Robert let the first slug come close and extend its spear to stab at him. He dove into the void and readied his sword against the crook of what went for an elbow on the creature. Then he waited. As color returned, he pushed the sword and opened a huge gash on the arm, causing it to limp on the side of the slug. He dove again. when he emerged next, he chopped at the other arm. The attack didn't cut through but this slug was useless now. Unless it could climb on top of him and bite, that was.
He was furious. Burning with anger and hatred toward these slimy creatures, Robert moved in and out of the Void, delivering gruesome wounds and vanishing before the Mollusks could retaliate. The snail curled into its shell and started rolling away. It would either flee or go around and use its slam-and-bite combo. Robert dispatched the snails, then went after the runaway slug. He now blinked every second into the void, limiting his stays to one and a half minutes.
Waiting for the right moment, he imitated Liz. Robert put his sword right in front of the snail's mouth when it was descending, and braced. The creature impaled itself in the sword, an ignoble death. Robert touched the corpse and shifted to the liminal void. He repeated the same thing with the slugs and the half-eaten bodies, along with any equipment he could find. It included too many weapons for just two corpses. This led him to believe the trio of running Archs had dropped their weapons.
Robert's plans were to go into the Mollusk Realm alone and drag Mollusks to the liminal void alive so he could farm Time wisps. But now, all he wanted was a bath and clean clothes. He started to make his way back to the passage.
*
*
He crossed the passage and heard the sounds of people arguing. It was muted because one of the tough metal walls was down. Nobody was on the Earth side of the passage. All that Robert could do was to cross back and sit near the passage, life sense turned on, and gather Life and Time wisps.
Eventually he picked up people coming back. He dropped the meditation and stood up. "Hey!" He shouted, making the returning delvers stop.
"Who's there?" Someone asked.
"Just another delver. The exit corridor is locked. I mean no harm to you but I can't go back."
The party of five seasoned delvers approached. All of them were one star, judging by their life force. "Are you alone? By the patriarch, what happened to you?"
"A variant squid exterminated most of my party. Only me and a woman survived. She ran ahead, I believe it's her voice I can hear through the metal door on the other side."
"Mind if we go through the passage?"
He raised his hands. "I don't want any trouble. You can go on."
"If the blast doors are lowered, it means nobody knows you survived, right?" One of them said in a snarky voice.
"Nobody knows you guys are still alive either. It could go either way or we could go on our separate ways." Robert shrugged. He was too distressed and exhausted to put up with this bullying bullshit. But he activated foresight to sense two seconds ahead. "But before any of you make any aggressive moves, can you figure out why I survived the variant that killed nine people?"
The snarky guy got slapped on the nape. "Because you are a tough motherfucker and we don't want any trouble," their leader answered. "Once we are on the other side, let me buy you a drink. In honor of the fallen."
"Sure," Robert grinned. "in the honor of the fallen."
The five went through the passage. Less than a minute later, they came back. "It is as you said. Blast doors are down, and they ain't opening until Samson sends a strike team down. if that other survivor of yours mentioned the variant, they might even send two stars."
"You guys can stay here by the passage. I'm going deeper into the jungle to gather some wisps," Robert said and started to walk away in a random direction. Foresight showed a small probability of getting backstabbed. "And if you are going to backstab me, I recommend you do it now!"
Another smack, another yelp of pain, and the vision changed.
*
*
Robert kept the passage at the edge of his life sense cheap range. It could go further if he amped the essence expenditure but why waste energy? As usual, he tuned it to one star and above. He was still surprised when powerful signatures suddenly appeared, signaling the arrival of Samson's strike team. They stopped near the five-man party, and then the delvers were sent back. The strike team then came his way. He waited for them.
"Are you the other survivor?" A commanding male voice asked. Sounded military enough.
He opened his eyes. "Yes, I am."
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
The Samson strike team all wore matching ceramic armor and a closed helmet that were probably worth a house in the twenty-third district. They had some variation on their armament but all of them were obviously seasoned veterans. Not to mention they shone on his life sense.
"Where is the variant?"
"Dead. I killed it."
"Where are the corpses?"
Robert shrugged. "They aren't here with me."
"Can you lead us to the site?"
"Do I need to?"
The man sighed. "There's a three hundred thousand dollar bounty for the recovery of the corpses. If you killed the variant, the money is yours."
"Then, sure. Just one thing. I want my party members to know I survived. So let me cross the passage and tell her."
He guessed fifty-fifty odds of them turning on him, even if he made the world know he had survived. Sure, the five-man party might tell, but they might as well have been coerced to keep their mouths shut.
"Sure. We will follow you."
They went back to the passage, and then up the corridor.
"Robert, you are alive!" Amanda, the first girl to offer him a party spot when he visited the LFG area, ran to hug him as he left the corridor.
He was covered in gore and brain matter, stinking to high heavens. He awkwardly patted her back. "Yes, I am."
"Did anyone else survive?" She studied his eyes. "Damn," she started to cry.
Robert scanned the room. Dozens of Archhumans, including the five-man party, were looking at him. "I killed the variant. Now, I'm going to escort these fine men from Samson to the battle site."
He earned nods of respect from the delvers.
"I'm going with you!" Amanda demanded.
Robert opened his mouth to refuse, then clamped it shout. She would reduce the chances of becoming one more blood smear in the jungle by a lot. She was from a rich family, a student of one of the several Archhuman academies whose yearly tuitions had seven digits. If none of them came back, Samson would face hell. How could a squad of five two-star Archs not protect two one-star in the Mollusk Realm?
"Miss, it is better if you stay here." The Samson sergeant said.
Amanda stared daggers at that featureless faceplate. "Try and stop me."
Some in the peanut gallery "Ooh'd" and "Ahh'd".
"Safety protocol India tango sierra foxtrot uniform charlie kilo echo delta uniform papa forbids taking non-Samson personnel on these incursions."
Robert thought the code made for an awesome acronym.
She locked arms with him. "So Robert is staying behind."
"He knows where the battle site is."
"I know it too. Look, it's a package deal. Either both of us go, or none do. I can point on a map where it is too."
Amanda's affinity was Plant. The jungle was a perfect environment for her.
Someone in Samson's executive uniform appeared out of a "staff only" door. He gesticulated to the sergeant.
"Fine, you can come, miss."
"I'm not sharing the bounty," Robert said in jest.
Some in the peanut gallery laughed.
"The families will pay you way more than that for bringing the corpses back," Amanda replied with a business voice. "Even if they don't, the salvage fee on their equipment and the bounty on the variant will far outpace the pocket change Samson is offering you."
The executive at the door winced.
*
*
Robert crossed the passage and walked in the direction of the massacre site along with Amanda. The strike team followed behind them. Halfway through, he remembered he'd stashed the bodies in the liminal void. Taking them out would reveal more than he wanted about his talent.
Just my luck, Robert thought.
In other news, Amanda still had her arm around the crook of his elbow.
"It's a quarter mile ahead," she shouted. "I can sense the blood-soaked grass."
Robert tried to fiddle with life sense to see if he could. He went with the lowest setting and increased the margin until he sensed grass. Then he raised the band to sense slightly healthier grass. It didn't work. he started sensing some bushes whose life force was slightly higher than grass but no blood-soaked grass.
They entered the blood-soaked clearing, free of bodies. Amanda screamed and hid her face against his brigandine pauldron.
"Where are the bodies?" The sergeant asked.
Two members of the strike team went to search outside of the clearing, while the other two examined the clearing.
"No signs of the bodies being dragged, sir. We can see where they fell, but they just vanished."
The other two soon returned. "No signs of snails outside. We found some footprints but it must be from the deserters."
"Deserters? Do you mean the guys who brought the variant squid to us?" Robert asked.
The sergeant approached him. "Where are the bodies? Where is the variant?"
"I stashed them away," Robert said.
"Oh, do you have a storage ring?" Amanda asked. "I was begging my father for one."
"Well, them. Produce them." The sergeant demanded.
"Not right now. They aren't with me. I need some privacy to get them. We can do it near the passage."
"Well, you better—"
"Sergeant, Robert just saved you the trouble of dealing with the variant. Don't let your hurt ego talk over your duties." Amanda warned.
'Is she related to Samson? Damn, is she some kind of princess? Why is she clinging so much to me,' Robert thought of all that. He knew the girl had no romantic interest in him so it was something else. Perhaps she was trying to divest herself from the embarrassment of running away from a fight Robert had won on his own. Or just trying to steal some of the spotlight. He understood that he'd earned a lot of social capital with the delvers of this passage.
"Very well. Let me ask this, then. Will you produce the bodies once we return to Earth?"
"A bit before that, but I'll ask that the six of you go back through the passage first to give me some time to retrieve them. And I'll need fifteen body bags."
"That's acceptable. Now, you said you found the corpses of the other party's lost members?"
"Yes. It is half a mile in that direction."
The Samson strike team examined both sites but weren't happy. The lack of anything worthy of bringing back irritated them. Robert tried to stand tall against the angry gazes they were sending his way behind those smooth faceplates. After some more investigative work, they went back to the passage.
Robert noticed how fast the foliage grew back. Usually, people wouldn't backtrack soon enough to see it and had to cut their own path but they had just done the back-and-forth trip twice in just a few hours. The vegetation was already closing some of the paths they cut. It was interesting how it would grow fast and suddenly stop when the jungle felt it was enough. It was as if some sort of intelligence was guiding it or perhaps the jungle had a template to follow.
At the passage back to Earth, Robert had everyone, including Amanda, go through before he walked for a while trying to find a secluded space. He leaned against a tree, memorized the position, and then entered the liminal void with the body bags. The next two weeks were spent removing their equipment, bagging the bodies, and bringing them back to the clearing. He was glad the liminal void carried no smells. It would be an even more hellish task otherwise.
Once everything was in place, he had two piles in the clearing's void. One with the body bags, the other with all the equipment he looted from the bodies. While Amanda mentioned a salvage fee, he wasn't going to just hand over everything. Robert wanted some of these things for himself and unless the families asked for the specific items, he wouldn't hand them over.
After all, they belonged to him. The salvage fee was just a way for the families to buy back mementos at a cheap price for little social capital and some money. Robert had a hunch they would sell for more on the parallel market.