Brint concurred with her assessment of the situation and from what he had overheard from Glert’s conversation with the other two, he didn’t believe that it was another team from Cordpower. Who it actually was – he didn’t have a clue even when Milton patched though a display of them from one of the squirrel scouts following them. Neither of them could see any sort of identifying mark of the Company like the last three had. That was either a good thing or a bad thing.
As they were unknown, but still hours away at their current pace, Milton decided to err on the side of caution and sent his new friends further down the tunnel to start on the next room while he started on populating it with traps and Combat Units. He borrowed a few drones from Brint and kept the ones still digging down at the Farm so that they would have enough dirt for the next room. He thought that there would still be ample time before they arrived to finish both rooms and didn’t want a lack of resources to hinder them.
From diagrams and models, he had acquired a healthy understanding of the simplistic yet deadly traps Whisp had designed. Flying a sensor orb through the room, he pretended he was entering it with a party and placed the defenses where he thought they would do the most damage.
Instead of his previous traps which were large and spaced out evenly through his tunnels leading down to his Core Room, these ones were smaller in scale but just as deadly. They weren’t necessarily large enough individually to take out more than one unsuspecting intruder at a time, but they didn’t have to be. The larger quantity of them more than made up for their small-scale damage.
He also created a sizable and hopefully deadly group of Combat Units for the room using his Core Molecular Converter and sent them up the tunnel to prepare. Before they left his Core Room, he made sure they had plenty to eat for the upcoming confrontation. He wasn’t sure how fighting on an empty stomach would affect them, so he headed off any problems by feeding them first.
In the field, Milton pinpointed his available Combat Units. He had two squads of six Scaly Pygmy Wolves patrolling the perimeter of his territory – which, as he found out earlier when his BBQ was attacked by Spiderwolves – was quite large now. They were even further away than the quartet heading unerringly for his dungeon and wouldn’t make it in time for their arrival. He left them patrolling but brought them in closer – he didn’t want to be completely defenseless in case another horde of creatures decided to attack at such an inopportune time.
He did bring his newly healed and experienced BBQ back to the dungeon on quick feet, who was fortunately only a couple of minutes away at the time. He had to create a temporary access port for it to bypass the Wire Grid, which was sealed up again after his arrival. Once inside his dungeon, he had it carefully navigate its way through the first room and make its way through the second rooms’ construction to help guard his Core Room. He had another heavy-hitter “growing” in his Bioconversion Laboratory, but it would still take a couple of hours before it was done. I need to build more of those if we’re going to have any chance of succeeding – the limitation of only being able to create one large Combat Unit at a time is frustrating. During critical times like this, it was doubly so.
He had sent one of his orbs speeding in the direction their threat was incoming, so it wasn’t long before he got a more-maneuverable eye in the sky keeping tabs on them. When they were still around two hours out at their current pace, he was optimistic that Whisp and Brint would be able to finish the second room in time.
That was before the four invaders stopped for moment. Milton’s hopes that they were turning around were dashed as a rather attractive brunette got close to the scout in front leading the way. He zoomed in and his sensor orb’s vision was so good that he was able to see small particles drift from the girl’s hand and envelop his face. Almost instantly a change rippled over his visage – from cautious and hesitant to cheerful and determined.
That’s when things started to go downhill. The scout took off with a new purpose, following signs of passage that even Milton was barely able to spot as he looked through the keen vision of his sensor orb. And then he sped up until he was practically running through the forest.
What should have taken them another two hours was traversed in under 15 minutes. As they arrived along the border of his clearing, Milton readied the only Units he had nearby – a dozen Lollipop Snakes and seven Jackalopes.
He knew they probably wouldn’t do too much damage and that wasn’t really the point. Neither Brint or Whisp could accurately tell him what their abilities were, so he needed to draw them out in a suicidal attack. He could afford to lose his old Units because he had plans to replace them anyway with some new and improved forest guards.
While his Combat Units were only moderately successful in doing some damage to the Elemental Caster in the rear, Milton was actually pleased at the result of his attack. He now knew what at least three of them were able to do, even if the Healer didn’t appear like the stereotypical ones he had heard about and observed himself – overweight and stingy with healing.
For the first time seeing a Nature Manipulator at work, he had to say he was impressed. Her skill at controlling the grass in the clearing was phenomenal and the way she used it to kill his smaller Units was surprising. Although he was worried at their impending invasion of his dungeon, he was practically jumping up and down in anticipation of acquiring a brand-new Gene Mutation.
Out of time, he advised his Proctan allies to retreat to their Workshop with a drone in tow, where they could safely seal themselves inside with Weightonite. He reminded them to leave some holes for airflow, so they wouldn’t suffocate; Whisp looked offended at his implication that she would forget something important like that. Milton took the silent admonition in stride – he was just worried for their safety and knew that it was easy to forget simple things like that during times of stress.
The rest of the drones continued to construct the second room even though he knew they wouldn’t finish in time. In case they got through the first room unscathed, he splurged on some traps from his Defensive Weapons Factory and placed them strategically in the second room and along the tunnels past it. He also started pumping out the largest and most lethal Combat Units he could create in his Molecular Converter, leaving a small reserve of Bio Mass just in case. The traps and Units didn’t quite “bankrupt” him, but he knew if he didn’t throw everything he had at them it wouldn’t matter if it did or not.
He wasn’t about to make the same mistake he did with the previous group of killer Proctans entering his dungeon. This time he would be ready.
Or at least he hoped so.
Chapter 14 – Furry brown woodland creatures
Antone carefully stepped down the strange tunnel that he discovered after he entered the hole in the center of the clearing. He could feel the others following behind him and he strained his other senses to see if he could hear anything coming from the dimly-lit passageway yawning before his eyes. Unfortunately, it was hard to detect anything with Klareece’s damn whimpering and entreaties for a heal. Queel stoically ignored her – instead, he walked along as if she didn’t exist. Antone would’ve thought it funny if he wasn’t so focused on searching ahead of him for danger.
After telling them all to shut the hell up – Gwyndle excluded since he would never talk to her that way – he caught sight of something up ahead. The tunnel they had been walking down was a smooth stone that was joined together so skillfully that he couldn’t see any breaks in it. Must have one heck of an Earth Affinity Caster down here.
Added to that, the ceiling must have been at least 20 feet above his head and the walls looked to be that same distance apart as well. It was huge – much larger than he thought was necessary. But that all changed when he saw it start to narrow the further down he went, until it created an empty doorway with shrouded darkness beyond.
Antone cautiously approached the open frame and peered through it as he assessed whether anything was guarding it on the other side. While it wasn’t lit well, h
is eyes were accustomed enough to the lack of light to see that it was clear as far as he could tell. As he passed sideways through the doorway – presenting the least amount of his profile in case there was any attackers – he held his battleaxe loosely behind him, so that he could swing it forward with at a moment’s notice.
Something felt off when his left arm and leg passed through the empty doorway and it was only when his enhanced vision caught a glimpse of something near his face that he stopped and flung himself backwards. At least, he tried to jump backwards, but his front leg collapsed beneath him and he lost all feeling in most of his left side as he fell in a heap just outside of the deadly doorway.
Queel rushed forward and with Gwyndle’s help was able to drag him out of danger. He still didn’t know what was wrong with him and the only thing he could do was lie on the ground in agony as the pain started to erupt all along his left side.
“What happened? I don’t see anything wrong…bitch, make a light and bring it here – I can’t see well enough to know what I’m supposed to heal,” Queel shouted behind him.
A tiny part of his mind – one where the pain had yet to overwhelm – detachedly noticed that the Elemental Caster hesitated at Queel’s order. She was still mad that he wouldn’t heal her, but in the end, she acquiesced and brought forth a giant flame and hovered it over the scene. It wasn’t the annoying stick-thin Healer that was in trouble – it was their Physical Augmenter. If I wasn’t their first line of defense against whatever was in here, I’m not sure I would trust these guys enough to have my back. All except Gwyndle, of course.
“I don’t know what happened, but your armor is all cut up like you just lost a knife fight. I’ve never seen anything cut this cleanly before and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of knife wounds in my day. There are marks all over your skin as well, but if whatever made those cuts did the same to your flesh, I don’t see any blood at all. It’s almost as if your skin sealed up behind whatever passed through it,” Queel calmly observed, while Antone continued to scream out in pain, “however, when I move your arm here,” he gently shifted his patient’s forearm – which caused him to scream out even louder, “I can see that it has cut through the bone underneath as well.”
Antone was delirious with pain by this time and as the shock of having his now-detached arm move and scrape against his other nerves wore off, he passed out. A short time later, he woke up with a start, expecting to be hit by waves of pain again. Blessedly, he found that all his limbs were intact and there was no pain at all. He looked towards the exhausted Queel, who was sitting down nearby with a strained smile on his face.
“Thanks for that.”
“No problem, that’s what I’m here for. Just…try not to fall in my lap in pieces again. I literally had to rebuild half of your body and that took a lot of power to accomplish. I’ll be able to handle any smaller wounds, but if you do that again you’re a goner. Just be glad you didn’t stick your head in first, otherwise you’d probably be dead before I could get to you.”
Antone was just glad that he had caught a glimpse of something before it was too late. Speaking of that, he asked Klareece to bring her flame-light to the doorway, so he could see it better. Once it was close enough, he indeed saw something that was easy to miss unless he was looking for it.
What appeared to be a super-thin spiderweb drifted lightly in the breeze flowing through the tunnel. It was unlike any web he had seen before – it was comprised of squares in a coarse, grid-like pattern. He brought his axe around to see if he could slice through it, but Queel stopped him.
“If that stuff cut you up so badly, what do you think would happen to your weapon? It might make it through, or – what is more likely – it will ruin your only weapon. Let’s try something else – if it’s really a spiderweb, fire should do nicely to burn it away,” he stated with a look in Klareece’s direction.
Antone could see her bristle at yet another order from the surly Healer. She looked like she was about to protest, but she instead increased the size of the flame bobbing in the air. Queel knew just as well as he did that she rarely missed an opportunity to burn things.
As the flames grew hotter, he backed up along with everyone else as the floating wall of fire entered the doorway; the “spiderweb” was quickly lost among the conflagration. After about 15 seconds, Klareece drew back the flames and lessened it until it was just large enough to see that whatever it was that was blocking the way was gone. As a test, Antone waved his battleaxe all along the perimeter of it and found that it was indeed safe to pass through.
With a quick thanks in their Caster’s direction, he carefully navigated his way through the doorway as he braced for any missed strands of the deadly web to catch ahold of him. He made it through unscathed, but he also whispered back for his group to be careful not to touch the walls since they were still extremely hot.
Now that he was missing a good portion of his left-side armor – he had placed the cut rags inside his bag with the hopes of getting it repaired later – Antone instead led with his axe out in front of him. He was hoping that if he ran into another one of those webs that it would be better if his axe got sliced up instead of his body. Fortunately, Klareece kept her hovering ball of flames above his head so that he would have some forewarning this time. It didn’t do much for a stealthy approach, but he was willing to bet whoever was here had already heard his screams from earlier. It was too late to hope for a surprise assault.
Just around a bend in the tunnel up ahead, Antone could see like a soft glow peeking around the corner. He silently instructed Klareece to get rid of her fire-light because as they got close enough, they could all see enough of the surrounding area – if not perfectly. Again, he didn’t think it would prevent anyone from knowing they were there, but he didn’t want to announce their presence and present an easy target.
The tunnel they were following opened into – at least from what he could see – a large room filled with unsteady-looking columns of stacked brown stones haphazardly placed throughout the layout. They were so thickly arranged that he couldn’t even see more than twenty feet before his view was blocked by more columns. The floor, walls, and ceiling were a strange black stone speckled with white spots that he had never seen before. He wasn’t an expert on rocks, so he wasn’t worried because it was entirely likely that Klareece had seen it in her training as an Elemental Caster.
Once they were all safely within the room, Antone led them to the right as he navigated his way around the nearest column. His attention was at its limit as he used everything he had to sense for any danger. Although the light diffusing the room was bright enough to see, the tall 20-foot ceilings – accompanied with the forest of stone columns – made it difficult to observe everything all at once. Which is how he missed seeing the unmoving brown shapes hugging the tops of the jagged pillars they traveled through.
When he inadvertently stepped on a small section of the flooring that gave way to his foot, all hell broke loose. Antone heard a faint click somewhere behind the black stone wall to his right; before he could turn toward it, a long, stone-tipped wooden spear flew out of a previously-hidden hole with tremendous speed. His instincts kicked in and he tried to jump out of the way of the projectile, with limited success. If he hadn’t moved, it would’ve hit him square in his side with enough force to impale him. As it was, he was able to dodge backwards far enough that it clipped his right arm, leaving a jagged gash as it sliced through his tough leather and the skin underneath. The spent javelin skittered along the floor and ended up clattering against the nearest column, where Antone observed the stone wobbling precariously from the impact.
Meanwhile, as he was distracted from the triggered trap, three small shapes dropped down from seemingly nowhere and landed lightly with very little sound to betray them behind the trailing figure of Klareece. While she obliviously watched Antone narrowly avoid being killed by the deadly projectile, the three little figures approached the robed figure holding the lit stick of wood
in her hand.
As Antone turned around to see if Queel could heal the small gash in his arm, he watched in horror as three short creatures descended on their Elemental Caster. He watched impotently as one of the giant woodland creatures with a large fluffy tail used its long claws to slice off her arm at the elbow, causing the stick her hand was holding to hit the ground and extinguish itself. The creature jumped back after the assault and appeared to be looking for another opening.
The suddenness and surprise of the attack meant that more than a second passed before she screamed, clutching her bloody stump of an arm with her undamaged hand. Antone spurred into action and moved toward the fight, but he was too late as another of the furry brown creatures sliced through her lower robe and scratched her left leg so badly that it immediately collapsed from her weight. Fortunately, the creature got its claw stuck inside the various folds in her robe and was caught underneath the Caster as she fell.
Out of the corner of his eye, Antone could see that Gwyndle had brought out from her pockets a small clay pot that contained a tiny blue plant. As he moved closer to the battle, he could see the size of it expand at great speed until it appeared to be a huge, multi-legged blue tentacle monster. Her skill at using her ability is phenomenal, he couldn’t help but think with pride as he blew past her.
Unfortunately, he looked on the scene with despair as a third furry creature hopped up on her chest and made to slice her throat. Despite his unlike of the Caster, Queel was nearby and – with a surprisingly hefty kick – caused the deadly assassin to fly through the air and impact a nearby column.
“Nooooooo!” he screamed out, as he saw the unstable pillar start to collapse under the impact. Antone and Gwyndle’s plant monster were still too far away to help as the column fell under its own weight and covered them all in sharp jagged pieces, including the three furry attacking creatures. Despite the cuts and bruises and broken bones the collapsed stone caused, they probably would have lived if a section of the black and white-speckled ceiling hadn’t fallen on top of them.
The Quizard Mountains: A Dungeon Core Epic (Station Cores Book 2) Page 11
