Journey West 5000

Chapter 18 - Armed Negotiations and Guerilla Warfare

Before Trip could complete the last of her preparations, she heard loud footsteps thudding towards the door. Discarding what she had on hand, she straightened up and stood, projecting an aura of relaxed confidence. She would just have to make do with what she had.

The door opened to reveal the Black Wind Demon, filling up the doorway. In one hand, he brandished Trip's revolver. His face was contorted into an angry scowl, and his voice was like the low growling of distant thunder. He looked down at Trip and said "Tell me why normal bullets don't work."

"It's a special gun, of course it needs special bullets. Also, we need the gun to make the bullets... for bullet measurements and quality checking. Lend me the gun, and you'll have the bullets."

The Black Wind Demon's eyes narrowed, as he thought for a while.

"No. Tell me how to make the special bullets, or I'll eat you. Slowly." he said.

Trip sighed, then smiled.

"How about this? GIVE me the gun, or you're dead." said Trip, as she took out a round object with an uneven surface, while holding a burning bundle of incense above it.

"Hmph, you can try! There is no sorcery that can harm me!" said the Black Wind Demon, as he gestured with his empty hand while taking a few steps back.

From behind him, a horde of imps as ugly as the one that had answered the door charged forward, uttering high-pitched yowling cries of excitement. The Black Wind Demon shouted "Rough her up, but I want her alive!"

As Trip backpedaled quickly, she touched the incense to the fuse for the bomb in her hand. Timing it carefully, she threw it through the doorway where most of the imps were still bunched together, pushing against each other to get through the doorway first.

BOOM!

The fuse had given Trip enough time to reach the mouth of the cave, where she rummaged through a pile of sticks to retrieve two earthen flasks. The explosion was not as huge as she had hoped, but the loud, high-pitched cries of pained panic pain behind the gate indicated that the scrap metal and nails she had wrapped around the exploding core of gunpowder had found some targets.

As more imps charged out of the gate, she threw the two earthen flasks on the ground. One in front of her, and the other further away towards the gate. Clear, oily liquid covered the ground.

Like the calm before the storm, she waited for the imps to get closer. When they had almost reached her position, she threw a burning stick of incense on the oil before her.

With a deceptively soft FWOOMPH, the stretch of ground leading to the mouth of the cave was bathed in fire, as were the many imps that had been charging forwards.

Leaving the struggling and screaming imps behind her, Trip ran down the steep path. As she neared the bottom of the slope, Trip stopped to sprinkle tiny objects from a bag all over the ground, then kept running onwards. When she reached a bend in the trail, instead of following the bend, she ran forwards to hide herself behind a large tree, making more preparations.

All too soon, the sound of infuriated imps preceded their headlong rush down the slope. When the first among them neared the bottom of the slope, they inevitably stepped on Trip's tiny caltrops. Screaming and hopping around, they stopped to remove the offending metal things painfully poking their feet. The imps further behind, not knowing that their fellow imps were going to conduct a surprise feet inspection, crashed into them. Together, both groups of imps tripped and fell over each other, rolling further down the slope to collect more caltrops with their bodies.

The scene quickly snowballed into one of absolute chaos. More imps from behind crashed into the piles of imps before them. Some imps were hopping or rolling around screaming. Other imps shoved at one another, accusing each other of causing the pile-up. One imp started using her caltrops as improvised weapons to enhance their arguments. This was quickly copied by the other imps, leading to an all-out caltrop-assisted brawl. Even Trip could not help but give a quiet snort before springing into action.