Booster started to run up toward the edge of the pit and then held back as clearly something more had happened to Mahina.
“Mahina!?” Booster called out. He checked his hub and saw her contact was greyed out.
“I think something got her.” Thaigoon said.
“Yeah, I think so too.” Booster said.
“What do we do now?” Arkana asked.
Booster looked around. He didn’t see anything on the sensors. Not even anything in the ground. “Let’s move over this way.” The clearing spread to one side and Booster moved to that edge to stay away from the pit.
Mahina’s voice came over the com. “Are you guys, ok?” Mahina’s equipment respawned with her, so she bolted for the door. She dodged between a few people in the hall and made her way to the cargo area. She bolted out of the cargo area and when she got to the southern gate, she hurdled through a gap and headed directly for the team. “I’m 30-45 minutes away.”
“What?” Arkana said. “You can cover our whole half day walk in 30 minutes?”
“It depends on whether or not I get interrupted. I’ll avoid anything that gets in my way if I can.”
Arkana stared at Booster. “That’s a little insulting. I feel like an old lady holding everyone back.”
“Uh, pretty sure I’m the weak link here.” Thaigoon raised his hand.
Booster shrugged. “I’m not sure I could do it, but it’s about 22km. On a perfect road or track, she can probably do as much as 45 kph in a flat out run. 30 minutes in this terrain is probably not that likely. I think it’ll be closer to 45 minutes.”
“So, we just wait here?” Thaigoon asked.
Booster shrugged and smiled. “We could lob grenades into the pit.”
“What if we make it mad?” Arkana asked.
“Pretty sure eating grenades will make it mad.” Booster said. “If we launch a couple grenades right in its face, that’ll probably kill it. Right?”
“Those words sound like famous last words.” Arkana said.
“What do you think, Thaigoon?” Booster asked.
He shrugged. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“We have to walk all this way again.” Arkana pointed out.
“Meh, get to launch grenades at a stationary target or do nothing.” Thaigoon considered it. “I think grenades win every time. Yeah?”
“My man,” Booster said.
“Boys.” Arkana said disapprovingly and shook her head. “When this goes bad, just remember that I told you so.”
Booster winked at Arkana and lined up his grenade to land in the bottom of the pit. “After I fire, Arkana count to 5 then fire. Thaigoon count to 10.”
He fired.
Thump! Boom! Dirt and it looked like a chunk of something flew up into the air.
A moment later, Arkana fired. Thump! Something roared a deafening scream. Boom!
More dirt flew up and the air was thick with dust over the pit. The roar shook the humans a bit. They looked at each other. The deep roar sounded again and the dirt around the pit jumped.
Thump! Thaigoon fired again. Boom!
The roar was interrupted by the explosion and then the pit blew up as a huge head poked up from the ground.
“Watch out!” Arkana yelled.
Now Booster really, really liked Arkana. But yelling ‘watch out’ at the huge head ascending in front of them seemed a little ridiculous. He looked over at her to mention it when he saw where she was pointing. There were a bunch of jumping coconuts leaping through the forest and coming at them. Bouncing red dots filled his vision around them.
The creatures looked like green unhusked coconuts with lemur legs and a tail sticking out from underneath them. They were jumping at heights well above their heads. Then, one of the coconuts screeched through a sideways mouth.
“Let’s move! Get into cover!” Booster yelled he directed them back north, parallel to the direction they came from. “Get into the trees!”
Booster held his position for a minute and pulled out his pistol and started targeting the coconuts with supershots. He fired as fast as he could and shot 6 of them out of the air. His HUD counted 52 targets. Now down to 46.
“Booster! The big one!” Arkana yelled.
Booster looked over at what looked like the very damaged snout of a huge tonguelasher. It looked like it was just about to lash out at him. Booster rolled to the side and tried to move back toward the trees. A coconut landed on him, and the coconut opened up and its mouth tried to bite his head, helmet and all. Booster extended the tac-shield blade and skewered the coconut and flung it away. Another coconut was right behind it and Booster cut it in half in the air. He could see the smoke of acid in the air.
The tonguelasher quickly shot its tongue at him again. It caught his right forearm and started yanking him off his feet and toward the maw of the creature. A grenade detonated inside of the mouth and the tongue came loose from the mouth. It roared and reared back.
Booster didn’t have time to verify who shot or even get the tongue off his arm as the coconuts were closing in again. Booster rolled on his back and set more targets. One exploded right above him. Acidic bits of creature rained down over him. He fired another volley and pulled out his second Magnetar. He targeted and shot again. It mostly felt like flailing around with his pistols and when a target was sighted, the gun fired.
His HUD indicated 31 targets remained. Booster rolled to his feet and dashed to a tree to his right. As he ducked behind it, another tongue slammed into the tree. How many tongues does this thing have?
Booster peeked around the tree and targeted more coconuts. 6 more died between shots fired by the party. They looked like they were getting ready to run. A tongue snatched one out of the air.
“I guess the lasher didn’t want to not have anything to show for this.” Booster said. 24 targets remaining.
Some of the coconuts were breaking off their attack and leaping back into the forest. Several more shots and another tongue cut the number down to 19.
Now, they just had the lasher to deal with. Booster peeked around the tree. The lasher was looking at him but didn’t see him. It turned and snapped up another retreating coconut. Then, it looked back toward him and then toward Thaigoon. Its tongue grasped the tree Thaigoon was hiding behind and was trying to pull up the tree. It looked like it might succeed in a second.
Their rifle fire didn't seem to do any more than make it twitch a little. The armored skin on the outside of the didn't stop the projectiles outright but perhaps slowed it enough that it didn't make it through. The machetes and the tac-shield blade should be able to cut through it with their molecular edge.
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“Thaigoon get ready to run if it pulls up that tree.” Booster said.
“Uh, should I run now?”
“No. Wait until you need to. This is keeping it busy. Arkana, can you target its right eye? The one closest to you?”
“Yeah, got it.”
“Ok, get ready. If we take out the eyes, hopefully that will make it unable to target anything with its tongue.” Booster targeted the other eye. “Fire!”
The left eye exploded in a burst of goo. The right eye exploded with a grenade. It let go of the tree and roared again. Its head whipped from side to side.
“Oh, I guess I could have just shot it.” Arkana mumbled. Notably, the right eye was severely damaged, but the armored skin was not.
The lasher pulled the rest of its body out of the ground and started to turn around. It was running.
“Oh no you don’t.” Booster ran toward the lasher that was preparing to go back underground.
“Booster! What are you doing?” Arkana yelled at him.
Booster was too focused on ending the lasher to hear Arkana. He pulled out his machete and ran to the tail of the creature. He leapt over the body of it coming up short of where he expected. As he landed, he drove the machete blade into the back of the lasher. It screeched and writhed in pain. It tried to shake him off and, in the process, only moved the machete buried inside of it around even more. Then, it rolled.
Booster had to abandon the machete within the creature and rolled to the side opposite of the way the creature rolled. He quickly plunged his tac-shield blade into the side of the lasher. Its own motion unzipped its skin and guts and viscera were open to the air.
As its back came into view again. He grasped on to the scaly skin to pull him back up. But the speed and force looked deceptively slow, and the force pulled him up and over. He flopped over the other side and landed on his back. The creature started to move forward again. Its innards were quickly becoming uncontained.
As he regained his feet, the rear leg of the creature was in front of him. Booster jammed the tac-shield blade into it and ripped it to the side to hamstring the beast. The leg crumpled as it screeched in fear or rage or both. The tail whipped at Booster, catching him off guard and slamming him onto his back. He slid a meter across the ground, struggling to catch his breath as the wind had been knocked out of him.
Booster scrabbled backwards as the tail continued to lash back and forth as the lasher desperately crawled for its hole. Finally getting a breath in he looked at Arkana. “I need another machete.”
“You need to get out of there, you crazy bastard!” Arkana stared at him.
“No, I got this.” Booster croaked out.
“You got what? Traumatic brain injury?”
“Machete, please.” He held out an empty hand. “It’s ok.”
Arkana looked at him and passed him her machete. She remembered they had to do this. They had to learn their capabilities and their limits.
Booster stood up and readied himself. He heard a scream and Thaigoon ran past him.
The tail had stopped moving so much as the creature focused on moving forward. Thaigoon jumped onto and miraculously ran up the tail without falling. Screaming the whole time, he ran up the creature’s back. He approached the shoulders, and he leapt forward, holding the machete in two hands with the blade down. The creature sensing the man on his back shifted the tip of the blade started to slip in, but it turned its head and Thaigoon’s momentum sent him over its right shoulder.
They heard, “Oof...oh shit!”
Booster from standing jumped onto the creatures back. He marched forward. The creature thrashed again, but it was weaker now. Thaigoon’s machete was stuck in the back of the creature's skull with the handle slightly angled toward Booster. He walked up and making sure he could keep his balance; he stomped his foot down on the machete handle driving it into the creature's brainstem. At least, Booster hoped this creature had a brainstem.
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Congratulations!
You defeated a swarming forest gnasher! (Level 13) X31
You defeated an Elder Tonguelasher! (Tier 4 level 1)
Irragen points awarded!
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Booster received a notification
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You have acquired sufficient irragen to increase your level multiple times!
You are now Tier 1 Level 15.
You have 11 attribute points to distribute.
Note: You have a total of 15 undistributed attribute points.
You have earned 2 Honormarks!
-You led a party in defeating a swarm of beasts that outnumbered yours by more than 15 times and vastly out leveled your party by an equivalent of more than 700 combined levels. The Beastbane Honormark will temporarily boost the attributes of any party you lead that faces a more numerous and higher average level swarm of beasts by 1 point in each attribute for each tier of power a defeated enemy has for the duration of combat.
-You did more than 75% of the damage in a battle against a creature that out leveled your party by nearly 4 complete tiers and more than 100 levels. The MVP Honormark will temporarily increase your damage to higher tier opponents by 4% for each party member for every tier above your average party tier your enemy is. This effect is halved for a raid party.
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Arkana received a notification.
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You have acquired sufficient irragen to increase your level multiple times!
You are now Tier 1 Level 16.
You have 12 attribute points to distribute.
Note: You have a total of 16 undistributed attribute points.
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Thaigoon received the following notification.
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Quest Updated!
Release The Kraken - Acquire sufficient experience to surpass the threshold to fully engage the PHENO system. (100% Complete)
Congratulations!
You have acquired sufficient irragen to unlock the PHENOsystem!
You are now Tier 1 Level 1.
You have 1 attribute point to distribute.
You will receive 1 attribute point per level each level.
At Tier 1, Level 18 you will be offered at least 3 PHENOTYPE options to choose from.
The options will change based on what you have accomplished, the way you accomplished it and some options may be available depending on attribute points and/or the decision made in distributing them.
These PHENOTYPES may offer bonus attributes per level, an attribute focus, and/or specific abilities.
The Power attribute will be unlocked by some PHENOTYPES or irragenic abilities.
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Current Stats
Name: Thaigoon
Variant class: 3
Tier: 1
Level: 1
PHENOtype: not selected
Attributes
Stats Score Modified Durability 4 6 Utility 4 6 Vigor 4 6 Control 6 12 Power N/A N/A
Attribute points to distribute: 1
You have earned an Honormark!
-You successfully struck a melee blow to a creature more than 4 tiers above you before unlocking the Phenosystem and survived. The Into The Breach Honormark will grant you 2 seconds of invulnerability the first time you strike a creature a tier above you with a melee attack. The effect stacks for each tier the creature is above you.
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You have acquired sufficient irragen to increase your level multiple times!
You are now Tier 1 Level 14.
You have 13 attribute points to distribute.
Note: You have a total of 14 undistributed attribute points.
Do you accept these changes? Y/N
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Booster and Arkana accepted their changes, and the white light covered them. Booster appreciated the healing of his minor aches and pains. His armor was still scored for the acid from the gnashers. They started looking for Thaigoon.
“Hey guys? Should I accept all this?” He asked.
“Did you unlock the system?” Arkana asked.
“Yup. And I made it to level 14, and I got an honormark.”
“What’s the honormark for?” Booster asked.
Thaigoon explained the honormark to them. “So should I accept?”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t see any reason not to.” Booster couldn’t see him anywhere. “Where are you?”
“I, uh, fell in the hole.”
“Are you ok?” Arkana asked.
“Oh yeah. I rolled most of the way down. Fortunately, the floor broke my fall.”
Booster and Arkana moved over to the wider and deeper pit. They could see quite a way down a steep slope into a black hole. It lit up with white light and revealed black, hexagon tiles.