CHAPTER 2

She smiled at him.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked.

Tamara shuddered slightly. “Last night and this morning was hard. With both you and Ivey injured and Jayden being Jayden…” her voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry.”

She tensed. Her eyes flipped upwards and raised Mystic Explosion with magic already forming around it.

Bows twanged.

Daniel followed her gaze only to see two melee guys leaping into the air. Each of them got over a metre off the ground. One had an axe and the other a spear with a blade on the end. Two birds that had been swooping down jerked backward as arrows struck them. One hit a translucent shield and bounced. The second got sliced into multiple parts as the spear and axe hacked through it. The one that had bounced then ran into a swirling gust of wind that looked like it was made of razor blades.

Both of them fell in pieces.

There were no other threats. Tamara relaxed when she saw her power was not needed.

She smiled bravely at him. The group started walking even as the non-combatants with them scrambled to grab the remains, presumably imagining the flavour they would add to the nightly meal. “It was only a bad night, and god knows everyone has had lots of them recently.”

“I wished I had been around to help.”

She laughed dismissively. “It wasn’t your fault. You’re doing everything right. If you hadn’t acted when you did against the huntsman, then who knows how many people would have died. I felt isolated for a day. Who cares?” She kicked the ground, then looked at him brightly, though the look was slightly forced. “Being out here helps, and I hope these kids are still alive.”

“Same. If they’re not.”

“It won’t be your fault.” She said immediately having recognised his tone. “We weren’t doing this without you.”

“Really.”

Tamara giggled. “Yeah. We’d be stupid to attempt this fight missing your power. Silver flies are susceptible to lightning. It made no sense to fight them before you were ready. After all, I reckon you’re going to end up being over fifty percent of our offensive power.”

“Careful, a guy might get a big head.”

“To late for that.” She nudged him playfully.

“If you’ve got it, you’ve got it. No point pretending otherwise.”

She snorted. Then she leant into him, letting their shoulder brush together. There was no further direct contact because both of them knew they needed to be ready to fight at any moment. Almost subconsciously, they had synchronised their walking as Daniel studied the surrounding world.

There were so many echoes of civilisation, but just as many exclusively covering the fall of it. A house was covered in a vine with a blue stem. In the world he was used to, that was ten years of growth right there, but like the giant plant that had taken over the hotel all that growth had occurred in seconds when the Alpha event was active. Those couple of moments of rampant energy had shaped everything that he could see. Daniel wanted to go touch it and work out whether it was special. Could it move like the tree near them? Was it poisonous? Did it have its own mind?

“They’re in there.”

Daniel startled slightly and looked at where Tamara was pointing.

There was a nine story building that was still over hundred metres away and it leant on a slight angle having clearly been affected by the event. It looked like a building husk with most of the windows shattered. It was not the most architecturally sound structure he had ever seen.

Now that it had been pointed out he could spot the clear signs of insects going in and out of the fifth floor.

He measured the distance between them and the building. Those small dots were a long way away and pretty clearly highlighted what Alex had said. Each individual fly was the size of his fist plus wings. Despite the distance, they were visible.

“They’re big.”

Next to him Tamara nodded. There was a sharp whistle. Almost as if there had been an unseen signal everyone seemed to crowd together.

“Enemy,” she told him shortly. “This is as far as we’ve explored. Expect the next hundred metres to be harder fought than the last block.”

Tamara’s eyes were scanning the area in front of them and then with Mystic Explosion she pointed to a shape that was hidden under a tree between them and the building they were aiming for. It was close to them. Maybe fifty metres away and now that Tamara had pointed it out Daniel was not sure how he had missed it the first time. It had a dark striped coat that acted as solid camouflage for it when it was in the shade. However, the dimension of the body was conspicuous. It might have been in shadow, but it was very visible even if he could not get an accurate image of the exact size and shape.

That brief whistle had energised the entire mini army around him. Everyone was moving to position themselves from the current fight. The difference between spotting it in advance versus walking into an ambush was immense. Something that large pouncing on them would have been a challenge and Daniel had not noticed it at all, so it was possible that the ambush had been a genuine threat.

“What is it?”

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“It’s a type of bear,” she said without missing a beat. “Weighs about five tonnes.”

“Five tonnes!” Daniel was imagining Harold, his neighbour’s prized bull that had weighed a tonne. It had been a magnificent animal with rippling muscles, and Daniel could hardly imagine what would have happened if that had charged him. This thing was five times bigger.

She looked at him in confusion. “We can see how big it is from here and it’s all muscle. Might even be ten.”

Tamara was clearly not joking about the weight. Daniel swallowed and wondered how his club could hurt something with that type of size.

“It’s an ambush predatory and has a low level psychic deterrence, which is why you didn’t spot it earlier. Dangerous stealth to most, but not us. Most of our scouts have skills to offset that risk. Apart from that, it’s big, bad and mean.” She chuckled nervously.

Daniel’s own assessment had told him the same story. It was both as fast and as strong as him, but given it weighed fifty times what he did a casual backhand would send him flying far enough that he didn’t want to get hit.

Alex came up to them with a huge grin on his face. “This one is going to be fun.”

“Do we have a plan?” Daniel asked curiously.

Alex winked went to the trailer and then started pulling out his one shot missile. Alex happily handed them out. “Plan is to taunt it between a couple of tanks and then use these to punch holes into it.”

As Daniel watched, thirty of the explosive weapons were passed out.

“Everyone.” Alex yelled. “We’re doing big boss format one. Ranged stayed back. The three primary tanks will try to alternate the aggro. The idea is to let it pounce close enough to a tank to bring them into a range of the support who shoots them.” He held up the one shot missile. “And then the next tank takes aggro before it lands a blow on the prior tank. We then repeat that around the team. Each team gets six launches. If it goes to shit, then Daniel unleashes his lightning. Questions?”

No one said anything and the three groups gathered up their weapons and the five archers moved to the front of the group to do the initial draw..

“What so I’m a decoration?” Daniel whispered to Tamara.

“You’re the insurance.” She told him. Her hand found his. “This time you get to watch others do the fighting. I’m almost certain you won’t be needed.”

The way the teams had coordinated was impressive. “This strategy? Was this pre-prepared for this specific encounter? Like, did they know that this was in the way?”

Tamara shook her head. “Alex has ten different plans for a variety of situations. Jeff and Richard were involved, and they alternate based on lots of factors. Each of the tanks has the magic to defend against the bear for a minute. That means no one should be in any danger, but alternating aggro in theory will lower mana expenditure, meaning that we’re all ready for the next fight faster.”

The three groups were spread out. The closest was about twenty metres from the tree.

“Just outside its usual aggro range,” Tamara whispered breathlessly to him. Her hand tightened on his. She was nervous, and he understood exactly why they would be the case even if she was confident of the outcome. It was difficult to watch.

The melee fighters stopped moving, and the archers raised their bows.

Twang!

Five arrows streaked toward the stationary monster. They slammed home, digging into the chest in a riot of skills and left a wound leaking green blood.

Boom.

The sound of one of Ingrid’s arrows landing and exploding reached them. Then the monster burst into action. It ignored the nearby Melee fighters and leapt forward on a direct line at the archers. It’s first jump took it ten metres, a full-size bus length. Its speed was shocking.

Twang.

More arrows slammed home and did damage, but while those explosions might have stopped an elite, they were only slightly better than pin pricks against the giant monster.

It bounded forward again with its second leap covering fifteen.

Twang.

As it landed, a third volley greeted it. Green flesh was knocked away, but Daniel could see the outsides of the wound were already healing. He wanted to leap into the fight and try to save everyone, but that was not the plan, so he held himself back. Over two-thirds of the distance separating them, had been traversed in two leaps.

It leapt again. Not a big jump, but one to position itself for the final attack. The next jump would allow it to land amongst the archers and they knew it. They scattered, running away but all on separate trajectories giving it no obvious target.

It pounced again, but as it did, an orange light seemed to connect the bear to Alex. It landed heavily and ignored the archer it was targeting who was literally within a claw swing distance. Instead, it touched down, skidded, and ponderously turned. Alex’s group was moving toward the monster. Daniel saw the creature hunch together and leap forward. While it was as big as an elephant, its movement type was closer to that of a cat.

Daniel’s eye painted the angles and distances it was going to land just in front of the three of them. Mid flight, the same orange colour linked the beast to a different group. It was airborne, but despite that it seemed to half turn in the air and landed less than four metres from Alex’s group.

Three fighters had the bazooka harpoons at their shoulders.

Boom.

They all fired, and the creature leapt away and because of the angle Daniel could not see if they had hit. Once more, mid leap orange from the third team engulfed it. Daniel witnessed its focus switching targets even if its body could not respond immediately.

Boom.

It turned and sprang. So far, thanks to the careful use of the taunting abilities it had not hit a single human. Alex recast his aggro and Daniel saw that his sidekicks had thrown away the used launchers and had brought up unused ones, but Daniel’s eyes focused on the creature’s chest. While the arrows had created some flesh wounds, the missiles had torn it asunder. Green fluid was pouring out of it.

It landed right in front of Alex.

Boom.

Three rockets were fired.

One veered away to hit the monster’s shoulder, but the other two disappeared into the hole the explosions had torn into the creature. A gaping wound that was half a metre wide and over a metre deep. The monster leapt at Alex and then the aggro spell from the second group hit the bear.

It was too late for it to adjust its tactics.

Alex and the team retreated, and he lifted his shield to block the heavy blow. He staggered under the force but did not fall. Aggro from the other tank established full control, and the beast tried to spin to leap at the new threat, but its legs gave way and it collapsed.

No more booms went off. It appeared to be dead.

“Whoo hoo.”

“Yes.”

Alex was pumping his fists in excitement and Daniel realised they must have consulted their logs and see the experience from the monster’s death because that was the only reason for their confidence. After all, blood was still leaking from it.

Tamara was jumping up and down in passion next to him. “Yes! That’s how you do it, baby. No need to get hurt.” She scolded him with a grin.

Alex approached them with a big grin on his face. He kissed an unused missile launcher he had picked up. “Told you that would work.” Everyone was patting Alex on the back, crowding around the man apart from Tamara who had not left his side.

“I’m guessing this was Alex’s plan.”

Tamara nodded happily. “You’re not supposed to kill something that powerful that easily.”

“Loot chest?”

She shook her head. “We were hoping, but it looks like we’re going to be disappointed. Jeff’s going to owe Richard money.”

“How much?”

“A hundred dollars.” Tamara laughed and Daniel joined her. Old money was completely worthless and everyone knew it.

“Do we process that?” Daniel asked.

“We’ll leave one team and the non fighters to prepare it while the rest of us push forward. It’ll probably take them half an hour to field dress it.”

With determined steps they walked toward the innocuous building that hid the silver bee tribe and almost subconsciously electricity started gathering on Blood Drinker.