B 2 C 17: MEAT GRINDER

The cavern’s rock face is domed, the roof’s only features are several stalactites of significant size. The floor however, the floor is littered with eggs. Gazing at the eggs provides the floating mental image of their timers. Most are due to hatch in seconds, some in several minutes, and more eggs spawn by the moment. If luck is with us, when the cragbeasts spawn, they won’t have any fire in their bellies right away. If we’re unlucky, we may be weathering an awfully long storm of flames.

This subterranean habitat is a little too open, and has too many tunnel offshoots to get our backs nicely against a wall corner. We’re going to have to break the right hand wall rule, so I do my best to break the right hand wall, marking the tunnel we’re entering from. Teuila performs a jetspeed thrust at the wall I’m trying to mark so that we can move on with our plan quickly.

I cry out, “Lil, can you sense any dead ends in any of these halls? I’d rather fight with our backs to the wall than surrounded!”

Lil doesn’t reply immediately as they dash around the room’s perimeter counter-clockwise. More cragbeasts are beginning to spawn as we’re halfway around the room’s edge, and panic begins flooding our shared wavelength. The spawning cragbeasts do have fire in their bellies, so luck is not with us this day. I have to dance around Lil’s rear quarter blocking blasts of flame from all directions. Lu and Te start to blister slightly as the occasional flame nicks them.

Before disappearing suddenly, Teuila mumbles, “Oh sod this.” I know she didn’t just abandon us, but she’ll be in danger without Lil or my protection.

Tugging Lu up onto Lil’s back, I try to envelope her with my body, covering her as much as possible, coating my backside with a frosty barrier. Lil withdraws their wings from their splayed positions, and does their best to provide some additional cover. Lil has to start fighting off several cragbeasts physically, while half a dozen other cragbeasts take turns breathing fire to keep Lu and me pinned down. Unable to go on the offensive, I only hope that Teuila is okay. At this point, Lil is circling the perimeter still, but no longer in a dash, they’re keeping their back to the wall. Lil faces the center of the room to have the fewest angles to need to defend themselves from. Occasionally as we pass one of the offshoot tunnels, a cragbeast will surprise Lil with a swipe from behind, Lil’s tail is starting to look a bit worse for wear.

I wish I had helped Lil train their physical offenses in this form before we decided to do this, I feel so selfish. I wanted to expand our inventories to help expand our home, without ruining the jungle’s natural ancient trees, or our canopy. How trivial is that? Definitely not worth risking my beloved inner circle’s lives over. Preserving their lives is so much more important to me.

Preserving! That sparks an idea that I convey to Lu, “Lu, I’m going to try something, please tell me if it starts to hurt!” I had been keeping my cold barrier away from Luni because it’s part of thermal activity, and she’s not quite as safe from its effects as I am, let alone as Lil is. Instead of simply sapping the kinetic energy to create a cold barrier on my back side, I try to leave one atop Luni as she huddles on Lil’s back. I’ll need Lil to stay in place, since this won’t be able to follow her.

I send a request to Lil telepathically, “Lil, hold here a moment, I’m going to go on the offensive.” Once Lil pauses, I make certain to add several layers of frigid air as a barrier over Luni. It doesn’t even take energy, mana, whatever, it almost seems like it would grant it, if I hadn’t been staying topped off. I’ll have to experiment with that later.

Leaping down from Lil, I begin grabbing cragbeasts with my tattoo tendrils, specifically I clamp shut the mouths of ones that still have visible fire in their bellies. They’re a bit too sturdy and heavy for me to use as bludgeoning weapons against each other, but I’ve got other weapons. Another wave of cragbeasts spawn just as I’m starting my assault. Flippin’ ‘eck. Before the newest ones can get their bearings, I abandon attacking the ones I’d been about to tackle, so I can take them out swiftly instead. I wonder if I can get the thunderstick to do what other-me had it do, but now’s not the time to experiment.

Weaving between cragbeast swipes, leaps, and bites, I draw my sword while coating my fist in air that’s likely closer to absolute zero than not, it actually stings badly, I can feel frostbite forming. The frostbite doesn’t last long as I intercept the first new cragbeast’s flames with my fist, jamming my sword straight into its throat, then slicing downwards. The beast derezzes, and during the time dilation of its derezzing, I plot my next few steps.

Those three on the left saw me unaffected by flames, they’ll be trying to take me down physically, the three that were behind this one only saw their kin derez, so I likely have a few moments of them wasting time trying to incinerate me. The time dilation ends, and I propel myself into a slide beneath the first lunging cragbeast from the trio on the left. I simply hold my sword up as I pass under its belly, splitting it in twain. Its derezzing buys me another precious fraction of a second. During this dilation, I notice that Lil’s starting to fret as their back is less and less cold, meaning Lu’s protection is wearing off.

These two, I’ll need to do something risky with, to get back to Lu and refresh the chilled air. Summoning a copy of Gae Buidhe from my inventory, I physically thrust it sideways through their skulls, causing a pair of derezzings. I stow Gae Buidhe once more, collect the loot in passing as I dash back towards Lil, and uppercut a leaping cragbeast that was about to tear into Lil’s left flank. My frozen fist doesn’t derez the cragbeast, but it does knock it for a loop, buying me time to attend to Lu.

I start setting up a new series of barriers of frost, when Lu speaks up. “Reggie, Te’s gonna need help in a few seconds, you gotta get to her, but I don’t know where she is.” She chokes back a frightened sob.

Sparing an instant to telepathically call out into thinkspace, I try to comfort Lu, “Thank you Lu, this whole adventure was a mistake, but you’re so brave for coming with us.” Lu shakes her head no, insinuating she’s not brave. I sigh, unable to comfort her at the moment without getting too distracted to fight.

Telepathically calling out to Teuila, I beg all our stars for enough luck for her to be within range, and not on the other side of too much dense matter, like too many rock wall turns. “Te? Te! Where are you? Teuila, please answer! Which tunnel?”

Te answers huffily, perhaps exhaustedly, “Seventh, seventh tunnel, found it for you, good dead end. Might be mine.” I grip my hair and tug it in panic at Teuila’s words.

Okay, okay no time to panic. Do I bring Lu and Lil with, trying to cover them, or can I make it there and back faster on my own? Roaring with frustration, I erect further frost barriers around Lu, and I risk summoning stone from my inventory. It takes a fair chunk of my energy to call forth enough stone to erect a partial pyramid that leaves a small funnel that Lil should be able to break out of, but the cragbeasts will require a minute or two to break into.

Lil, Lu, I promise I’ll be back, I promise. Please be safe, I love you. I dash off, trying to count the tunnels. Did Teuila mean seventh from the left, or seventh from the right? Fudgeknuckles. Te, are you in thinkspace? Can you hear me? No response, not good. At this point, I’m just tackling my way through cragbeasts. I’m throwing a series of constant frozen jabs, lunges, and uppercuts. Knocking a dozen out of my way seems to have garnered their aggression, good, better me than Lil and Lu. Oh, oh I wonder. When I eat fish in a fish pond, fish attack me, all of them angry at only me.

I call forth a piece of cragbeast meat I’d looted from the trio on the left, and begin chowing down. Suddenly I feel the weight of the hostility of every creature in this cavern complex. Their overwhelming killing intent is palpable, pressing down on me like a ton of bricks. Thankfully, I know just where to go to lighten my load. I spy the seventh tunnel, I’m certain it’s the correct one, because at a bend in the tunnel ahead, I see flashes and flickers against the wall, as if there’s firelight far down the corridor.

Calling out telepathically across our shared bond, I veritably yell to Lil to break out of the stone that I’d just wastefully put up. Oddly, my mana doesn’t seem to have taken the hit I thought it did. I was sure I used up more than this quantity. Still, Lil, follow the cragbeasts, then do your best to get into the dead end as I lead them away.

I dash down the seventh tunnel, but I don’t take the offshoot that I’m certain Teuila is in. As much as it pains me to not rush immediately to her aid, her longer term safety is more assured with Lil and Lu being in the correct position first. Lil won’t be able to get to the dead end if the entire population of the caves is between them and it. So I need to clear them out first, or at least lead them away. Plus, this finally gets Lil to a spot where they can look after Luni, without getting torn to shreds by cragbeasts. I think I saw one of Lil’s wings hanging limply.

I stand still, just past the offshoot I’m certain Teuila is in, waiting with bated breath, hoping that any cragbeasts attacking her turn to chase me. Thankfully I’m greeted by a pair, and then another pair, and then a trio, all rushing from the dead end tunnel. Wanting to be sure I keep their attention, I start eating another piece of cragbeast meat. The flavor is delectable, it’s a bit spicy for my taste, but anything other than fish, after so many months, is heaven-sent.

Ugh, distraction, folly be thy name, or something like that. I forgot to take into account that there might be cragbeasts further down this tunnel. I was hoping to find a path that looped around into one of the other tunnels, so I could meet up with everyone. Not only that, but since I was distracted by the taste of this delicious morsel of meat, I took a fairly sizable swipe to the right side of my head. The whack sends me careening into the wall, as I see the beast coming from another tunnel offshoot on the right. Faced with dozens of cragbeasts behind me, half a dozen straight ahead, and this one on the right, I suppose breaking through this one is probably the safest option to look for a wraparound tunnel.

I chose wrong. This one has red eyes. It doesn’t even have eyes, you freakin’ cheater. I find myself cursing this Red Eyes entity as panic begins to grip me. Terror sets into my heart. My knees buckle, but I’m able to raise my left hand in time, positioning my shield as it looses a blast of flame. Fighting to keep my head on straight, my eyes feel like they swim loosely around in their sockets. An oppressive force of gloom clouds my mind, but I know I need to act quickly, I have moments before the other creatures catch up from the fore and the rear.

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I close my eyes. Breathing deeply, I retreat into thinkspace, trying to reach out, thankfully Lu and Lil are only a few dozen meters away, perhaps a few hundred. Our thinkspace acceleration isn’t as strong as it normally is, I definitely don’t have a thousand times the amount of time, it feels like it’s only triple the speed of meatspace at the moment. Is the acceleration stronger when our four way bond’s health and happiness is higher? Stop getting distracted!

I plead, “Lu, can you play something, anything? A lullaby, battle music, a bawdy ballad, anything. Please, I’m stuck in terror mode. Whatever you play, just make it loud. Please, if you can. I love you. Love you Lil, Te, all of you, if any of you can reach thinkspace right now.”

As I let go of thinkspace, returning to my panicked mind, flashbacks haunt me. It seems so innocuous, so unthreatening compared to so many of the things I’ve been through. A little blue sphere with striped patterns and red eyes. Its front opened into jagged edges, and it bit me. I survived, it didn’t. We don’t pick our traumas though. How things affect us are out of our control. We can only control how we react to the emotions we’re dealt. Lost within the terror of my own mind, my cold barrier and valkyrie shield are barely keeping this beast’s breath at bay.

Over the din of the various fire crackles, the throng of thousands of pounding feet, the cacophony of the strange howls produced by the cragbeasts, I hear a very exciting opening riff on an electric guitar. That is not at all what I was expecting, but I’m grateful all the same, maybe even more grateful than I expected to be. Grinning, I uppercut the beast breathing down on me, and as it recoils, I jam my fist down its throat, summoning Gae Buidhe from my inventory as I do. I’m treated to the time dilation of derezzing, between the music, and the momentary reprieve, and the object of my terror being gone, I’m able to recover my senses, mostly.

I vigorously claim and eat the meat from this beast, as well as its other drops. The first inventory expansion bag of the hunt triples my current inventory capacity. I’m absolutely flabbergasted. Something tells me that the cost of my inventory summons is also cut in one third. Not the radiant copies, sadly, but still. Right, no time to get distracted, dozens of beasts bare down on me, and Lil is basically waiting patiently behind a line of them to get down the corridor.

I dash off into this offshoot tunnel on the right, following the right hand wall rule, hoping that the tunnel leads back to the wide open spawning room. Trying to conserve my energy, the more metaphorical energy, the drive to continue during a long excursion, I use my tendrils to move about the cave system.

It takes me ten full minutes to find my way back to the spawning grounds, without doubling back into the angry mob chasing after me. As I arrive, I’m greeted by newly spawning cragbeasts who don’t yet know to be furious with me, but are hostile all the same. Sighing, I chuckle and engage this new half dozen while I still can. One propelled thrust takes me through three of them, and I drop to my knees temporarily panting from the exertion. Standing, I notice one leaping from my right, so I haul back and launch a right hook as hard as I can muster, sending it crashing forward into one approaching me from the fore. I wish I’d trained my pugilism a bit more, well, a lot more. While the two in front of me are bowled over, scrabbling against each other to stand up, I dispatch the last of the sextuplets that snuck around to my rear. It was hoping to annihilate me with flames, being newly spawned, it hadn’t yet seen any of its brethren’s fires leave me unaffected.

During the momentary solace as it derezzes, I feel through my danger wraps senses for the two I’d knocked over. They’re about to stand, so I jettison-thrust myself to my right, then sharply change angles, thrusting myself directly into the belly of the one I caught with my right hook. I throw several more frost-barrier coated jabs to their underbellies, before abandoning trying to finish them with my fists. Curiously though, as I draw my sword again, the one I’d been beating on finally derezzes, giving me the instant to analyze why it may have just died.

Equating it to video games from my memories, I stacked damage over time frost into it, virtually. The cold was so antithetical to its needs, each punch chilled it further and further. Its heart must have stopped when the icy chill finally reached it, even if it only cooled the heart by a few degrees, that might have been enough. Hm, neat.

Still, I can’t afford to waste more time here, and it has been agonizing leaving my inner circle alone for so long, so I draw my sword and cross-slice the last cragbeast before spinning around, trying to orient myself to find tunnel seven once more. The moments of derezzing are long enough for me to count the tunnels out in my head, so I make for the area I hope to find my friends safely tucked away.

After about another minute of running, I’m a bit lightheaded, my head is aching, my flesh is charred in spots from various fires that caught me off guard. My vision starts to cross, and double again, but I shake my head thoroughly to rattle my brain loose a bit. Finally, I spot Lil and Lu standing over Te. Teuila is there, so she’s not derezzed, but she looks smoldering hot. Worried that she might be burning up, and cursing myself for taking so long, not going to her immediately, I dash to her side.

I can’t sense any sort of lingering effect, but to be safe, I try to provide the feeling of a temperate autumn breeze to help soothe Teuila. This action causes me to long for Sylphie, but we don’t know how she might change if we ever call for her again. Lu’s statements about her nature were ominous. It sounded like dying, and reincarnating with a possibly different personality, one that may be unhelpful, or possibly spiteful.

Strategizing, I request something a bit odd from my friends, “Lil, Lu, Te, I need you to trust me, and try to nap for an hour, maybe two, whatever you need to do to be fighting fit, you’re both looking haggard at best. Now that we have a chokepoint, I’m confident I can hold off dozens, maybe hundreds of them for a long time. I’ve got my orientation, when you’re rested up, I’m going to use inventory magic to slowly tunnel our way back towards the central room, while blocking this dead end, leaving us a nice alcove to fight from. Hopefully if we can see the spawns, we can figure out if there’s some link between them, and the red barrier.”

Lil and Te are in no condition to argue, so Lil slumps protectively atop Te, and actually drops their Lilagnewt form, cuddling atop Te’s chest. Lu lightly drags Teuila as far back against the wall as possible, and sits against the wall with Te’s torso cradled in her arms. Lil and Teuila are splayed across her lap while Luni sings a lullaby too soft for even me to hear from a few dozen feet away.

Hopefully it’s some sort of song of rest, or at least puts them to sleep quickly. To avoid a certain deadly flaw of mine, I blindfold myself as I push back against the oncoming horde. Their occasional howls let new spawns know to come hunt down the intruders, us. With my vision impaired, I erect enough stone that I can take a step back if needed, making a crevice that I can fit easily through, but the cragbeasts shouldn’t be able to at all.

I spend several hours dancing back and forth into the fray. My arms grow heavy, and it’s harder and harder to fend off their physical attacks. My strikes are less deadly with each passing minute. The last one in the central room took me two strikes of my sword to finish, after I’d sent one sprawling into it, and laid into both of them with punches. Now, if I’m lucky, six or seven stabs or thrusts of my sword might finish one, ten or eleven slashes.

Exhausted, gasping for breath, I contemplate buying myself a breather by sealing off the tunnel completely, but I dare not risk that, because it would be the opposite of a breather, there’s no ventilation, and if I left any holes for ventilation, they’d breathe fire through it and cook us. I weave back through my crevice once more, carefully inspecting the stone with my tactile senses, remaining blindfolded, hoping it holds out until I can get a break to regenerate my own mana.

Teuila did right in finding us a dead end like this one, as scary as it was to see her disappear with her ridiculous speed. I’m sure she slew several cragbeasts, as I saw a few hunks of meat in the corridor as I ran past it the first time. Still, even she can only dash into fire so many times, even if she only has to weather it for a split second. I love you Teuila, please be okay.

I hear knuckles cracking behind me, and the sound of a very angry Valkyrie standing up. Te actually announces, “Payback time.” Her rise sets my soul alight, and a smile to my face. I chuckle at her pithy expression. She’s right though, there haven’t been many new fires over the last few minutes, so Teuila could clear out dozens and dozens of cragbeasts near instantly until she reached the newer spawns that have fire in their bellies. I swear I just felt something pass through my danger wrap senses, but I don’t feel any panic from my inner circle, so I just lean against the crevice for a moment, catching my breath until Teuila is ready to take out our quarry.

“Done.” Te exclaims as she dusts off her hands. I pull off my blindfold to look back at her, expecting her to leave any moment, as if she was agreeing, like, “it will be done.” Or, “You got it.” Te just stands there smirking however. Looking back out the crevice, I see dozens of cragbeasts just beginning to derez, as a massive time dilation hits, accompanied by the familiar crashing, cracking, tinkling sound.

I know I said the plan was to basically hold off until it was safe for Teuila to wade into the fray, and that then the fight was basically instantly won, but still, wow. I’m astounded at her speed and power. She must have hopped over my head, and leapt through their ranks, slicing in all directions. Then she returned within seconds.

I barely manage to exclaim, “Wow, well done Te. Just, just, wow!” Since I have a momentary breather, I continue, “Okay, so, I’ll go grab the loot, and come back here to begin expanding our stone safe haven. The deeper and thicker I can make this crevice, the closer we get to being out of range of any flames while we rest. Since they’re basically all defeated for the moment, that means I don’t need to keep saving energy for an emergency, and I can dump my mana into carving through stone. Then I’ll even be able to take a break myself.”

I steal away through the crevice to grab everything, and Teuila helps me as best she can. When we’re nearly back to the central chamber, Teuila picks up a very special looking satchel, and it disappears. I only caught a glimpse, but the satchel was ornate, with many pouches, and stylish seamwork. Te looks around confusedly, but I grin as I check her stats panel. Her inventory capacity went up to zero. If we can get another, Teuila can have inventory magic too. I wonder if we could get enough for everyone else. Sugar, Spice, Mana, Mana, Mat, Lao, Ag, Lu. That would be sixteen more bags of this rare variety, after Teuila acquires her second one.

This trip might just turn out okay if we can figure out a way out of here after that. Te rushes me back into the crevice as newly spawned cragbeast hellhounds approach swiftly.

Reunited with everyone once more, I urge Lil to stay small for a moment, leaving enough room to work at claiming stone to my inventory from the rear of the dead end. Once claimed, I’m placing it on both sides of the narrow hall I’ve constructed. It takes several minutes of claiming, resting to regenerate mana, and placing, per inch of stone, but once we’ve made enough headway, I can finally relax.

Relaying my findings about Te’s remarkable luck, I ask “So, what does everyone think about taking turns napping for a bit, and then me setting up a new sort of staging area, sort of like this? Then continuing to fight until we’ve either got enough of those ornate satchels for everyone, or we can tell the red barrier drops, whichever happens first. If we somehow snag enough satchels and we don’t know if the barrier has yet dropped, I’ll just try to dig us straight out of the mountain.” I draw my intended staging area for my friends to comment on. Lu makes a suggestion, and I edit it to include a sort of secret shelf, even though I’m unsure what she plans to do with it.

Right now, we’re trapped, but in a good way, safe on all sides from approach. I’m sure we’ll be stuck here for a few days yet while we figure things out, but things are looking up. My head vibrates from exhaustion, and I lean against a wall, cradling Lil. Lil is snoring snot bubbles, the goofy little cutie. Even Teuila chuckles at Lil’s sleeping form. Te drops her Valkyrie form, and approaches to nuzzle twixt Lil and my chest. Lu actually stands guard, singing a soothing song whose words I can’t make out. Luni’s song soon sends me to slumber.