PART III: THE PLAGUE HEART
“Eww! What the hell was that!” Callie cried out as something slimy bounced off her helmet.
“Something’s head!” Ambria cringed, dancing around something’s head now lying on the ground.
“Major!” Callie yelled out, “Watch where you fling your decapitations!”
“Sorry!” came Celeste's response somewhere in the weeds to her right.
“How far, Reynard?”
“Fifty meters to the dead area. Everyone stay tight.”
Callie heard the snarl of something in the reeds to her left, and then saw movement. Shul’an had heard it too, and dropped their pickaxe before both Rangers shot on instinct. Two thumps from arrow impacts were heard a split moment later.
“We’d be there already if somebody hadn’t decided it was the perfect time to get a migraine!” Callie snapped, obviously directing the statement to someone. Ahead, a huge Blue-footed Cave Spider turned to look back at the group, seeming to shrug two of its legs in apology. Then another of its legs kicked out, sending something flying.
Following Tazrok’s inspiring battle cry, everyone had made their way quickly down the path to the valley floor, using the ropes to assist their descent. Lhawni had the easiest time with it in her animal form, her fox-like body leaping quickly around the rocks and needing no other help. Once they had all reached the bottom, they found Tazrok sitting on a large boulder holding his head and needing almost ten minutes before he felt well enough to begin the trek towards the nest.
Callie and Pixyl had seen something like this happen to the Ogre before, on the day he punished Dunni and the other recruits, after giving his inspiring speech. Like then, a little rest and Tazrok seemed to return to normal, but Callie filed this new recurrence away. Something odd was going on with her huge friend.
Tazrok back on his feet, they had all started the trek towards the Bogwump nest, following the path that Lhawni had pointed out. The ground was indeed solid, although the squelching sounds made people a little wary. On either side of the trail were reed-like plants standing about a meter-and-a-half tall, which meant for Callie and the other short people, they couldn’t see much, except what lay ahead along the trail. Luckily, the taller people were able to see over the tops, and it was easy to detect movements as the reeds parted for something below.
They made it almost four-hundred meters before the first of the infected creatures attacked. Callie had had a sudden knot in her stomach, as did the other Rangers, as their Danger Sense triggered a warning and direction. Celeste and Lhawni also felt it, and the Bladedancer Flashstepped off the path, appearing about ten meters away in perfect position to take care of the incoming creature. That was Tazrok’s cue to turn into his spider form.
Now they were pushing steadily ahead, coming under occasional attack from either side as well as from the direction they were moving. Tazrok drew the most attention, even without Taunting, simply due to his size and the amount of foliage his huge body and legs displaced. So far, most of the attackers had been relatively small, perhaps nothing larger than a housecat, so not a significant threat. The Ogre-spider did have a couple minor bite wounds on one of his legs where some reptile thing had latched on, but it wasn’t bad and Tazrok waved off the offer of healing with a dismissive flick of a leg, seeming to imply waiting until any healing was more worth the mana costs.
Another flash of movement caught Callie’s attention, as well as the others, and both she and Jesca loosed almost simultaneously towards it. There were two soft thumps of arrows hitting something meaty, and the movement seemed to stop coming their way.
One thing Callie found rather eerie was that the animals remained utterly silent. She had anticipated ferocious snarls, growls, and other menacing sounds from these zombie creatures. However, they simply charged directly at them, ready to use their claws and teeth to attack, without making a single sound. Even when struck by an arrow, a sword, or Tazrok's legs, they didn't emit any noise. This silence was disturbing, though it did make it easier to detect movements from the sounds of crunching vegetation, at least. To Callie, it just seemed plain wrong; zombies were supposed to make some sort of noise when they were active, like groans or snarls or something, at least they did in the movies. It should be the same here!
“Tazrok, something big on your left!” Reynard called out.
The spider seemed to jump straight up, spinning a quarter turn counter-clockwise in the air before landing. Tazrok rose back, driving two of his legs forward, obviously piercing something from the thumping sounds, before a second pair of legs speared in after the first. He made a couple more stabs with all four legs, while simultaneously trying to shake off a hairy critter that had latched on to one of his rear legs with its teeth. With a final whip, the little zombie-animal lost its grip and was flung back into the reeds. Tazrok, seeming satisfied whatever large thing had attacked from his left flank was no longer a threat, started moving again towards the dead area ahead, while Reynard released a long Rapid Fire into the swamp grasses where the flung critter had landed.
They edged forward, slowly but steadily moving down the trail. Tazrok had to fend off another large creature, and Major Celeste was Flashstepping all over the place to take care of anything charging through the reeds. Pixyl had removed her suppression bracelets at the bottom of the hill, but because everyone was so close, refrained from extending her Ethereal Blades. Once, she had to use an Ethereal Blast at something coming towards them, the flash of light vaporizing whatever it was into fine ash mid-leap.
“Hey! Get off me!” Ambria hissed, shaking her leg. There was a tiny, rat-sized hairy critter attached to it, gnawing away, but not able to penetrate her armor.
Celeste ran by, casually grabbing the thing by its tail and flinging it far off into the swamp. “You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” the Healer said. “It didn’t get through, just chewed on it a bit.”
Eventually, Tazrok emerged from the hallway-like trail of reeds into the open area made up of dead vegetation. His feet noticeably sank about four centimeters into the muck, the divots replaced quickly by water when he moved. Lhawni called out a warning to everyone to be more-careful of their footing, but still felt things were pretty solid.
A squealing sound of some kind from Tazrok came forth as he was beset on two sides by large, rabid wildlife. On one side was a wolf-like creature with razor-sharp fangs trying to get to him, while on the other, one of the Bearthings seen from the ridgeline was trying to get in close as well. The spider kept both back, using a pair of legs on each, looking for an opening. Eventually the Ogre-turned-spider found one, and used his stinger to skewer the Wolfthing through the skull, and it spasmed momentarily before going limp. The threat from that side dealt with, he turned to face the other, but the Bearthing had turned to face a charging Celeste.
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“Taunt it!” Celeste yelled out as she rushed.
With a renewed ferocity, the Bearthing spun and began to even more savagely rip at Tazrok as the Druid pushed the Taunt. The Ogre was able to hold it at a distance, but still took several swipes to his legs and a deep one to his underside that drew significant blood, even through the hardened carapace. That was all it was able to do, though. The Major jumped high, flipping once in the air, before driving her two swords into the top of the bear’s head from above. The creature’s legs simply went limp, and it still never made a single sound.
“Heals!” Celeste called out after rolling to her feet, pointing at the spider as she now swiveled her head rapidly to guard from all directions. Extending her hands, both swords leapt from the bearthing’s skull, flying into her hands.
Ambria heard the call and charged forward, dodging around the taller Rangers. She hesitated a half step at seeing Tazrok-the-Spider, her instinctive arachnophobia rising unbidden for a moment. That moment was all she needed to get her head straight, though, as she focused on the fact it was Tazrok and pushed on. The Ogre-spider stopped moving so the Faun could get close and then under him. Ambria pushed first a targeted healing into the gash on his underside, the bleeding ceasing as the wound zippered itself closed. Next, she cast a general touch heal to take care of the multiple smaller wounds on his legs and body.
As the Faun ran out from under the spider, the rest of the team members emerged from the weeds. They fell into a vague cover formation, working to secure the area around the Bogwump nest. While the charging animals were fierce, they were also single-minded in their attacks, meaning they were almost entirely predictable.
Celeste ran to and fro, dispatching a few zombie critters that were rushing for them, while Tazrok faced off against another Bearthing, using two legs to hold it at a distance, another to trip it to the ground, and a fourth to skewer right through its neck. A second skewer assured it wasn’t going to move again.
“Careful of that shoreline!” Reynard called out, reminding everyone that things could be lurking in the water beyond.
“The ground will be soft close to the water, too,” Lhawni added, as she, Pixyl and Ambria all scrambled towards the dome.
The Bogwump nest itself was bigger than Callie had thought it would be. The top was nearly two meters off the ground, with the sides gradually falling from the high point over a several meter radius. About one-fourth of the nest jutted out into the water, the sides disappearing into the murky swamp.
“Fan out,” Callie called out. “Just like we talked about.” Thucax and Shul’an both set the pickaxe they were carrying part of the way up the dome, then joined the other Rangers moving to take up spots so they were covering all approaches, and could easily assist each other’s line of fire. That put the Healers and Pixyl behind them in the center. Callie glanced briefly to her right and called a Turret into existence to add yet another source of ranged attack.
Celeste and Tazrok charged around for a while longer, clearing out a few things as everyone got set, before they also pulled back, allowing the Rangers unobstructed sightlines. Tazrok quickly shapeshifted back to Ogre form so someone could get into his backpack, and Celeste pulled both of the Egg-sploders out, setting them in easy reach, not far from the pickaxes. When and if needed, someone would twist the timer and then hand it to Tazrok to throw, his hands being too large to easily wind the countdown himself.
Callie caught a glimpse of something rushing from the reeds and her Turret fired at the same time she loosed her own arrow, and a cat-sized zombie frog-like creature was knocked back into the vegetation by twin arrow hits.
“We ready?” Callie called out. Once everything was set, then Pixyl would start her cutting, but not before. Reynard had warned them, based on his previous experience, that things would get a lot more crazy as soon as the break-in started.
One by one, each of the Rangers called back, confirming they were as ready as they were ever going to be, with the two Guardians confirming the same. “Go for it Pixyl!” Callie ordered.
The Bladeweaver’s magenta power sword flashed into existence, and its owner plunged it deep into the top of the dome. Or tried to, that is. Pixyl encountered almost immediate resistance. It still cut through, but was slow going, more like using a dull knife to slice through frozen ice cream rather than a sharp one through soft butter. It took a couple seconds before the Pixie’s fist finally reached the roof of the nest. Pixyl started to pull, trying to make a cut, but it continued to be agonizingly slow going. “This is going to take longer than I thought!” Pixyl called out.
None of the Rangers really registered her words though. As soon as the first piercing was finished, creatures started to rush out of the weeds. Everything from shrew-like tiny critters, to another pair of Wolfthings. They had been ready though, and Callie dropped a layered Piercing Rapid Fire attack into one of the larger animals, while Shul’an and Jesca took out the other with piercing attacks of their own. The little turret dutifully loosed its own bolts, Callie almost casually directing it mentally to target the smaller creatures easily felled with its single, non-enhanced crossbow bolt.
Reynard seemed to blur into action, dropping arrows faster than the eye could follow, both enhanced and normal. Small things, medium things, even large things, took no more than a few steps before they were struck, either dropped in place or thrown back into the reeds. If it hadn’t been for the increasingly chaotic situation around them pulling their attention, the other Ranger recruits would have been transfixed in utter amazement at what their Platinum Tiered mentor was able to do. It put their paltry Bronze skills to complete shame in comparison.
“I think we need an Egg!” Shul’an called out. “Throw it west.”
“I’ll wind it!” Ambria called back as she rushed for one of the devices at the bottom of the mound, Tazrok changing forms and lumbering towards her to get the handoff. The Faun snatched up the device, twisted the knob as far as she could, and tossed it to the Ogre.
“Throwing now,” Tazrok growled as he spun, winding up to throw. His huge arm made the wind part as it moved, the Egg disappearing into the western reeds.
“Loud sound!” Callie called out, remembering Fizzlebek’s warning. “Someone cover Reynard’s side!” She launched a final Multishot, tagging a pair of zombie lizards, before stepping back, crouching and covering her ears. To her left, she saw Major Celeste Flashstep next to the Foxkin trainer while he pulled back with paws over his own ears, guarding against anything approaching from that direction. She was right, he did have sensitive ears like her!
Even with their ears covered, Callie, Lhawni and Reynard were all sent reeling as the Egg-sploder began to scream. It was as if a hundred car alarms combined together into a single song of ear-piercing chaos. But, almost like a water-tap had been turned off, the deluge of charging zombie creatures slowed to a trickle as many turned, making a mad dash for the new threat. Several seconds later, both a Wolfthing and a Bearthing charged at it as well, the former leaping high into the air to get a pounce. As soon as it landed, the Egg-sploder activated its second surprise and detonated. Chunks of zombie Wolfthing were sent flying in all directions, along with several other smaller creatures. Even the Bearthing wasn’t spared, and it was sent tumbling backwards, obviously injured and missing at least one leg.
Callie shook her head, trying to get the residual audio-induced confusion out of her brain. It took a moment, but she finally got enough wits about her to look up again. It was good she did, because she was just able to roll away from a zombie Beaverthing. It looked like an almost-normal beaver at first glance, although its fur was more a dark green than a brown. It even had a flat tail, but attached to that flat tail was a long, bony spike, raised and ready to pierce, and Callie was reminded of a scorpion’s stinger. She instinctively called mentally for her Turret to shoot it, but the time had run out on her summoning and nothing came to her aid. The ScorpoBeaver turned and charged her again, spike glinting in the sunlight.
Scrambling backwards, Callie struggled to get anything into place to fend the thing off, but the best she could do was try to kick it in the face, managing at least to hit it a couple times. The ScorpoBeaver was relentless, though, and made several attempts to impale the Gnome by driving the spike forward. It was a standoff that Callie eventually lost, the bony tip of its tail plunging through the Gnome’s armor and into the calf of her right leg. The zombie creature pulled its spike out, now red with blood, and lined itself up for another attack.