“Hey, Shroomy, nice to meet you. How does mushroom magic work?” Cal’s question went unanswered as the room began to shake violently. “Albert any idea what’s happening?”
“No, though the timing would make it seem likely related to my bonding.” The capybara answered.
“Less talk, more run. Everyone out of the chamber now!” Jen barked the order out as she sprinted for the passageway.
Cal took a final look around the chamber and saw shambling creatures rising out of the largest fungus piles in the room and decided Jen had the right idea. “Jen is right. Let’s get the hell out of here. More fungus monsters are incoming.”
“Ahhh, dammit, that really hurts.” Ethel suddenly shrieked as she grabbed her head and collapsed to the ground.
“Frank, grab her and keep running. I’ll hold the things off while we get out.” Stan yelled as he slashed Excalibur across one of the creatures that caught up with them.
“Nope, no dying here in a heroic defense, Dad!” Cal released an arc of lightning across the room into each of the monsters. While it stopped them all in their tracks, it didn’t seem to do much beyond stunning them. While he had hoped for more, he hadn’t expected it. He reached down into his core and grabbed as much mana as he could safely hold, and pushed it into the ground. He guided it deep enough to pull a giant chunk of rock up around himself and his father and extended it far enough to cap off the passageway that brought them here. If anyone wanted to visit the chamber in the future, they would need to remove his newly risen wall.
Onelder was standing there shaking his head at Cal. “God damn, how the hell did I ever kill you?”
“Yeah, turns out being murdered a few hundred times can be surprisingly motivating. Frank, is Ethel okay?” He walked over to the giant man to examine her.
“Frank, set me down, please. My head just feels like it was hit by a pickaxe, but I can stand up again.” Frank listened and placed her back on the ground.
“What happened?” Cal asked.
“We have to get back to the formerly enslaved squirrel grove as soon as possible. That was Tiffany trying to contact me and apparently nearly frying my brain in the process. I’m going to have a long talk with that crustacean when we both have the time soon. There’s some huge danger going on, but it wasn’t clear on what. Hell, the words themselves weren’t clear. Mostly, I just felt an explosion of fear and danger. It was not something I recommend.” She explained.
“Well, then, I guess it’s time to try something I saw on a cartoon once. Everyone group up on me. We are going to see just how well my control of the rock has gotten.” Cal was laughing slightly as he said this.
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“I think I know where you’re going with this. Please try not to throw us into any walls.” While Ethel’s words conveyed a sense of distrust, she nonetheless held her ground right behind Cal.
“Here we go!” Cal shouted as pushed mana into the ground below them, raising up a plate of stone that they were all standing on. He then started channeling the mana behind them, propelling the platform forward at a rapid speed. He didn’t expect he could hold this together all the way back, but shaving a few hours at minimum off the trip could only help.
***
“Next time we do this, can we please have handholds?” Stan yelled as he held onto Frank, who had anchored himself strongly to the plate.
“Yeah, this is just a test run anyway. Next time, maybe some sides too. It might make it all a bit safer.” Cal answered, smiling despite the issues. So far, he has managed to hold this thing together and at speed for nearly six hours. They had blasted right through the chamber where Stan and Frank had fought the zombie dragon, which was a good thing considering several of the creatures had looked to have reformed, but they were gone before any of them had a chance to so much as take a swing.
As he turned the plate around another bend, he felt several of the core threads holding it together start to fray. Considering he had started to feel the strain of the trip, he was not at all surprised by this. Gently, he stopped pushing any mana through the threads that kept the plate moving forward, letting it slowly ground to a stop.
“I take it the high-speed part of our trip is done?” Stan asked.
“Yeah, I’m running out of energy, so we will have to walk the rest of the way. Honestly, I’m surprised I did so well for a first attempt,” Cal answered.
“You didn’t.” Onelder and Ethel said in near unison.
At their words, Cal noticed the vines under Frank’s feet that wrapped around the plate, covering a large crack.
“Yeah, ya see it now? If Ethel hadn’t patched that up and I copied some of yer power, I doubt this thing would have held up.” Onelder said.
“Eh, ignore him, well don’t totally ignore him, learn from what he’s saying. You did a very good job, Cal. We couldn’t have gotten to where we are nearly as fast without this. Any idea how far away you've dropped us?” Ethel asked.
“I’m guessing if we hustle, we can be back at the squirrel grove in about thirty minutes,” Jen answered before Cal could.
Frank lifted up Ethel and propped her carefully on his shoulder. “Frank is ready to hustle!” and charged off ahead.
They chased after Frank, mostly falling behind, but shortly found themselves all standing at the entrance to the grove. They were met with several small chittering squirrels that Ethel quickly engaged with.
“Looks like an army is massed at one of their walls. Apparently, we really pissed off the leader of the mutated squirrels, and he’s here to kill the thing that dared interfere with his kingdom.” Ethel translated.
“Oh good, that’s probably me.” Cal’s voice was full of annoyance as he said it.