Level 5 Judgelight

Rock quarries are awesome. When they're not in use they're usually deserted making them a good place to party, or whatever. Usually they're sealed off, but not for the one near my house, which I use both as a place to practice free running/parkour and rock climbing. Since roots would interfere the surrounding forest was trimmed, an open field fraught with dangers, that I know like the back of my hand, and thats where I was after I ate a large supper. In theory I was trying to give myself as much energy as possible, but I may have just seriously thought I was going to die, and wanted a big final meal. There are two major sites separated by a bottleneck path. I didn't go unprepared I had rigged the place as best I could and brought every weapon I had, no fancy guns or claymores(how did illusions set off mines anyway?), did have the shotgun, hunting knife, combat knife, another knife I bought on impulse 'cause it looked cool, 7 inches though so it came in handy, a self-made bo staff, a metal baseball bat, and some darts. With the exception of the combat knife, and the darts I borrowed, I had all of these before I read about it, I'm not a crazy survivalist, just have a thing for weapons.

Wasn't wearing 'proper' winter clothes instead I tripled up on everything but socks. Baggy easy to remove outermost layer, that disguised where my limbs were, the other two layers were closer fitting. Darts were in a belt pack, and had the hunting and combat knives were with me to. Bo was placed somewhere so when I took it 'd cause a landslide dropping pursers down a not insignificant distance. Shotgun was hidden in a shed with only one easily missable entrance longest knife was there to, bat was hidden in one of the piles of rocks, only hidden weapon in site 1. Didn't bring a watch, but when the Husks showed up they showed up in force.

Didn't have time to count, I was on the run immediately, scrambling up sides as fast I could, reached the top first, used the darts to take out their eyes or their hands as they climbed, missed a lot but still useful. Kept running when they got too close, heard more than a few miss jumps and drop, didn't need to look to know it was far enough to break legs if not outright kill them. One came from an unexpected angle, smarter, faster than I was used to, almost fell to my own death, ironically enough it was a root from a missed, or neglected tree that I grabbed onto, got my footing and moved back down to the base.

A few were there, got a few cuts, but the baggy clothes did their job, nothing worse than a few nicks. Made sure to avoid blunt weapons, and head wounds in particular, didn't need broken bones or have to start worrying about whether I had a concussion. Went on like this for a long while me running scrambling up and down rock piles, and apparently unclimbable walls, throwing down rocks and darts and my pursuers, taking a few out with the knives, and a few times the bat before I had to chuck it to climb up again, at the lower levels. A few scary situations when the rock piles collapsed before I expected them to, worse for the Husks since they were still climbing them, or at the bottom of them.

Site 2 was much of the same, but with more planned rockslides, more Husks falling into unseen holes, or slipping on frost-covered rock, until I was forced into the shed. I felt it first, a horrible gut-twisting sensation that set all my senses off, got blasted with white noise and I smelt something awful. Then the shed caught on fire, then I inexplicably calmed down. it was there, and it set off my fear receptors, and my animal instinct to run, but I calmed down. In retrospect my reasoning was pretty simple.'it's here, in open combat and its trying to kill me, this is what it has make it through this and I'm fine I'll be fine'. Too simple, but combat tends to simplify your thought processes. Anyway, that one opening was through an apparently locked window, no axes so they had to try to get me through the window, they broke it and tried climbing in, so obviously they weren't that smart. Figure they must have been trying to keep me pinned so the fire'd get me, had a different plan, grabbed shells in between attacks and stuffed them into the pack, darts were pretty much all gone anyway.

Had to keep low, almost missed my chance, the shed was placed on a steel platform because the ground beneath it was gouged out, so there was one side they couldn't possibly be surrounding. Wall made of wood had been weakened, shot the damn thing right out and made an obvious break for the bottleneck path back to site 1. Was lightly burned from convection, ditched the baggy clothes and put 'em between me and the steel floor, they were burning by the time I got out, trapped animals make mistakes. The faster ones followed, saw me chuck the shotgun to the top and got cocky, scaled up and got the bo, too close for them to avoid, down they went, good thing I wasn't trapped.

Got the shotgun and made the real break, and there it was tentacles out, just standing there being scary, daring me to try and get past it, three knives a bo staff and a shotgun. The only ones left were the smart and agile making it up the cliff with not quite my speed but too fast, might have been able to hold them, but not with it standing there a silent unending pressure on my back. Fear bubbled up as I realized I didn't want to die, not now when I still didn't know so many people's fates and as the fear almost took over a survival instinct took over. A focusing method, singing, used it to push away fear when I was younger, or anxiety before doing something in front of an audience. So I walked past it quietly singing  focusing on the words and the tune and the melody and hitting the notes. Don't know why it didn't attack, maybe it still can't go after someone that directly when they're not afraid? Not going to assume it was the song itself, or that it was something special about me, just a moment of insanity that happened to work, hell maybe it was just surprised someone would actually just walk by it, or maybe it was just an illusion meant to make me turn back.

Doesn't matter, made it. Attack stopped, had a long walk back, grabbed anything that was on the ground. Bodies were there, checked back in the morning, gone but there were some bloodstains. Had someone house-sitting, told em not to let anyone in except me, they said they had a quiet night, but the bloodstains on the snow says otherwise. They didn't ask why I was bruised, dirty, burned, bleeding, and carrying an armory, but did insist I have a cold bath. They invited themselves over for the night, but have since left, not knowing anything, and hopefully not involved in this in any way, will be keeping my eyes on them.

Seems things went pretty well for everyone else last night as well, so much for destroying the Fighters last night. Hope Will makes it to Fizz, and that everyone can get some rest tonight, but I'm not banking on it.

Good luck everyone.