Descend- Bursting Out: A litrpg adventure

by David Burke

  “Shhh…” Jay said as he lashed out with half a dozen spinning blade constructs. Each one found a waiting ROUS that had been preparing to attack.

  “We have to move. They must be drawn to the dead bodies,” Jay said. “I wanted to go check out that volcano anyway, so follow me. Back in formation.”

  For all the laughing, they quickly got moving. Jay kept his scans running and felt like he was getting better at piercing the veil of heat which had been disrupting his senses up until now. Maybe it was the simple fact that he was acclimating to the temperature or maybe having seen the ROUS attack a few times he got better at knowing what to look for.

  Either way, from here they started to move forward more quickly. Weaving around the lava pits, they were taking the most direct path they could to the mountain. It occurred to Jay that they could have brought flight crystals but there was something more exciting about doing it this way.

  As it was each of them had a chilling crystal, the standard storage crystal and then Jessie had insisted that they all carry a healing crystal to use in case of an emergency. Zuri certainly seemed quite effective at healing, but Jay didn’t mind the extra layer of precaution, or in the case of Jessie, a third layer of protection since she already had a healing backup in her wedding ring.

  The closer they got to the volcano the hotter it got but so far nothing that their suits couldn’t handle. Jay suspected he would have been just fine even without the chilling crystal but didn’t see any reason to push the issue. Well that wasn’t actually true, a new idea about this floor was filtering into his mind, but for now it would have to wait.

  The other thing that they got more of was the lava pools. This led to their encounter with the second type of monsters that the fifth floor had to offer. Less than a mile out from their goal there was a large lake of lava probably several hundred feet across. Out of the edge there started to raise some vaguely humanoid-shaped creatures. They appeared to be made entirely of the magma and Jay could only assume they were some type of elemental.

  Jessie immediately surged in size, but Jay shouted out, “No, step back. We need to be careful with this. Find out what it can do first.”

  With that he raised a shield and had everyone gather close to him. Yes it made them an easier target but it also made him better able to shield everyone. The creature kept swelling until it stood at least forty feet above them.

  “Hanna, can you summon ice from the fourth floor?” Jay asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve been there enough times, but…”

  He cut her off, “No time for questions. I just need you to summon as much ice down onto that creature as you can.”

  Jay respected that she didn’t contest the order any further but went to work trying to summon as much ice as possible. He put her straining face out of his mind and he asked Zuri, “Can you convert the heat that thing is giving off into something else?”

  “I would have to get very close, maybe even touch it, because the heat is just part of it and what would you want me to convert it into?” she asked, clearly unsure.

  “It’s your power. Use it the way that will work best. Just something that isn’t going to harm us,” Jay said and then looked at Bella. “If this works and we cool it enough then I want you to try to blast it into pieces.”

  She grinned at him as she replied back, “One Bella Boom coming up.”

  Jay smiled back and watched as Hanna was dumping car-sized chunks of ice onto the creature. She had really grown in power, but it was obvious that it was starting to wear her out. Sadly for the most part they were just turning into steam and perhaps crusting up the exterior of the creature. As long as it was connected to the giant lake of lava that it rose up out of, she wouldn’t be able to harm it this way.

  “I’m gonna try to draw it out of the magma lake and hopefully it won’t be able to keep replenishing itself. Everyone back up but be ready when I come to get you, Zuri.”

  With that Jay surged forward. He had to trust that the girls would listen and back up as he drew in his construct around himself to provide better protection. Truthfully, once again, Jay felt like he could handle this creature by himself or simply bypass it if he needed to, but there was value in building teamwork and letting the girls see just how powerful they were becoming.

  A concentrated kinetic blast splattered the creature’s outstretched hand as Jay moved in. He sent blast after blast into the monster trying to rip it apart and yet it kept reforming around each wound.

  After a few seconds of this he was about to start another strategy when he noticed that the vectors of his blasts were shifting from what he had intended and the creature was being sliced apart from all angles. In his head he heard Rosa say, “Push harder if you can, I’ve got an idea.”

  Opting to trust her, Jay didn’t even respond but just doubled and then redoubled his efforts again. Dozens of slashing blasts of raw kinetic energy flew off his hands and were shaped into a maelstrom of force ripping the creature apart from every angle. Jay realized that he might be able to do this himself, but she was better at it. Her power just made her better at seeing the right angles.

  Then the second part of her plan became obvious to Jay as the cuts began to work together to expose the center of the creature and in an instant slabs of ice were summoned into those openings. Hanna’s power couldn’t summon anything inside the body of another creature. But just as with the open mouths of the ROUS earlier, the cavities that Rosa was opening seemed to be an exception.

  Jay truly had its attention now and between the kinetic blasts and the ice, it was acting infuriated. Which was a good thing because that resulted in it moving forward to try and crush him. If it had stayed inside the pool, this plan might not have worked but as it was the creature didn’t make it more than twenty feet from the magma before it started to be frozen by their combo attacks.

  Once a good section of its body started to cool off and harden into stone, Jay saw Bella out of the corner of his eye. She leapt forward and into the air to land a flying kick against the creature’s center mass. The angle of his kinetic blasts were all shaped around her by Rosa and when the kick landed her concussive power was triggered.

  Stone and still-hot magma was blasted in every direction but Jay’s shield covered him and all of the girls but Bella were far enough away. Then Rosa’s power went into effect again as he saw Bella’s motion shift entirely and her momentum carried her away from the creature and out of the path of the exploding bits, rather than through it.

  In an instant the fight was over and they had slain the elemental. Jay blurred back to his team and took stock of them. Jessie was clearly upset but he knew that was not at any of them. Through the bond he could feel that she had felt useless. “Jessie, my love, your powers were not suited for that fight, but that hardly makes you useless. We all have our time to shine.”

  Then he looked over at Zuri who said, “You never asked me to come help.”

  “I know, but Rosa’s plan ended up being better. Don’t worry, I actually still have an idea about how your power may play a fundamental role in further refining, but we will talk about that after this little scouting mission is over,” Jay replied.

  Bella was hugging both Rosa and Hanna, who were clearly exhausted but smiling. He came up and pulled the three of them close in a bear hug. “That was amazing. Hanna, you have become so much stronger than when we first started training. Before long you are gonna be able to drop a mountain on someone’s head.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I will admit, I’m so glad I was chosen for this mission. I haven’t pushed myself like that and it felt good to realize I am more capable than I thought. I have been worried that my powers weren’t going to be useful like some of the others,” Hanna said. Jay felt the conflict of insecurity and satisfaction within her.

  “Don’t think like that, and just know that you can cut loose with me anytime. We need to keep thinking of new ways for you to use those powers of yours,” he replied before looking at Rosa.
“As for you, my, I didn’t know that you could do that. It was impressive on so many levels.”

  “Honestly, I wasn’t sure that I could do it either. You were much further away than I am normally used to, your kinetic blasts don’t have the same type of mass that I am accustomed to redirecting and wow, but you were putting so many out, it made it hard to keep up with calculating all the right angles,” Rosa said wearily.

  “Well you did it. And I honestly wasn’t sure that a human mind could handle so many different things at once.”

  “What about me, boss man?” Bella asked.

  “Perfect timing. I love to see how well the three of you worked together. You put all the pieces together just right,” Jay replied.

  The dark-haired beauty blushed and said, “Oh I’m sure we can show you some more ways that we can work together tonight.”

  Jay laughed and Jessie didn’t even remind Bella about the no hitting on him rule. Spirits were high. Beating the ROUS had been more of a gritty fight close up. This one left them feeling excited even if some of them were tired. Jay almost didn’t know how he had ever managed to live without bonds to reveal the emotional state of those around him.

  Which of course begged the question of if he should make the bonds permanent. That led to the question of how his wives would feel about that and then to the uncomfortable decision that he had to make about more fusions. It really was a no brainer in the end but he couldn’t help but feel like there was still going to be a cost to him for moving forward.

  Would it stop with the six wives or would he soon find himself part of a sixty-one-person collective? And then if they did merge with more of the clusters, which by all reports were not faring very well, would he end up as the top of some massive group consciousness. No, the more he thought about it the more he realized that it freaked him out. It might be necessary and he might move forward with it, but that didn’t mean that he was wrong to have reservations about it.

  Jessie nuzzled up against him and spoke to him telepathically. “Thanks for making me not feel helpless there. I know that I’m not your favorite wife, but I want you to know that I do love you and will always fight by your side.”

  Jay protested back, “I don’t have favorites. There are things that I like about you all the best. You are a great deal of fun to be with and even today, with the people you chose as part of this team, I have had fun. Please don’t beat yourself up on this. I love you and not cause I have to but because I want to. And I’m not just saying that because you are the mother of my son. If the A’snkarnt hadn’t done this to us, I would have considered myself lucky to have ended up with you and just you. But to be fair I feel that way about the rest of your sister wives.”

  He felt her contentment flow through the bond as they stood there at the feet of a shattered monster with ash in the sky, and lava on the ground, but satisfied to just be together. It was a nice feeling and one that Jay wanted to find more time to cultivate with each of the women in his life. Seize the day, so to speak.

  “Rosa and Hanna, are you ready to move on?” Jay asked.

  They both nodded, but were clearly tired. The good thing was that their bodies all would regenerate much faster since all the refinements. The rest of the trip to the base of the volcano required them to fight a number of the ROUS and magma elementals. The rats were all dispatched fairly quickly by whoever noticed them first. Even Zuri got the opportunity to shoot one with one of their crystal rifles.

  As for the elementals, they were a greater challenge. The first one was a good way out of the lava pools and already cooling when it reached them. It only ended up taking a few swings of Jay’s PSI blade to slice it into pieces.

  The problem came at the base when they had to fight a pair of the monsters. Both of them were drawing heat straight from pools of lava and were not easily slowed. It came down to a game of Jay having to use psi construct walls to hold one at bay while they sliced and diced the other one open until Hanna was able to summon enough ice for it to be smashed.

  Again, Jay realized that there wasn’t too much threat if they thought things through. It just took up a large amount of time and he knew that people back on the 3rd floor would be getting worried about why he had been gone so long. It didn’t help either that once it was obvious there was no threat, he couldn’t help but feel his mind wander.

  The new biological imperative that had asserted itself following his last threshold threatened to take his focus as he couldn’t stop staring at the girls. Even distracted he was able to maintain both the shield and the flurry of kinetic blasts, but that had more to do with his subconscious mind doing tasks too complicated for him to consciously direct. It was both a positive step forward and a dangerous reminder of how easily he could be led astray.

  When the final elemental fell, he breathed a sigh of relief and tried to focus on the curiosity of exploration. He sent out a pulse of his Evolved Assessment. He was first and foremost looking for signs of life but the evolved form of his skills did so much more. It was how he was able to detect that there was a tunnel within the side of the mountain.

  After he told the girls what he detected, Jessie and Bella insisted on being allowed to clear the rock away to open it up and see what was inside. Zuri asked if that was wise given that a tunnel inside a volcano might be filled with lava, but Jay assured her it was far removed from any super-heated rock. As far as he could tell it was a perfectly square tunnel which couldn’t be natural and obviously bore investigating.

  With a few concussive kicks and punches from Bella to soften it up, Jessie put her shoulder into it. Jay had to admit that he wasn’t sure how he felt about this new rhino form she took on. At over ten feet tall and with the bulk to match it, she dwarfed even him. Ultimately though he laughed at himself for being that insecure. Seems that he wasn’t completely free of old habits.

  Chapter 6- Sleepers Buried in the Ash

  Once the stone was cleared away it looked like exactly what Jay had expected. The tunnel appeared to belong more inside of a spaceship than the side of a mountain. It was clearly not natural and had all the little tell-tale signs of being A’snkarnt.

  Rosa whistled and Jessie asked out loud, “You know what that looks like?”

  Before Jay could answer Zuri said, “This is just like the metal that is under the ground of the slime ruins.”

  Bella chimed in, “Exactly.”

  Jay realized he probably didn’t need to but he said it anyway, “Everybody be on guard. Anything involving these guys could be super dangerous. Oh and if you get a chance to collect any samples, I’m sure Huong and the rest of the tech division would be super excited to get more parts to look at.”

  Jessie replied, “I’m taking point. This is too dangerous for you to be in front. Rosa, you stick with Jay. If things get dicey try to help him get out of here. Zuri, stay by him too, while Hanna and Bella take up the rear.”

  Jay started to protest, but Jessie cut him off. “You promised us you would be safe. I’m sure that we were just holding you back when it came to the rats or ROUS, sorry, and the lava monster, but this looks A’snkarnt. We aren’t taking any chances with you.”

  He wanted to argue but would just have to count on his pre-cognition and enhanced speed to be able to stop anything that threatened Jessie or the others. He was important, and he understood his role, but he wasn’t gonna be able to stand by and let any of them be hurt.

  They moved slowly, taking note of small control panels on the tunnel walls at irregular intervals but didn’t know what they did, so they just kept going. Jay knew Ava especially would kill for the chance to come back here and investigate. It went on for quite a ways.

  If he didn’t miss his guess, the tunnel was heading downward at a slight incline. After a mile he guessed they were probably fifty feet below where they had started at the top of the tunnel. This of course was curious in and of itself, because what they knew from the third floor was that underneath the layer of dirt and soil there was a metallic flo
or that marked off that deck of the ship they were on.

  It was at that point that one of his regular sensory pulses came back with new information. There were life signs ahead. They seemed off a little bit but definitely human-type life signs. Jay couldn’t put his finger on quite what the difference was.

  He raised his hand and said, “Hold up, Jessie. I am detecting living creatures ahead of us.”

  “Are you sure, I don’t smell or hear anything other than the very faint sounds of some mechanical devices?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” Jay said as he intensified his scan. His eyes got wide and they could all feel his shock through the bond.

  “What is it?” Rosa asked.

  “There are a lot of life signs. I mean a lot.”

  Zuri offered, “Maybe it is another of the clusters.”