slightly. "Fuck, I can't see anything. Order me!"
"Up high, left!" Audrey shouts instantly as she too squints through the dust. "Follow my throws!"
The grave robber chucks a dagger, and Lucy complies. She's not looking at the daggers per say, but Audrey's throwing arm. The gunner swings her gun higher and slightly to the left, and fires a focus stream of gunfire in the general direction. A loud roar from the giant creature tells her she hit her target.
"It's moving!? It can move?!" The former noble gapes. "Fuck, we need to get out of here."
"Can't." Lucy grimaces. The major downside of unpacking to fight is that she's stationary. She can't move easily after her ammo bag is dropped and her gun is out to unbalance her.
The gunner is genuinely surprised when Audrey scoops an arm under her legs and back and scoops the girl up into her arms. "Guess I'm fuckin' carryin' you then." The lady grunts, clearly straining. That ammo pack, empty as it is, and the gun add a lot of weight to Lucy's otherwise light body. "Damn you're heavy."
The grave robber hauls Lucy across the room and, more particularly, out of the dust cloud. It's at this point Lucy can see the giant monster slamming it's cleaver down into the spot the two of them were just occupying. If Audrey hadn't pulled her out of there she would be dead.
"My word, what did we sign up for?" Audrey breathes. "What is this thing?"
"Dead meat." Lucy replies in as deadpan a tone as she can. She's actually trying to hide her own panic. The thing has turned back to Barristan, who is somehow not dead from being thrown across the room, and Lucy plans to capitalize. "Put me down, we have a clear target. We can end this."
"What?"
"Spine is visible, close to the skin. Shatter that and the creature is dead." Lucy explains as quickly as she can. "Put. Me. Down."
Audrey does so, and pulls a pair of daggers out while waiting for Lucy's signal.
She doesn't have to wait long. The gunner's internal machinery whirs at a high speed she funnels as many bullets as she can into her guns, and Lucy snarls "shoot!" as she her gun suddenly expunges dozens of bullets into the creature's back with a deafening roar. Audrey's few daggers feel very unnecessary when considering the hole-ridden carcass the giant creature is suddenly reduced to by Lucy's gunfire.
The giant creature falls. It crashes to the floor with an underwhelming "thud" considering it's size, and the cleaver falls limply from its hand. The small creature, which had been waving it's flags and squealing to direct its taller companion, stares wide-eyed at the corpse for a moment, snarls in fury at the group, and runs out of the room before Audrey can nail it with a dagger.
"Oh light, you actually killed that thing…"
"Mission done, let's get out." Lucy snaps, breaking the grave robber's awe. The gunner is already packing up. "I'm tired of this place. Let's go."
"Right, 'couse." Audrey nods. She raises her voice. "Barristan, you still standin'?"
"Yes." The old man grunts. He looks awful… but he is indeed alive.
Alhazred is even more determined than Lucy to get out of here. He's already out the door, shouting at the rest of then. "We shall be going! I do not wish to be here any longer than I need to be!"
Lucy thinks it's funny that Alhazred keeps his 'scholarly' voice on when when he's basically shouting at them. Judging by the way Audrey is rolling her eyes, she might agree with that sentiment.
Audrey helps support Sir Barristan as the four of them flee back the way they came, successful but injured. The sounds of squealing swine fades quickly as they put distance between themselves and swine-infested area.
###
"Sir Barristan?"
"Lucy! I'll admit, I didn't expect a visit from you." The old soldier says as he attempts to sit up in his bed. He's heavily bandaged, and even a few healing rituals from Junia haven't brought him back to good health. He's no longer on death's door, but he won't be taking missions for a few weeks even with magical aid.
"That's fair." The pink-haired gunner grunts. "This isn't usual of me… and I can't say me coming here is for a selfless reason."
"Aha." The man grins despite the clear pain it brings him to do so. "Let me guess, you want to know why I chose you for this mission and not, say, Missandei."
"Yes." Lucy nods. He claims to not have expected a visit, but somehow he knows exactly what she was going to ask. That tells Lucy that he might not have been entirely genuine in saying he didn't expect her…
"Well that's easy enough." The old man chuckles. "You were more than qualified of course, in case that was your worry. I did not endanger the mission by brining you over someone else."
The girl purses her lips. That was one of her worries, but she won't admit it out loud.
"Mostly though, you struck me as someone rather… antisocial." Barristan admits. "And far be it for me to meddle in the lives of others, but I was hoping to open you up a little. You're too young to be bitter."
"I'm not young." The gunner says flatly. "I'm older than Audrey, and probably older than our so-called 'lord'."
"You're under forty. You're young. You've got half your life left. " The old man snorts. "And I know you don't like leaning on other people… but that's a necessity. Not just for you because of your arms, but for me too! And for Audrey, and Alhazred, and even our lord!"
"Sure, sure." Lucy snorts. "Are you a former pastor or something?"
"Oh, you know I'm right." The old man huffs. "Do you think this hamlet would work if there was just a bunch of people doing their own thing and totally ignoring each other?"
"No…"
"Do you think a single adventurer could accomplish what we've done today?"
"Don't patronize me."
"Hah!" Barristan barks. "You just don't want to admit I'm right!"
Lucy scowls. He, of course, is right… and no, she won't admit it. "Look old man, just because I don't like it doesn't mean I don't know it's necessary."
"I'd disagree." He snorts. "You didn't mention your commands until after the first fight. You were hoping they wouldn't be necessary."
The pink-haired girl glowers at him. Is he a mind-reader?
"It's always gonna be necessary to lean on others Lucy." Barristan chuckles. "I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm here to help you if you need, and I'm sure Audrey would say the same."
Lucy turns her head away with a grimace. She didn't come here for this touchy-feely crap. She has her answer. "I'm leaving to get a drink."
"Of course." The man smirks. "I'm sure Audrey will carry you back if you pass out at the bar again."
"Shut it old man!"
Not sure how good this story is, but I liked writing it. It took a few days to get this done.
A few notes: I had to decide how strictly I was going to stick to the game's mechanics for this story. In the end I decided 'marking' was just a way to single out or debilitate a target to be easily hit, and therefore any class can conceivably 'mark' something if they knew what they are saying/doing. I also went rather light on the game mechanics here; it's much more 'realistic' so to speak if the Shrapnel starts in the back of the group even if by the mechanics of her class in the game she's supposed to start in the front line, and if the 'mow down' skill isn't strictly limited to second and third rank.