Chapter 92
Yeti Mountain
Rel and I hovered high in the air, several hundred metres from the mountain city. As much as I hated yetis, I had to admit that the place was damned impressive. If they ever grew tired of being stupid thugs and all-around pieces of shit, maybe they’d have a bright future in stonework.
The mountain itself was enormous and would likely give Everest a run for its money. Despite its size, its incline was very gradual, which meant the yetis had been able to carve winding paths that ran up its side.
At various points, large platforms had been levelled off, or deep recesses had been hacked into the stone. These were where the yetis had built their homes, and there were a lot of them. There must have been tens of thousands of the furry bastards living in the city.
There was one main path that began at the base. It wound its way up the mountainside, branching off into many smaller paths before eventually reaching a vast plateau roughly a mile up the mountain. It was home to an impressive fortress of ice, which I could only assume belonged to Hrundar himself.
As two badasses capable of flight, Rel and I could have flown straight to the platform and finished the quest in a few minutes. But where was the fun in that? It’d have been like starting a new video game and skipping straight to the final level.
How does that saying go again? Something about the journey being more important than the destination?
And it looked like we had one hell of a journey ahead of us. The paths were teeming with yeti warriors. Big, mean-looking fuckers wearing leather armour and carrying every weapon known to man... and, apparently, yeti.
“Rel…” I said, “You may or may not have noticed, but I’m not a big fan of yetis.”
“Oh, really?” he said mildly. “That is quite the shock. Next, you’ll be telling me that you’re fond of pretending to be a peasant.”
“Pretending?” I asked.
He pulled his gaze from the city and turned to face me, one eyebrow raised. “Pete,” he said. “Do you know of many peasants who have enough gold to buy a small kingdom?”
Fuck.
“Shut up,” I said. “Anyway… I have a plan for this quest that will allow me to express my dislike of yetis while also giving us plenty of opportunities for stat gains.”
“So long as this ‘plan’ allows me to train my durability and agility, then I’m all ears.”
I rubbed my hands together. “Excellent…”
*
My plan was an incredibly simple one: land at the base of the mountain, beat the shit out of the guards, then fight our way up the path until we reached Hrundar’s ice fortress.
Pete and Rel vs a thousand yetis.
But not only that... we were going in raw.
No swords. No pitchforks. No magic.
Just fists and claws, baby.
Honestly, does life get any better than that?
“Ready?” I asked Rel.
After hearing my plan, he’d insisted on performing a very thorough stretching routine. Apparently, if he was going to ‘debase’ himself by engaging in such a primitive form of combat, then he wanted to ensure he was ‘adequately warmed up’.
He sighed, reached down to touch his hind claws one final time, then nodded.
*
We strode towards the guards stationed at the base of the path. There were six of them, each wearing leather armour with the emblem of a white, furry fist painted very poorly on the chest piece. Their weapons had been discarded carelessly on the ground beside them. All six huddled around a huge block of ice they'd turned into an impromptu table for whatever dice game they were playing.
It was apparently a very high-stakes game, as we heard plenty of shouting and swearing as we approached. One yeti was in the middle of a very detailed explanation of how he intended to shove the dice up his opponent’s ass.
Rel and I paused when we were less than ten metres away, the six guards still entirely oblivious to our presence.
I glanced down at Rel and mouthed, ‘These guys are fucking idiots’.
He responded with a very fitting ‘Duhhhh’.
I was just about to introduce myself when one of the yetis saved me the hassle by turning around to grab his weapon. Evidently, he did not appreciate being told that his asshole was about to be violated by the dice. I couldn’t blame him. They were large and rather crudely carved. They were also made of ice, so I couldn’t imagine it’d have been a very pleasant sensation.
He froze when he saw us, his enormous hand hovering over the haft of his warhammer. For a few moments, he stared at us dumbly with his beady black eyes, as if struggling to process what he was seeing.
And then he grinned.
“Well, would you look at this,” he said as he picked up his warhammer and rested it on his shoulder. “You’ve arrived just in time. I was getting bored of dice.”
“Bored?” I asked. “The game sounded pretty interesting to me. How do you actually win? Is it whoever finishes with the fewest dice up his ass?”
The other yetis had also turned to face us and retrieved their weapons. One of them stepped forward. He was the biggest of the bunch, and he wore a stereotypical Viking helmet with a horn on either side. I figured that made him an officer of some sort.
“You’re a funny little man, aren’t you? I like funny men,” he said with a cruel smirk. “Tell me another joke.”
“Your mom,” I said.
Judging by his reaction, he must have been very fond of his mother.
“Fuck you!” he snarled as he levelled his spear. “My mom was a saint!”
Was?
Oh, damn.
As much as I hated yetis, even I drew the line at insulting their dead mothers. I opened my mouth to apologise, but he never gave me the chance. Roaring with fury, he lunged at me.
The tip of his spear slammed into my chest.
It punched straight through my enhanced peasant garb, but the reinforced material stole enough of its momentum to stop it poking me a new hole. Even so, the guy hit like a train, and the blow knocked me back several steps, my ribs protesting unhappily at the treatment. It might not have cut me, but it was going to leave one hell of a bruise.
The yeti quest was Tier Five, two-star difficulty rating, so it was definitely no joke. The officer’s attack was more than enough proof of that. Before I’d absorbed Heart of the Banished Dark, it’d likely have broken a rib rather than just knocking me back.
Most of the time, when an opponent delivered what they expected to be a devastating blow, only to realise that it had very little effect, their bewildered eyes would drift between me and their weapon for a few moments before they shit themselves and attempted to run away.
The yeti officer did no such thing. Still enraged by my joke about his dearly departed mother, he didn’t hesitate. He surged forwards once more, his spear cutting through the air with remarkable speed as he unleashed a furious flurry of attacks. I took several steps back, twisting and deflecting every strike as I went.
You have gained 1 agility.
Current agility: 53
The first yeti to spot us – the one with the warhammer – must have sniffed blood in the water, as he flanked me and brought his warhammer around in a huge arc, presumably intending to decorate the ice with the contents of my skull.
Rel stepped in.
Or, perhaps more accurately, he leapt in.
He launched himself off the ground, a grey blur soaring through the air, one paw thrust out in front of him.
Now, Rel’s paws were pretty damn small. They didn't really have the surface area needed to deliver a satisfying punch. However, that didn’t make them any less effective. He bunched his claws together as though he were controlling a sock puppet, and when they struck the yeti's face, they punched straight through his skin.
The yeti howled in agony as Rel withdrew his claws and a great fountain of blood spurted from the gaping wound in the creature’s cheek.
Rel glanced down at the thick blood soaking into his fur and swore under his breath. Clearly deciding it was the yeti’s fault, he leapt back into the fray. He soared over the yeti’s shoulder, twisting as he did so to drive his claws into the side of the creature’s head.
The yeti howled again and began panicking, blindly swinging his warhammer through the air in an attempt to bludgeon Rel.
I didn’t get the chance to see what happened next. The rest of the yetis threw themselves into the melee, and the world became a blur of violence. Swords and axes rained down on me. I dodged some of the blows, but tanked plenty of the others. After all, it’s pretty difficult to raise durability if you never get hit.
It may have been a two-star difficulty quest, but these yetis were still only ordinary guards. They were definitely weaker than Anokium had been, so their attacks didn’t carry enough force to do any significant damage.
Even so, that shit stung.
I dived forward, closing the distance with the yeti officer. I hooked one arm around his back, pulling him closer, then took a page out of Rel’s book and stiffened my fingers into a blade. I thrust my hand forward, punching straight through the yeti’s armour and stomach. I grimaced as I felt the warm blood and squishiness of his internal organs... then I squeezed my fingers shut, grabbing whatever good stuff I could, and ripped my hand back out.
It came free with a squelching sound that was both satisfying and absolutely disgusting, and the officer stumbled back, reaching down to try and shove the remnants of his intestines back inside.
The savagery of my attack caused the other yetis to have a what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into? moment.
They hesitated and took a step back.
Too late, motherfuckers.
I grinned at them, the yeti blood splattered across my face no doubt making me look insane, then dove at the nearest one. He barely had time to react before I was upon him, my fist slamming into his face repeatedly until his skull looked like something that had been drawn by a five-year-old.
Rel had already killed the warhammer-wielding yeti, the creature’s body covered in dozens of deep, paw-sized punctures, and was now engaged in a fight with another who wielded two swords.
The final guard was tearing across the ice and up the path, no doubt raising the alarm and screaming for backup. I briefly considered following him, but decided that he’d be doing us a favour. If he rounded up all the others, it’d save us a job.
Instead, I turned my attention to the rest of Rel’s fight.
Rel’s agility was comparable to mine, but his durability was significantly lower. It meant he had to be much more careful about which blows he decided to tank. A slice to the neck might have had rather unfortunate consequences, so he made sure any attacks he couldn't avoid landed somewhere less vital.
There was a deep cut on his cheek, the blood already matting in his fur, and another across the back of his paw where he’d batted a blade aside.
I glanced back up the path to see that the yeti who'd escaped had succeeded in raising the alarm. The paths were now swarming with soldiers – hundreds of them – and every last one was heading in our direction.
Perfect.
“Catch up when you’re finished with this guy,” I said.
I strode towards the path like a complete badass.
*
The next thirty minutes were absolutely insane. I’d had some bloody and brutal fights since joining the Trial, but this was on another level altogether.
I waded through the horde of yetis like a god of death.
I shattered bones with my fists. I sliced through flesh with my fingertips. I snapped necks. I used dead yetis as clubs.
Some living ones too.
Because of my absurd strength, they were no match for me when it came to speed. If I'd wanted to, I could have blitzed every last one of them without receiving so much as a scratch.
But what would have been the point in that?
When I wanted to focus on agility, I pushed my limits by not dodging until the very last moment.
When I wanted to focus on durability, I let them beat the shit out of me. In fact, after the first few minutes, I activated Flight, shot into the air, took off my shirt, then flew straight back down and got stuck in again.
Rel spent a little more time milking the final guard for everything he was worth, then joined the fun. Rather than going in balls deep like me, he skirted around the edges of the fight, using his small size to his advantage. He slashed at calves, bit ankles, darted from side to side to avoid blows, and every now and then deliberately ate an attack.
I had a great time.
Not only did I get to annihilate a small army of yetis... I got to share in an incredible bonding experience with my best friend.
There’s nothing that says friendship like your eyes meeting across a blood-drenched mountain path as you punch a yeti so hard that his jaw ends up at the back of his head while your best friend tears another's throat out with his claws.
And on top of that…
You have gained 1 durability.
Current durability: 62
Another stat point!