Chapter 55 - Clean Up

Søren waved away the notifications about the achievements and slid into place beside Neeka, who was already sending arrow after arrow into the Hordelings scrabbling through the twitching bodies of their brethren still stuck on the metal spikes Søren had created.

"Your [Path of the Shaper] skills are improving greatly," Neeka said to Søren.

"Had a small epiphany earlier and it's paying off in spades," he chuckled. "Had to get into the right mindset. This world was intended to be entertainment; a place where you could be anything, anyone, do anything. Just had to remember that this was a game at some point and that certain real world restrictions wouldn't apply."

The surviving Hordelings gathered into a churning ball of seething hate, chitin, and rage and tumbled down the ridge in a chaotic rush of frenetic limbs and champing maws. Søren set the timer on the remaining thermobaric grenade and tossed it down into the gully that separated the two ridges. The explosion wouldn't be as powerful as it would be within a cave or tunnel, but it'd still give many of the Hordelings a bad day. He used the Artemis rifle to take out a few of the Hordelings in the lead and then ducked behind the ridge before the grenade exploded. Neeka ducked down beside him.

The grenade blasted accelerant into the air around and above it, aerosolizing the highly flammable liquid before igniting the expanding vapors. The whump of ignition was quickly overwhelmed by a loud crump that mingled with the screech of Hordelings being torn apart. A quick glance at the combat log scrolling by showed that the new achievements were working overtime, doubling and tripling the amount of damage he was doing to the Hordelings.

To his side, Neeka drew back the string on her bow without an arrow. Søren watched for a moment, his brow furrowed in confusion. Then a faint glow filled the space where the arrow would normally be knocked. The light strengthened and solidified into a hard light construct brimming with energy. She released the arrow from the bow The streak of light was difficult for even Søren to follow with his augmented vision and heads up display.

The arrow pierced through three Hordelings and two Maulers before exploding in a blast of light. The visor of Søren's Guardian helm darkened to protect his sight from the stringent white light. The flash of light, for the briefest of moments, made it appear as if the entire battleground has been frozen in time.

"New skill?" Søren asked Neeka as the chaos of the battle resumed.

"New skill," she confirmed. "I dabbled in some off path Archery skills to round out, how did you call it, my build?"

"Yes, a build. Common term in games back on Earth," Soren said with a chuckle. He pulled out one of the TEK blocks from his pack and absorbed the densely packed nanotech into his body. The silvery-grey bar on his HUD quickly filled up with the infusion of TEK. "Do you know where Jarth went?"

Neeka shrugged and gestured vaguely behind her.

"I think we will find him in town after this horde has been dealt with," she suggested. Two more arrows lanced out from her bow, striking into the Hordelings. Søren nodded and returned his attention to the Hordelings that were with a dozen paces of the ridge that he and Neeka has prepared earlier for a fallback position.

"Time to raise the fortifications," he said, gesturing to the ground in front of them. His eyes flashed silver behind the darkened visor of his Guardian helm The ground in front of them churned and split apart, cracks spreading outward rapidly. Smooth metal walls, slightly angled outward away from him and Neeka, rose from the ridge and encircled them. Spikes pointed outward and down towards the ground grew beneath the subtle crenellations built into the top of the wall.

Søren stepped onto one of the quickly expanding platforms built onto the wall and mag-locked the [Artemis Scout Rifle (Silver I)] to the side of his backpack. He then pulled the long steel-tipped spear free from the other side of the backpack, releasing the maglock with a quick mental command to his interface.

Neeka stepped up onto the platform next to Søren. She looked at off to the west and drew her bow back once more, drawing further back than typical. Another hard light arrow appeared on the string and she let loose after a few minute adjustments to her aim. The arrow arced through the air and came down on an unassuming patch of scrub grass and then exploded in a shower of bright white light and cobalt gore.

*ding* Your party has defeated a Hordeling Hunter (Silver III).

"Not too many left," she noted after her eyes flicked towards unseen notifications and the mission log.

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"Yeah, not too many. Just enough to be a problem still however," Søren said. "Take out as many as you can. I'll keep them off your as best I can. Ready?"

Neeka simply nodded and readied herself. A section of the platform she was standing on telescoped upwards on thin struts that extruded from the platform as Søren gestured up with a free hand.

"Absolutely no one should have this Path," Søren muttered. The makeshift fortification then shuddered, shaking him from his thoughts, as numerous Hordelings slammed into the base. The larger Maulers killed several of their smaller brethren as they tried to climb up the tower to reach Søren and Neeka. Neeka was sending arrow after arrow into the back of the pack. Søren lifted his hand to the sky, drew deeply on the TEK within him, and created a dozen silver javelins a hundred feet in the air. He dropped his hand and the javelins dropped with it, launched downwards with ten times the force of gravity. Not all the javelins found their mark, but those that dead skewered the Hordelings and pinned them to the ground.

As the dead piled up, it brought the remaining Hordelings closer to breaching the top of the walls as they used the dead bodies as a ramp. Søren used his spear to strike at several smaller ones that had leapt up and hooked their talons on over the edge. He managed to dislodge one of the three Hordelings, but more had already latched on to the others and created a living chain to the top of the wall.

Søren jumped back and forth, stabbing and driving the Hordelings back with each strike, but was driven backwards inch by inch by sheer volume of the attacks. He slammed the butt of his spear onto the platform and drew on the TEK to create a vortex of wind in front of him filled with flammable liquids and gas. He breathed out and created a spark of fire at the end of the vortex and bathed the Hordelings in the flames. He turned his head left and right, playing the flames over the Hordelings and creating a break in the attack as the charred corpses fell free from the top of the wall.

He pulled another block of TEK from his pack and refilled the silver bar of his HUD again. The flow of TEK from the dying Hordelings wasn't enough to keep up with the expenditures required to create these effects on the fly. Two more rounds of javelins, combined with Neeka's hard light explosive arrows, and a liberal dose of steel by way of spear wore down the assaulting horde until only a few stragglers remained after ten minutes of fighting.

Søren slumped down against the wall, careful to not dislodge his Artemis rifle. Neeka crouched down on top of the platform and surveyed the battlefield, her eyes twitching left and right independently of each other.

"My [Endless Quiver] skill ranked up significantly during that battle," Neeka said, breaking the silence and turning both eyes on Søren.

"Gained some ranks in my path skills as well," Søren said. "Guess all that's left to do is clean up on the Hordelings."

"I think Sehro and others from the town are taking care of that for us," Neeka said, gesturing into the air where her interface was showing her the mission log. The last few surviving Hordelings and Maulers in the log rapidly dwindled to zero and the mission completed. Three glowing lime green eight sided, two blue ten-sided, and one purple twelve-sided polyhedral fell onto the ground next to Søren, followed by a plain white box about the size of a deck of cards.

Congratulations on completing your first Horde Event!

Rewards are being tabulated based on contribution.

Top 5 "Stop the Hordeling Horde!" Horde Event Participants by Contribution:

1. Søren Quinn of Earth

~ [5000 TEK Block], 1x [Legendary Engram], 3x [Epic Engram]

2. Neeka of the Water Finders

~ [2500 TEK Block], 2x [Epic Engram], 4x [Uncommon Engram]

3. Sehro of the Water Finders

~ [1000 TEK Block], 4x [Uncommon Engram]

4. Captain Gar of Karlsfjord

~ [500 TEK Block], 3x [Uncommon Engram]

5. Kaerwynn of Karlsfjord

~ [250 TEK Block], 2x [Uncommon Engram]

Søren flinched as the denser than expected TEK block landed on his lap, followed by the glowing orange twenty-sided engram and three more of the purple twelve-sided engrams. He frowned and took off his helm, setting it to the side.

"Where are your rewards?" he asked Neeka.

"In my inventory. There's an option to have them... looted.... directly into your inventory," she explained. Neeka then grinned in the Fuervan way, her mouth hanging open slightly. Her shoulders shook slightly in her quiet mirth. Søren muttered angry words to himself and tapped each of his rewards to add them to his inventory.

"After we meet the townsfolk and get cleaned up, I'll analyze the engrams and see what we've got."

"A good plan. I could use a hot sand bath after this."

Søren just nodded in agreement and pulled himself up to his feet as he heard voices in the distance getting nearer.