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“Ahhh! Help! I can’t hold this!” Leah screamed from the ground as she held the maw of the Magma Lion away from her face. Max stabbed his last lion and struggled to pull his blade arm free. His stunning white fur was smoking as the ends burned from the blast furnace of the nearby lava flow.
“I’ve got you, Leah!” Xavier yelled running fast up the smoking pyramid stairs. Xavier jumped with a full-body tackle and dislodged the Lion. Together, they tumbled down the stairs in bone-jarring bounces.
Max hit the beast with a focus stun and sent a pair of Casa Sym-Hornets with Cold attack swooping down upon the struggling pair. The Fire domain beasts were extremely resilient to most attacks, requiring painful melee against the flaming hot creatures. The only attack that worked well was a cold-based special attack.
Only Charlie and Leah had unlocked the Chill attack, but Max had copied his sym-hornets so everyone had a pair to use. Unfortunately, the devices broke quickly against the rock-hard skin of the magma creatures. With a triumphant yell, Xavier broke the Lion’s stone head free from its body and threw it down the side of the pyramid. Max blinked away system notices.
[K-Gun +1, K-Gun reaches level 4]
[Focused Stun +1, Focused Stun reaches level 6]
[Strobe +1, Strobe reaches level 9]
[Resist Heat +1, Resist Heat reaches level 10, Skill cap award +100XP, New skill Unlocked: Heat Touch 1]
[Body Skill: Heat Touch 1 - Augmented thermal superconductive channels enable internal nano-Peltier circuits to aggressively redistribute heat.]
[Pilot +1, Pilot reaches level 9]
Max smiled. Another resistance capped! And he would bet that the Heat attack would help fight off the Cold beasts in the Glacier Zone, too. If he could cap another skill today, he’d level up again. He was the furthest along in levels so far, but the others had been closing the gap. Master levels needed more XP to complete. Soon all of their leveling would slow down like his had.
“Clear?!” Charlie yelled from the other side of the pyramid. Leah had launched herself back into the air when Xavier had tackled the beast. Her cloak flared with air thrust holding her up above the flaming ziggurat. She scanned the area.
“There are more coming in, but they’re still over a kilometer away and not moving fast.” She reported coming back down to join the team at the apex of the structure.
“Alright! Let’s check out this sphere thing.” Charlie said. Everyone converged on the bowling ball-sized globe atop the platform at the peak of the building. Waves of heat distorted the air around the bright blue glowing orb. The team pulled in close as the temperature dropped to comforting levels.
“Oh my god, that’s fabulous,” Leah said. “Like a nice cold movie theater on a summer day!”
“Not too close, now. We should check for traps.” Max said, scanning the orb and its mounting pedestal. Both it and the pedestal were covered in archaic runes. The orb generated waves of frigid cold air that beat back against the oven temperature of the fire domain.
“Ok. This certainly makes sense. The Cold Sphere should not be in the Fire domain. So, we’ve got to lug this thing across the map to the Glacier domain we noted earlier right?” Xavier asked. Leah was peering closely at the pedestal.
“Ugh. I hate fetch quests. We’re going to have eleven of these bastards to move and the level is freaking huge. What do you think Leah?” Charlie said.
“Looks clean. No signs to indicate pressure plates, no electrical signals…. nada. I think we can just take it.” Leah said but hesitated to do it herself. Xavier, eager to prove himself, grabbed the sphere and lifted it with a grunt.
“Wow. It’s heavier than it looks. It feels so good. I volunteer to take a break from this goddamn heat. I’ll carry it.” Xavier said with a smile. Charlie mopped the sweat from his forehead with a bemused expression, but just shook his head.
“Alright, team. I know our augments will carry us through but take a drink break. Five minutes, rest and reload...and relieve yourselves if you feel the need.” Charlie said. Max pulled canteens from the Tesseract and tossed one to each of the team members. The team had given up on carrying their backpacks early into the Fire Domain, giving them to Max to store in the dimensional space.
Xavier took a long swig from his canteen and eyed Max’s white fur. He spoke.
“Max, did using the chameleon color change work or not?”
“Hard to tell. Maybe I could get control enough to go half and half, huh? Feels a little cooler, but it might just be a placebo effect. I’m not sure. Tell you one thing for certain, it seems to get dirty a lot quicker.” Max explained with a feral smile.
As they were getting ready, Xavier put the sphere down to redistribute his lightsaber handles for easier access. The second his hand had left the sphere; it lost its glow and began to melt into the ground.
“Fuck! What did you do?” Charlie yelled. Xavier looked down in horror.
“Shit, I only put it down for a second.” He spoke. Max tried to lift the deflating sphere, but it broke apart into mote-sized pieces. His ears flicked; the pieces were moving. He scanned it closer. The motes were tiny and hard to see, but they were flowing back towards the pedestal.
“Huh. The dungeon’s tricks are back again. The quest said the job had to be done by hand. Darn it. I was going to suggest we pack it away into the Tesseract, but now it looks like someone needs to hold it constantly. Look… it's reforming on the pedestal!” Max said.
“Great. It was hard enough fighting those beasts here. Now one of us will have to carry this and fight as well?” Leah asked. Charlie sighed, as the sphere reformed and ignited again with a baleful cold wave of air.
“I’m guessing so. Alright, let’s go. I guess we should all thank Xavier for finding out this wrinkle now instead of marching home and discovering it there. Come on, let's get going. Monsters twelve, two, and five o’clock. Let’s hump it down the far side. Max, can you plot us a trail to the Glacier zone while we run? We need to get this sphere back to its home. Let’s go!” Charlie commanded.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The team quickly moved, Xavier grabbing the sphere again with more thought this time. The roar of the magma lions was getting closer as they ran down the pyramid.
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Dust clouds followed the team ran across the ash plain. Their augmented bodies enabled speeds and endurance far exceeding human norms. They had managed to avoid the rush of magma beasts so far. Leah would pop up with an augmented leap and cloak-assisted hover to scan occasionally to help steer the team away from encounters.
They were almost out of the Fire Domain when Xavier spoke up.
“G-g-guys. S-stop. This is g-getting too m-m-much.” He said as he staggered to a stop. The team slowed down. Xavier’s arms were covered with frost and his scaled arms were pale and his teeth were chattering.
“Damn it, tough guy. Hand it over!” Charlie yelled. He took the sphere, noting that it was much colder than previously. “Gah! You should have said something, man. My cold resistance is already capped.”
“I was getting levels. I thought I could handle it, but it kept getting colder and colder.” Xavier said, apologetically.
“Take a break kid. We’re a team. We can pass it around and share the burden and the levels. Ok?” Charlie said, cooling down his tone as he got a handle on the sphere’s output. He had a thoughtful look and focused for a moment then smiled.
“Hah! That worked. I capped my heat resistance a while ago and got Heating Grip as a reward. I can use it to push back on the sphere and lessen its cold. Ok, set a timer. We’ll shuffle this thing around every fifteen minutes or so.” Charlie said. The roars were getting closer as the team double-timed it to the border.
The team slogged through the swamp separating the Fire Domain from the Glacier Zone. They quickly realized the nature of the area as the greenish mist hovering over the murky terrain began to irritate and burn.
Traversing the region was difficult even with augmentations. The waters were filled with poisonous leeches. The mists irritated and burned the eyes, nose, and throat. The team earned every kilometer, leaping from hillock to hillock. Of course, more often than not, every tree and patch of brush hid snakes and reptiles with a new type of danger.
Max had advised the team to try and hold their breath to minimize the drain on their augmentation fighting the poison. His Recycle skill had leveled, which was good since his Poison resistance was done.
Both Max and Charlie had already capped their poison resistances. They took point and tried to break the trail for the others. Both Leah and Xavier’s resistances grew quickly, but healing skills were often needed to bridge the gap as the poisons built up. Max had to open a portal for the pair so they could recover when it became too much.
The Poison sphere was a surprising find, not on their map, when Charlie fell through a pit trap into a pit of vipers. The smell of burning snake corpses filled the noxious air as the team inspected the sphere. Like before, both the sphere and the pedestal were inscribed with indecipherable runes. The new sphere looked like glass, it’s center was a nimbus of energy that crackled, throwing arcs out that licked the inside of the glass..
“D-Do you g-guys think we c-can handle t-two spheres at o-once?” Leah asked, her teeth chattering involuntarily as she stoically held the Cold Sphere.
Charlie looked at the new sphere, then at his team, weighing their fatigued expressions. "Let's take this one step at a time," he advised. "We'll secure the Cold Sphere first; then assess our resources and condition before taking on more. I’ll update the map. At least we know exactly where this one is now."
The group nodded in agreement, focusing on their immediate task. Leah gently passed the Cold Sphere to Max, his sturdy hands shockingly white against the sphere's frosty deep blue color.
"We've got this," Max said confidently, as he pulsed his new Heat skill against the cold coming from the Sphere.
The team crawled out of the pit, determined to make it to the Glacier before dark.
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Max growled as the pack of yeti howled all around. The team expected the next orb to be under the ice at the bottom of the Glacier’s gorge. The winding path was treacherous, and a blizzard had sprung up as the group had started descending.
The damn Yeti pack had attacked by surprise when visibility was completely gone. Max cursed and cycled his vision. He was still and in pain, holding the Cold Sphere while being battered by the blizzard. He had been about to open the portal for a parka when the yeti struck. Vision…useless. Radar…hashed. EM…nil. Thermal…his team's outlines and, more importantly, the yeti above and below became visible. Max immediately targeted and shot the closest with a [Laser] skill strike.
“Guys! Switch to infrared! They’re above and below us. Be careful, the snowpack above looks ready to go.” Max yelled and ducked, as an ice-covered rock shattered against the wall almost hitting him.
“Leah, go high with me. Max and Xavier go low. Hit them hard, we can’t fight bottled up here.”
Max leaped over the side to the switchback path below as he heard the snap and hiss of Xavier’s light sabers igniting. His aim was good. He landed feet-first on a Yeti and followed up with a double punch with a serving of Heat damage on top. The yeti collapsed under the onslaught.
Max spun, but the other pair of Yetis were harassing Xavier, their backs to him. Max threw his grappler kunai, tagging and tangling the legs of both and pulling. Max sniggered at Musashi’s predictable admonishment about honorable fighting in his head. Xavier capitalized on his downed opponents and ended them with a swift finishing saber strike.
“Come on, grunts. Clear path to the bottom. Hoo-Rah!” Charlie said, bounding over the pair with Leah right behind. The team leaped and ran to the bottom and soon stood on the ice with a powerful red glow coming from deep below. The scarlet luminescence beneath their feet pulsed rhythmically, casting an eerie glow on the team's faces.
“Looks like a cavern underneath. Rather than spend hours looking for a way down, maybe you can cut us an entry, Xavier?” Charlie said. “Got any rope in your supply cache, Max? Can’t tell how far down it is, we might be able to leap back up, but better safe than sorry.”
Xavier started cutting with his lightsabers while Max summoned a coil of rope and used another device from his family's gift bag to secure it. His father had given him a multitool, a rod of smart matter that could mimic mundane tool shapes. He accessed it and shaped it into a piton to anchor the rope. As the large disc of ice fell into the dark cavern beneath, Xavier stepped back. Without discussion, Leah walked to the edge with her spetdods armed and ready.
“Safer for me, yeah? I’ll float down first. Cover me.” Without waiting for an argument, she stepped off the edge and dropped down slowly with her cloak controlling her fall. She cycled her vision and fed the group WorldMap to gather a collective view of the room.
Suspended in the cavern's hollow, Leah's eyes adjusted to the dimness, revealing an expanse littered with glowing shards of ice. She signaled the all-clear and one by one, the team descended. The chill that pervaded the chamber faded as they approached the glowing Fire sphere upon the cavern's rune-covered pedestal.
“Max, want to do the honors?” Charlie said.
Max stepped up to the pedestal and mimicking the famed scene from Indiana Jones, swapped out the Fire sphere for the Ice. The glowing red sphere felt good for a moment as Max warmed up, but he knew how quickly it would grow and begin to stress his system.
Max waited. “Quest status!” He yelled impatiently.
[Quest: Elemental Alignment - the elemental spheres need to be arranged in their correct locations. Fix the misalignment. Carrying the spheres is a burden but must be done by hand. Iron will and fortitude are required to complete this trial.
Objective: (0 of 10) complete.]
Max’s stomach dropped, After a full day of braving the elements and fighting monsters, and they had missed something. The quest should have updated with a completed objective. The cavern vibrated as a roar rebounded off the walls and shook ice stalactites off the ceiling. The team scattered avoiding the heavy falling hazards.
Amidst the chaos, Charlie shouted directions over the din, "Regroup and focus! Whatever's coming, we handle it together!" Max, still clutching the Fire Sphere, scanned the cavern frantically for the source of the roar. Through the settling dust and icy fog, a colossal ice worm crashed through a wall into the Sphere's cavern. The monster was fast. It was on top of the group almost immediately, looming above them.
Leah raised her spetdods and took to the air. Xavier’s sabers hummed with readiness as he raced sideways. Charlie set his sword waiting for the beast. For once, Max was caught on his back foot. He was deep in thought trying to understand what they had missed.
Max was frozen in place as the massive worm reared up over Charlie. Instead of attacking the ready opponents the gigantic threat went over him. It crashed down, its massive lamprey-like mouth of icicles engulfing Max and swallowed him whole.
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