In the center of the cavern was a vast pit of sand. An imposing bay of black, contrasted against the glow of the surrounding bedrock. The dark stretch of grains was a bit bigger than a football field. Nick didn’t need size up to know that crossing it was a terrible idea, not with the rest of the flesh-render hive somewhere down here.
Fortunately, there was a way around the obstruction. Ringing the dark sea of sand was a rim of solid stone. A ring of raw rock the size of a two-lane highway, wide enough for three sets of minecarts to run side-by-side.
A quick survey told him that Sophia wasn’t anywhere along the sides of the enclosure. Praying that she wasn’t trapped on the shadow-ridden stretch of sand, Nick turned his attention to the far side of the cavern.
There, to his relief and dismay, he caught sight of his companion at last. Her form was obscured by a double wall of minecarts, one row standing behind a second that had been turned onto their sides.
Behind her back loomed a massive machine. An endless tapestry of gears, pipework, and less identifiable bits of metal ran all the way up the wall, touching the domed ceiling high above his head. That must be the central refinery, Nick noted, absently wondering if all the sand in here was related to the defunct mining operation, either as a component or byproduct of the refining process.
But most of his attention was focused on weightier matters. Specifically, the pair of renders that was positioned in front of the carts. He was relieved to see that they were being held back by Sophia and three of the frost venom scouts created by her magic.
I forgot that she could summon several wasps at once. She must be desperate to burn through so much mana and stamina. Nick had put away his spyglass and resumed running the moment that he caught sight of his friend under siege.
By this point, he had already made it one quarter of the way around the circle, halfway to the battle taking place in front of his eyes. To his astonishment, he spotted two more of the lethal centipedes lying dead on the floor, heads encased in solid blocks of venom-spawned ice.
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Holy shit. She was battling four of those beasts at once. No wonder she’s too distracted to keep yelling. She must have put up one hell of a fight. Even that realization didn’t prepare Nick for what he witnessed when Sophia burst into motion, moving to defend her position as the killer bugs surged forth to press the attack.
His eyes went wide with astonishment as he watched her fight. Sophia moved in perfect unison with her creations, forming a unified engine of carnage. Acting in concert with her trio of minions, she spun to face one of the charging centipedes, her arena dagger in one hand, and her modified stinger in the other.
While a pair of wasps fought by her side, the third summon went streaking for the other flesh-render, flying straight for its face with stinger poised to strike. The aerial assault forced the creature to divert to one side or risk taking a prick to its head, the same move that had felled its brethren. Its momentum momentarily took the beast out of the fight, buying Sophia precious seconds in the process.
Nick assumed that the other render would strike from over the top of the cart-wall. But at the last second, the creature dove low to go under, squeezing into a space between the wheels that seemed far too small for its body. Rather than panicking and letting the centipede bypass the barrier, Sophia ran to intercept its maneuver.
His respect for his companion only grew as he watched her fight. Sophia was bold and fearless. Tactical, but flexible enough to improvise on the spot. As Nick fought to arrive in time, he saw her reach out with her dagger to weave a path around the beast’s jutting mandibles. Not hesitating as she closed to strike, even when the slightest mistake could cost her both hands.
The centipede’s head whipped to one side to avoid her black dagger, clearly recognizing the frost venom blade as a lethal threat. But that reaction was exactly what Sophia had been counting on. One of her wasps was clamped onto that corner of the minecart, where it had been waiting for the last few seconds, concealed from the centipede’s field of view.
When the render’s dodge carried its head into the wasp’s kill-zone, the summon lunged and plunged its stinger into a compound eye. On a less promising note, the wasp was torn to shreds by the beast’s mandibles half a heartbeat later, vanishing in a puff of emerald light before its body hit the ground.