Master Bruce’s winery sat on the outskirts of Ostrom. It was a massive, squat building of gray stone, looking more like a prison than anything else.
The owner, Master Bruce, met me at the threshold. He was a short man. He swept his eyes over my figure—the tattered cloak, mud-caked boots, hidden right arm—and his lips twisted into a disappointed grimace.
"I asked for a professional, not a beggar," he rasped, wiping his hands on a greasy apron. "The Guild must be hitting rock bottom."
"Where is the cellar entrance?" I asked. "When did the noise start? What is the nature of the damage?"
Bruce blinked, clearly taken aback by such a businesslike tone.
"Five days ago. At first we thought it was rats. But ordinary rats don't chew through oak staves a palm-breadth thick. And they... they don't make sounds like grinding stones. The cellar is deep, three tiers. The beasts are on the very bottom one."
"And you haven't sent anyone down there?"
"My stablehand went down there with a club three days ago," Bruce looked away. "We only found his boot."
"Right. Give me a torch."
The cellar stairs were narrow and slick. A layer of damp moss covered the stone steps. The deeper I descended, the stronger the scent of something acrid became. I held the torch in my left hand. In the cramped tunnel, every step I took echoed with a dull thud.
On the second tier, I discovered the first tracks. A massive three-hundred-liter barrel had been ripped to splinters. The wine had leaked out, forming a sticky puddle. Deep gouges marred the wood. I squatted down, running my fingers along the edge of the barrel. The wood was crushed.
A sound drifted up from the lower tier. Chr-r-r-tch. A crunching noise.
I slowly walked down the final flight of stairs. The lowest tier was the oldest. The walls here were made of rough stone, with groundwater seeping through in places. The torchlight caught movement in the dark.
There were three of them. Vile creatures the size of a large dog, something between a woodlouse and a spider. I dubbed them "Chitinics." Their entire bodies were covered in thick chitinous plates that gleamed like blued steel. Instead of faces, they had massive mandibles.
The beasts froze, staring at me with a multitude of tiny black eyes.
I shrugged off my cloak. The "Centurion" gleamed dully in the torchlight. I didn't bother drawing my knife—steel was useless against armor like that.
The first creature launched its attack. It moved in jagged bursts, its jointed legs blurring into a solid mass. The leap was lightning-fast.
I pivoted my torso, thrusting the elbow of my iron arm forward.
Impact.
The beast slammed into the titanium. A dull resonance echoed out. It was thrown back, flipping in mid-air, but its shell held. It quickly scrambled back onto its legs, letting out a foul, clicking hiss.
Contact surface area is too large, my brain calculated. The kinetic force of the impact had dissipated across the entire shell.
The other two began flanking me. One started scaling the wall, preparing to strike from above. I pressed my back against a massive stone support pillar. Now they could only attack from the front.
The torch in my hand hissed and dimmed—one of the creatures had spat a glob of slime at me. The darkness deepened. I could hear their clicking, feel the floor vibrating with their movements.
It was time to end this.
"Will to Live," I whispered.
Time slowed to a viscous, sluggish crawl. My gaze locked onto the nearest beast. It was mid-leap.
Every object has its own frequency. I felt the hum in my iron arm shifting into resonance with the enemy's rhythm. I thrust my fist forward. My fingers, hidden beneath the leather wrapping, clenched tight.
"Resonance," I breathed.
I made a short, piston-like jab precisely at the point where two plates of the shell converged over the neck joint. At the exact moment of contact, I discharged the accumulated vibrational energy.
The shell exploded from the inside out, shattering into razor-sharp shards. The creature's insides turned to mush.
The second beast, leaping from above, got caught in the blast. Without looking, I whipped my forearm around, meeting it mid-air. Another brief impulse. Another ringing explosion. The creature flew into the wall and slid down in a shapeless heap.
The third beast tried to turn and scurry into a crack between the stones, but to me, it was moving at a snail's pace.
I stepped forward. The floor beneath my boots felt like an extension of my arm, and I delivered the final blow, throwing the entire mass of my body into it.
Boom!
The skill deactivated instantly.
I collapsed to my knees, barely managing to catch myself with my left hand to keep from planting my face into the sharp shards. I vomited right onto the floor. My head was splitting open. White spots swam before my eyes.
I breathed heavily, trying to find my pulse. It was erratic, skipping beats.
"Aggravating..." I rasped, wiping my mouth with my sleeve.
I stumbled to my feet. A fine, uncontrollable tremor gripped my hands. I needed to get out of here before the second wave of the backlash hit. I gathered the fragments of the shells—proof of contract completion—and dragged myself toward the exit, leaning heavily against the walls.
Master Bruce was waiting for me upstairs, tapping his foot anxiously. When I emerged—caked in black slime—he recoiled.
"You destroyed... all of them?"
Silently, I threw a piece of the largest shell at his feet.
"Three. There's nothing else down there. But you need to brick up the far corner of the cellar—there's a breach leading into the caverns. If you don't seal it, more will crawl out in a week."
Bruce looked at the shell, then at me.
"Well... seeing as you finished up so fast," Bruce muttered, scuffing the dirt with the toe of his shoe, "maybe five coins is a bit much?... though, I'm a man of my word. Take your silver."
I took the money in silence, thinking: Is this really Copper rank? And why is he paying me in silver? But the thought vanished almost immediately.
The moment I walked out the winery gates, I headed straight for a tanner's shop. I bought a wide cut of quality oxhide and a jar of good tar oil. Returning to The Lame Goose, I skipped dinner and went straight up to my room.
Disconnecting the prosthesis, I sat on the bed for a long time, just staring at my bruises. If I kept going like this, I wouldn't be able to walk in a year.
I set about reworking the harness. I sliced away the old, chafing straps and layered the new leather piece by piece, trying to find the perfect weight-distribution angle that, according to my calculations, simply had to exist.
I lubricated every bolt and gear. The metal went quiet. Before finally drifting off to sleep, I looked at the map pinned to the wall above the cot.
"Yeah... Dornheim is still an eternity away."
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