A moment later we hit a small group of ghouls mixed in with some fist-sized fairies who exploded. When we hit the flying creatures, they detonated in a mix of sparkles that covered the front of the scoop with rainbow-colored luminescence.
Hekla leaned back from the window, rubbing the blood and gore from her face. She suddenly grinned big and said, “There are many wonders in a cow’s head.”
“Indeed,” Eva said.
I had no idea what the hell that meant.
For the next hour and a half we zoomed up the tunnel, moving toward station 101. Hekla tried talking to Donut, but I kept myself between them. I tried to strike up a conversation with Eva, but she just grunted at me. I could tell everybody in the room was talking to one another via chat. Just a few minutes before we got there, I received a message from Elle.
Elle: Hey, good news.
Donut: HI ELLE. HI IMANI!
Carclass="underline" Oh yeah, what’s that?
Elle: We now know what happens when too many of the festering ghouls get together.
Carclass="underline" You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?
Imani: She is. It looks like this type of ghoul’s goal is to get to stop 48. We used that stop 60 to move to your line. It took us a minute to find the right portal, but we found your train sitting there. We ranged downward to the stairwell at 48 and found it full of the festering ghouls. We watched them transform. These worm things come out of them, and then they pull themselves tightly together, making a giant frankenmonster. It’s too big to leave the room, but it fills it completely. It’s a province boss, Carl. We all got achievements just for discovering it. Thankfully it let us get the hell out of there.
Elle: It’s really gross, too. It makes a slurping noise when it moves, and it’s covered with mouths that are always screaming.
Holy shit.
Carclass="underline" That sounds like the shambling berserkers from the last floor. But bigger.
Donut: THOSE GUYS WERE REALLY SCARY.
Imani: I didn’t see those, but the monster has completely filled stop 48. And the wrath ghouls are stopping at station 36. Who knows what they’re going to do. All the ghouls coming from the trainyards are that kind now. They’re going to do the same thing. Or worse.
Carclass="underline" Okay, we have jikininki ghouls at stop 12, nothing yet at 24, the wrath ghouls at 36, the province bosses at 48, and these blister ghouls at 72. It sounds like we need to pick one. Assuming whatever ends up happening at 24 is going to be awful, The jikininki and the blisters are probably the easiest to kill, but they both have generators, which means they continuously spawn.
Elle: Can’t you just pull a Carl and blow the shit out of the room? That was one of Mistress Tiatha’s suggestions.
Carclass="underline" I keep forgetting you guys have a manager, too. I think that’s what they want me to do. The generators are run by soul crystals, and they don’t take too kindly to being blown up. Station 12 still might be our best bet, but we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.
Elle: Miss T isn’t all that helpful. She spends most of her day drinking and smoking blitz sticks. Then she cries about her space pony or whatever it was when she was in the dungeon. She was really excited to be our manager, but she’s treating it like it’s a spring break. She’ll throw a suggestion out every once in a while, but mostly she steals gold from me to buy more booze.
Imani: We’re going to post up at 36 and kill the wrath ghouls as they come in. If we kill enough, maybe we can stop them from doing whatever they’re going to do. There are no soul crystals in that room. We could really use some of your boom jugs.
Carclass="underline" That’s a great idea. Once we rescue these folks, we’ll have a lot more people to hold the line. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.
Elle: Okay. Stay frosty.
Donut: IS THAT YOUR NEW CATCHPHRASE? I LOVE IT.
Elle: Yeah, I’m throwing a few out there to see what sticks.
“Coming up on the main horde,” Eva said. “Look at all of them.”
“Speed up,” both Hekla and I said at the same time.
I turned to the healer. “Heal her about five seconds after we hit the crowd. I don’t care what her health is. Just do it. How many times can you cast before you run out of mana?”
“Five times. But I got mana potions.”
“What’s your potion cooldown?”
“Twenty seconds.”
We rocketed down the tunnel. The line of dots appeared at the edge of my map, closing fast.
“Okay, good,” I said. “I want you to heal Katia, count to five and heal her again. Keep doing it until we say stop. Keep an eye on her for any other conditions. Do you understand?”
Silfa looked at Hekla, who nodded.
“Okay,” she said.
“We’re just in time,” Eva said. “The horde is going to hit 101 in a few minutes.”
“How does the track look behind us?” I asked Hekla. I knew since she had the route map, she could see down the entire line.
She frowned. “Not bad yet. Hopefully it’ll stay clear for our ride home.”
“Here they come!” Eva called.
Smack. Smack, smack, smack. We plowed through the first few ghouls. The train shuddered. And then we were in it. The train bucked and lurched. The tight tunnel was actually keeping us on the track, I realized, as ghoul pieces showered into the cab. I went to work killing everything that continued to move. I smashed at a gnashing head with my fist, and it exploded. More came, one of them chomping painfully onto my leg. I pushed it down. My kneepads activated, the spikes killing it.
The train whined ominously as we plowed through. We noticeably slowed. A few notifications appeared. Donut was screaming and slicing with her claws as more and more living ghoul bits showered into the cab. In moments, we were waist-deep in body parts, more than should be possible, and a lot of it was still alive. Something bit me. Then something else. I had to step back from the window. The pile of gore reminded me of the piles of chum dumped by boats by the docks. It angled down from the window, reaching halfway through the car and growing by the moment. The actual liquid was up to my knees. Holy shit, this was a bad idea. Donut was suddenly on my shoulder. She had a severed hand clutched tight on her tail.
Katia: Help!
I looked up to see Katia’s health at about 10% even as my own health started to plummet. Where was the fucking fairy? My damage reflect was doing a good job at hurting the monsters when they attacked, but there were so many. I slammed my Heal scroll, topping off Katia, and then I had to heal myself with a spell.
I activated Talon Strike and cast Bang Bro and waded back toward the window. I started smashing the heads all around us. It was like trying to fight while buried in oatmeal. The gore continued to shower into the train. Hekla had a physical shield spell around herself. Eva had one of her four hands on the throttle while she sliced down with her sabers. She was up to her chest.
Body parts just kept coming and coming. The parts were getting bigger and bigger as we slowed, including full, living ghouls who weren’t quite dead. I ducked as a fully intact ghoul flew into the car. The green-skinned monstrosity got up and charged at me. Donut blasted it with a missile.
The exterior of the train was completely covered with crawling and moaning and scrabbling monsters. The whole, front cab groaned ominously. Katia was spiking them mercilessly, clearing the gore by pulling the bodies into her inventory. But there was just so many, and she wasn’t moving fast enough.