Chapter: 16
Len shifted his position, to keep himself from falling into the lull of sleep.
He sat in a small grove that covered a rocky and rough gully. The land had been left untended by the farmers.
He shifted the rifle on his lap, breathing in and out slowly, shifting the enchanted blanket around him. He’d cut a hold through it, allowing him to wear it like a poncho.
The small alarm enchantment he’d put on his trap made him grip his rifle tighter as he heard the woosh of released tension and then the scrabble of the caught creature.
Len reached out to the ground, dragging out the round he’d stored in the dirt. It came out, cleansed of dirt as he fed it into the chamber, pushing the action forward as he stepped around the tree he’d used as cover.
He could feel the build up of experience in the air.
A rabbit was nearly out of the trap, nearly the size of a small dog. Twisted branches creating a noose over its leg, holding it aloft.
Len aimed and fired, killing the creature.
Len threw the rifle to the side.
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Skill: Trapping
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Level: Apprentice (80)
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Skill: Marksmen
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Level: Expert (200)
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Experience slammed into him and information flooded his mind. He groaned and rose up from crouching.
At least I figured out a way to not become a human pancake on the ground.
He stood back up, reaching out with his will to latch onto the rifle and pull it to him, a cleansed spell removing the dirt and water from the exterior of the rifle without stripping the grease.
Len worked the bolt action of the rifle, ejecting the spent casing, the smell of burnt powder, astringent and cloying.
He stretched and slung the rifle, walking to where the rabbit hung from his trap, checking his skill ups from the day.
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Skill: Cooking weapon
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Level: Expert (80)
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Skill: Lumberjack
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Level: Apprentice (80)
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Skill: Farming
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Level: Journeyman (80)
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Skill: Sewing
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Level: Journeyman (80)
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Skill: Blunt weapon
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Level: Journeyman (80)
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You have leveled up!
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Level 1
0% to level 2
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“Hopefully that’s the end of that,” Len muttered as he headed out of the gully and towards the farmhouses.
Strength flowed through him, he stepped on the ground, darting through the forest with light steps. His mana hardening the dirt, stone and leaves he stepped upon, taking his weight and force as he left the gully behind. Half of the fields had been harvested.
He slowed as he spotted several carts moving down the road he was nearing. He stopped at the side a few minutes before Jed arrived, hauling the lead cart.
“Len!” Jed called out, looking tired.
“Want a hand?” Len asked.
Jed waved him over.
Len grabbed onto the harness and pushed, the cart trundling behind them.
“These are the last carts through the dell,” Jed said.
“Do you know how the harvesting is going?”
“We thought it would be a good one, though this is the best harvest we’ve had by far. The farmers have been testing out different spells to help the crops grow, make the harvesting easier. Should get good coin for it all with the prices being what they are. Its splitting people more on leaving or not. With these spells and skills they can grow more than ever before, or have more coin to resettle.”
“Up to them,” Len shrugged.
Jed paused, hesitant.
“What’s caught on your mind?” Len asked.
“Len, you should also know that there are some people that aren’t too happy with you. Raskin and his trio have been talking, saying that you used them for bait. People don’t like how you said to use the bodies of the dead to make cores either,” Jed said.
Len shrugged. “We’ll clear the dungeon and then we’re going to Goran. What they think matters little.”
“People will come to dislike you. Len you said how you have all this information. That you’re going to make Goran and Velkaris stronger. You will become a power in the future.”
I’m not that strong.
“And before you start arguing with me, just look at what you’ve done here in a few days. You took a group of broken troops that were mostly crippled. They’ve regrown limbs and healed. Now they have a dozen skills, mana and strength that’s so much more than what people normally have.” Jed jerked his chin at the fields where scythes were reaping wheat.
People walked down rows, using spell and tools to draw the land’s bounty up into carts.
“A single person could grow and manage two, five maybe even ten times more land than they could before. That’s massive.”
“We’re going to need a contract,” Len said.
“For what?”
“So they will not tell others who they learned from and so that those who are annoyed with us do not stab us in the back later,” Len said.
“Words and paper is cheap,” Jed said.
“They might, but with a binding enchantment one can’t break the contract unless they are willing to weather the consequences. It binds with your very core.”
“That will help some, but you will need to worry about how others perceive you. Know of the threats that will come for you.”
“With the right contracts with the right people we’ll be able to hide our actions behind others,” Len said.
His alarm enchantment over the dungeon activated.
Len pulled out his sound transmission device, connecting to the rest of the unit’s. “Dungeon breach!” He released the cart. “Get everyone back to the farm, something’s happening at the dungeon!”
Len jumped, shooting across the ground, he didn’t waste his mana on hardening the dirt, leaving craters and smashing a rock wall apart as he rushed forward. He ran a hand over his gear, checking it.
“There’s a lot of mana in the area, it keeps getting dense and then thin. We don’t have anything come up out of the dungeon though,” Someone reported through the sound transmission device.
Crap. He raised his sound transmission device to his lips but Rick beat him.
“Those are all signs of the dungeon evolving. Pull back into defensive positions.”
Len slid his sound transmission device, people watching him and the other soldier as they streamed for the dungeon. People started rushing back to the farm, hauling carts and leaving the crops they’d harvested where they lay.
Len landed at the opening into the forest. The path had been widened and cleared with the lumberjack skill-ups.
The sky was darkening, clouds and mana drawn into the swirling maelstrom above. Fucking mana storm.
He caught a shield tossed to him by one of the soldiers at the entrance, sliding his hand into it as he ran down the path, others catching their shields as they raced through the forest towards the dungeon.
Len came out into the clearing.
“Line up off of me! Three ranks!” Adrian yelled, the troops moving to either side of him, getting their shields ready.
Adrian and his troops stood on packed dirt with tree barricades jutting outwards over four meter deep ditches that ran around the dungeon.
Trees that had been scattered were repurposed, shoved into the ditches and covered in explosive enchantments.
Rick was past their prepared defenses, studying the dungeon entrance.
Rain started to fall, quickly turning into a downpour that created a haze in the air.
Wind lashed out, driving the rain harder and carving lines in the ground.
Len jumped to the small dirt paths connecting the area around the dungeon, running across to reach Rick. “How’s it looking?”
“Dungeon evolution for sure,” Rick said. “Dunno how long its going to take.”
Len looked around, the last of the troops getting in place. Thankfully most of them had been working on the defenses.
“Hurry up and wait,” Len said.
“Yup,” Rick pushed himself to standing. They moved back across the dirt bridges to the defenses. Rick waving Adrian and the other squad leaders over.
“Dungeon’s evolving, don’t know how long it will be or what we’ll be facing,” Rick said.
“What’s that mean?” Adrian asked.
“When there’s enough mana in a dungeon it’ll change it. Usually means it gets bigger, creatures that it spawns will be stronger, the materials you can get from it more valuable,” Rick said.
“Also means that the creatures that are inside the dungeon will get hit with a shitton of mana which will mutate them. Make them stronger in different ways and then they’ll rampage out of the dungeon to spread out over the area,” Len said. “Think of them like seeds. They’ll spread out, kill, get stronger and start to create their own lairs which will mimic the dungeon. We’re going to have to defend here, kill everything that surges out of the dungeon.”
“Can we go in?” Mackie asked.
“You’d have to be damn strong to survive being in the middle of a dungeon evolution. They can only trigger when the dungeon’s empty except for dungeon creatures. There’s a debate on what happens, but it would basically kill us, or change us so much that we’d become dungeon beasts,” Rick said.
That spread grimaces and hidden shivers through the group.
“How long will it take?” Adrian asked.
“Could be a few minutes or a few hours,” Len said.
Adrian looked around. “I’d propose that we hold for another ten minutes, then move to twenty-five percent readiness. Get some food and drink into everyone. We’ve been healing all day and I know that most are—”
The ground shuddered and a wave of mana passed through everyone.
“Ready yourselves!” Rick yelled. “Len get the farmers ready if we need them. The rest of you get onto your people, the beasts will be coming soon.”
Len pulled out his sound transmission device, switching it to his father’s signature and activated it.
“Prepare your defences,” Len said as the devices connected.
“Be safe,” His father said.
Len watched as the dungeon entrance shuddered and widened. “I’ll do my best.”
Edwin’s squad broke away from the defenses, the other squads shifting into place, creating a line ten men wide and three deep.
They had their shields at their feet, large rounded things that would cover them completely once they set their feet.
A few of them were practicing the stance, the squad leaders looking up and down the ranks, talking to their people.
Edwin’s group laid their shields down, picking up ‘spears’ that had been stuck base first in the ground, They were long lengths of wood that had been sharpened into points that were then covered in crystal powder and fused together a very rough enchantment sticking out around the spear.
There were less than a dozen of the spears. They’d been focused on the other defences and getting everyone as strong as possible as quickly as possible.
"Half of you throw the spears, half of you work with me on making more," Len said.
"You five, with me. The rest of you, with Len." Edwin and his spear throwers grabbed the completed weapons, hurrying back to the rear of the shield formation.
"Everyone done this?" Len asked. There were nods of agreement amongst them. "That makes it easier. Make sure not to use all of your mana. As soon as you hit about fifty percent, we'll switch you out with the throwers and you can use what you've made. The two best lumberjacks get us more shafts. Best carpenter sharpen the shafts we got into spears."
Len picked up one of the molds, a tree stump that had been nearly hollowed out and carved into with a hole in the top. He pushed it together, holding it tight with his knees. Grabbing one of the buckets of powdered crystal, he shook it into the mold before placing it to the side and grabbing an already sharpened shaft.
Two men ran off into the woods, the noises of limbs being snapped off following.
Another one used his knife to trim and then sharpen nearby lengths of wood into sharpened shafts like the one Len held in quick flicks of his wrist. Moving among the pile on the ground.
The rest picked up molds, putting in shafts and then powdered crystal. Len willed the crystal to fill the mold completely, moving the sharpened spear shaft around. Satisfied with the powdered crystal's placement, he then called it to fuse, binding the crystal together in the shape of the mold and adhering to the spear's sharpened point.
Len pulled apart the mold, revealing the crystal-covered spearhead and the enchantment on the haft. Mana started gathering into the enchantment, empowering it as he turned it point up, slamming the base of the spear into the ground.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Closing the mold with his knees once more, he grabbed a second sharpened spear, putting a point first into the mold and picking up the bucket of powdered crystal to pour in. It was easier than doing it the other way around.
They worked with determined fury, forming new spears with only a few sparse words between one another. A roar chittered out of the dungeon, hungry, angry, and powerful.
It flattened any remaining plants in the area as it passed over the region like a physical force.
One of the lumberjacks dropped off a bundle of shafts, the others focusing back on their work, eliminating anything that slowed them.
Len worked diligently, crafting spear after spear. He found solace in the fact that the mana density in this area was thick enough to slightly increase everyone's recovery rate.
“Get ready, the dungeon’s stopped changing!” Rick's voice fought against the persistent rain and the crackling power that surged through the heavens above.
Len pulled out his latest spear and glanced over at his comrades. Each man in the shield formation had a boulder at his feet, which they were cracking into projectiles and casting attack spells upon.
Len's gaze drifted upwards to the mana storm brewing above them.
A funnel of prismatic light descended from the storm, leading directly into the maw of the dungeon. The crystalline sheath surrounding the dungeon shattered, coloring the world in a chaotic array of hues.
As quickly as it had appeared, the beam of mana vanished, leaving a hole that pierced through to the sky above. Light shone down upon the dungeon, illuminating the scene below.
The rain ceased its descent, not evaporating, but freezing in midair.
Len observed the individual raindrops suspended in time. "Brace yourselves!" he yelled.
"Circulate your mana!" Rick's roar echoed as the world seemed to draw inwards. The rain, wind, clouds and remaining mana in the skies coalesced together into a sphere of water moving in three dimensions, shuddered and jerked, forming both organic and inorganic shapes.
Its surface was marred suddenly and erratically as the world seemed to be drawn into it. The wind was such force it would have torn a normal man from the ground.
Len believed that he would stay upon the ground and his mana made it so as his blanket flapped in the direction of the sphere.
The sphere changed into all manner of colors, textures and materials.
Lightning of a dozen eye-dazzling colors ripped out of the chaos sphere.
A bolt leapt up between the trees, transforming their composition into black crystal bark, with purple veins running under the bark.
Another bolt dug into the ground, creating a furrowed stream of magma. Another jumped between plants, changing them.
Others shot into the sky, arcing through the air, solidifying in the path they’d taken before snapping off from the sphere and falling to the ground, some of stone that thudded into the ground, other of crystal or ice that shattered, another of sand that turned into a cloud as it lost shape.
New plants were born while others were destroyed. The elements and chaos were given reign upon the world. The attacks increased in speed, some struck the enchanted tree spikes in the pits.
The trees exploded; all the power stored within them turning into lances of force that punched through the air.
The core of the mana storm contracted, then detonated outwards in a ball of that prismatic and ever-changing light.
Len closed his eyes. He could see through his own eyelids as the wave of manna crashed against his body.
It felt like being slapped with the sun.
Angry tendrils scraped against his skin, trying to gain a foothold on his body, to change him, to alter him. Len drove his will, his cultivation, establishing what he was and the manna under his control.
Then, it was gone, spreading through the forest around him.
Healing spells quickly restored Len's eyesight. Several men had been knocked over, others were in pain.
The world had been transformed into a crystalline memory. From the point where the manastorm had struck the ground and spread outwards, everything was coated in crystal, frozen like a liquid caught in mid-flow.
The trees were coated on one side, the crystal hanging off the other side like liquid glass.
As men moved, they shattered the crystal that clung to their bodies.
"Check your bodies and your companions. Drive your cultivation to purge out any foreign manna," Len barked.
He drove his own cultivation, forcing out the foreign mana that had spread through his channels.
The clouds had an unnatural hole poking through them, a result of the dungeon's evolution and the aftermath of the manastorm.
Len grabbed a spear shaft on the ground, picking it up and cracking the layer of crystal that covered it.
The half that had lain against the ground was uncoated. He added powdered crystal to the mold and fused it all together.
He prepared to stab it down into the ground, adding it to the growing number of spears he'd already created.
He found that they'd been ripped from where he'd placed them, scattered across the ground.
He slammed the newly made spear through the thin layer of crystal. It cracked as he embedded it firmly in the dirt, then reached for another spear to be made.
"On your feet, men. You're not going to be fighting anything down there," Rick commanded as he moved through the shield formation. "Spear throwers, make sure that you've got at least three spears."
Edwin sent people back. As he and those behind the shield formation righted the spears they'd planted in the ground.
Len’s ears popped, healed by the mana circulating through his body. He stilled halfway to grabbing his next shaft, his head snapping up towards the dungeon.
"Ready your stones," Rick yelled.
Those in the third rank picked up the stones they’d been working on.
Foxes surged out of the dungeon's maw, packed so tightly together they were a river of fur and crystal. Some had four limbs, others six, eight, or even five. Many had crystalline claws, some with entire heads embedded in crystal. Others wore armor, pieces that shifted and ground together as they ran.
Spiders crawled up the other three sides of the dungeon's opening.
"Rocks," Rick yelled. Edwin's spear throwers tore their weapons from the ground as those within the shield formation hurled their spell-casted rocks at the dungeon's opening.
Some exploded into ice, others into flame or lightning, whatever the caster's imagination could come up with to make them as deadly as possible.
Foxes died, but more continued the rush forward.
All of the dungeon creatures arced for the Isendia troops.
Sweet, sweet condensed mana in a human package. Come and get it. Len thought to himself as he pushed open the mold, retrieving a fresh spear.
The runners Edwin had sent bounded back across the open ground with as many spears as they could safely carry supplying their comrades.
The spiders now towered over the foxes that ran between their legs. Several of the fox's crystals glowed, emitting blasts of light. The shield formation under Adrian's command received the blasts, their enchanted shields reflecting the attack somewhat.
Len cast a half glance over the foxes that had used the light blast to shed crystals from their bodies. "Consumable, but that means strong," he thought, grimacing as the shield wall took repeated hits. Those in the third rank continued to hurl stones, killing and maiming creatures.
"Throw," Edwin commanded. He and his five squad-mates released their spears, powered with superhuman strength.
The crystalline-tipped spears flew, catching the sunlight that fell from above.
The first spear penetrated a spider's armor, activating the enchantment.
Two of its nearest legs to the spear blew away as the whole spider jolted and collapsed, steam and smoke curling from between its armor.
Another spear missed a spider and hit the ground, detonating and leaving a crater behind. A fox jumped over the crater, firing a blast of light at the shield formation.
Another spear hit a spider's legs instead of its body, blowing the limb off and turning it into shrapnel that tore through a fox running underneath the beast.
The last two spears thudded home in two different spiders, doing much the same as the first - blowing sections of carapace away and dropping a now-smoking spiders to the ground.
The spear-throwers grabbed their next volley, hurling as fast as they could acquire a target.
"I'm getting close to fifty percent," one of the spear-makers said.
"When Edwin and the others run out of spears, change with them," Len instructed.
The first of the foxes reached the edge of the pits, leaping forward to try and cross the distance.
They disappeared from view, others doing the same. One fox was unlucky enough to land on one of the large tree spikes. It went through its chest and stomach before the enchantment activated, the blast left little but mist in its wake.
The dungeon beasts continued to pour forth, there had to be a good three or four dozen of them on the battlefield.
Rick tossed out a can into a pit.
A large popping noise cracked through the air.
The cans I got filled with metal scrap.
The spiders stomped on the ground as they reached the edge of the pits. Spikes of crystal shot out of the ground ahead of the spiders, down the side of the pits and then across the bottom.
Others turned, presenting their spinnerets, spitting crystalline web that attached to the walls of the pit and the crystal spikes the other spiders created.
"Target the spiders making web bridges," Rick yelled.
A few of the spiders bypassed the builders, climbing down into the pits.
The second rank of the shield formation threw rocks into the pits, their angle becoming sharper as the foxes closed.
Edwin's spear throwers started running out of ammunition and running back to Len and the other makers.
Those who had been making the spears gathered up all they'd created, replacing their comrades. Len kept making crystal spears at a furious rate, using a second bucket of powdered crystal.
The front line of the shield formation began swarming, stabbing down with their swords at the dungeon creatures climbing towards them. Blasts of light carved away sections of the defenses. One shield bearer tipped forward, merely falling into the pit as his comrades in the second line grabbed onto him and pulled him backwards.
"Half step back," Adrian called out, warning them of the movement about to happen. "Half step."
The entire formation moved back, away from the edge.
Light blasts carved past through the dirt berm, throwing up gouts of dirt, striking the soldiers' shields. Others missed completely, flying off into the sky without hitting anything.
Rick threw out two more of the shrapnel-filled cans, stopping the blasts with cracking thumps that released wisps of smoke skyward.
The greater threat was the spider-builders. They were rapidly constructing their crystalline web bridges.
Rocks with spells cast upon them, barely affected the web.
Rick hammered the ground, compacting the dirt into a substance as hard as stone. He moved along the rear of the formation, tapping the ground every few steps.
The land bridges crumbled and collapsed, pulling the wbe that had been secured to it down into the pit.
More of he crystals were thrown up, acting as poles for the web to spread across.
Fortunately, the foxes weren't as intelligent. They leapt from the edge of the pit, some landing on the net, others in the pit, and a few finding their spider-allies' crystal pillars.
The spiders were indifferent, using the foxes' bodies as additional building material. They began stepping out over the pit onto their web structures, advancing forward.
A fox scrambled up the berm, biting at the first shield it found.
It was quickly dispatched with a blade through its throat before it disappeared back down into the pit.
A second and then a third fox appeared over the berm.
Len pulled out his latest finished spear from the mold and grabbed three more, running for the rear of the shield formation.
He planted three of the spears.
Then, gripping the fourth, he drew back his arm, using the momentum he'd gathered. Planting his left foot, he hurled the spear forward.
It hit a spider dead on with such force that it rocked backwards.
Half of the spear disappeared into the creature's body before the enchantment destroyed its insides, and it dropped onto its own web.
A spike in the pits went off, tearing through a spider, its body crashing into the underside of the growing web, sticking to it as it dripped blood onto the ground.
A few of the web strands broke from being in the tree-spike’s path.
Len turned and grabbed a second spear, only to see another spider coating the first in web, using it as a support for its own web.
They were already halfway across the pits.
He targeted the forward spiders, killing two. His last spear was aimed at the far pit wall. It landed in the soft dirt, blowing a crater into the pit's lip.
A collection of web strands fell into the pit. The spiders focused on reconnecting the web, using their web to grab onto what had been made pulling it tight and connecting it to their side of the pit.
It wouldn't take the newly arrived spiders long to repair the damage, but it would at least buy them some time.
"Just how many fucking spiders are there?" one of the troops asked. They had stopped throwing stones, conserving their mana and strength instead. The front line was engaged in defending the top of the berm while the second line shielded them, using their spears to jab at any foxes that got too close. They created a wall of sharpened steel to greet the onslaught.
"Half step back," Adrian warned. “Half-step!”
On the word 'step', the entire formation moved backwards. The foxes could get on the edge of the berm barely, it had been eaten away by their blasts. Swords and spears stabbed out, shields bashing the bodies back into the pit.
Rick slammed his hammer down onto the ground, a change running through the ground. Len moved next to him as he stood back up.
The foxes cried out, but their advance had been slowed.
“What you do?” Len asked.
“Just stuck a bunch of spikes against the wall, they’re using the bodies of the dead to create a ramp up. It won’t take them long to get past,” Rick said.
“No more spiders or foxes coming out of the dungeon though,” Len said. He glanced back at those making spears and those throwing them. “Got a dozen spears left.”
"Lots of fucking spiders," Rick said.
"Lots of fucking everything," Len replied.
The forward rank of the shield formation lashed out with their shields, throwing back the foxes and bodies on the top of the berm.
“The web won’t take long to reach us,” Len said.
“Going to put a lot of pressure on the front line,” Rick said.
“Second line prepare to switch with the first!” Adrian barked.
“Looks like he’s reading your mind,” Len said.
Spikes went off, tearing through the pit.
Movement drew Len’s eyes to the dungeon entrance.
A gigantic spider shoved itself up and out of the dungeon.
It towered over the other siders, its crystalline armor drinking in the light.
“That—is going to be a problem,” Rick said.
It orientated towards the pits and stomped forward, a second spider shoved its way out.
“That looks a lot thicker than what the other spiders have. Don’t think that the spears are going to get through that,” Len shook his head.
“What about the spikes?” Rick asked.
Len looked over at the spikes through the pits, there were a half dozen that had been placed in the pits, though in their charge towards the Isendia soldiers they’ left the spikes and pits untouched.
I thought this would happen.
“A bigger spear for a bigger spider?” Len asked.
“Don’t need to be complicated to work,” Rick said. “Oh look there’s a third one. Those randy spiders, been really working on upping the population.”
“Got a face only a mother could love.”
“Which one?” Rick asked.
Len glanced at the third and latest super-spider. “That’s just unnatural.” He looked at the three heads next to one another.
The spider staggered to either side before the heads sighted the soldiers. “Three drivers and one body.” Rick said.
The first spider reached the edge of the pit and slammed its leg into the ground, spikes fo overzied crystal shot out of the ground. The air around it shimmered as it drew in mana, it spat out light that spread crystal across the columns and webs, thickening them.
Foxes were crawling up the pillars where they could to the webs.
“Spike the fuckers.” Len said.
“Adrian, hold the foxes and spiders, we’ll deal with the big ones!” Rick said.
Len took off running to the left, Rick went to the right, as was tradition.
Len dropped from the pit’s edge, his momentum carrying him forward. He dug his feet in the ground, reaching out with tendrisl of will he tore up the ground as he reached a spike. It was little more than a felled tree, sharpened on one end that was covered in an enchantment and lashed to other trees on an angle with rope.
Len cut the ropes before he sheathed his sword. He wrapped his arms around the tree and hauled it out of the dirt it had been pushed into.
It came free with a stagger. He hiked it up over his shoulder, and ran for the other side of the pit.
He sensed the charge build up, throwing himself forward, the blast from the fox, passing behind him and hitting a distant pit wall.
Len used all his strength, covering the pit in seconds, a leap took him out of the pit as he flipped the so it was underhand instead of on his shoulder.
He got his left arm under the tree, the right holding on the cut base, sighting the last spider. Rick was charging it on an angle. Len looked at the second spider and dug his feet into the dirt, throwing it up as he skirted forward leaving craters behind.
Each step let his momentum build as he got into the rhythm of the tree’s movements and his own steps.
Len was going full tilt when the last spider started to turn towards Rick, its movements hitched by the multiple heads.
Rick hit one of the stuttering legs, the enchantment activated.
The enchantment blew the leg off and threw the spider to its side. It tried to compensate, but all those heads did not make it smarter as it toppled onto its back, legs all trying to do differen things.
At the moment of the spike grazing the spider’s legs, the same and equal force that was exerted out the front of the spike, threw it backwards.
Rick fucked off backwards faster than an arrow.
Maybe the trigger is a little sensitive. Len adjust his aim. It would take a lot more than that to kill Rick.
He came behind the second spider, tilting the spike higher and threw it. The spike hit the underside of the spider, with enough angle that the base of the tree slammed into the ground and all the force tore through the beast’s stomach, tearing off armored pieces and pushing it upwards.
Len tore free his sword and leapt, reaching out his will to grab the space behind the spider’s head. He pulled on his will threads, shooting towards the spider’s head as it started to move lethargically.
Len braced his sword, covering the blade in mana that would rejected all other materials.
The edge glowed blue as he passed the spider’s head, gritting his teeth as his sword bit into the beast’s neck, then gave way out the other side.
Len landed on the ground, the spider twitched and then collapsed to the ground.
He ran forward for the next spider, the mana blade fading away. Len felt relief as he cancelled the spell.
The spider slammed its feet into the ground. Len jumped to the side, missing the crystal spikes that jumped up around it.
Len’s momentum carried him past the spider, he rolled on the crystal layer over the web, crashing into a small spider.
Len drove his sword through an opening in their carapace and cast detonate. Blood showered him as the beast stilled and pulled him to the side.
He tried to get his sword free from the dead spider.
The crystal over the web was torn apart with the foxes blasts, crystal cut Len as he covered his face, releasing his sword as he stumbled backwards, blind. A blast cut through his leg, another slammed into his chest, he was thrown to the side, skirting over the web, back in the direction of the last remaining large spider.
His body was cut with crystal shards, a piece had gone through his thigh but missed everything important. Len opened his stinging eyelids to the large spider’s leg aiming for his head.
Len reached out with his will and dragged himself to the side.
Crystal pillars shot up out of the ground, stabbing up and tearing through Len’s right leg as he dragged himself along the ground, the illars going through his leg, pinning him in place.
Len palm striked the ground, cracking the crystal, leaving it embedded into his leg. A sixth sense breezed up his neck. The spider was gathering mana for its crystal breath attack.
Ah fuck.
Rick’s hammer clocked the spider in the head, the other side exploding outwards, blood not mana fell from its mouth as it fell.
Len pressed the hand he’d palm striked the ground into the crystal and dart, cutting it on the razor sharp shards. Already torn up.
He rose on his mostly—good leg and reached out his hand, creating a tether of will that wrapped around the hilt of the hammer, shooting it towards his less bloodied hand. I must look good.
Len turned the hammer in his hand, looking over at Rick who pushed himself up from where he’d crashed into the ground after throwing his hammer. “I am a god!” It was faint, nearly unheard and distant.
Len shook his head and looked at the pit. The Isendia soldiers were holding the berm but the web-bridge had been completed with the spiders and foxes causing casualties and pushing them backwards.
Don’t have the power to get back into that fight.
Len used his will inside his body, cutting off the pain response from his leg to stagger over to the large spider. He grabbed onto a piece of carapace crystal, pulling it away, he slammed the hammer on the points where it connected to the spider, tearing it free. He dropped the hammer and took out his knife.
He dug it into the crystal, the enchantment was crude and thick. Better to channel as much mana as possible. It was already gathering, filling the lines and runes, adhering to the rules that he had created over this part of the world.
Control over crystal, direction, fuck it—inwards. Mana compression no limit.
The enchantment was ugly-but it was serviceable and the kind of thing that no enchanter would or should make in their workshop. Len cut in the last line and hurled the core at the middle of the pit.
It activated and shot towards the biggest clump of crystal—a nearby spider.
The crystal layer, web and pillars short towards the spider, the reach spread out, spiders dug their feet into the ground and the web holding back. The smaller nearby foxes went flying crystal growths first.
The clump of crystal and dungeon creatures piled up.
Ah shit
“Take cover!” Len yelled.
The web collapsed under the pile up, dropping into the pit.
Mana that had been compressed, fueling the enchantment wildly overcame what the material could hold. The crystal was drawn in with irregular pulls.
Distortions started to appear, the chaotic nature of mana playing up. Creatures were altered into a type of stone that dropped away from the mana core, no longer attracted by it.
Several creatures blended into a spike of crystal that spun everything, ending up at the bottom of the sphere and flinging out parts that were not crystalline.
The first enchantment failed, triggering the second.
While he had not been able to make enchantments under his ‘contract’ once he was kicked out of the greenwood enchanters guild. He could still theory craft.
There had been more than one time he’d thought about different versions of enchantments. One of the largest schools of thought he thought about was the school of doom. He was the student, the teacher and the top researcher.
Most enchanters were boring looking to enhance items, sword sharper, armor stronger, clothes warmer.
Len liked to step past that to sword blows up, armor blows up, clothes stop you from blowing up by blowing up in the direction of the thing trying to blow you up.
Mana was a ball of chaos, transforming energy jumbling up everything else. Enchantments, magic, all the ‘uses’ of magic turned it from chaos incarnate into a function.
It did have ‘rules’ that’s what made it denser in some areas and less in others, how it abhorred a vacuum, tried to spread out and altered the very environment to make more mana. How it liked to interfere with energetic reactions that were not mana based. How it changed the living, giving it the hunger to make more mana, to consume other things with mana.
Mana liked to react.
The sphere of crystal cycled through materials and states, liquids, gass, solid, iron, wood, rock, dirt, living, dead.
The mana core asserted that the mana was actually hydrogen. The core and the surrounding mana converted into the equivalent energy of hydrogen. It was least dense element he knew. It was also flammable and crystal when pressed together could create static electricity.
There were bare flares of light as the mana core finally cracked, newly converted hydrogen detonated.
The collected crystal and all they were attached to turned into shrapnel with a single focused instance of force.
The explosion deafened Len, the shockwave running through the air and the ground.
Dirt and pebbles rained down on Len as he picked himself up.
A column of pulverized dirt and stone thrown into the sky fell down, the wind clearing it to show the pit.
Bare remains of the web dotted it, the ground beneath where he’d tossed the core was a crater, the ground around it was torn up, the broken remains of dungeon creatures were discarded over the pit.
Some had survived, most with wounds of some kind.
The soldiers on the other side got to their feet, Adrian was moving among them, hauling them to their feet and facing them to the pit.
The dungeon creatures had made a bloody ramp of bodies up the other side of the pit and clambered over it to be met with sword and shield.
It was a clean-up on their side.
Len turned, staggering with his messed up leg and his hammer. The three-headed spiders was still trying to get itself up, without result.
Leave that for the soldiers, give them some more confidence, skill and hopefully experience.
Rick had picked himself up off the ground and was moving towards him.
Len judged the distance and threw the hammer towards him.
It landed a few feet away. Rick raising his hand in thanks.
Len kept his utility knife and moved to the large spider that had kept his sword.