Chapter 69 Multistage Bo-
Isaac and Lenna moved in opposite directions to see which one of them the ball would target. It started veering towards Isaac. “Do those veins remind you of anything?” Isaac asked and then teleported out of the way of the rolling mass of guts, blood, and orange fleshy rope.
Lenna slashed the side of the monster and jumped back to give it space to reposition. “Yes.” She replied with a frown in her voice.
“I’ll get a caster.” Wo Lu cut in and took off at full speed towards the caravan. He was now certain that the creature was focusing in on Isaac and his familiar somehow. Isaac and Lenna each gave him a nod in agreement.
“This is definitely some mushroomancer bull shit.” Isaac very eloquently spoke his mind and teleported out of the way again.
“Agreed.” Lenna replied and cut the ball again. Every time Isaac would teleport he would position himself in a way to cause the ball to roll close to Lenna in order to get to him.
“I think it’s getting smaller.” Isaac told her. Her fire seemed to be burning off whatever invisible colony of dark creatures were piloting the monstrosity.
Lenna nodded in agreement. “Agreed.” She replied and Isaac teleported again. “My aura won’t be able to hold up.” She warned and sliced again leaving more trailing flames. The veins were getting longer and started to reach out towards her whenever she attacked.
“We need someone who can actually kill this thing.” Isaac grumbled and threw a handful of shadow darts into it to no effect. He had to teleport away again. “I hope that wizard has something useful.”
Lenna barely held onto her sword after her attack as the outstretched vein-like appendages tried to wrap around it and her hand. “He won’t have any mana.” Lenna reminded him.
Isaac nodded and teleported again. The six hour siege was bound to have wrung every once of mana out of the wizard. “It’s only getting faster.” Isaac stated the obvious. The ball was moving faster and faster but was still somehow able to take turns at the same harsh angle. Something inside of it had to be counteracting the momentum somehow. The sound of rushing water was getting louder and louder from the inside of the ball of carnage. The second monster was getting closer and closer. Isaac teleported to the far side of the cavern.
Lenna held her ground to wait for whatever plan Isaac had just cooked up. A voice called out from the caravan. “By the stars!” An older human man with dark brown skin called. Lenna barely heard his next words: “I knew I should’ve stayed on the surface.”
Isaac faced down the rolling mass that could kill him easily in one hit. He felt the second monster approaching. He was trying to make them hit each other but the ball was too hard to predict which direction it would turn or how fast it would speed up. Isaac teleported back over to Lenna right before he felt the second creature would burst through the floor. It tried to change course at the same time the ball moved but then seemed to switch targets to the ball.
The cavern shook and rocks fell from the ceiling as the ball was intercepted by a monster of legend and nightmare. A dozen rows of lamprey teeth ground through the mass of flesh, blood, and bone. The hole carved through the ball was six feet across as was the creature that made it. A worm with armor plates instead of skin and teeth as hard as diamonds had decided to join the party. The worm had chosen the ball that would give any child nightmares as its snack with no regard for what kind power the target could wield. It was clear that the worm thought itself at the top of the food chain. It was right, for it was, a Tunnel Horror.
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The worm burst through the cavern stone and ball monster alike without slowing. It turned and arched its thirty foot long body in mid air like it was swimming through water. It looked like the worm didn’t care what medium it moved through. It moved wherever it decided to go and anything in between was food. The worm slammed into and through the ball again causing the two monsters to look like a singular sickening monkey’s paw knot. The worm devoured the ball monster as it passed through it time and time again. All onlookers were frozen with eyes locked onto the spectacle.
It looked like the feeding was about over when all of a sudden the worm convulsed. Its body shook and spasmed, tearing apart the remnants of the ball and throwing them across the cavern floor only for them to start moving back towards the worm. “No.” Isaac grumbled as the worm’s body started to get pulled apart and rearranged into a roughly spherical shape. “Come on.” He continued. “This is getting ridiculous.”
The worm’s body and the Ori-Masa corpses smashed and sloshed together until they had returned to a ball shape. The ball didn’t move but it seemed like the insides were trying to rearrange themselves. Isaac looked over at the wizard and recognized him as the wizard the receptionist in the Ben’s End Adventurers’ Guild had tried to get to conduct Isaac’s official Identify. The older man staggered back and threw a small bolt of fire at the ball and then another and another. He fired off the small projectiles rapidly as he backpedaled towards the caravan. The lead wagon had been pulled back far enough that it would probably survive if the ball chose it as the next target.
Lenna locked eyes with Isaac. He nodded and she nodded in return. “Back to the wagons!” Lenna called and Isaac squared off against the problem that had just gotten even worse.
“I hate multistage bo-” Isaac winced as his head was assaulted. “Fuck.” He swore as he tried to keep his focus on the monster that had just started moving towards him. “That was awful timing.” He grunted and prepared to teleport.
Isaac teleported out of the way of the incoming amalgamation of death, carnage, and, most likely, mushrooms. He noticed something was different when it changed directions to go after him again. Bones seemed to stick out of it and stab into the ground as it rolled to give it traction and help it change course. It turned even tighter than last time even though it had now grown to be over thirty feet tall. Isaac teleported out of the way again and again until he heard Lenna call for him. “Clear!” She informed him and he teleported twice in rapid succession to get to her and a few feet down the tunnel.
Lenna, Wo Lu, Claus, another warrior who had to be Eric Weston and four guards with spears prepared to take on the monster if it somehow started squeezing through the smaller tunnel entrance. Aria, Keith, the ranger Ellem Renald, and three more guards with crossbows stood behind the front line. Isaac found himself in the middle of the group and turned to watch the rolling guts monster barrel towards them. “Anybody else think this is a bad idea?” Eric asked a few seconds before impact.
“Oh yeah, definitely.” Ellem added from behind them. Immediately after, the world shook.
The monster impacted with the tunnel entrance half its size and tried to plow through regardless of the stone in the way. The stone crumbled under the assault and everyone standing struggled to keep their feet under them from the resulting ground tremors. A few weak spells and a dozen weapons attacked the monster. A few missed despite the distance simply from the ground shaking. The physical attacks seemed to do nothing and the rest seemed to have little effect. Dust rained down on the caravan. The ball didn’t even try to back up and try again. Instead it started spinning in place in an attempt to force its way through.
The front line backed up and someone called to keep the wagons moving. The entire caravan shifted back a bit more but the progress was far slower than it should have been. “Status report?!” Isaac called out. He had a vague feeling of more infected Ori-Masa in the same direction the caravan was trying to go.
“Two dead, nine wounded, caravan undamaged. Wizard, cleric, and ranger out of mana, small hostile force at the rear.” Aria called out over the rest of the commotion from her place atop the lead wagon.
Isaac teleported over to her. “Empty barrels?” He asked.
Aria looked confused for a moment. “Yes.” She replied tentatively.
“Burn the Ori-Masa corpses. Fire should keep them from turning into another one of those. If you can’t burn them then stuff them in barrels. I want two of them alive.” Isaac explained.
Aria nodded at Isaac and then motioned for one of the guards with a crossbow to carry out Isaac’s directive. “What about the big one?” She asked.
Isaac looked back at it over his shoulder and watched Lenna hit it with a cone of fire before staggering back a step from almost running completely out of mana. The fire continued to do the trick. “We wait until the paladin and wizard can slowly burn it down.” Isaac replied with a frown. “We’re gonna be here for a while.”