Chapter Fourteen: I’m the Fox You’ve Been Waiting For
Fourth Tower Year 4771, 8.4.6
The Holy Kingdom of Zah’paht Dur
Krt’al Mines
“You have a plan?” Ba’eth asked Marc.
“Not a plan, but an idea. Back before I came here from… where I came from, I lived near a mine. I never worked there, but the city was full of people who worked there. Something someone once told me stuck with me. I asked Kira, and she said it might work.” Marc explained, then he laid out the strategy.
Ba’eth suddenly stopped. This caused the entire formation to halt. People started to talk and question the sudden change. This was the first time that they had slowed their pace since entering the mine.
“Are you insane?”
It was hard for Marc to discern the Dwarfs mood through her thick beard. Shock, anger, disbelief, and fear, all likely rolled into one. Marc understood what he had proposed was dangerous, reckless, and would be considered extreme by any sane person.
She locked her steely gaze on Marc and he could feel himself shrink under her glare.
“Kira’s mapped out the caves between us and the survivors. It’s not a favorable situation. We’ll have to cut through caves with at least a dozen Vampyrs camped out inside to reach them. The explorers seem to be ok for now, but some have been injured. This might be the best way to get there quickly and avoid more casualties.” Marc explained.
“That’s the best case. What’s the worst case?” She growled.
“Worst case? Well,” Marc tried to think of the various drawbacks to his idea. Ba’eth didn’t give him long though. She immediately answered her own question.
“Worst case, we kill all the survivors, ourselves, and destroy the mine,” she said through gritted teeth.
Marc wanted to defend his idea, but he understood how insane it must have appeared to Ba’eth.
“Kira says that she can calculate the impact. We can reinforce the cavern ahead and the stress on the mine should be minimal.” Marc said calmly, but he could feel his confidence slipping under the glare of the former Guild Head.
“What about the survivors?”
“They will need to do the same. But they have Earth Mages and should be able to prepare a safe bunker themselves.” Marc tried to sound optimistic, but Ba’eth shook her head.
“How can they prepare? We have no way to contact them.”
“I do,” Marc whispered. He had never revealed many of the skills he had gained over the past few years, even to Ba’eth, who seemed satisfied with an “as necessary” approach when it came to Marc’s Traveler status.
Ba’eth sighed. Then took a deep breath. She motioned to the other group leaders to gather for a conference. Marc stepped back and stood with Hee-ssu and Hee-deh.
“What’s going on Marc? Why did we stop?” Hee-ssu asked.
“Can’t say yet. But I had an idea. We’ll see if it’s workable.” Marc said, not taking his eyes off the group of Guild leaders.
As was typical with field deliberations, the discussion was short. After only a minute, Ba’eth motioned for Marc to come over and speak with her again.
As he walked over, he could feel Hee-ssu start to follow him, but he looked at the young dwarf and shook his head. Without a word, his party-mate went back and stood by his sister.
“What do you need?”
“All the coal and flour we have.”
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Less than five minutes later Marc was running alone down the tunnels.
The preparations had been lightning fast, though Marc could see the confused, suspicious, and even angry looks of many of the explorers who did not understand why the plan had changed.
The order to collect all the coal and flour had also been met with many calls of protest, but Guild discipline was well-trained. Grumbling mouths never interfered with moving hands and the firm leadership of the highly respected Ba’eth had the entire rescue party in motion with just a few simple orders.
For now, Marc collected the supplies and placed them into his storage inventory via the dummy dimensional bag. Luckily many of the parties that had been exploring had found and collected a fair amount of coal as it was useful fuel. Flour was predictably in short supply, but Marc always kept a large amount of cooking staples in his storage. Kira checked and they should have enough for the plan.
As they approached the chamber infested with Vampyr, Marc could feel the sweat running down his back. If he messed up any part of this plan it would be a disaster. It was like one part of his brain came up with the plan, but an entirely different part was in charge of actually executing it, and this part was far more concerned with all the risks he was taking.
Stopping, he looked at his map. He located the small group of survivors further down the tunnels. He could see very little information on any of them through his interface as he had never had direct contact with any of them, but could at least see some basic stats. He mentally selected one of the dots marked healthy and pushed out a telepathic call.
“This is Marc from the rescue party. We are closing in on your position, but beasts are blocking our approach. We have a plan to reach you. Before we can execute it, it is imperative that you seal the cave entrances to your north and northwest. You must completely seal both caves with at least three meters of densely packed earth. Again, the cave entrances to the north and northwest must be completely sealed with at least three meters of densely packed earth. Once the caves have been sealed, move to the south part of the cavern and prepare for an explosive shock. Protect yourselves against falling debris or cave collapse. We will begin once all explorers have moved to the south of the cavern.”
Marc selected two other healthy explorers and repeated the message.
As he waited for the survivors to organize, Marc pulled out all the coal and flour from his inventory. First, he used his shaping ability to pulverize the coal. He was careful to break it down into uniform granules of dust, each about as large as a grain of flour. Finally, he created a gust of wind that pulled both piles of powder into a cyclone and thoroughly mixed the two before forming it into a giant pile in front of him.
“You sure this is enough?” He asked Kira.
《Too much and we could blow the top off this mountain.》
“And you are absolutely sure you have the balance? It’s not like either of us is an expert in fuel-air explosions.”
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《I got this… probably.》
“Shit! Kira! Ba’eth was right. This could kill everyone here in the mines. There is no margin for error.”
《I know. It will work. You just need to follow my instructions to the letter. It may not kill many of the beasts in the area, but it should be more than enough to convince them to vacate this part of the mine, at least long enough to evacuate the trapped explorers.》
Marc checked his map again. He could see that the survivors had started moving to the back of the chamber they were holed up in.
“Let me know when they have sealed the cave.”
After a minute, Kira confirmed they were secure. Marc checked and saw all the dots had gathered together on the south corner.
“Okay. I guess it’s time.”
The last step was to inform Ba’eth that he was about to execute the plan via telepathy.
“Everything is ready. I’m going to set off the explosion in less than a minute. Make sure everyone is ready and the tunnel is sealed.”
He sent a similar warning to the three explorers he had sent messages to earlier.
He lamented that telepathy did not allow for two-way communication. He had little use for it so far, but could now see how powerful it was when working in groups. Using it more would of course expose his Air mage abilities, however, so he was happy that he had at least mastered it to the point that he could use it for this operation. There would be questions to answer later, but if this plan worked, that would be the least of his trouble. If the plan did not work, well then he might not even be around to hear the questions. If the Vampyrs were not scared off by the blast, they would be on him in very quickly.
Doing a final check to make sure everything was in the right position, Kira confirmed that they were good to go. Marc opened up a doorway to his personal space and then began the operation.
Marc had gone to the mines to see a demolition once. Of course, he hadn’t been close enough to see anything, but he remembered the shock he could feel through his feet. The experts had everything planned down to the smallest detail, location, timing, and amount of explosives. Compared to their preparations, Marc was sure what he was doing was foolhardy and wildly irresponsible. All he had to rely on was his interface.
He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to bring forward this crazy plan. For nearly his entire tie in this world he had played things safe. He had avoided exposing himself to scrutiny and danger. Something about the helplessness he felt in this claustrophobic cave system seemed to have pushed him to lash out. His grief at losing Grenn while cowering in the city still manifested in nightmares. He hoped this had not pushed him to make a horrible mistake.
Steeling his nerves, he prepared the final steps. Kira displayed holograms all around Marc showing him where to focus his skills and how much mana to pour into them.
Manifesting his Air Mana, he called up a blast of wind, then focused it on the pile of particles, first gathering them all into a giant ball of smoke floating above him. Then funneling it into a tendril of the smoke that moved like a snake down the cavern.
The tentacle was contained by a cyclone of air. Maintaining it while extending the shape through the tunnels took every bit of concentration Marc could muster. Kira’s visual guides continued to show him his progress and directions to adjust his Mana and maintain the floating pattern. Finally, the shadowy globe above him had shrunk to nothing.
《That’s it. It’s ready. Time to pop this piñata.》
Rather than releasing the wind cyclone, Marc had disrupted the air causing it to explode all at once. Instantly the caverns ahead filled with a thin black smoke. If the Vampyrs noticed the smoky air, they had little time to react.
《Distribution is almost optimal. NOW!》
Marc fired a single fireball at the growing cloud in front of him. He saw a flash as he dove through the glowing doorway into his personal space. Without even looking back he closed the doorway.
Picking himself up, he felt a little disappointed. Everything in his space was as it usually was, peaceful and quiet. He had settled on a default replication of the cabin in the Witch’s Den. The only difference was that he made his small closet room larger and gave himself a large soft hotel-style bed from his old world. He understood that this was not quite in line with the tenets of the Path, but he rarely relied on this comfortable refuge. Besides, he doubted anyone, even his teacher would deny him this one luxury, hidden away in his private pocket dimension.
He waited a few minutes, then checked with Kira.
“Think is safe?”
《Only one way to find out. The primary blast would just take a few seconds. After that, well a lot could happen.》
Marc was troubled by the non-committal response, but rather than arguing he opened the doorway back up.
He couldn’t see into the cave as it was still full of smoke. At least it wasn’t a fire. He checked his map. The survivors and the rescue party seemed to be okay.
“What’s going on? Did it work?” He demanded from his interface.
《I can’t get detailed information until you go back outside.》
Giving in to impatience, Marc jumped through the doorway, prepared to jump back if there was a problem.
It was hot. Very hot. Not enough to burn him, but it felt like he had stepped into an oven. He could also tell there was very little oxygen. He created a field of chilled wind. By combining his Fire, Water, and Air Mana, Marc could create small fields of climate-controlled air around himself, but it could not bring back all the burned-off oxygen. Luckily not all the oxygen had been ignited and there was enough that it should not cause any serious problems before the balance was returned.
《Oh Wow.》
“Huh?”
Marc was suddenly bombarded by windows from his interface. Hundreds of them.
《Sorry, Just a second, I’ll clean them up.》
The mass of windows disappeared and was replaced with several large windows. The largest was a long list of alerts.
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 82 LESSER VAMPYR
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 27 VAMPYR
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 145 GOBLINS
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 12 GREATER GOBLINS
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 1,423 CAVE BEETLES
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 1 SLIME
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 18 GROOTSLANG
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 2 BLOODWORM NESTS nests
YOU HAVE DEFEATED 3,937 BLOODWORMS
…
The list continued but Marc pushed it to the side.
“What the hell? What happened Kira? You said it would be mostly light and sound!”
《It would appear that I miscalculated. I think there may have been some gas or something. The explosion was a bit stronger than I had anticipated.》
“What? How much stronger?”
《About twice.》
“What?! What about the survivors? Are they ok? And the rescue party?”
《They should be fine. I calculated a large margin of error. Well, there might be a few more bumps and bruises than I predicted.》
“Dammit! You said you knew what you were doing. Show me how to get to the survivors now.”
A path through the smoke appeared in front of him.
“Sorry. The blast was a bit larger than we had planned. I hope everyone there is ok. Path should be clear. I will mark a trail to the survivors.” He sent the message to Ba’eth telepathically. Then he started to move quickly along the holographically marked path.
Along the way, he raised a small marker every 50 meters with his Earth Mana. Everywhere he walked, the cave walls were scorched and some places still glowed with a dull red light.
He was about halfway to the trapped explorers when Kira suddenly interrupted him.
《Stop!》
“What is it?”
《That large black rock, Put it into your inventory.》
“What? Why? Nevermind.”
Marc was angry and in a hurry. He quickly touched the stone and threw it into his inventory without stopping. It was so hot it burned his finger, but that would take only a few seconds to heal.
They finally arrived at the cavern where the survivors were bunkered. Marc started to clear the entrance that had been blocked to protect the group from the blast. He also sent a final telepathic message to one of the explorers inside letting them know he was there. Soon he could sense that Earth mages inside were also working to clear the path.
Upon entering the small cave, Marc was greeted by a very relieved group of explorers. Soon their relief turned to confusion when they realized that he was alone.
“Where is everyone? Who are you?” Shouted someone.
“I’m just a scout. I came ahead to meet up with you. The path out of the mine is now safe and the rest of the rescue party will be here shortly.”
A large, burly human came up to him.
“Are you the one who sent the message?” He asked.
“Yes. I had a telepathy tool. I wasn’t sure it would work, but I guess you got my message.”
“That was one hell of a risk. If we hadn’t closed up the entrance…”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. We knew you had injured with you and wanted to get here as quickly as possible. We could tell that the message was received when everyone moved to the south.”
The man squinted as though he didn’t believe Marc, but then his gaze softened and he reached out his arm, grabbing Marc’s wrist, shaking it vigorously.
“Thank you. We thought we were done for. My party was attacked and we lost… I’m sorry. Thank you so much.”
While they waited for the rescue party to arrive the group of survivors organized themselves and prepared to evacuate the wounded.
For the most part, they ignored Marc. His small and young appearance reinforced his self-introduction as a simple scout. They certainly would have more to say once the full rescue party arrived, but as he walked amongst the explorers, he was occasionally stopped by a survivor that would approach him to shake his hand or even embrace him.
In less than half an hour, the rescuers arrived. Ba’eth lead the rescue party into the cavern as cheers erupted throughout the caves.