“So, here you are again.” Luna said as his brain quit spinning. Ethan let out a mental sigh at how quickly she started bugging him. He did have to admit that talking to her in this place was easier than reading the writing either in the air, or on his eyeballs though.
“Yes, I’m here again,” he answered. “You better get used to it too, thanks to your inability to work with me, this place is mine now.” Starting off the conversation with a thread might not be the best move, but Ethan didn’t have time to play her games.
“If you humans didn’t…”
“Enough, Luna.” Ethan said, pressing down on her mental presence with his will. Something that was entirely too easy in this place. “I don’t have time for this. We can debate on how evil humans are later, right now. I need you to tell me about dungeon cores. How they’re ranked and how they work.”
“Well, aren’t you touchy right now.” Luna said with a snort. An interesting sound, considering they weren’t really talking, and she had to project the sound into his mind. “Ok, fine.” She said, throwing up mental hands at his equally mental glare. “What is it you want to know about them anyway? I’m not really sure what is common knowledge… and what is you just being too dumb to have learned.”
“Just give me a basic overview,” Ethan said, glossing over the jab at his intelligence. “If I have any questions after that, I’ll ask, ok?”
“Whatever you say…boss.” She said, throwing the last word on their literally smothered with scorn. “Dungeon cores are naturally occurring entities that congregate the worlds mana and strengthen the natural power of the world… or something like that. You see, they were apparently a regularly occurring phenomenon, right up until a few hundred years before humans mastered space travel. They are responsible for all, or at least quite a few, of earth’s old myths and legends. Find Boba Yaga’s hut wandering around the woods? She was a dungeon boss, and her house was the dungeon’s domain. Find a cave filled with dwarves, mining out gold and jewels, also dungeon creatures expanding their dungeon’s domain.”
“That… doesn’t make sense on so many levels.” Ethan said, searching for a place to start asking questions. “I mean, everyone knows those old stories were just that, stories. Besides, why did the dungeons stop popping up if they were a natural part of the earth?” He had more questions, but the inconsistencies of what he was being told were just too much for him to think through them all.
“Humanity, in case you haven’t noticed, doesn’t like what it can’t control,” Luna said sarcastically. “There were witch hunts over the entirety of human history. I’m sure you heard about the stories where brave knights went out to hunt evil dragons, or the vampire hunts in Europe? Well, all the cores were eventually destroyed. Once the mana is dispersed, it takes centuries for it to coalesce again. Meaning the more dungeons were destroyed, the less mana there was to make more. The way I understand it, pollution of the planet played a role in reducing the planet’s mana as well. So, a few hundred years before space travel, the dungeons were forgotten and the creatures became legends… until they found one in the depths of Antarctica, a place not touched by human hands in a long time, if ever.” Ethan felt the shrug in her words and believed, she at least believed what she was saying.
“Ok,” he said at last, thinking through what she’d said. “That helps a bit with the backstory. Now, tell me a little about the power structures of the cores.”
“Believe it or not,” Luna said, with a little laugh. “They went with a letter power ranking system. Guess the guy who discovered a lot of this info was a real otoku. He ranked them from lowest to highest, F, E, D, C, B, A, and S ranks. Goblin dungeons are considered F rank, while a dragon dungeon would be considered A rank. As for S rank, I’m not sure if anyone ever actually met one before, but it would be on the level of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. Super big, planet destroying monsters. Though, who knows, since there are writings about it, there could very well be such a beast out there.
Ethan didn’t recognize the work ‘otoku’ nor did he know anything about the ranking system she referred to. He did, however, go to school. And knew how letter grades worked from there.
“Ok, now, tell me just how much of a difference does each power grade mean in real terms.” He asked, trying to keep the conversation on track. He really didn’t like too much information dumped on him all at once. It made it hard for him to pick out the important parts.
“Sure,” Luna said, really getting into her explanations. “There are several factors that go into a dungeon ranking, but the simplest explanation is size. An F rank dungeon, even the oldest ones, were little bigger than an apartment building. Often times only taking up a small section of forest, or a single cave. They moved up from there to A rank, were they were said to cover entire kingdoms or countries.”
“And how does that relate to ship cores?” He asked, finally feeling like they were getting somewhere.
“Mainly size,” Luna said, spinning around to indicate the size of her domain. “An F rank dungeon transformed into a ship core, can’t control much more than a small ship. Where the biggest war ships, are constructed of A rank cores.” Ethan frowned at that, wondering what was going on then.
“So, are A ranks as easy to find in the wild as F ranks then? Because nearly all the ships we saw out there were massive, way bigger than the Luna.”
“Of course not,” Luna said with a chuckle. “A ranks are nearly impossible to find. With typically only the flag ships of an entire planet’s navy having one. No, the size comes from having a mana battery to help boost domain size. They are like relay stations that help suck in mana and allow a dungeon to push themselves out further. Still, even this has limits.” Ethan nodded, a motion that caused the entire world around him to spin nauseatingly, and he quickly stopped.
“Then, the Red dungeon…”
“Is a goblin core, and you really should just call it that. The domain is only tinted red because it is hostile to you. While mine is blue because you are my dungeon boss. If you find a green tinted domain it is friendly, a yellow tinted one means its neutral. Easy enough, right?”
“Ok, fine.” Ethan said with a quiet sigh of annoyance. “So, the goblin dungeon is an F rank dungeon who has grown artificially because of the mana battery… but what about you? You have expanded a little, but what you managed to do only makes up for what you lost. Which is about the size of a large house, not really even the size of an apartment building. What rank are you, Luna?” He instantly knew he’d hit a sore spot, as the world shuddered a little around him, but she was compelled to answer him.
“I’m an E rank ship core.” She said, grinding out the words. “My hull was so small because the person who built the Luna wanted speed over size. Putting an E rank core into an F rank ship hull gave me the option to go a little faster than a traditional F rank ship.”
“Ok time out,” Ethan said, looking around at the domain she’d been expanding. “Then, how close are you to your domain limit now? Also, how are there so many massive ships out there? There can’t be that many huge ships if there are so few A rank cores out there.”
“I’m just about at my limit,” Luna said with an angry grunt. “I could get a little bigger, but since I’m in contact with the goblin dungeon, we are both siffling the other’s growth. Neither of us can get bigger until one of us moves. As for the ship sizes… think of it like a ferry system or a train. The lead car, or the back car usually, holds the ship core and the mana engine and batteries. The rest of the train is made up of cars that lock together but are interchangeable. So, a weaker core can transport a huge number of train cars that don’t have cores but are just attached… does that make sense to you?”
“Yes Luna, Nine and I noticed that ourselves” Ethan said, doing his best to refrain from shaking his head again at the disrespectful tone. It did make perfect sense, considering the medical car as they were calling it, was exactly like a train car. What was worse than her tone, was that Ethan didn’t know just how much of what she was saying was common knowledge and how much wasn’t. He drove a cargo lift as his job for crying out loud, not ever realizing how the ships he loaded and unloaded worked was a little beyond belief really.
“Ok, last question for now then.” Ethan said, as he just noticed Nine walking onto the bridge. “You said either you or the Goblin dungeon has to move for either of you to get any bigger, how hard is it for you to move? I was under the impression that moving a core meant its destruction.”
“Human propaganda, to cover the fact they killed cores and replaced them with other human minds.” Luna said, her words laced with rage. “No, we can move, but we go dormant. In the wild, a dungeon boss would take the core to a new location and infuse it with mana to kickstart the growth process again. Otherwise, it could take years for a core to wake up naturally. Not something any core wants to have happen, for obvious reasons I think.” Ethan nodded at that, who would willingly subject themselves to a nap that could last for centuries?
“Thanks Luna, I’ll be back to talk to you more, but for now I need to go talk to the others.” With that, Ethan pulled himself out of her domain, and back into his own body. Just in time to be greeted by Nine, who had a handful of his armored suit in her hands and was busy yelling into his face.
“… think you were doing, going out there without me? I had to…” Ethan listened to her rant and rave for a few minutes, before finally interjecting on his own behalf.
“Nine, Nine, please.” He said, calmly resting his hands on top of hers. “Why did you spent so much time training me, and making me this new suit of armor, if not to protect me when you aren’t there?” He asked reasonably. “The armor worked wonderfully, look only one stab wound, and I was completely surrounded the entire fight. To say nothing of the lessons you taught me. I was able to do what I did, only because of you. Thank you, Nine. Your teachings are paying off… so, please, Don’t think of it as a slight that I used what you gave me when you were clearly in need of rest, ok?”
It took a little more smoothing over to get Nine to calm down, but in the end, he had her number. The girl was crazy, but there was a clear method to her madness. Ethan sighed sadly, looking at her, trying to keep the feelings from his face. He still wasn’t sure of his feelings for her, beyond a relationship of convenience, where two people used each other for comfort in a bad situation. He thought he was growing to love her, but it was difficult for him to love someone who felt increasingly like she had simply grabbed onto him, like he was a tree, providing shelter from a storm.
“Fine, but you’d better let me know next time there’s going to be a fight.” She said, letting go of him at last, and demanding his armor back, so she could improve the area he’d been injured in before he fought again.
“Sure thing, but first, let’s get everyone together and go over some planning.” Ethan said, calling out with his mind to draw everyone over. In Davis’s case, he’d just had Lesa go get him. Since he couldn’t hear Ethan’s mental commands.
“Ok,” he said, once everyone was gathered around. Everyone in question being himself, Nine, Davis, Mark, Lesa, Cherry, Sven, and Luna. With Dale and James outside still guarding the wall. While the hobs didn’t really have a place in the discussion. He started off with an overview of the situation they found themselves in, after what Luna had told him before he called them over here. Then, went on to talk about what they had to do going forward.
“We need to come up with a plan. There are a few things we need to do. Not limited to, but including capturing or taking out the red dungeon or goblin dungeon as it should be called, rescuing the people in the medical car. Then get the mana battery back and hope there is a mana engine in the back half of the Luna in the crater’s heart… any suggestions on how to go about doing that?” He finished with a question to the group, not really sure how to go about it himself.
“We need to hurry, no matter what we decide.” Nine said, looking up worriedly to meet Ethan’s gaze. “If the goblin dungeon decides to ash a few of its trees and make a swarm of goblins, it doesn’t matter what we do, we’re all going to die.” A chilling thought to be sure.
That won’t happen. Dungeon cores work under very strict rules. They have layered defenses, the weakest fighters around the outside edge, getting stronger the closer one gets to their core. The goblin dungeon is starting to send stronger forces against us here because of my presence. It will continue to send stronger and stronger waves against us here, until I am either moved, or we defeat it.
Luna said, climbing in of her own accord with information that Ethan wished she’d have given him earlier. Making him wonder if just moving Nine’s core was the best way to go about this. What followed was quite the discussion. With Mark and his team having quite a bit of input on the topic. Ethan kept an eye on his brother’s copy the entire time. Although he saw the normal friendliness from Sven, and the clear hatred from Cherry. Mark himself seemed rather indifferent to Ethan. Something he had a hard time comprehending.
“Ok, then it sounds like we have a plan.” Ethan said at long last, after they’d went around the topic until he thought it might die from old age. “Nine, Lesa and I, will take the hobgoblins, and make our way around the outside of the crater, killing creatures and making a distraction of ourselves. Mark, and the rest of his team, will go to the medical car, and gather up the prisoners there. Bringing them back to the Luna. Where they will be healed by an army of stoats Luna will make to provide them with kill energy. Then, we’ll see about making a final push into the core of the crater. We need to defeat the dungeon there, for our own safety, as well as the mana engine and battery contained in the back half of the Luna. Any objections?” He asked, and getting none, he stood up with a groan as his legs had cramped while he waited.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
It was going to be a while before they could actually leave. Since he had to make armored war dog mounts for himself, the girls, and all the hobgoblin archers. Not to mention upgrade Crescent for Nine. As the girl had grown rather attached to the original war dog. As well as upgrading everyone’s armor to match his new set. In the meantime, they all had tasks, and they set about them with single minded focus.
* * *
A few days later, Ethan didn’t know exactly how many for sure, they all stood outside the ship. Each of Ethan’s group of three rode an armored war dog. While Mark and his people were on foot. They had opted to walk, since they had to many people to bring back with them who would be in rough shape. They did have a few armored boars in their ranks though, set up with wheeled carts they’d crafted to carry the sick back with them. As for the six hobgoblin archers, Ethan had originally intended to split them between himself and the girls to make a larger team with ranged capabilities. That proved easier said than done, and they still needed someone to watch over the Luna, so, they had been left as sentries. Their bows giving them an edge over all but the hobgoblin riders who carried ranged weapons. A thankfully small number of them.
“We’re setting off then.” Mark said, turning away with his group.
“Hold on a moment,” Ethan said, walking his armored war dog, who he’d had to grow extra-large to accommodate his bulky frame, to stand beside the man with his brother’s face. Frowning, Mark gestured for the rest of his team to keep going. Then he turned to Ethan, facing him squarely.
“What do you want, boss?” He asked, face impassive, yet body language stiff.
“I… I’ve been wanting to talk to you for days now.” Ethan said, finally opening up after so long of staying quiet. “I… I mean, you’re my brother, or at least…”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Mark said, cutting him off mid word. “But I’m not your brother. Sure, I have a few of his memories, and intellectually, I remember you. But almost everything that makes up the core of who I am revolves around the time Mark spent as a gladiator. A time the two of you weren’t close I’m told. Sven, well, he has memories from aboard the Luna on the trip out here. He said Mark changed a lot towards you after he found out you were dying… but again, that’s not me… best to consider your brother and I to be completely different people. In fact, why don’t you just call me Markus. I think you will be happier for it… now, can I go?”
Ethan’s heart sank as Mark talked, until he felt like crawling inside a dark hole somewhere to hide. This wasn’t his brother, a fact he knew deep down, but had refrained from addressing him because he didn’t want it to be shoved in his face like it just had been. Now, now he had to feel the pain of loss all over again, and just before a mission… it hurt, a lot.
“Go,” was all he managed to get out, waving the man with his brother’s face away. Turning back to his own team, Ethan held back tears as he kicked the giant dog over to Nine and Lesa. Riding the animal wasn’t easy, but the dog was smarter than any earth variety mount and did its best to compensate for its rider’s lack of skill. Not to mention how Ethan had bound the armored war dog to himself, Crescent to Nine, and the final one to Lesa. The mental bond made something as insignificant as riding lessons, almost an unneeded, and novel concept.
“Do you want me to kill him?” Nine asked, the words clearly meant to be comforting, the bloodthirsty edge to them not really giving him as much comfort as she probably meant for them to.
“No,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “Mark is dead, that man back there is Markus Fairchild. The gladiator champion from a few years ago. We should count our blessings to have him on our team, and just forget about who he used to be…” Both Nine, and Lesa gave him conciliatory looks, before he shook his head and took to the lead of their little group.
“Forget about it,” he said, calling back over his shoulder. “Let’s just get this over with. Like we planned, don’t worry about the kill energy, just shoot everything you see move. I want as much of the goblin dungeon’s focus on us as we can get.” This was a part of the plan not everyone agreed with. Most of them, everyone except Davis, honestly. Had wanted to go straight for the heart of the goblin dungeon and take it out.
Ethan had refused to take that course of action. Sure, they could probably shoot their way to the heart of the crater. Easily kill whatever goblinoid dungeon boss was there to guard the dungeon core, and then capture said core easily enough. No one was arguing that point. What Ethan had a problem with was what did they do after they caught the core? They couldn’t exactly force it to do their bidding. There was a reason all dungeon cores personalities were killed and replaced with human personalities, creating ship cores after all. No, they couldn’t control it, they couldn’t kill it, not without taking away all their air, and they couldn’t even take the mana battery, again not without taking away all the air the core was producing by turning the entire crater into a giant dungeon.
So, in the end, Ethan had opted to leave the core alone. They’d just create a ruckus the core would have to respond too. While Markus saved all the people trapped inside the medical car. Who knew, there were two such cars in this crater already, there might well be more of them, hidden in the tree line. What if there were survivors out there, and they killed them when they cut the air flow by destroying the dungeon. No, it was far too risky. Ethan just couldn’t bring himself to do it, despite how much everyone else wanted him too.
“What are you thinking about?” Nine asked him, two hours later after they’d parted ways with Markus’s team at the medical car. They’d moved on, encountering several groups of hostiles. All of whom were killed by either Nine’s, or Lesa’s M16. Ethan didn’t bother shooting his at all. Between the fact he had no formal training in firearms, and that shooting while mounted required precise skills, Ethan just didn’t have what it took to hit anything. After a few wild misses, they’d taken his gun away, to prevent friendly fire, and wasting their limited ammunition.
“Nothing really,” Ethan lied, looking at Nine with a smile he hoped looked genuine. “Just wondering how long before the dungeon sends us something we have to work at taking down.” That at least was true, as far as it went. He really did wonder how long the goblin dungeon would let them shoot everything they came across without retaliating.
“Don’t give me that line of bullshit.” Nine said, bringing Crescent over to walk beside his own, unnamed mount. “I know how much seeing him has to hurt. Not to mention the fact that you don’t know what to do about the goblin dungeon core. It’s ok, not to know how to handle every situation.” She punctuated her words with a triple shot burst from her rifle, taking out a trio of wild boar who’d just run at them from under a white pine.
“Easy for you to say.” Ethan said sarcastically, looking at the three neat holes drilled right between the boars’ eyes. Moving targets, shot from a moving mount. The woman was an aberration, and Ethan figured she had to have been one of the ship core candidates chosen from the gladiators who’d contracted the wasting disease. “When you’re good at absolutely everything. Planning, armor making, weapons training, staying cool under fire. I mean, is there anything you can’t do?” Ethan’s tone had come off a little more biting than he’d intended, and he could tell from the look in Nine’s eye that she was about to bite into him with her fangs all the way out.
“Quiet.” Lesa snapped, breaking the tension and bringing both Ethan and Nine back on task. They both knew Lesa wouldn’t speak at all, unless there was a problem of some kind. So, they didn’t question her command. Merely shutting their mouths and readying their guns.
“What is it?” Nine asked, after two minutes of silence had drug on between them.
“There’s something…” Lesa trailed off, looking deeper into the forest. “I’m not sure. Something that shouldn’t be there, is there, and it was watching us… I think it went deeper in though.” The trio debated for a short time, they decided to follow Lesa’s instincts. She was their scout after all, if she said there was something there, then there was. Besides, none of them really thought the dungeon had anything that could really hurt them at this point. They could mow goblins down by the dozen, and with their new armor, even hobgoblins weren’t that big a threat.
So, without another word, the three moved deeper into the forest, passing the outer circle and entering the middle ring, then, the inner ring. They passed the corpses of goblins and hobs as they went. Each partially melted and still smoking, along with their mounts.
“What in the world?” Ethan asked, looking at the smoking remains of the latest armored boar. A basketball sized chunk missing from the beast’s skull, with a similar sized hole blown through the guts of a second boar slumped down nearby.
“It looks like plasma fire.” Lesa said, slipping off the back of her armored war dog to inspect the damage dealt to the armored pig. “If I didn’t know any better, and I don’t, I’d say someone entered the dungeon domain on the far side from where the Luna is and are working their way straight for the core.”
“Well, shit.” Ethan said, looking down at the smoking remains of the wild pig. Whose armored plates hadn't done a thing to protect it from the modern day weapons fire. He cursed Luna again for absorbing Sven’s plasma weaponry. Sure, she now had the blueprints and could make them at will, but the amount of mana the weapon required ensured they would never be able to afford more than a few, and not without bankrupting Luna’s mana stores for each one.
“Awfully convenient timing,” Nine said, her eyes narrowed in a frown that Ethan didn’t like.
“What do you mean?” He asked, looking to her worriedly.
“I mean… hell Ethan,” she said, running her polymer fingers through her hair angrily. “I mean what happens when whoever this is reaches the core? Are they here to take it, destroy it? Either way, the air will be gone, instantly. You and I each have an oxygen scrubber, but no one else, apart from the kid, who’s save inside the Luna does. That means we pretty much have to go after them, right now. We can’t wait for back up, and we can’t just close our eyes to this. We have to go for the core right now. Something I know you didn’t want to do for a number of reasons.” Ethan’s face paled, and his mind went blank for long moments, while he thought about her words, and their implications. In the end, he had to admit she was right.
“Ok,” he said at last, “you’re right. We have to follow them, whoever they are, and get to that core before they do, or kill them before they reach it… if we can’t negotiate with them at any rate… gah.” He growled, running his own fingers through his short hair in imitation of the move Nine had just made. “Everything his happening way to fast. We’re not ready for this yet.”
“Ethan, love.” Nine said, resting her hand on his thigh. She might have reached higher, but her armored war dog was only pony sized, while he’d been forced to grow his own until it was closer in size to a horse. “It’s been well over a month since the planet was destroyed, closer to two really. We can’t have been the only survivors. It was only a matter of time before we found some. It’s just our bad luck we found them under these circumstances. Now, try not to panic. The problem is simple, reach them before they reach the core. What happens after that will work itself out.” As she spoke, Nine rubbed his leg comfortingly, a move that made him feel uncomfortable at first, but as she finished speaking, Ethan’s discomfort transformed to reassurance.
“Thank you, Nine.” He said, gripping her hand in his in a light squeeze before letting it go. “Let’s forget about following quietly then, and ride for all we can for the core. The bodies are still smoking, that means they can’t be that far ahead of us, right?”
“In theory,” Nine said. “You have to remember just how small this place is. I mean, it’s only half a mile from the outer lip to the core. If the forest wasn’t so densely packed, and filled with boar and riders, we could reach it in just a few minutes of flat riding.”
“You’re not helping,” Lesa said, tucking her stoats into the hard sided pouches she’d had added to her back. Then gripping her reins tightly. “Let’s just ride. If we’re to get here before it’s too late, we need to move.” Not waiting for a response, the slender brunette kicked her war dog into a run. Nine, who looked like she was ready to bite nails at the dismissive tone Lesa had used on her, exchanged an angry look with Ethan, and kicked Crescent to follow. That only left Ethan, who didn’t wait long before kicking his own mount into motion behind them.
Ethan cursed silently as he rode, holding onto the horse sized dog with all his strength to keep himself from being pitched off the back of the wildly running beast’s back. It was all going too fast. He just couldn’t get that thought out of his head. It didn’t seem like that long ago that he was waking Nine up for the first time. Then they were arguing with Luna about getting a few stoats transferred under his control. Now, well now his brother and half of his team were alive, or their bodies were anyway. Sent off to save the prisoners who were in medically induced comas, waiting their turns to be made into the next ship cores. On an asteroid that had, until very recently, been a planet in a system no one knew the location of, since they’d only found it after traveling through a rift in space out by Neptune. It was just to bizarre to be real.
It seemed far more likely Ethan had finally succumbed to the wasting disease. He was still in his apartment, back on the moon. His brother, who’d never actually come back for him, was off being an adventurer somewhere, and this was the final fever dream before it was lights out for good. It was the only thing Ethan could come up with to explain his current situation.
“Heads up,” Nine called back over her shoulder, from her place in the lead. Ethan’s mind was forcibly dragged back to the here and now, and he blinked as his armored war dog burst out into a clearing. A clearing that surrounded the back portion of the Luna. That was filled with… houses? Ethan blinked in astonishment, not really sure what to make of what he saw. Still, sure as he was sitting there, the area surrounding the Luna’s aft portion was surrounded by small, wooden houses. Not only that, but a goodly number of them were currently burning.
Snapping himself out of his daze, Ethan took in the entire area with a glance. Noticing for the first time the group of human soldiers who were fighting their way through the settlement, and the group of giant goblinoids who were barring their way. Ethan blinked at them, almost not believing what he was seeing for a moment. The hobgoblins were giants, when compared to the normal goblins. Towering a good two feet above them. These creatures, in comparison, towered two feet over the hobgoblins. Making them every bit of seven feet tall. They even had several inches of height over Ethan himself, and with their bulky builds, Ethan wasn’t sure what to call them.
“Bugbears,” Lesa called out, clueing him in as to what the giants were called. “There was a bugbear dungeon boss in this dungeon when our team took it out originally. But only one. There have to be at least a dozen of the things here… makes me curious what is hiding inside the captain’s cabin then.” A thought that didn’t make Ethan feel any better, even as the humans, who had to number at least two dozen, were slowly mowing down the heavily armed and armored bugbear. No matter how conventionally strong there were, however, they couldn’t hold up to the human’s plasma guns.
“What should we do?” Ethan asked, not sure how they could help much at this point. Sure, they had guns, but they were still ancient when compared to the plasma guns they were up against. They could hurt the humans, but their own armor, cobbled together as it was, wouldn’t stand a chance against the super-heated plasma rounds the modern day weapons the group, which looked like earth soldiers, could bring to bear.
“Don’t over think it,” Nine said, moving her rifle up to her shoulder, and sighting it on the human in the lead. “Just kill them,” with that, she pulled the trigger, dropping who Ethan was pretty sure was their leader in one smooth shot.
“makes sense to me,” Lesa said, bringing her rifle up for her own shot.
“You girls are completely nuts,” Ethan said, struggling off his mount’s back, and grabbing for his axe, even as the now leaderless group of humans turned from their engagement to face Ethan and his companions. “Oh shit,” he muttered, knowing they were about to be barbequed. When suddenly, a roar hit the air.
Ethan didn’t mean that as a figure of speech either, he meant the noise actually hit the air. So hard that his ear drums felt like they might burst under the pressure. Blinking his eyes, and rubbing his ears to relieve the pressure, Ethan looked around groggily for the source of that…sound.
Only to see a beast, even taller than the seven foot tall bugbear, and three times as broad, working its way through the too small opening in the Luna’s aft end. Bellowing for all it was worth.