— You have attacked Black Armorbug (12)!
— Critical hit. You have dealt 123 damage!
— You have attacked Black Armorbug (12)!
— Critical hit. You have dealt 119 damage!
— You have attacked Black Armorbug (12)!
— Critical hit. You have dealt 115 damage!
— You have attacked Black Armorbug (12)!
— Critical hit. You have dealt 121 damage!
— You have attacked Black Armorbug (12)!
— Critical hit. You have dealt 113 damage!
The invisible wave toppled all the running creatures and sent them sliding them a few yards back. Stones immediately hailed down on their motionless bodies. A muted cracking of chitin then squelching of innards and the first message appeared before my eyes.
— You have killed Black Armorbug (12)!
— Congratulations! You receive:
— Monster Hunter Token (20).
— Large ghostly crystal (2).
Then a few seconds later, almost at the same time, I received another ninety tokens and ten crystals of various sizes.
Before the monsters’ bodies even disappeared, the next wave of cockroaches appeared from the forest.
I checked my supplies. Wisdom was doing a great job bringing my mana back up.
Meanwhile, Farhas didn’t any waste time. With clipped orders, he again deployed his warriors to their positions.
“Step to!” he roared. “The beasts are already near! Mage in the center! Attack only on his command! Sure shots only! Flanks intercept any that don’t get hit by the spell!”
I still had yet to figure out what abilities the old troll had, but I could say one thing for sure — he knew how to command. And most importantly — his orders were carried out without question.
Meanwhile, Farhas continued:
“Hoager! Dago! When the bugs die, be ready to go down and pick up the rocks! Our reserves are not infinite!”
There were seven cockroaches in the next wave. They quickly overcame the distance to the wall, and were immediately greeted with a Ram from me.
I was yet again amazed at the elder’s foresight when my spell hit only six of the bugs. The seventh, running a bit to the left, avoided that deplorable fate and jumped full bore onto the wall then, quickly flitting its legs, rushed upward. Stones immediately flew at it along with an ice arrow from me. I could be stingy with mana some other time. With such powerful support, it would be a shame to not get the tokens.
I had a fleeting thought that I should call the gremlin down to the wall with his sling, but I decided against it when I saw the seventh bug skitter over the parapet and attack two of the trolls. It didn’t survive long. The giants’ heavy clubs turned its head into a messy pulp in the space of a few instants. Honestly though, the creature managed to land a couple fairly deep wounds on our defenders.
“Mee!” I shouted. “We need your help!”
Then turning to the wounded trolls, I said:
“Come down and get healed up.”
* * *
The next morning greeted us with frost but, for the most part, we didn’t notice. There simply wasn’t time. The creatures were giving us too much action to care about the cold. Bugs just kept rolling in and breaking on the walls of the fort like the black waves of the Dead Ocean. And each wave was bigger than the last.
The trolls ran out of rocks in the middle of the night. But they were no longer feeling bold enough to go beyond the walls — the attacks were too frequent. So the warriors had to switch to clubs. Naturally, that resulted in almost all of the defenders getting wounded. A few of them several times. Farhas would then send them into the interior courtyard to heal.
The potions of satiety were a big help, and I was sharing them generously. But the biggest impact, without a doubt, was made by little Mee. I’m sure that, if not for his Waves of Healing, we’d never have been able to hold the fort down. The trolls looked on him as our savior and, in point of fact, that’s what he was.
I by the way, just about got taken down. An especially nimble cockroach dodged a club blow and tried to slice a chunk off me with its pincers. The Muckwalker Aura absorbed all the damage and saved me. Gorgie, not having strayed even a step from me before then, distracted the creature while the trolls finished it off.
For the whole night, the harn was my “eyes,” giving me clear, unerring and most importantly timely instructions on where to direct my spells.
Today was the first time I used the Golem Breath. As it turned out, it was quite a useful spell. It created a whitish fog in a twelve-foot radius around me that halved the speed of all creatures caught in it and lasted for half an hour.
Farhas also finally proved his mettle and used two attack spells at once. The first time was in the middle of the night when my Ram covered more than a dozen individuals and the warriors had just run out of stones. The gray-haired troll sent a series of six-foot stone spires flying up out of the ground with lightning speed that impaled the paralyzed bugs straight through.
It was striking to watch and got results so impressive they made me shiver. The spell must have been level four or five. I yet again found myself thanking the heavens that we managed to reach a peaceful agreement with the trolls...
The second spell from Farhas’ arsenal was not quite as showy as the first, but no less deadly. And by the way, I had seen it before. The orc shaman had attacked me with the same spell. A ghostly thorny branch.
Honestly, though, the troll elder’s sorcery was much more powerful than the young orc’s. The semi-transparent lash, studded with sharp spines, easily tore through the bugs’ chitin armor. Level-four at the very least. By the way, I think I figured out the old man’s secret. It’s his gnarled staff. I’d bet my hand it was not some mere creepy-looking stick, but a true magical artifact. Seemingly, it was also making all of Farhas’ spells stronger. The old man hadn’t let it out of his hands for the whole last day.
When the final attack was thwarted, and there seemed to be no more coming, we all fell wearily where we’d been standing. Except Mee. The gremlin was still tirelessly taking care of the wounded. Over the night, he’d changed noticeably and grown bolder. Where was that timid little gremlin now? The one I met at night cowering next to an orcish bonfire? It was amusing to watch the fearsome giant trolls making way for the little healer. There was nothing but respect and veneration in their eyes.
I was sitting next to the troll elder and watching the last fell beast we killed disappear into thin air.
“Did you see that?” I asked, nodding toward the disappearing beast.
“You mean their levels?” Farhas wearily answered with a question.
“Yes. If I’m not mistaken, the twelves stopped coming two hours before sunup.”
“That’s right,” the old man agreed. “The last wave was level-fifteen bugs. Their armor was stronger and they moved faster. What do you think?”
“The portal’s still open...” I shrugged.
“That means we can’t let our guards down,” said the old man, standing heavily.
I nodded and also got to my feet. I was going to go down into the arsenal and fill out my reserves. As my mother used to say: “there’s always a silver lining.” I didn’t always understand what she meant by that, but today I think I finally grasped the true meaning.
I opened my backpack and counted the loot. Two thousand six hundred sixty-five tokens and two hundred sixty large crystals! Looks like I’ll be able to buy that last crystal after all! Beyond that, Random generously granted me sixteen small vials containing the imprisoned spirits of black armorbugs. At first I couldn’t even believe my eyes. Heh... As always, mom was right! There’s always a silver lining...
At the tower entrance, I crossed paths with the golem, still stuck in a defensive pose and went down into the basement.
When I opened the box containing the crystal, my hands were noticeably shaking either from exhaustion or worry. Although I suspect it was a bit o
f both.
I admired the bright fiery specks of the crystal for a bit then made my payment.
— Congratulations!
— You have acquired:
— Elemental Crystal “Heaven’s Wrath” (1).
— Removed with discount (50%):
— Monster Hunter Token (250).
“Great,” I whispered, smiling. “Now let’s get the rest.”
Tossing a smoldering glance over the shelves and estimating how much it would cost to buy all their riches, I rubbed my hands together in satisfaction. I had more than enough tokens.
— Congratulations!
— You have acquired:
— Medium Potion of Satiety (45).
— Fortified Blot (61).
— Tick Sphere (41).
— Hunter’s Fury (35).
— Removed with discount (50%):
— Monster Hunter Token (526).
I peeked into my backpack. There were almost one thousand nine hundred tokens left. I patted down all the shelves one final time with pity but, alas, didn’t find anything else.
Ugh, too bad. I was just getting a taste for it.
I walked from corner to corner one last time, patting down all the walls hoping to find some secret niche I might have missed, then left the basement. And just in the nick of time. My mouth was filling with familiar bitter saliva.
Hopping out of the tower, I wanted to shout at Farhas about the new threat, but there was no need — every last one of the trolls was already in position on the wall. They were perfectly still like stone statues and staring into the forest.
Farhas turned, and our gazes met.
“Come up here!” she shouted darkly. “We’ve got guests!”
Judging on his expression, he really did not like what was happening beyond the wall.
Once up, I peered out past the parapet. Just looking at the thing that had my allies so worried made me lose my breath.
The forest fringe and trees beyond it had ceased to exist over the last night. The otherworldly bugs had turned the once narrow little path we took to the tower into a wide swath of denuded land.
And now there were three big huge bugs slowly moving their thick crooked legs over the cleared land in our direction. They were the size of a Conestoga wagon. Their wide flat armor was covered with saber-like spikes. The heavy considerable pincers were pressed to their chests. Their two black eyes and two pairs of long whiskers seemed to be doing their own thing.
“Thirty,” Farhas darkly commented on the creatures’ levels. “It will be quite an endeavor to get through their armor...”
“But there are upsides,” I said, looking closely at the approaching monsters. “If that’s all the faster they can go, we have every chance to defeat them.”
“Do you think your ram is gonna work against these giants?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “But I have a couple more surprises up my sleeve.”
“I really hope so,” Farhas whispered barely audibly, but I heard him.
Well old troll, this wouldn’t be the first time Gorgie and I had to put a big nasty creature in its place in order to survive...
I wanted to suggest an approximate plan of action but then our otherworldly guests surprised us all. When the first had traversed half the no-man’s-land between the tower and former forest, the shield-like shell on its back suddenly split in two, revealing two pairs of transparent wings. Then, a moment later, the monster shot upward in a cloud of frosty dust.
For a few seconds I looked on baffled as its gigantic carcass descended upon us from the sky. Gorgie gave a fearsome roar, tearing me from my stupor. I’m sure that’s what saved me.
After a moment’s thought, I summoned the spirit of the Ysh and jumped down from the wall into the interior courtyard. The semitransparent giant snake instantly wrapped itself around my body, taking all the damage from the fall. I still took a good shake though. My eyes went dark for a moment. I even went deaf for a second.
Meanwhile the creature careening down from the sky sprayed a cloud of coal-black dust, covering a few of the trolls. A thunder of falling stones, roaring and shrieks of pain came down from the wall. Through the black fog it was hard to see what exactly was happening up there.
Ignoring the pain in my right side I stumbled, coughed and stood to my feet.
— Attention! Spell “Wave of Healing” has been applied to you!
“Rick! Over here!” I heard the gremlin squeak to my right.
While I figured things out, the harn’s flexible shadow appeared next to me. An insistent jab to my back showed me the way to run. The black dust was not going to settle any time soon. It was all around. In a daze, I walked forward cautiously with my left hand on the harn’s scaled back all the time. Seemingly, the otherworldly beetle was using some sort of masking spell.
“Rick!” I heard Mee’s voice crystal clear.
All that time I could hear the battle raging somewhere above me. Stones scraping, lots of trolls roaring, chitin crunching — it all mixed together into a solid ghastly din.
The first thing I saw appear from the black fog in front of me was a bronze shield and behind it the whole golem. A familiar pair of wide ears were poking out behind its legs.
“Rick!” Mee shouted with glee and ran out to meet me.
After a brief embrace, we hurried to the tower’s overlook platform — the trolls needed our help urgently.
I overcame all the steps with difficulty and finally made my way to the top. Just in the nick of time! The two other beetles were already in the air. Just a bit and they’d also be falling where the wall was a few minutes earlier and where our allies were still fighting in black fog.
To my surprise, Ram worked properly. The two nose-diving crushers, and that was what these otherworldly beetles were named, were sent flying a few yards back by the wave of lilac. It must have worked because the monsters were in midair.
The crushers, paralyzed by the spell, slammed to the ground. They tumbled a few times, breaking appendages and splaying their wings, then stopped perfectly still. Gorgie wanted to run at their downed carcasses, but I stopped him. The monsters would come to their senses long before the harn would be able to get through their armor.
Meanwhile, the black dust was gradually settling and I could see what was happening down below. The first crusher was still alive, which could not be said of several of the trolls, whose bodies were lying among the stones like broken dolls.
Among the heaps of rubble, I saw other fighters as well, but thank the gods they were merely wounded. Among them was Erg the big fellow. He was lying under a stone slab, unconscious but still alive. The black bug just happened to be dashing toward him and five trolls with Farhas at their head were trying to hold back the onslaught. It’s not hard to guess why the otherworldly creature wants so desperately to get through to Erg. It needs to acquire a body.
“Not today,” I whispered angrily and lashed the crusher with lightning.
When the bug fell to the ground motionless, the trolls slightly stumbled back in surprise.
“You don’t have much time!” I shouted. “It’s gonna wake up soon!”
I didn’t have to tell the warriors twice. Roaring ferociously, they flung themselves on it. They rained down many fast blows on its chitin armor with their heavy clubs. In a matter of seconds, the bug lost half its legs and one pair of wings but, alas, it wasn’t all that easy to kill.
Understanding that time was ticking inexorably, before the trolls broke through the monster’s armor, I decided to put our trump card into play.
Opening the fort map tab, I chose the nearest red spot and selected the command “Attack.”
The golem reacted at once. Tearing off, he made for the creature, which was just coming to its senses. And he was fairly nimble for a big hunk of metal.
I must give the crusher its due. It was not going to give up so easily. Even without half its appendages, the beetle had no problem flinging the tenacious trolls in all
directions. And they flew back like ragdolls.
And that was the very moment the golem joined the party. Its bronze flanged mace whistled into the creature’s chitin side. Its black armor crunched like an eggshell and green slime sprayed from the wound.
The beetle shuddered. Forgetting the trolls, it turned to its new opponent and tried to grab him with a huge pincer. The golem easily deflected the flying appendage with its shield and landed another crushing blow. This time the flanged mace made a dent in the monster’s right eye, turning its eye socket into a gaping hole that oozed green slime. After a second’s thought, I sunk an ice arrow into the hole.
The Wastes Page 23
