Tread Lightly – Among Monsters And Men

The sun sets and the town grows dark, darker than most nights as the moon didn’t rise alongside the fall of the sun. The only lights that give our eyes the possibility to see are the bonfires around the town we have set ablaze in preparation for the Bawkas.

My eyes constantly scan Harmony Town, searching for any life of life, or I guess unlife. But neither Vernon, Virgil, nor I spot a Bakwa first. Instead, it’s the little fox, Dakota who does. While sitting on Vernon’s shoulder, which took a lot of treats to make happen because he prefers to stay with me, he sniffs the air and growls behind us toward a nearby house.

Immediately, I turn and squint my eyes to search for the spirit that he found, at this point, I trust his senses. At first, I don’t see anything, but Vernon shines a small ray of light into the second-floor window, he must have caught a glance of something.

Within the beam of sunlight that exits his hand, all four of us see the humanoid spirit that has a large head with even larger eyes missing both a mouth and nose. The cerulean eyes of the Bakwa reflect the sunlight from Vernon’s Ether.

Before Vernon or I can react and discuss what to do, a shot is fired from beside us. The head of the Bakwas explodes as a bullet is sent out of Virgil's revolver and another is inserted just as fast as it left. He’s one hell of a deadeye and comments on the revolver he is using while inadvertently starting an argument between two brothers.

“Your Colt, Mercy, is quite good on these, Vernon. Glad I bought it for you.”

“Shut up! We split the cost!”

“Yeah, but you could have done none of the bounties we gathered for it alone.”

“Neither could you!”

“That’s debatable.”

I jump in to spot their bickering as I see another Bakwa appear in the open doorway of a nearby building.

“Shut up! Focus guys!”

They both nod in agreement but share a glance that I notice. One that means the argument isn't over. I shake my head in annoyance as I pull out my revolver. Then, I shoot the Bakwa I can see six times just to keep it away.

The impact of lead slamming into the spirit that looks like a giant malformed blue-eyed baby with elongated fingers isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing. I flick out the chamber and expel the rounds as I reload some more into it.

Some more gunshots resound from behind me as I watch the Bakwa approach from the doorway of the house. I turn and at a glance I see Virgil moving down several Bakwas in the middle of the street with a fanfare from his Colt, but as the greatest weakness with all firearms, he has to reload.

And while he does so, they approach. Vernon, however, made preparation for this while Virgil and I set up the barricades. The user of the sun placed several small inscriptions on the dirt imbued with his Ether. At first, I was curious as to what he was doing, but now it’s clear.

He does have the Trapper within his trio of Sigils after all.

Several blinding flashes of light appear and make me turn around as I hear unearthly cries of pain from dying Bakwas. I am forced to turn away from the landmines made of sunlight so I’m not blind and turn back to my part of the street.

Vernon only placed his traps on one side of the two-way street. He has the eastern side and I have the western with Virgil helping both of us out until taking my place when I go after the progenitor. His side started way more energetic than mine only now becoming filled with Bakwas.

Several are already climbing the mounds of barricades toward us to turn us into shells or one of their own, in their weird and unnatural ways. They reach out toward me in offering as they approach with shells in their hands. I ignore their attempts to make me join them and push Ether into Virgil’s bowie knife, Dirge.

I feel the large knife vibrate in my hands as it glows ever so slightly around its edges. Then, as I climb over the debris and approach them, I circulate Ether in my limbs making my adrenaline rise and strength explode. A telltale sign of Adrenaline Surge.

It is a bit difficult to move over these obstacles quickly, but I move faster than my enemies as the Bakwas are struggling more than me, the Philosopher’s precision coming in handy. However, I chose to further increase this gap as I put the bowie knife in my mouth and begin moving on all fours.

Rapidly, I close in on the first of the Bakwas to approach us which just so happened to be the one I shot. Unharmed by my bullets except for the disorientation it gave the damn thing, it attempts to attack me as I near.

The spirit is far too slow. I’ve grown substantially since I was last here, and the Nain Rouge isn’t here to aid them by slowing me down. I flit underneath its clumsy grasp and swiftly grab the knife from my mouth as I stand up and shove the bowie into its mouthless face.

The bowie knife slides in with some resistance as I see the ethereal light on the knife dim. But the instant that the knife enters the Bakwa’s face, the spirit begins to fade and dissipate into the world. For a moment after the swift kill, I wonder what happens to a Bakwa when they die.

Do they go to the underworld and face the Red Judge's verdict? Or do they go back to whatever dimension or plane that they are from? A question to ask Virgil when more Bakwas are not pressing down onto me.

In the time it took me to kill one, a dozen more appeared from the dark of the night and approached me with their bizarre movement. I dash forward and attack, using every limb to move in Bloodhound’s Step.

Hopping from Bakwa to Bakwa in a dance of death under the moonless night, I am frequently beset by flashes of light and consistent gunfire from the other side of the street. After I slay my twentieth Bakwa, I activate Chain Eyes, hoping to see the target of my hate.

But I do not. The progenitor is nowhere to be seen even as we decimate its creations. And so, we continue. I continue to fight amidst debris and dozens if not hundreds of enemies as I am slowly surrounded along with Virgil and Vernon.

The mass of spirits seems to be never ending, at least over a few hundred of them. Which makes sense despite how much I wish it wasn’t the case, the whole town got turned after all. At this point, I begin to slow down as well from being touched here or there as I slay the damned shell-turning apparitions.

The battle against the horde continues for much longer as the small mountain of rubbish is slowly overwhelmed and taken over. I attempt to help Vernon push them back as I hold them off in every direction as he charges up one of the radiant spheres he used on the giant serpent.

I do a quick run around the whole circle of ghosts that attempt to kill us. The whole while I move as fast as I can on all fours with the bowie in my mouth once more, moving just close enough to have the knife slice them as I move. It’s something only possible because of how little resistance there is when the knife enters one of the spirits.

But as I complete a circulation around Vernon and Virgil, I slow for a brief moment as something catches my eyes in the distance west. A brief flash of yellow that is quickly covered by a Bakwa’s ugly head.

This is a mistake. I slow for just long enough in my confusion and hesitation in what I see that something grasps my foot. I look down as I pull with all my might, but what holds onto me isn’t just one spirit. Multiple latch onto me, and refuse to let go.

Fuck.

“Fuck!”

I yell through gritted teeth, bowie knife in mouth, as I’m pulled despite my attempts to not be, and I am hauled into a group of the strange creatures. I struggle and try to clear them off of me, but I cannot. They are uninjured by my right hand and do not let themselves come in contact with the knife in my mouth while at the same time keeping me from grabbing it.

But just as I begin to panic and contemplate using Strugglers Gasp to escape the situation, I grab a nearby Bakwa with the Bloody Palm and something interesting happens that gives me hope.

Bloody red liquid exits the Bakwa where I grab onto it like squeezing a sponge. The spirit turns to goop and explodes above me. My face is covered in this red goop as it splashes upon me.

With a new way to kill these damned things, I flail the Bloody Palm about and injure several more Bakwas, but quickly learn a single touch isn’t enough. I have to either put force into the touch or stab them with my hand.

Frantically, I escape this dangerous situation and claw my way out with the Bloody Palm. Just as my head sticks out from the mass of Bakwas, I see a glowing orb of light leave Vernon’s hands that rapidly approaches me.

I hear a quick “Oh SHIT!” before a bang which ends with my vision turning white and earring ringing alongside a searing pain all over my body. Instinctively at this point, I rush a torrent of Ether into my left palm to help me heal and recover my senses. The bomb that Vernon threw, is devastating to my system and almost knocks me unconscious.

Before my vision returns, though, I feel warm and rough hands wrap around my arms and pull me. I struggle for a moment until I realize that it’s not a Bakwa and is likely to be Virgil helping me out from the bomb of radiance that his brother threw at me.

For a few moments, while my body is quickly eaten from and repaired, I sit in white silence with constant vibrations ringing throughout my body. Eventually, though, senses return and the first to come back is my hearing.

“Fuck! Godamnit Vernon! You gotta be careful with that shit! I think you almost killed the man!”

“I know I know I know! But he should be fine! Remember when he got hit by that snake? He stood up within a minute!”

“Ah! Just hold on a bit longer. Hopefully, he recovers, if not, you’re detonating your trap underneath us and we’re running.”

Hearing this, I shakily raise my hand before putting up my hands and pointing to my ear. Vernon notices this first being the closest sounding voice to me.

“See! He’s fine! Just wait for him to heal! Oh god. That’s terrifying. Don’t look at his regenerating flesh up close after a burn.”

“Shut up and help Vernon!”

“Oh, right.”

After another session of bickering that I have no way to end followed by gunfire and movement, my vision returns from my burnt eyes, and I look down at my body. Covered in third-degree burns that are slowly shifting to second despite not feeling much pain. I wonder why that is.

But I put the questions for later and let the two know that I’m back up.

“I’m good now, I can see again. And before I was attacked, I saw a flash of yellow to the west. I think it's the progenitor.”

Vernon yells at me thinking that I was talking about him hitting me with the radiance.

“Sorry about that!”

“It was before that, but yeah, you need to be more careful and react faster. I literally saw you throw the damn thing. Enough of that though, I need to head west!”

I quickly try to get up and move while ending the discussion of blame, it’s not the first time I’ve been friendly fired, but Virgil stops me with a firm hand as he shoots several imminent spirits.

“No, you're not. Not alone at least. That plan was before you got hurt. We’re doing this all together now.”

I try to protest, wanting to do it on my own, but a tidal wave of agony flows over my body out of nowhere, almost knocking me on my ass.

“I can–AHHG!”

Virgil holds onto me and pulls me away from a Bakwa that he stabs in the face with Cutting Words, the letter opener opening the spirit like paper.

“Looks like you healed enough to feel your burnt nerves. See, as a team, we do this, okay?”

Painfully, feeling my skin stretch in a way it shouldn’t while melted, I nod in agreeance.

“Good. I’ll lead the way until you're a bit better, Vernon, get my back. Don’t burn me though.”

I laugh full of agony at Vernon’s joke that I can see never going away. Had it been Virgil instead of me who was hit by that ball of brilliance, this fight would be over very quickly. My laugh quickly turns to a cough as I stumble and try to follow Virgil west through the horde of townsmen-turned-Bakwas.

A burst of dark tenebrous tendrils and a small film of shadow emerges from the man with the Nightwhip Sigil. He uses these to push away all the ethereal spirits that near him, clearing a straight path west that I stumble in fiery pain to follow.

As a close-knit group, we move through the horde as I recover and the pain gradually disappears over a minute or so. My fat and muscle sacrificed alongside Ether to repair my burned body.

By the time we reach the area I saw the flash of yellow, beneath an overhead ramp in front of the general store, I recover enough to take the front position from Virgil. And with good timing too, as he almost exhausts himself by throwing literal dozens if not hundreds of Bakwas around like ragdolls.

I tear through the groups now that we are on solid ground, the barricades were good to keep them from us, but not good for us to move either. Like a Werewolf, I tear through using the nails on the Bloody Palm, leaving huge bursts of red goo and fading apparitions with the bowie knife in my right hand.

And it’s at this point that it truly becomes suspicious just how many there are. Like sure, we haven’t killed a full town’s worth of Bakwas, but we have definitely killed enough to make a noticeable dent into their horde.

Yet, the amount of Bakwas seems to not ever decrease.

That and I swear I’ve killed multiple that look exactly the same. All Bakwas look fairly similar with their deformed bodies, blue eyes, mouthless face, and long fingers, but their sizes and movements are all slightly different.

They must not die when they are slain, even when a strike with Ether makes them fade. I urgently ask Virgil this to see if my suspicions are correct.

“Virgil! The Bakwas we kill seem to keep coming back! Is this normal?!”

He replies amidst his fanfare from the Colt that drops several Bakwas in front of me.

“Yeah, this is odd. What Sigil was the progenitor again, I don’t remember you saying it? The one I fought a long time ago was only a 1st Sigil. Was it a 2nd?”

Fuck. I didn’t add that information when I described this place. I only said it was a higher Sigil than me at the time. As I rip a Bakwas ghostly head off, I reply to him.

“It was a 3rd Sigil!”

For the first time in this whole fight, he speaks without firing his gun.

“Shit.”

Worried, I ask him what’s wrong.

“What’s the big deal, aren’t you two 3rd Sigils?”

“Yeah, but so was the Short Horned Serpent and we didn’t have to fight it with a whole horde. Though it seems whether luckily or unluckily for us, the progenitor’s abilities don’t lean toward frontal combat. It must be able to grasp the souls of those under its control and reassemble them.”

“Oh. That’s just wonderful.”

“Mhmm. So we need to do this fast before we wear ourselves out.

Another voice joins Virgil and I’s conversation.

“I’m already tired! It’s not daytime, remember?!”

I turn back to glance at Vernon and see sweat absolutely covering his face as he continues to show out small beams of light, just less often than he used to. He’s right. He’s running out of juice, and quick.

When we get underneath the canopy that I saw the progenitor at, I climb atop it quickly, using my practice of climbing trees when I was young. There is a window above the canopy, but I don’t see anything inside and the glass is closed.

After a quick check inside, I look for any sign of yellow manacles amongst the horde. I don’t find any sign of it though, no matter how much I look and the two brothers yell for me to get back down and help them fight the unending onslaught.

Just as I command my leg to jump off of the canopy above the front of the general store, I feel a cold sensation on my left shoulder.

Instantly, I look to see what it is using the corner of my eyes and I see inhumanly long tendril-like fingers, longer than any other Bakwa, wrapped around my shoulder.