CHAPTER 50: Unexpected Trap
“These Testudinates are weak but use such overpowered equipment for their level?” asked Tom.
“Uh-oh. Serious balancing problem. Someone go whine to the devs,” said Carlos. “The paladins have too many bubbles.”
“Then how’re we going to fight them?” asked Rick. “We need to find a way to open up their armor, but the only thing strong enough is probably the elven knives, and I doubt the rest of us can use them to pry the shells open the way Adam did.”
Adam took a deep breath and let out a big sigh. “I think I’m going to need to scout their base alone. I’ll try using the same manipulation trick I used on the elves. Fight might not be an option for me either because these take too long to get through the shells, and that last cry will undo my manipulation. This is really going to suck.”
“What should we do?” asked Lucas.
“The rest of you should take this body and shell to Jordan and Garrett. See if he can make an effective weapon or figure out a weak point.”
“We’ll leave a group here in case you emerge and need support,” said Rick, choosing out five officers to wait alongside Tom, Abbey, Andrea, Ed, Randall, Lucas, and Joseph. Once everyone was prepared, Adam walked over to the hole in the ground.
“Guess I’ll have to do this the hard way,” he said.
“You always do it the hard way, boss,” responded Tom with a wave.
Adam stood at the edge of the hole, and then stepped off. He fell the five feet and then stumbled as he impacted the black border of the rift, having expected to fall through. A few stomps showed that the rift barrier was solid to him. He wasn’t going through that shield.
“That wasn’t what I thought would happen,” said Adam, slightly embarrassed, as he looked up at the rest of the group.
“Yeah, boss, I thought…” Tom was interrupted as the ground began to rumble and shift. The mountains of cars were rattling from the vibrations. Adam saw everyone getting closer to him, as he was lifted out of the hole. At the same time the ground around the edges of the hole crumbled.
“GET BACK!” Adam yelled as he realized the rift barrier was expanding. The ground was pushed out of the barrier’s path, and he saw his group struggling to turn as the ground fell away beneath them. The hole rapidly grew to consume everything between the four mountains of car frames except for Adam. Their equipment, the Testudinate corpse, his friends, and even car frames fell through the barrier.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Adam roared, the river racing through his body, burning so fiercely it almost set him on fire. Anger and fear were all he felt as he glared around him. Then he felt a sudden sensation in his soul. It was worse than anything he had felt before.
A piece of his soul was ripped away from him. Connections he had formed to the people who had fallen inside were destroyed, smashed to brittle pieces. The reassurance he had unconsciously relied on from the ever-present feelings from the girls’ connections was ripped out of him. The knowledge that everyone was still alive and the confidence that he had been feeding into them were snapped back into himself, frayed and torn.
Fury took control and he pounded his sledgehammer onto the barrier as hard as he could. A dull plunking noise faded after each impact, showing how little power he really contained compared to the barrier. It only took five more swings before the sledgehammer handle broke, but that didn’t slow Adam as he grabbed a car frame and slammed it into the barrier.
Against and again he pounded the barrier with no noticeable effect. He roared and growled and swung. The heat pulsed through him, becoming a physical heat. The river pulled his awareness into its boiling flow. Air and even metal around him warped as he gave everything he had to break into the barrier, to break through to his friends. Friends that he had to protect.
***
Lucas had managed to stay on his feet when he hit the ground. Not everyone was as lucky. The lower leveled people were moaning on hands and knees as they tried to get back to their feet. Lilliard was down, maybe with a broken leg, and Hickory was flat, his armor bent all around him.
The air was stagnant as he breathed in. It felt heavy and low on oxygen, much like he imagined the air around a volcano, except without the heat. The lack of breeze or air movement just made the near suffocation feel worse. The red sky lacked any features, as he would expect from a dimensional convergence rift.
Rocky, jagged land spread out as far as his eyes could see. There was no grass, no plants, and no castle or fortress in the distance. Bouldery hills and mountains rose up behind where they had landed, slanting down towards his front, where an army of Testudinates were slowly walking towards them. Deep trenches cut through the ground, zig zagging every direction. The trenches on the lower slope were filled with more Testudinates, making their way upwards.
Before Lucas could really look to his group, a sharp pain, like a knife stab, hit his chest. He groaned as he felt Adam’s confidence and determination cut from him. At the same time four screams echoed out from the girls.
While the pain he felt was nearly debilitating, Lucas pushed himself to look towards them. Three of them ended their screams by falling to the ground unconscious. Brittney, who had much higher vitality, went white as a ghost but caught herself on the shield she was holding. The shield was a new one made from the bed of the elfin prince, three quarters her height. It was a wood even more solid than the trees in the elf forest had been. Garrett had put it together overnight for Adam at Ron’s request, and he had passed it to Brittney, their primary shield user. She used it to prop herself up, clearly drained of strength and vitality.
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Lucas assumed everyone had their connection to Adam cut since a lot more fear was now displayed in the non-regulars’ body language. That would explain why the girls were affected more strongly than he was, and it had still been bad for him.
A nagging thought hit Lucas and he turned to look at a cliff in the distance behind him. Standing just in eyesight was a woman staring at them. Even from this distance Lucas knew she was drop dead gorgeous. None of her features were quite in view, but everything about her screamed head and shoulders more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen. The most attractive celebrities would kneel before her to learn the secrets of beauty.
Two steps had been taken towards the distance woman before Lucas had even realized he had moved. He wanted to rush towards the woman and warn her, to carry her out of the rift. She must have been in the scrapyard when the ground collapsed, though Lucas wasn’t sure how she had ended up so far away from the rest of them. Saving people was the reason Adam had brought them all together. Everyone would understand why Lucas left the group to save her.
“Keep each other safe.”
Lucas shook his head as he remembered the words and took a step backwards. Adam said that over and over. Did he really care about strangers? He cared about his family. He threw himself into danger for the group he put together. Adam wasn’t a selfless hero. His hate of the invaders was palpable.
People had to still be standing after the battle, to continue fighting. That was what Adam did. He allowed everyone to be in danger so that they could become strong enough to overcome, not to just rely on levels. For Adam it was about winning the fight, not saving everyone. If anything, Adam knew a great number of people were going to die soon and seemed to accept it, as long as it wasn’t his people.
Adam wouldn't forgive Lucas for leaving the team for a single, beautiful woman. That thought became concrete in Lucas’s head. He shook himself again and looked back to the cliff. The woman was no longer there. He put her out of his head and turned to the group. She was responsible for her own survival and if she wanted help, she could come to them.
This was not just any group; this was his team. They needed to survive this for Adam. Any thoughts of the woman vanished from his head.
***
“So, everyone...we’re boned,” said a pale Tom, followed by a slap to the back of his head.
“Then why are you smiling,” asked Lilliard, still in physical shock from breaking his legs in the fall, even if it was mostly better now. With Abbey unconscious, Ed had healed everyone who needed it. The fear was easy to read in the group. They had injured and unconscious and no weapons that worked on their opponents.
“Oh, it just reminds me of the time with the goblins when we were surrounded and overmatched. There was no way for us to survive back then,” answered Tom.
“How did you survive then?” asked Hickory. Lucas had needed to tear the armor off him with how mangled it had been from the fall. Now he held on to his flimsy play shield out of despair.
“The boss swooped in and rescued us. Though not before the goblins had spilled our guts.” Tom paused and looked around at everyone. “Anyone willing to spill their guts now to summon the boss?” Another slap struck the back of his head.
“Adam isn’t coming this time. He couldn’t break the elf barrier. Trapping him didn’t work last time so they trapped us this time. What we need to do is survive,” Lucas said.
Rick stepped forward. Even he was shaken and pale. Pointing to the approaching army of Testudinates he asked, “What are the victory conditions?”
“Survival. Even Adam said he couldn’t face this army. Killing them isn’t our job. We need to survive, or beat the boss to take control of this rift to let Adam in. If we can figure out how to fight them, that’s fine, but don’t try anything at the expense of survival. Lamar, Joseph, and Randall carry the girls,” explained Lucas. “Brittney, ideas?”
She pointed to the tallest spire in the rocky landscape. “We get to the high area. Maybe we can see better. Maybe they won’t be able to climb with their weight. Stay out of the trenches. There's no way to dodge their charging in them, and we don’t want them dropping on our heads.”
“Yeah, I hate when Testies drop on my head,” snickered Tom. Brittney slapped his head. “C’mon! We’ve all been waiting for that joke since Carlos told us what these things are called.”
Lucas took back over, “Drop anything that you don’t need. We need to be light and fast.”
With orders given, the group began jogging over the land. It was treacherous due to the jagged rocks sticking out from the ridges, so they had to go slowly and deliberately. Their speed stayed faster than the Testudinates, though not by much since they had Hickory and Lilliard holding them back. The Testudinates would also occasionally charge forward or roll for five seconds, keeping the pressure on them.
Lucas didn’t push too hard, not wanting to tire them out. Each person had a pack with supplies, snacks, and a canteen, at Adam’s insistence. They ditched most things besides the food and water, with the stronger people splitting extra ropes, first aid kits, and flashlights.
The land gradually became steeper as they approach a spire. A few times they had to jump across the gashes in the land to avoid long detours. At those times people had to carry Hickory and Lilliard, as well as the weaker people’s gear. The unconscious girls were a concern, but since Brittney had survived, they expected the others to wake at some point.
“We’re here. Now what?” asked Hickory, panting with exhaustion.
“Everyone takes a rest. We’re about 10 minutes ahead of them,” Lucas said as he positioned everyone around the area. There was a wall behind them, about halfway up the slope. A trench jutted out from the side of the wall, then split in both directions. There were only two sides they could be approached from, and one of the sides was against the trench, so they could push the shelled invaders into it if they needed to. They could also jump over the first trench to escape if they got overwhelmed.
Lucas planned to engage them followed by a retreat to see if fighting was an option at all. He gave specific directions to those who would carry other people for the escape and made sure everyone knew what to do. Once they retreated, they’d go about halfway further up the spire, then back down towards a different spire in the distance. Lucas had seen no sign of a base, so wasn’t sure how long they would be doing this, but he couldn’t think of any other way to survive than to run.
The battle plan that they had come up with was for Brittney and Lucas, as the strongest, to try and hold the incoming enemies, then have Nick, Carlos, and Joseph try to shove knives in the creases. If they could wedge the shells open that way, then they might be able to kill a few before running.
After eight minutes of rest, and a few energy bars, Lucas stood and grabbed his sledgehammer. The enemy was here.