CJ called his compatriots into the now revealed interior of the swat vehicle. Elena picked up the body armor and with a disappointed head shake, placed it back on the peg. Jenn on the other hand dropped her bag and shouldered her way into the sleek black form fitting chest piece. Standing in his Examiners Robe appearance, CJ continued to stuff his sleeves full of assault rifles and ammunition. The first one he picked up made him smile.
New Item: AR-15 Assault Rifle- This rifle boasts a high rate of fire for a mundane ranged weapon. To successfully wield this requires at least level 1 in the firearms skill. Aiming and maintenance penalties will be applied to those without.
Knowing that getting this into Rubio’s hands would make a major impact to their combat ability just made CJ’s shit eating grin even wider. He received another notification once he made his way to the body armor.
New Item: Ballistic Body Armor- This armor downgrades lethal bullet wounds to only regular damage. Any non-ballistic mundane damage is reduced by half while worn.
Reading between the lines, he understood that this body armor was great for shoot outs and good against blades or bludgeoning. There was no benefit against magics. In his opinion that was fine. He didn’t really want to reduce his incoming damage anyway. That was how he refilled his mana after all. The real benefit is these items were slate active. They received notifications and description from their slates. That meant they were part of the overarching system that governed the world now. CJ hoped that meant he could remove them from the dungeon just like his robes and that tablet. The tablet… CJ had almost forgotten about it. Would that work outside of its scripted event?
“Wake up!” said Monty jumping up to a nearby shelf to slap CJ with his front paw. “You pick the worst times to zone out. What’s the plan here? Are we just looting or are we actually going to try and get out of here?”
“Sorry.” Replied CJ rubbing his cheek. “We dislodge the nest below us with the grenade launcher. Once that threat is over the chicken cops will radio the crane operator to lower the bridge. Traffic gets moving and we make it to the other side.”
“You make it sound so easy. You know the dungeon boss is going to show up at some point to stop us.” Scoffed Elena.
“I’m counting on it.”
CJ and his team kitted out with new weapons and gear, spill out onto the bridge from inside the Swat vehicle. Horns were honking incessantly in the background as the sun began to set against the New York skyline behind them. An ominous slow buzzing hum was coming from below them.
CJ ran over to the tow trucks winch and clipped it to his belt, while Monty hopped up into his arms.
“Now just lower me slowly. I’m relying on you to get us out of there in a heartbeat. I’ll be vulnerable once the nest starts to tilt,” explained CJ as he put his right foot atop the lane divider.
“Hey! You can’t use my winch. I’ve got a…” began the chicken tow truck driver before Elena in her skull helmet stepped up to the door.
She wrenched the driver’s side door open and yanked the chicken man out of the cabin. His eyes were wide as feathers flew everywhere as he sprawled out on the asphalt. He was wearing dirty overalls and the feathers on top of his head were sparse. Elena pulled the chord on her chainsaw and revved the engine. The driver was apoplectic. He stood up looking back at the chicken cops gathered behind the barricades actively ignoring what was happening. Pulling a large wrench from his back pocket he squared up to Elena only to take a spinning Wasp stinger to the chest. Blood spurted everywhere as the chicken man died.
Elena spun around before launching herself into the air by planting a foot on the steps up to the driver’s seat. She swung her chainsaw at the wasp carving through its midsection as its next stinger was emerging from the socket.
Meanwhile, CJ and Monty cast now you don’t on themselves as they were lowered down to the top of the wasp nest. Once they were halfway there, they heard the rat-a-tat of assault rifle fire. Wasps were now emerging from all sides of the nest and swarming the upper levels of the bridge. Elena must be shooting covering fire for Jenn since the winch hadn’t stopped moving yet.
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New Message from Party Leader CJ: Do you see those gunky support strands attaching the nest to the both sides of the upper level?
New Message from Monty: Yea.
New Message from Party Leader CJ: We need to detach them. That should drop the nest into the bay.
CJ’s feet touched down the sticky roof of the hive. He felt a shudder from below him in the form of vibrating buzzing. There were five strands of wood-pulped wasp spit adhering the nest to the split bridge above them. The color was a dingy yellowish brown. The good news was they were plastered to the underside of the asphalt bridge.
New Message from Monty: Earth Fist?
New Message from Party Leader CJ: Earth Fist.
They both cast the spell on two separate connections. The fists grew out from the underside of the bridge and grabbed at the support strands. They were too big to rip out all at once, but the hands began mimicking CJ and Monty’s hand movements. They were grasping at the tethers and tearing out material. The nest itself began to sway from the changes in weight distribution. The first strand snapped shaking the whole nest before a few wasps crawled out onto the nest to see what was happening.
Three of them climbed up from different edges. They began inspecting the strands before the second one snapped. The nest itself shuddered and dropped a few feet. CJ now noticed a gap between where his feet were touching and the roof of the nest. It was about six inches, and he’d have to stretch to touch the top again. The first of the three wasp inspectors began to flitter up to repair the damage. CJ quickly recast the earth fist targeting the next support in line while Monty used his current cast of the earth fist to bat away the wasp trying to repair the support he’d already broken.
CJ hadn’t accounted for wasps trying to repair the damage, so he needed to think quickly. He slowly placed Monty up on his head, the bunny focusing on his metaphysical hand and too busy to protest. While they remained ignored, CJ could do a lot of things. Once he started shooting, he’d probably get swarmed. He wasn’t going to be able to fire an assault rifle while maintaining spell integrity. He needed to get creative. The third of the five supports snapped, and the wasps went wild flying in all directions. The nest below them shook violently and something big bellowed from below him. There were two supports left, and the nest was swinging back and forth.
One of the three wasps landed on the metal line above him and began crafting a new support from it to the west bound section of the bridge. CJ was out of time. He pulled his revolver and aimed below him. He fired two shots into the nest below him creating a three foot wide hole. That got all the wasp’s attention and Monty began to fidget on his head.
New Message from Party Leader CJ: Monty, they’ll notice me and not you. Jenn, we need you pull us up and Elena, we need covering fire.
A huge wasp eye looked up at CJ from the the hole he just made followed by an enraged screech. CJ began to swing the cable he was attached to trying to avoid the incoming spinning stingers. He failed. Two of them struck him center mass netting him a cool eighty points of mana regen. That brought him up to a hundred and forty two points of mana. It was now or never. He activated and dropped his Volumetric stone. The rock doubled itself twice before plummeting into the hive through the hole he’d made. If all went to plan it would continue to duplicate itself until the hive was full of rocks. Subsequently increasing the weight snapping the remaining supports. It worked.
The final two supports snapped, and the nest fell into the bay in a matter of moments. Two of the remaining wasps dive bombed CJ. The one above him shot straight down and the other one not being held by Monty’s earth fist, was coming at him like a missile. Before either could attack the dangling CJ, a roar erupted from below them. The two wasps broke their mad charge and flew off in different directions.
The nest now floating in the bay and was slowly being swept out sea, cracked open. A gargantuan Wasp with an ovipositor attached to its abdomen crawled out of the floating wreck. Four Transparent wings whipped out to either side of the monster before they began to beat a steady rhythm. Its carapace was mostly black with tiger stripes. Easily the size of a Double Decker bus, it lifted into the air.
CJ shuddered as it turned its insectile head flicked toward him. Automatic fire could still be heard topside as he and Monty dangled from the line. They were firing at the remaining wasps. With a jerk on the line, CJ began to rise up. It wasn’t fast enough. He prepared to cast Half-a-Bitch on the incoming dungeon boss but didn’t get the chance. The monster’s maw opened wide in an attempt to swallow CJ whole from below.
Thoom
A black smoking sphere shot down past CJ into the monster’s open mouth. There was a gulping sound before the whole thing blew apart in a shower of gore and bug parts. CJ was covered head to toe in the mess as what was left of the creature splashed into the bay below.
New Message from Elena: I’m keeping this thing.