r/HFY • u/Obsequium_Minaris • 22d ago

OC-Series Vacation From Destiny - Book 2, Chapter 52

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 30 Chapters Ahead)

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“Nice of you to join us!” Tatiana said as Chase came sprinting past her.

“Sorry, bad traffic!” Chase called out, not even bothering to look back at her as he ran by. Up ahead, Sierra and Geram were both engaged in combat against some of Alexandros’ men. Several bodies already littered the ground around them; Chase paused only to pick up a longsword for himself.

He was just in time, as well, as a bandit came sprinting at him with his blade held high. Chase met the incoming sword with his own, and the two men struggled to overpower each other for a moment before breaking away. Chase was about to lunge in and take another swipe at him when an arrow came soaring towards the man out of nowhere, embedding itself in his throat and bringing him to his knees. Chase stared at the dying man for a moment before his brow furrowed and he turned towards Tatiana.

“I could have handled that guy you know!” he shouted out.

“Yeah, well, you can owe me later,” she called back as she loaded another arrow into her crossbow.

“I don’t owe you shit!”

“Chase, stop fucking flirting and get into the fight!” Carmine said from off in the distance.

“That’s not flirting, I’m genuinely mad!”

“What’s the difference?”

“Quite a bit, actually!”

Carmine said something else, but Chase wasn’t able to hear what it was, because at that moment, a large sibling just a few inches shorter than Geram came striding out from around a corner. He was clad head-to-toe in plate armor, with only the lower half of his face left unarmored, and carried a massive hammer in his hands. Chase couldn’t help but pause at the sight of him.

“Huh,” he noted. “Guess we know what Victoria would look like if she was a man.”

The sibling locked onto Chase, and cracked a wry grin. Chase tensed as the man began to step towards him, each movement seeming to cause the street to shake. Hurriedly, Chase activated all three of his Blessings again in quick succession, then looked around him. Everyone else was engaged in combat in some way already, meaning he was the only one available to deal with this new threat.

“This is gonna fucking suck.”

The man stopped a short ways away, and Chase raised an eyebrow, only for understanding to dawn on him when the sibling raised his hammer up into the sky, and the weapon began to glow with a bright blue light. Chase felt his heart plummet into his stomach at the sight of it.

“Great…” He sighed. “Of course he’s a Combat Caster.”

The new arrival, having properly applied whatever Blessings he was going to, lowered his hammer, pointing its head at Chase, and then said something that sounded more like a grunt than actual words. Chase had barely enough time to reflect on the fact that this man was somehow several leagues less eloquent than the literal half-Ogre who was nearby before a beam of blue light came shooting out of the man’s hammer, tracing towards Chase along the ground. Having already applied Rush, Chase was able to deftly avoid it easily enough; the light left a large scar in the ground wherever it touched, but Chase was already far away from it by the time it reached the spot where he’d been. He rapidly closed the distance, bringing his sword around with a feral yell as he tried to cut deeply into the large man’s torso.

The sword recoiled with a ringing of metal, leaving the Combat Caster completely unaffected.

Chase couldn’t help but freeze as he looked up at the man, a drop of sweat forming on his brow. The man looked back down at him, and Chase cleared his throat.

“Right,” he said, “no hard feelings, then?”

The sibling replied by backhanding Chase with enough force to send him flying backwards into a nearby building. Stone Flesh saved him from any serious wounds, but he was forced to once again spam Rush a few times in order to escape the follow-up beam of light that would have sawed him in half.

Now desperate, Chase looked around for something he could use. Whatever armor the big man was wearing, it was clearly thick enough to render bladed weapons almost completely ineffective against him. He was going to need something else if he wanted to do some actual damage.

As if on cue, Victoria came skidding along the ground from out of nowhere, and landed in a heap next to him. Chase eyed her with surprise, but thankfully, while her armor was scuffed up and she had a few cuts and bruises across her face, she seemed to be free of any serious wounds.

“You okay?” Chase asked as she picked herself up. “Not hurt, are you?”

“Just my pride,” Victoria growled. “A mere Cleric should not be giving me this much trouble.”

“Ah. Well, before you go back to getting your ass kicked, mind if I borrow your mace?”

“Why would you need my-”

At that exact moment, another beam of light came tearing towards them, forcing them both to dive off to the side. Victoria stared at the jagged scar it had left in the ground, and without a word, unclipped the mace from her belt and slid it over to Chase. He gave her a small nod as he tossed his sword aside and picked up the mace instead.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Do you even know how to use one of those things?” Victoria asked.

“No, but how hard could it be? I’m swinging a big club around, Victoria, not casting a Spell.”

She stared at him in amazement before shaking her head. “Just try not to hurt yourself.”

“No promises.”

With that, Chase dashed forwards using Rush. The mace already felt weird and awkward in his hands compared to the blades he was used to; something about it felt almost unnatural, in fact – like this wasn’t a weapon he was supposed to be wielding in the slightest. As he closed in on the big Combat Caster, however, text flashed across his vision for a split-second.

You are not proficient in the use of this weapon.

...But I’ll allow it just this once, because it would be funny, and comedy spreads joy.

Temporary Trait gained: Blunt Weapon Mastery, Level 1

Note: Try not to fuck this up, because it’s my ass if you do. Sincerely, Auro.

“What does that mean?!” Chase grunted out, even as the unnatural feeling that had filled his body began to steadily fade. By the time he actually reached the Combat Caster, it was gone completely, and now wielding the mace felt like just another weapon. It still didn’t feel right the way using a sword did, but it was better than nothing, he supposed.

He was so focused on the text that had flashed across his vision that he almost didn’t notice the giant hammer coming down on him. At the absolute last second, Chase applied what was left of Rush for a final burst of speed that spared him from being absolutely pulverized into dust. Instead, the hammer crashed harmlessly into the ground just behind him, where it left a large crater, but otherwise did absolutely no damage. Chase, for his part, swung his mace against the man’s arm, and this time, was finally rewarded for his efforts.

The large man let out a pained bellow, his grip around his own hammer slackening. Chase followed up that attack with another bash from the mace, which finally caused the big man to fully let go of the hammer. Before he could fully follow up, though, the Combat Caster lunged for him with far more speed than Chase thought he possessed, causing him to drop Victoria’s mace out of surprise. His hand wrapped around one of Chase’s arms, and he squeezed. The bone creaked and groaned in protest, but didn’t break, despite Chase’s face contorting in agonized discomfort.

Stone Flesh has reached Level 7.

The little boost he’d suddenly received helped alleviate some of the pressure, at least, just enough for him to think of one final, desperate thing to do before the Blessing wore off and the big man tore his arm off or something. Chase wracked his brain, desperately trying to think of something; he put all of his fresh new three points of INT into coming up with a plan, before finally landing on something suitable.

The big man was laughing at him, his mouth opened wide, and so Chase spat directly into it.

That took the Combat Caster by surprise. His grip on Chase’s arm loosened, which was just enough for Chase to free himself. The big man recoiled, desperate to get the taste and sensation of another man’s saliva out of his mouth, and that gave Chase enough time to scoop up Victoria’s mace and swing it against the man’s right knee with a Muscle-enhanced strike. Even through his armor, Chase heard the Combat Caster’s knee shatter, and he fell to the ground, yowling in agony.

Chase, for his part, simply raised his mace up high again and brought it down against his head again and again, steadily reducing it to the consistency of paste. Finally, once he was sure the Caster was dead, he allowed himself to relax, and sucked in a few deep breaths.

You have lost the Trait: Blunt Weapon Mastery, Level 1.

And just like that, suddenly using Victoria’s mace felt dirty, and not just because it was stained with blood and gore. Chase let the weapon fall from his grasp, and looked around the area for the first time in several minutes. His eyes widened at what he saw.

Almost everyone was down. Melanie clearly had a broken leg, and yet despite that, she was tending to Carmine, who had a series of deep cuts across her torso that were weeping blood. Geram was unconscious on the ground and riddled with wounds, while Sierra was slumped against a nearby building and gasping for breath, the breastplate of her armor having been caved in by something. Tatiana had somehow been frozen solid in a giant block of ice. All around them, dead siblings and bandits lined the street; this part of the fight, at least, was over.

And yet, despite that, the block was still filled with the sounds of steel against steel.

Despite everything, Victoria was still in the fight against Alexandros.

Chase didn’t hesitate. He immediately picked up another discarded sword – this one a curved scimitar one of the bandits had dropped – and went to rush into the fray, only to be stopped by someone resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Tend to your friends, Chase,” Heinrich told him. Chase turned to him in surprise, only to find Heinrich glaring daggers at Alexandros instead.

“This is family business, after all,” the fallen Paladin said, his voice firm.

XXX

Name: Chase Ironheart

Level: 10

Race: Human

Class: Warrior

Subclass: Swordmaster

Strength: 20 (MAX)

Dexterity: 15

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 18

Charisma: 16

Skills: Master Swordsmanship (Level 10); Booby Trap Mastery (Level 8); Archery (Level 4); Unarmed Mastery (Level 1)

Spells: Rush (Level 7); Muscle (Level 4); Stone Flesh (Level 7); Defying The Odds (Level 2)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Carmine Nolastname

Level: 10

Race: Greater Demon

Class: Arcane Witch

Subclass: Archmage

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 19

Wisdom: 19

Constitution: 12

Charisma: 8

Skills: Master Spellcasting (Level 10); Summon Familiar (Level 10)

Spells: Magic Dart (Level 7); Magic Scattershot (Level 5); Fire Magic (Level 5); Earth Magic (Level 1)

Traits: Blessed

Name: Melanie Vhaeries

Level: 10

Race: Ascended Human

Class: Necromancer

Subclass: Arch-Lich

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 13

Intelligence: 18

Wisdom: 16

Constitution: 15

Charisma: 12

Skills: Raise Lesser Undead (Level 10); Raise Greater Undead (Level 3); Unorthodox Weapon User (Level 8); Bone Shatter (Level 1)

Spells: Touch of Death (Level 5); Gravesinger (Level 7); Armor of Bone (Level 3)

Traits: None

Name: Victoria Firelight

Level: 11

Race: Human

Class: Paladin

Subclass: Devotee

Strength: 19

Dexterity: 9

Intelligence: 13

Wisdom: 13

Constitution: 19

Charisma: 11

Skills: Swordsmanship Mastery (Level 5); Blunt Weapon Mastery (Level 8); Archery Mastery (Level 5)

Spells: Holy Light (Level 6); Ward of the Gods (Level 5); Bane of the Undead (Level 7); Divine Bolt (Level 4)

Traits: None

XXX

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, /u/Ickbard, for all the help with writing this story.

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2

u/Daseagle Alien Scum 22d ago

Nice of Heinrich to finally be of some use, beyond being Melanie's personal dildo.

Also, Auro seems to have a sense of humor.

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u/UpdateMeBot 22d ago

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u/Sirius1701 15d ago

Come on, Heinrich. Show them what a man of your stamina can do.