“Oh, shit,” Finn muttered.
“I think the heat is attracting the bugs—” Kyyle shouted from behind Finn.
The earth mage was cut off as he let out a yelp, surging forward and grabbing Finn’s shoulder to steady himself as a female fire ant dove too close, clipping the edge of the column and shaving off a shower of glass fragments. Another female swept down to Finn’s left, nearly hitting him as he struggled to maintain his balance and keep moving forward. Many more shadows were beginning to pull away from the nests hanging above them, circling the group as they tried to cross the glass column.
Finn could see that Kyyle was right. And while they might be invisible to the female ants, the hyper-dense cluster of twinkling bugs was starting to paint a massive target – turning their group into collateral damage.
“Julia, we need to speed this up,” Finn shouted, urging his daughter to move faster. She promptly picked up the pace, only sparing a brief, worried glance over her shoulder.
A female fire ant suddenly smashed down directly in front of Finn, the creature missing its mark in its haste and hunger. Its body exploded apart in a shower of fragments, and Finn raised his arm to ward off the shrapnel, but a few stray pieces still managed to cut bloody lines across his hands and face. The only saving grace was that the impact had briefly dispersed the swarm.
I need to break up the cloud of bugs or at least move them away from us, Finn thought frantically. However, his control range was rather limited, so just moving the orbs away from the group wouldn’t be enough. He was going to have to get creative.
Acting as quickly as he could while still maintaining their breakneck pace across the column, he began raising the heat on his orbs, the flames flaring brightly. The increased heat only served to attract more of the bugs. The swarm was packed so tightly against them now that they beat against Finn’s chest and face as he ran. The popping sound became more frequent as the bugs threw themselves into the fire.
Yet he needed to heat up the metal. As the temperature rose, the orbs began to glow a bright red. Once pliable, he flattened the orbs and reshaped them, creating a fluted fin-shape, like a fan blade. With a twist of his hands, he set them to spinning, using a move similar to the one he had used to break up the cloud of sand when they had been ambushed at the top of the Abyss. Except this time, his design was more sophisticated, his creations scooping at the air and creating a miniature tornado around Finn and Kyyle as they picked up speed. The force of the heated air pushed the bugs away and funneled them up into the sky.
Finn spared a glance upward and saw that he had inadvertently created a massive, twinkling yellow twister of bugs. The female fire ants swooped through the column with abandon now, gorging themselves on the insects. As each female struck the column, the bugs splashed out of the way like glowing yellow water, causing ripples along the surface of the glimmering tornado.
More and more of the shadows were pulling away from the columns above them, dozens – possibly hundreds – of the females beginning to join the feeding frenzy. However, their angle of attack was now shallower, aiming at the air above the group instead of directly beside Finn and Kyyle. Fewer of the females were crashing into the column or clipping the sides of the glass bridge.
“This isn’t going to keep them off us for long!” Kyyle shouted, his voice sounding harried and his breath coming in frantic gasps now. Indeed, Finn could see that the dark cloud of female ants was becoming incredibly dense. They would occasionally collide in their craze, and their broken bodies now rained down around the group. As though on cue, one of the creatures smashed into the ground in front of Finn, its glass body blasting apart.
“Damn it,” Finn muttered, stumbling but keeping up his headlong pace.
He just hoped that they could last long enough to reach the other side of the shaft. The glass wall was beginning to loom large ahead of them. They were past the halfway point now, so there was no turning back.
We’re going to make it, Finn thought. We have to make it!
It was at that point that he felt a tremble in the glass column.
Julia let out a shout. “Ambient earth mana,” she cried. “To me! Brace yourselves!”
He watched as his daughter flicked her lance outward and stabbed it into the glass at her feet, embedding the diamond-coated surface into their makeshift bridge. Finn and Kyyle rushed to her side, grabbing hold of the lance as the column began to tilt and list below them, shifting slowly to the right. Finn maintained his channels, creating a massive funnel of twinkling yellow bugs above them. The twister had become so dense that it now illuminated the shaft for dozens of yards in every direction.
Raising her shield protectively, Julia batted aside the occasional female that dropped down toward the group. Finn’s breathing came in ragged gasps, and he glanced around, frantically searching for a path forward. He picked out the mouth of a tunnel about 50 yards away along the wall of the chasm. Although, their column was slowly rotating away from the opening, shifting back toward the opposite side of the shaft.
They were so close. They just needed to find a way across.
Finn saw another glass column drifting out of the wall nearby, a third connecting pillar offering a possible path to the tunnel entrance… assuming they could make the jumps. It was getting closer with each passing second. Even so, they were going to need to shorten the gap a bit.
“Okay, you see that column coming up,” Finn shouted at the other two, pointing at the glass pillar. His teammates both nodded. “We’re going to have to jump!”
Kyyle’s eyes widened, and Julia grimaced.
“Build up a ledge,” Finn shouted at Kyyle.
The earth mage nodded, swallowing his fear. His hand began to move, and liquid glass soon drifted away from their column, creating a makeshift ledge that spanned out toward the approaching pillar.
It thickened swiftly as Kyyle fed it more mana, but the platform was still too narrow. More and more of the broken female ants were beginning to fall around them – glass now raining steadily down upon the group. An ant nearly crashed into Kyyle, but Julia smashed it aside at the last moment with her shield, the shower of glass fragments still cutting across the earth mage’s face. However, Kyyle never slowed his casting.
Finn saw their moment coming…
“Now!” he shouted.
Julia yanked her lance from the glass, and the group raced toward the ledge in a single-file line. His daughter sprinted up the platform that Kyyle had created and leaped out into open air, hurtling across the divide and hitting the other column in a roll. Finn soon followed, his stomach lurching as he felt himself race across the expanse. Then he hit the glass hard and rolled – although less gracefully than Julia. He spared a glance behind him to see Kyyle making the leap.
Just as his feet kicked off the glass, it fractured, throwing Kyyle’s jump wide. Finn felt his stomach drop, seeing that his angle was off… he wasn’t going to make it. Finn’s fingers twitched. Maybe he could flatten his metal funnels into makeshift platforms…
However, Julia’s lance flicked forward, and Kyyle snatched at the metal, his fingers curling around the lance. He managed to hold his grip, clinging to the metal desperately as he hung suspended above the chasm. With a jerk, Julia pulled him forward and back onto the column of glass. Throughout it all, she was still holding up her shield with her other arm to deflect the rain of glass that showered them from above.
“Fuck… thank you,” Kyyle gasped, clinging to the column.
“We’re not done!” Finn shouted, pointing at another glass pillar that was approaching. Their column was still moving, but it wouldn’t put them close enough to the mouth of the tunnel – which still lingered a few dozen yards away. They needed to make it to the second adjoining pillar… and fast.
Julia hauled Kyyle back to his feet, and they continued their mad dash across the glass. Finn’s flaming metal funnels were still creating a whirlwind of sparkling yellow lights above their heads, and the crushed and broken
bodies of the female ants still crashed down around them, causing the glass column to tremble with each impact.
They leaped again, the group hitting the next pillar with a series of thumps before racing into the mouth of the tunnel. Julia shoved Kyyle ahead of her into the entrance before turning back to face the swarm of bugs. Finn’s flaming metal fans sliced through the twinkling insects as he tried desperately to funnel them away from the entrance. The female ants continued to home in on the target the bugs created and were now crashing into the side of the chasm and exploding violently against the thick glass.
“Get a wall up,” Finn shouted at Kyyle. The young mage began casting, not bothering to try to regain his feet, and green tendrils twined around his fingers as he lay upon the ground.
As a stone fortification began to grow behind them, several of the female ants dove toward the cloud that blocked the tunnel entrance, putting them on a direct collision course with Finn and Julia. His daughter’s lance darted forward in a rapid series of blows. She impaled one female, slinging it to the side where it collided with another. A third made it past her lance, and she promptly smashed it aside with her shield, sending its body hurtling into the nearby rock wall where it broke apart in a shower of glass.
Finn hovered behind Julia, his flaming metal discs racing off to the side of the tunnel entrance as he tried to lure the clouds of bugs away as best he could, keeping them at the very edge of his control range. However, that was a futile goal with the huge number of glimmering insects in front of them. The cloud was simply too massive now, spanning nearly forty feet wide. He spared a glance over his shoulder and saw that Kyyle’s wall was beginning to solidify.
“Julia! Retreat!” Finn barked out, his daughter cocking her head and slowly stepping backward even as her lance continued to impale and beat aside the female ants. When she got close enough, he grabbed her shoulder and yanked her through the opening, the pair falling back into the tunnel as the wall fully closed, and Finn sent his flaming fans rocketing out into the chasm with one final twitch of his fingers.
Then they lay there in the darkened tunnel, hearing the repetitive pounding of female ants crashing against the cliff face beside them – their bodies exploding apart as they tried to feed off the glowing yellow bugs. The sound began to slow as the bugs retreated, likely racing after the still-warm metal of Finn’s discs.
“Yeah… definitely not easy,” Julia gasped.
Chapter 38 - Gestation
Bilel’s Journal – Entry 140
[The journal entries have become more erratic, the previously flowing script now harsh, hastily scribbled lines marred by dirt and sand. Large amounts of time seem to pass between each entry, the passages losing their uniform structure and becoming more chaotic and disjointed.]
Lahab is no longer safe for me. The acolytes are everywhere.
I left the city’s sandy streets days ago, journeying far to the north. That same river of mana I saw on the way to the undead kingdom looms bright over the desert. It is most visible at night as I lay awake among one rocky outcropping after another, trying to find some solace from my nightmares. The colors merge and diverge almost at random. Yet I sense a pattern in the chaos. These currents must flow somewhere. If I can find their source, I may unlock more secrets – more power.
During my journey, I have continued to absorb more and more of the mana crystals, now intent on building my affinities as fast as possible. Strangely, the chills and hot flashes recede after absorbing the mana, as though the process might have some effect on my lingering illness. I will need to investigate that further once I find more time. But for now, the focus is on growing stronger – ever stronger.
I will need that strength for the war that is coming.
***
“I think you can stop now,” Finn offered, leaning against the side of the tunnel and watching Kyyle. The earth mage had reinforced the wall, sealing off the passage until it was at least three yards thick. “I can see with my sight that the tornado of bugs has already begun to dissipate, and most of the female ants have returned to their nests.”
“You can never be too careful,” Kyyle grumbled, glaring at the wall, but his hand stilled, and he sunk back against the nearby wall.
They found themselves in a tunnel on the western side of the central shaft, the dark passage lit only by the flickering light of Daniel’s body. Finn glanced at the walls, noting that the composition was different than farther down the pit. The uniform tunnels carved by the ants had given way to a more-natural formation, glass coating the walls and forming haphazard angles and planes that reflected the flickering flames cast by the AI.
“I just don’t get it,” Kyyle muttered, swiping at the air as he pulled up his in-game console before tapping at a keyboard that Finn couldn’t see, likely updating his notes. “How did they detect us?”
“Those fireflies?” Finn asked. “My guess is that they were drawn to the heat from the two spheres. We were so focused on the female ants that we didn’t think about drawing their prey.”
“Yeah, sure. But we tested that first with Daniel,” he retorted, waving at the AI. “Why didn’t he attract the bugs?”
“It might have been my sparkling personality,” Daniel offered.
This was met with a long pause, Kyyle glancing away from his console to look at the AI with an arched expression. Yet another near-death experience was apparently enough to blunt some of his good humor. “Really? Was that supposed to be a joke?”
Daniel’s light dimmed as though hurt by the earth mage’s response.
“It’s a work in progress,” Finn offered with a grin. And to Daniel, “I thought it was funny…” The ball of flame flared a bit brighter at his praise.
“More seriously, though,” Finn continued, rubbing at his eyes, “I think we just didn’t send out Daniel for long enough. It took time for the bugs to notice us and start to clump up. We were nearly halfway across before it became a problem. I’m not sure we could have anticipated that.”
A sigh from Kyyle. “Yeah… yeah. I guess you’re right. It just feels like we keep stumbling into these situations.”
Finn shrugged. “You can’t plan for everything.”
“Says the guy that seems to have the god of chaos with one hand on his shoulder,” Kyyle shot back, grinning at him.
“What can I say, I’m just lucky.” Finn’s gaze swept over to Julia, where she sat nearby, rubbing some of the glass dust and fragments off her new lance. She had been oddly quiet. “You got anything to add?”
“No, only that my baby here did a wonderful job,” Julia replied, her eyes never wavering from the lance. “It was her first time killing things. And you did great, my sweet, telescoping death machine,” she cooed at the weapon.
Kyyle and Finn shared a look. She might be just a little too fond of her new lance…
“Alright, well, break’s over. We’re still on the clock, and we need to figure out where to go from here,” Finn grunted, rising to his feet.
With a flick of his wrist, he brought up his in-game map, projecting it into the air in front of him so that the others could see. Kyyle reluctantly swept aside his console and stepped closer, Julia looping her weapon at her waist as she joined them.
“So, this is us,” Finn said, pointing at a cluster of green dots on the western edge of the central shaft. “And here is our target,” he offered, gesturing at the yellow dot that lingered about a half-mile farther west and less than sixty-five feet above them now. The walk toward the central shaft had taken them a bit farther up the Abyss.
“Looks like we’re getting close,” Julia murmured. “Although our target doesn’t seem like it’s going to be perfectly adjacent to the central shaft. It’s buried pretty deep…”
“Yeah. It makes you wonder what the hell this so-called vault is going to look like,” Kyyle added. “And why someone felt the need to bury it in this hellhole.”
That comment made Finn’s brow furrow. He’d been so focused on getting to thei
r destination, that he’d given little thought to what the vault might actually be or why it was down here. Although, given Kalisha’s original story about how the Seer’s temple had been destroyed, buried within the pit, and the Seer’s unusual interest in the Emir’s competition, Finn had a sneaking suspicion about what they would find.
For now, he supposed it didn’t really matter.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out when we get there,” Finn murmured, his eyes on the map.
“I think you mean if we get there,” Julia retorted. “Our track record so far has been pretty bad. At the rate we’re going, I’m just waiting for some sort of giant flaming centipede to attack us next.”
“Speaking of which…” Kyyle began, hesitating as he saw both Finn and Julia wince.
“Do I even want to know?” Julia asked.
“Well, probably?” the earth mage replied. “It’s just that the walls seem strange,” he added, gesturing at the glassy surface of the wall beside him. “It’s been bugging me since we dove in here – pun intended, I guess. Although, I didn’t notice until I leaned against the wall.”
Approaching the wall, Finn inspected the surface. At first, he didn’t see the issue Kyyle was raising, especially with the flickering light cast by Daniel’s body. Then he rubbed his fingers across the surface and noticed that it was… rough. That was odd for glass – he had expected a smooth panel.
He shifted his position to view the wall at an angle, and his eyes widened as he saw that there were countless thin scratches riddling the surface. They created long lines that drifted horizontally down the length of the tunnel. The scratches continued along the floor. Almost like something had crawled up over the ledge and then clawed its way forward along the floor and walls of the tunnel. Although, given the size and number of scratches, it was more likely many small somethings…
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