Staying near the mouth of the tunnel, Drew repeatedly cleared the bugs that crawled into it. Using the small entrance as a death funnel, the bugs attracted by either the heat, smell or light were all quickly dispatched. Fireballs cracked shells and scorched flesh, icy shards of frost fire sliced clean through chitin, and the compressed remains of gravballs exploded in showers of blue ichor. Slowly, the bugs near the entrance cleared away, eliminated by red magic.

Glancing back at Sarah, "Daryl isn't out there is he? I'm going to put down some big guns." Drew asked the healer. Her xatherite mind sense let her know where people were located.

"He's over there." Sarah pointed at an angle away from the mouth of the tunnel. With the confirmation that there wouldn't be a friendly fire incident, Drew began forming the hand signs to launch a firestorm that would cover the entrance to the tunnel. Hopefully, it would draw in, and kill, any remaining bugs in the area. When the spell initialized, a rush of hot air swept down the tunnel, pushing Drew back a step. Robbi's hand on his back helped brace him against the sudden increase of pressure.

Stepping through the muck left by the remains his eyes scanned the corpses. His mana sight enhanced vision made it clear that no xatherite had grown from the bodies of these overlarge insects. He was beginning to realize how important dungeon delving was. If the three xatherite that dropped off Chakri and the troll shaman was a regular thing then a properly equipped group could easily clear a dungeon and farm those bosses for the xatherite they provided.

That was, of course, assuming that similar types of bosses were reborn in the dungeon, and more random monsters like the wereghouls didn't take up residence in an empty node. His instincts told him that it was never going to be safe delving into a monster-infested node.

There was also the fact that he needed to take over more nodes in order to create a habitat node. It seemed very likely that he was going to need to make delving into the dungeons around them a priority as soon as everyone was safe back at the stadium. While he waited for firestorm to run its course he glanced back down the tunnel. Robbi stood close, ready to step in if something started to charge down the tunnel towards Drew. Behind him the two senior officers stood, staring with open mouths at the sheer destruction he had wrought.

During the fight with the troll shaman, Drew had been mostly out of everyone's sight, so they hadn't had a chance to see him in action. Drew felt extremely vindicated by the look on Snyder's face, the navy captain clearly impressed by his display.

Well, hopefully, the captain would get off his back for a little while when he made combat decisions. The wind shifted again and Drew looked up, his conjured firestorm disappearing as quickly as it had appeared. With a nod towards Robbi, the two men exited into the darkness of the tunnel entrance. The firestorm had been a good idea, they were surrounded by at least a dozen large corpses. It was difficult to tell what they were, except for the two massive bat corpses, at least ten feet tall from toe to head, the wings were gone, but they must have been at least thirty feet.

The area was quiet, the tunnel exited out into the middle of one of the baseball fields on base giving them had good visibility. Which of course didn't help much in the darkness. The moon was a waxing gibbous, somewhere between a quarter and half full. It gave them just enough light to think they could see their surroundings but not enough to actually see by. They would be lucky if all the got was a few sprained ankles from tripping on the obscured terrain.

"What do you think Robbi? Spread out and have the fighters make a ring around the civilians? The alternative would be to have us go ahead and draw them to us maybe..." With the sheer mass of dead insects around, there just wasn't any way for them to travel safely through this if was the concentration they were looking at.

Robbi seemed to come to the same conclusion. "I say we just hole up in the tunnel, we can guard the rear well enough, the wereghouls probably won't attack, we're just going to lose too many people out here. We can set out at first light."

"I think you're right. I wasn't expecting there to be... so many." The chirp of a bat's echolocation hit drew like an attack, clutching his ears as he looked around for the source. A black spot obscured the stars and Drew launched a gravball at it, not trusting his ability to lead a flying creature, the sound cut off immediately. Followed a few seconds later by a bloody rain of body parts.

"Back inside." Drew and Robbi both announced at the same time, rushing back into the tunnel and away from the sonic attacks of any additional bats.

Snyder said something but Drew couldn't hear it over the ringing in his ears.

"Bats have a sonic attack." Drew thought he had used a normal volume but clearly, he was overcompensating as everyone seemed to wince a little at his words. Glancing at Robbi who also seemed to be shouting, but he could barely hear him. Glancing over to Sarah he pointed to his ear and then tried to say, "Healing?" at a low volume.

Sarah shook her head and said something, when he shook his head she held up a hand palm out, interpreting that as a sign to wait, Drew turned back to the mouth of the tunnel, casting a regular storm to keep anything from approaching them. He felt Sarah's healing wash over him, but still couldn't hear, he turned to look at Robbi who also looked confused. Drew opened his mouth to ask a question, but then his hearing returned.

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"Well, that was weird." Drew worked his jaw, his entire head felt like he needed to pop his ears.

"Yeah." Robbi rubbed the nook between his jaw and ear as well. "They must have some sort of silencing effect."

"Probably a set duration. There are some of the xatherite we have cataloged that do something similar. " Hoffecker added, she had been in charge of determining what skills everyone had.

"Right, well, if we go out there we're going to lose a ton of people. There are a lot more of them then I expected. We'll have to hole up here in the tunnel and hope that the wereghouls don't move into the rear too much."

Snyder looked like he wanted to say something but Hoffecker put her hand on his shoulder, stopping him from saying whatever he was going to say.

"Luckily this is probably a better place to stop than that cavern was anyway, only two places to guard and we can just block one of them." Sarah made her opinion known. "I'll pass down that we're going to stay here for a few hours."

Drew nodded towards her, "Alright, Robbi and I will keep this end clear."

What followed was two hours of repetitively casting his four storm spells on the entrance of the tunnel, keeping everything out. It was incredibly boring and very draining. Without his energize spells and their variants he would never have been able to last as long as he did.

Taking the time to really focus on what happened when he cast spells. Drew could feel how much energy was in his body, and it would slowly diminish only to surge back as he cast energize. A couple of times he stopped casting storm to peek outside and look for Daryl. The scout was outside somewhere in that mess. Probably in a near constant state of deafness from the bats, whose sonic attacks became familiar to everyone near the entrance to the tunnel.

By the time the first traces of light edged over the horizon everyone was ready to move out of the cramped tunnel. The wereghouls hadn't done more than scratch at the wall of ice blocking the path, although the creator had to come up twice to get refreshed as it melted. Drew frowned when he realized he didn't know the kid's name. He really needed to get better at asking people what their names were.

The pre-dawn light wasn't bright but it was enough to send most of the nocturnal creatures to ground. Drew had no idea where they went but he wasn't exactly eager to find out. They made their way out of the cavern and Daryl's tired form appeared in front of Drew.

"Well, that was terrifying." The shorter black man informed Drew.

Drew nodded his head, "Sorry, tried looking for you but we figured it was going to be too crazy out here to try and get everyone out. Any idea why it was so much worse than usual?"

"Not that I could tell, I couldn't even get very far, those bats kept screwing up my hearing. Also, they liked to dive bomb me. Which was super fun let me tell you."

Drew winced, the echolocation would, of course, have revealed his invisible scout's location. "What, you scared of the things that go bump in the night?"

"You bet your butt I am. I got to see a lot of those things while you were safe underground thank you very much." Daryl's smile didn't quite reach his entire face, but Drew was glad to have the banter back, waiting until they had enough people outside, he cast refreshing rain, clearing up any fatigue that might have built up over the night. They chatted some more, Drew attempting to keep the conversation as lighthearted as he could and cast refreshing rain on the second group of people.

The newly expanded radius and the tendency to clump up now that they were no longer surrounded by walls made it simple enough to get everyone in only three castings. And they began their trek back to Katie, well and the others too, but mostly to Katie. The early morning dusk was strangely silent, their group large enough to drive away the few opportunistic scavengers they encountered along the way. Drew would watch them eye the group and then turn and run into whatever hole they hid in.

Rounding the corner of the housing area, the strange structure Katie and Frank had built the day before had shifted considerably. Still in the same rough shape as a pyramid with trees growing out of the apex. There were hundreds of corpses around it. Most looked to have been partially eaten. There was no longer an entrance and no visible way for the people inside to see out, however as they got closer a section of the walls seemed to dissolve.

The people inside quickly began filing out. Katie's wavy brown hair near the front behind JP who still wore his blue police uniform. Drew picked up the pace, not quite running, but moving at a fast walk, he quickly left the majority of the group behind. Katie did likewise, JP urging her forward.

They stopped a few feet away from each other, Katie gave him a once over, her eyes lingering on the rends in his armor and uniform that he hadn't even realized were there until he felt her gaze upon them. Growing self-conscious from the introspection.

"Sorry for being late, the errand took a little longer than I expected and then there was the storm."

Katie started talking at almost the exact same time, "I saw you run in first."

They both stopped, Katie laughed, the corners of her mouth lifting up into a glorious smile. Without thinking about it, Drew closed the distance between them, pulling Katie into his arms and burying his face in her hair. She was just short enough that she seemed to fit perfectly and he held her for a few seconds, enjoying the simple closeness.

Katie poked his side, "You need to stop putting yourself in danger you know."

"Of course, I'll let others run in first next time," Drew whispered into her ear and she punched his stomach softly.

"No you won't, and we both know it." With a soft laugh, he didn't respond.

A cough behind them pulled the two apart, Snyder was looking at him with a disapproving glare, while to either side the survivors were mingling, looking for family and friends among the other survivors.

"I don't mean to interrupt your public display of affection Petty Officer Michalik, but shouldn't we be getting these people out of the open?"