Chapter 8
The call went out and I waited with Ana and Fang Mei for half a minute to confirm that the orders were being followed. My keen eyesight spotted squads of crewmen and soldiers pulling back. I wouldn’t actually leave them behind, but sometimes a little impetus was required to galvanise the most stubborn.
The two squads with me trooped out of the main building. A quick headcount confirmed we’d suffered no losses. It was unlikely that would be the case for the entire raid. The Darkwyrlds was a dangerous place.
Wordlessly, we headed back to the moored vessels. Storm Raider had returned from the foray I sent them on further downriver. Kristoff was up on deck to welcome us back when we came into view.
“The bridges are down like you ordered,” he called out to me. “But we spotted a large gathering of enemy soldiers coming up from the southern part of the town. They’ll reach this area soon.”
“Before our people get back on board?”
“Nein. They seem reluctant to advance without overwhelming numbers to back them. Half an hour, I’d say.”
“Good.”
The gangplanks were extended, and my troops clattered up them and headed below deck. With practised efficiency, the ships were ready to depart twenty minutes later. During the loading, I climbed up to the crow’s nest and observed the gathering of the Outlaw Nation host. There were ten, perhaps fifteen thousand. A goodly number had been on the other side of the river and waded across or crawled over the remains of the bridges that had collapsed into the water. The destruction had never been meant to stop them, just slow them down.
They had reliably gathered in one place.
Anastasia had scampered up the rigging to join me and sat on the railing, legs swinging.
“Aren’t you supposed to be zombifying our prisoners?”
That was my ultimate game plan. We’d rarely put Ana’s zombify ability to use until now.
Zombification involved draining the will points of targets until they reached zero at which point they become pawns who would obey orders without question.
When Ana first received it, the ability had been a bit too limited to be of much use. It could only be used on five people at once and they regained their will at the rate of a point a day. The break point, when Ana’s hold on them would fail had been ten percent of her Willpower stat. That meant, if she didn’t drain them again, her hold would break within roughly ten days, presuming other external factors didn’t give them a bonus.
That is where the unquestioning element of the ability came with a few hidden strings attached. The more antithetical the order was to a subject’s true desires, the more likely that they would get a bit of extra willpower back if you made them follow that order. Commanding a murderer to kill wouldn’t help them break free, but giving the same order to a pacifist would accelerate the regeneration rate of their will. Possibly enough to break free before the order was completed.
However, with our recent advancement, Zombification has reached the third rank. This allowed Ana to use it on ten subjects at a time, and more importantly, the rate of willpower return dropped one point every three days and the breaking point increased to thirty percent of Ana’s current Willpower. Which happened to be a raw 188, so subjects needed to recoup 56 before they could break free. Presuming there were no confliction bonuses, her hold would last for 168 days.
That would be more than enough time for what we needed.
The zombified prisoners would be sent back with orders to kill the Outlaw Nation leader. Augustus Snook.
“We ended up with thirtyish prisoners,” Ana filled me in. “One of Doyle’s interns is doing a bit of interrogation work on them first. Figuring out which of them would be best suited for the assassination mission. There is no point in sending a bunch of losers to kill Auggie. They’d just end up dead and then he’d be on alert for another attempt. Besides, I wanted to see the carnage.”
“What carnage,” I replied innocently.
“Don’t play coy, Torin. I know you too well.”
“You do?”
“Hell yeah, I do. You’re going to drop a big ass monster in the middle of South Bend. Don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t cast a single Chaos Missile. You must have been itching to try that out on some live targets. Why else would you be conserving your mana?”
I didn’t answer. Ana had rumbled me. We could have continued the bombardment, but the ships carried a limited payload of Hellstrike munitions, and I wanted to conserve some of that ammo. The natural regeneration in the ammo depots wasn’t very fast and it would cost the ship energy to manually refill the expended stock.
Nevertheless, the rift beast was supposed to be a surprise. A glance down at the deck showed that the boarding planks had been withdrawn and we were ready to heave to. There was no point waiting any longer.
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With an outstretched finger, I pointed at some open ground a little ahead of the advancing army and whispered. “Summon Rift Beast.”
My mana pool dropped dramatically, and I felt a small twinge of head pain. A consequence is using so much of my pool for a single spell. The somatic component was also unnecessary, but it felt right to speak the name of the spell when you cast it.
*** -450 mana points ***
*** Cooldown of 7 days applied to spell Summon Rift Beast ***
*** Noxious Megapede summoned. ***
*** Your control check was unsuccessful. The Noxious Megapede will not obey you. ***
*** ‘Ride Along’ feature has been deactivated ***
*** The Noxious Megapede’s current attitude is instinctual aggression. It will destroy everything and anything it can lay its many legs upon. ***
The monster that rose from the cloud of sparkling orange and purple summoning smoke was truly huge. The head of the gigantic insect emerged first as the colourful mist dissipated. The head alone was the size of a lorry with clacking mandibles that were sixty feet if not more and two huge antennae flicked about manically.
The segmented, brown body uncoiled itself, there were hundreds of sections. It was difficult to gauge just how long it would be when fully stretched out. And settled on big, very big. Each segment had its own pair of spear-tipped legs that plunged through the asphalt of the parking lot it had been summoned on and tore through the hard material like it was sand on a beach. Puffs of an oily, evil-looking gaseous substance were exuded from the gaps in the chitinous shell of the creature.
Ancient Noxious Megapede
Grade: Alpha Level: 207
HP: 3,660,000
Threat: Impossible
XP Value: 100 million
Mob Description: Noxious Megapedes are one of the gravest dangers to roam the rift. If their impressive grade was not enough to worry all but the hardiest of adventurers, then their method of spawning should.
Megapedes are spawned in great numbers. An event that happens once a millennium. These loathsome creatures hate their spawned sibling as much as every other living creature. They turn upon one another immediately, and within days, only one, maybe two will remain. At this point, the megapede will have gorged on so much experience that their level has skyrocketed for a creature of their grade.
They begin life with an impressive 17,600 Hit Points, but once they have whittled down their siblings, it is usually in excess of one million.
In addition to their armoured body, and the many legs that provide a surprising degree of speed, the Megapedes exude a lethal necrotic attuned gas. Also, watch out for when they spray acidic vomit.
I barely finished absorbing the analysis details of the megapede when it screeched loudly and turned towards the shocked Outlaw Nation army which had come to a grinding halt at the scene.
The Megapede reared up and revealed more gnashing mouthpieces running along the segments of its underbelly. The main head oscillated from side to side in anger and then its maw opened wide. It belched forth a stream of yellow fluid the colour of urine. The nasty fluid was squirted an impressively long distance and liberally sprayed the front half of the Nation's army.
They cringed away and tried to protect themselves and that was when the screaming started.
With my enhanced vision, I could see it but wished I hadn’t. The acid spray rapidly ate through the armour most had on and started to eat into their flesh. Their bodies fizzled and frothed as the acid reacted with organic materials until they collapsed into a lump of sludge. The screams of those dying in horrific agony carried to the crew on the wind who rushed to the sides to see what the hell was going on.
“Holy shit! What the hell did you summon?” Anastasia shouted and almost fell off her perch.
Quixbix's advice concurred with my thoughts precisely. The control check on this thing had failed. The megapede was free to do whatever it wanted. The only upside was that insects, even giant ones, didn’t tend to have higher levels of intelligence. Something like the razor wolves or the crab-clawed primates would have an animalistic understanding that they had been torn from the rift and might be motivated to go after the summoner. The megapede ought to go after what it could see in front of it.
Looking on at the creature in mild shock I realised this might have been the most dangerous beastie in the rift. If it wasn’t, I didn’t want to meet what was. It also brought home how dangerous the Summon Rift Beast cantrip was. There had been several occasions in the past where if I’d summoned this thing, we’d all be dead.
“Ana, get the ship moving and forget about any energy conservation protocols. We need to be out of this thing’s range without delay.”
“Aye, Captain,” she whispered as in the distance the Megapede ran down what remained of the fleeing Outlaw Nation army. Legs stabbing and shovelling humanoid figures into the many crunching mouths of its underbelly. “I think you just accidentally committed a war crime.”
It was hard to disagree with her assessment.
***
Darik Scargiver
A few hours earlier
The stench of humanity assaulted Darik’s nostrils. The effluent waste these people pumped out disgusted the Mammutodon. His sturdy body was covered in coarse fur and some of the locals had remarked that he looked like a humanoid version of something they called a Mammoth.
The twin trunks that nestled between the etched ivory tusks on either side of his mouth twitched with impatience. There were times he regretted the trunk's sensitivity to smell. How these people had befouled their natural water supplies to such a degree was truly shocking. The sooner they sacked this planet of anything valuable and left through the gate in Stormblade Harbour the better.
He’d risen before the dawn. At least in the dark, one of his senses was blinded to the filth of this world. The port area in Chicago was particularly bad. If they hadn’t needed assistance from the locals, he would have burned the wretched city to the ground. Darik firmly believed this planet had too many people anyway. It needed a good cleansing.
“Captain Scargiver,” one of his subordinates spoke up politely to garner his attention.
Darik grunted with one final look at the gulls that circled the run-down docks and turned to the crewman. “Speak.”
The bearded dwarf bowed low and dropped to a knee as a sign of respect. The thick, black beard was interrupted by two deep lines running from beneath his eyes and down to his jaw in the shape of tusks. Scars that Darik had bestowed upon him personally. You couldn’t fight beside the Mammutodon until you’d earn those scars. They were a mark of honour. How many more would earn theirs before they left this planet?
“Captain Graves has reported in. Carter has taken the bait and sent his dungeon ships to intercept the Chicago host.”
Darik nodded and smiled, though it could be difficult to tell with his twin trunks in the way. “About blasted time. Cast off. I hunger for home.”