Commanding her bow with her mind, Zalia saw two glowing arrows flash past her in quick succession while she cast a ritual.
Boreal was first to spring into combat, slashing at the worm with her viciously sharp claws. Immediately, frost began to gather over the slick skin of the worm, ice growing up the length of its body from its base.
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Zalia kept the two kittens behind her, keeping them safe from the creature as her ritual neared completion. She cast Hunter’s Mark on her entire family, dropping the one on the worm from her arrows, as the ritual finished. They were all covered in a fiery armour born of her magic and the worm let out a screech of frustration as Ember cut a gaping slash down its side with her sword.
Aylie grabbed Rush and Frost, running from the worm with them, knowing that the three Silver rankers amongst their ranks would manage.
Unfortunately, none of them were near Pounce.
Still stunned from the ambush, the kitten tried to flee from the worm but it saw her and the gaping maw came down with a crash, swallowing the kitten whole and continuing down into the ground. They managed to get a few slashing strikes and arrows into the side of the worm that rushed by as it dug into the ground, yet it wasn’t enough as a large hollow was made deep into the earth.
Zalia hesitated, staring into the dark depths, but Boreal didn’t waste a moment.
She turned to Ember and gestured to the others and Ember nodded in understanding. Then, Zalia chased after Boreal down into the depths.
The creature was quick, burrowing further and further under the ground while Boreal and Zalia half ran, half fell down after it.
Boreal, who was already faster than any of the others and spurred on by the danger to her child, caught up to the worm first. Ice exploded around its tail-end as she hit and a deep rumble went through the earth around them. Zalia could feel Healing Presence still healing Pounce deep within the earth worms stomach and she tried to run faster, knowing there was still time.
The worm burst into a chamber deep in the earth, curling about to face its hunters.
The space was huge, supported by thick pillars of stone, the roof a mess of sharp spikes while the floor was coated in a thick layer of mud and slime. Nearby was a pile of squirming shapes and it took Zalia a second to realise they were the young of the huge worm in front of them.
Boreal didn’t waste a second, pouncing at the creature with fury, striking the side of the adult worm, another patch of ice spreading across it.
The creature's mobility was dampened by the hardened sections of ice coating it but the worm didn’t give up. A fresh slick coating of slime started flowing from the worm, pushing Boreal away and bogging her down.
Zalia stepped in for her friend, bow firing off shot after shot into the creature leaving glowing arrows embedded in its skin. Those wounds glowed with a spreading pale light that burned away its flesh.
She had to throw herself sideways and use Mobility to step off the air to get further distance as a burst of acid bile was ejected from the worm, splattering against the stone where she had stood but a moment before and melting through the ground.
Meanwhile, Boreal had freed herself by freezing the slime and manipulating it away from her body. She used the newly solid slime as a footing, Boreal launched herself at the worm and this time managed to land on top of it. She ripped through its flesh with sharp claws and teeth, tearing the creature apart to get to her child.
Zalia felt her anti-death activate and started in alarm, realising it had triggered on Pounce.
They needed to end this quickly.
She finished off the ritual she had been casting, watching the explosion of fire take a chunk out of the worm's side. Her floating bow stopped shooting and changed to a sword that she snatched out of the air. With quick slashes, blades of starry air cut deep into the worm exactly where the explosion had taken a chunk out of it. At the same time, she sprinted up and began hacking through its side in close contact.
The worm struggled, slamming into stone pillars that came crashing down around them. Zalia jolted as a large boulder slammed into her shoulder plate but she continued attacking, very literally shrugging off the stone.
Counting down the time in her head, she activated Protection of the Wilds just as the anti-death measure from Healing Presence ran out. She enhanced the ability with water, hoping that it would help in diluting the stomach acid of the worm to protect Pounce for just that little bit longer.
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The cuts grew deeper and deeper into the creature's flesh as it managed to throw Boreal across the room with its flailing. Focused on her attacks, Zalia didn’t react in time as the entire side of the creature swung away, then came speeding back, slapping her across the room in an approximation of what a sack of potatoes being thrown by Hildebrandt would look like.
Her shield protected her, cracking ever so slightly as she was embedded a metre into the wall.
Boreal was already up and dashing across the room and it took a few moments for Zalia to get herself out of the wall.
Just as Boreal was about to launch yet another attack, there was a dull exploding sound and the side of the worm that Zalia had been hacking into burst outwards. Pounce rolled out and Boreal grabbed her by the scruff and sprinted away.
They watched as the worm slowly died, not wanting to get close to the thrashing beast to finish the job. Once it stopped thrashing so much, Zalia used Kill Shot to finish it off. There was no sense in needless suffering.
Boreal sat nearby, fussing over Pounce who looked no worse for wear than she had when being swallowed by the worm in the first place. Zalia knew this was just because of the healing properties of Protection of the Wilds. The poor kitten looked shaken up, eyes wide.
A rumble spread through the cavern and Zalia looked up to see a section begin collapsing. She searched around desperately for the exit as another pillar came crashing down.
Off to their left, there was an opening in the stone wall and Zalia ran for it. Boreal followed, carrying Pounce once more.
They made it through the opening just as the cavern behind them collapsed fully, a spray of dust and dirt billowing through after them. Zalia used her minor element manipulation to clear out the air and block the entrance so that none of the dirt or stone could come through.
She looked around the new room they were in and was surprised to find that it wasn’t just another cavern, but a room. There were structural supports placed evenly throughout the long and wide room, benches placed in rows facing towards a pedestal at one end. Towards the opposite side of the room there was a single doorway that led out, the wooden door that had once been in the frame lay rotted on the ground.
Utterly confused as to why there was a building this far underground but convinced they weren’t in immediate danger, Zalia turned back to where Boreal and Pounce were lying on the ground. Pounce was slowly recovering as the shock wore off and Zalia was happy to give them some time.
Using the deep magical bond between herself and Ember, Zalia let the rest of her family still on the surface know that they were okay and making their way up soon. She received confirmation and a similar message from Ember, a little unrest settling as she learnt that they were all okay too.
While Pounce recovered, Zalia walked over to the doorway and peered out. There was a long hallway leading off into the darkness, far enough that her magical vision couldn’t see the end of it. It didn’t seem populated with anything so she turned back to Boreal and Pounce.
“Hey, there’s nothing out this way but it might be a bit of a walk so let’s get started, alright?”
Boreal stood and carefully helped Pounce to her feet, letting the younger cat lean against her leg.
They followed Zalia as she left that room and began the walk down the hallway.
The architecture wasn’t anything that Zalia recognised. Where Endarian buildings all looked like they were grown from the materials used by magic builders, this place looked constructed by hand. The walls were rough, the marks made by some type of chisel or other finer stone hewing tool. Still, while not perfect, digging out this tunnel must have taken quite some time by hand. Zalia wondered who had built it and why. The room they had been in had been some kind of meeting room where announcements would be made, yet it was connected to a single hallway that led for hundreds of metres. Why was it hidden down here?
After a few minutes of walking, they came to a set of stairs that led up to another level. There, they found a circular room with seven alcoves set into the walls. Each of those round alcoves had runes inscribed in the floor, forming what Zalia recognised as rituals. While she didn’t have any learnt knowledge of rituals, only what she was given by her ability, they were meant to be portals. Their similarity to her own living ritual portals was undeniable.
She had a look at each ritual and found all of them to be the same except for a single rune each that was different. The language of magic was strange, being different for each person who used it yet fit for the same uses. It was as if each person who used it had their own language yet could understand most words in everyone else’s particular version.
It was this that allowed Zalia to read the rituals and it was this that allowed her to recognise what the single different runes in each ritual meant. By what was placed around them, she could identify the unique runes in each ritual as… something like names.
In the few smaller portals she had made, the target of the ritual had been something that was linked to whatever the target of the other side. In the case of what had worked for her, each of her heirloom armour’s gauntlets. It looked like whoever had made these just used a name. A simple but effective solution to the problem, assuming it worked.
She saved a memory of each ritual in her vault, then turned around looking for an exit. There was none.
Looking at the ritual portals, she realised that there might be another way out.
Reaching towards that magical bond between herself and Ember, she sent a message.
“Can you ask Aylie to try make a portal? She might be able to use our bond to place one side next to me.”
Aylie had an ability that could make a portal and it had far fewer limitations than Zalia’s living ritual ones. She was also capable of touching the Astral which is where the bond between people existed. The unique duo of abilities might make her capable of this feat.
Her theory proved correct as a star-lit portal appeared next to her.