Benjamin Vryce
Ice crawled into the small pill bug house to wake them. The sun had been up for an hour and the others were ready to get started. Benjamin hadn’t actually been asleep of course, sleep only ever found him when he had screwed up anymore. He was however, doing his best to etch Grace’s sleeping face into his memory, forever.
He reached up and carefully scratched the she wolf’s muzzle, thanking her for the wake-up call. He then gently shook Grace awake beside him, wishing he didn’t have to. When she opened her eyes at last, he placed his lips against hers in a gentle kiss. She responded and for a second the world melted away.
They were brought back to reality when Ice let out a soft woofing sound and licked both of their faces. Sputtering and giggling the pair looked up at the she wolf’s open-mouthed face. They didn’t share a language, but the happiness on Ice’s face for them was clear to see.
Once they had gotten up and outside, the others gathered around. The rest of the party didn’t comment, except for Jade. She ran her tongue across her lips suggestively and gave the pair a wink, heavily laden with meaning. Grace blushed and Benjamin cleared his throat, thankfully they were saved by Stomper’s words.
“Good morning chief, clan sister. Jade took us on a round of the tower last night, I think I agree with what you said in the letter after looking for myself, Chief…” the axe wielding goblin who had turned out to be so much more, continued talking. He carried the meeting where it needed to go and all the relevant points were brought up.
Shortly afterwards, they each mounted double on the wolves and set off at a run. Grace had wanted to ride with Benjamin, but Honor couldn’t move as fast as Ice with a human and an armor heavy goblin on his back. So, she rode double with her clan brother. While Benjamin and Jade shared the saddle on Ice’s back.
Jade had started the ride grabbing onto him suggestively, but as the wolves were moving at a dead sprint, she had to give up the games in favor of staying in the saddle. They were making a beeline for the tower. The red and blue monarchs flew overhead, trailed by the ten Hive, Grace and Stomper had brought with them.
When it became clear that an assault was impossible, Benjamin had told Stomper in his note to only bring the best. Speed and stealth were going to be their only options. The tower was simply too huge to attack. Some of the hunting parties Benjamin had seen flying out, contained more autumn Hive than they had reds and blues in total.
They reached the wolves’ top speed quickly, but it wasn’t long before Honor began to lag. He was strong and could run for hours, however this was a dead sprint. Not to mention, the goblins he was carrying on his back. Benjamin reached for his connection to the white wolf as he slowed. Forcing essence into his body to strengthen him, as the essence reached his system the wolf started to pull ahead.
Seeing the effect he was having, Benjamin fed essence into both wolves. The distance to the tower shrank rapidly after that.
“Is it working Jade?” he whispered over his shoulder to the leather clad blonde, who was gripping him tightly around the waist.
“I’m working on it Vice, you can’t rush perfection ya know.” She called back, raising one hand into the air. “Mind giving me a hand here chief?” she said, quickly wrapping her raised hand back around his body.
With a sigh, he reached back and grabbing her with both hands pulled her in front of him. She screamed when she was lifted from Ice’s back, but he quickly covered her mouth with his hand.
“Damn it, Vice.” She all but yelled between his fingers, “warn a girl next time, shit.” She swore at him before glancing over to Honor, where Grace was glaring daggers at her.
With a knowing smile she snuggled herself back into Benjamin’s Chest, before wrapping his arms tightly around her leather clad body. Benjamin could only sigh, and look to Grace apologetically. He adjusted his grip to something a little more appropriate to the situation, as Jade raised her arms overhead.
She had been experimenting with her force shields, while he was meditating. The results so far weren’t perfect, but she could deflect the light around her using the shields. It distorted the air, and resulted in partial invisibility. She put a shield directly over their heads as the wolves ran side by side. Benjamin doubted it would help; but if the distorted light improved their odds of going unnoticed by even one percent, he thought it was worth the effort.
Whether the shields helped or not, they made it to the tower without being swarmed. That didn’t mean that they had gone unnoticed, but Benjamin would take what he could get. Reaching the small entrance, he hadn’t seen any of the autumn hive use. They dismounted and he dismissed the wolves.
They would recover instantly in his void space, and he wanted them fresh for the fighting to come. The small hole was bigger, and also higher up, then he thought from the building they had been hiding in. Granted that had been over a mile away, but it wasn’t more than thirty feet off the ground.
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“Looks like it’s my turn now, Vice.” Jade said, summoning her ogres. “You and me on Tok there and the big guy and the green girlie can take Tik.” She said with a sly wink.
“Thanks for the offer Jade, but you guys wait here. I’ll ride up on Tok and when I get to the entrance, I’ll resummon you to me ok?” he asked his goblin friends.
They nodded and set themselves up near the tower’s wall. The monarchs, at Benjamin’s orders flew into the tunnel with their ten soldiers to scout. Benjamin had originally thought to just summon the goblins once they got inside. However, Jade couldn’t ride Honor and cast her shields simultaneously. In the end, they all rode out together.
With a quick kiss to Grace’s forehead, Benjamin latched his arms around the leather straps of Tok’s armor. The brute bared his tusks at him before Jade shut him down.
“None of that Tok, we are in a hurry. Whatever one of you boys can climb to that tunnel” here she stopped and pointed at the tunnel the monarchs were just now reaching. “The fastest and without making any noise, will get a special treat from me, what do you think?”
She hardly had time to finish speaking when the ogres started to climb, stupid grins plastered on their faces. She almost didn’t have time to leap onto Tik’s armored back before he was up and climbing. The ogres weren’t the smartest of creations, but they were strong and loyal. Benjamin wouldn’t deny them that at least.
Reaching the tunnels edge slightly behind Jade who rode Tik’s back, Benjamin dropped off Tok’s defeat slumped shoulders. Summoning the goblins and looking around, he now understood why none of the Hive used this tunnel. It was what appeared to be a garbage shoot.
There was a tunnel leading inwards for a few dozen yards before opening up on a huge pit. It rose into the air, at least fifty yards across. Many smaller tunnels led off it at upwards angles. As they watched, the discarded carapace of a pill bug fell from one of these tunnels. It was still dripping orange insides when it landed with a wet plop, in a mountainous pile of similar refuse.
The discarded offal was soon swarmed by a variety of giant insects. Benjamin worked out fairly quickly that this was the equivalent of the tower’s sewer system. He almost laughed, why was it that none of the huge facilities ever guarded their sewers. They were always left wide open for any enterprising protagonist to take advantage of, and enter the premises.
The semi-truck sized blue/black atlas looking beetle that lifted itself from under the discarded remnants of dead insects helped explain it to him. When it turned, exposing the golden stripes to Benjamin, he knew for sure. The autumn Hive didn’t need to guard this tunnel, there was a monarch beetle doing it already.
“Blue king,” he called out to the monarch who flew over. “Is there any way we can kill that thing quickly?” he asked the war veteran, pointing towards the near perfect match for an earth atlas beetle. The monarch swiveled his head to look at the beetle, who was now chomping down on the discarded carapace…and the five pill bugs who had been too close to it when it got to them.
When the blue king looked back at him, he didn’t need to understand its language to understand the ‘no’ that it didn’t scream at him. That was a shame, the pattern in that monarch would have more than replaced the dire boar’s he had lost. However, he wasn’t going to risk the mission if they couldn’t do it safely.
“Alright blue king, I hear ya.” He said with a small laugh, “but how are we going to get up there?” he continued asking the group at large.
The others all looked towards the beetle, now nestling itself back into the mountain of bones and shell fragments. Now that it had stopped moving, the group had to really focus to bring it to view. It had been lucky timing that had brought it to their attention at all, otherwise they might not have known it was there, until it was eating them.
“I would have said, our best course of action would be to climb as high as we could inside this chamber.” Stomper said at last, “but that beast has wings. We should instead climb one of those two shoots.” Here he pointed at the two lowest and closest shoots, “and find our way up from there.” He finished with a shrug.
Without any better suggestions they agreed to that plan. Benjamin wanted to scout the way with the monarchs, but they couldn’t risk being stuck in this room with that…thing. So, they picked the nearest one and started climbing again.
Tok won this round, not being happy about losing the last time. It was almost comical the way he strained to move as fast as he could without making any noise. Again, Benjamin summoned the goblins after reaching the tunnel. The red and blue hive flying around them in a tight ring, this tunnel being quite a bit smaller than the last.
The hours that followed were a mix of hearts racing anticipation mixed with extreme boredom. There was also a minor bout of claustrophobia from Jade, Benjamin was able to help her get it under control though. He had already been channeling essence throughout his body, it seemed to help. When he showed her how to do the same, she calmed down. Jade made the next hour miserable, as she deflected her own fear with dirty jokes.
The tunnels they trod were dust covered and unused. The Hive stirred up the air with their wings, causing the humans and goblins to cough uncontrollably. Benjamin was forced to ground them after that, the dust was both a good and bad thing in his thinking though. It was good, because it meant that they wouldn’t be found out easily. It was bad, because it meant they weren’t close to the rift yet.
They walked and climbed, taking turns as the tunnels shifted. Passing empty egg rooms, abandoned pantries, and the occasional Hive body. They were mostly the autumn color of the ones from outside, but a few were colored more strongly red or yellow. Another indication that these tunnels had been abandoned for a long time.
Inspecting one particularly large body, Benjamin accidentally broke the scything limb away. He tested the edge in his hand and found it still solid and sharp. It was the length of a sword and very sturdy, on a whim he tucked the scything limb into a strap in his armor. At Jades questioning look he shrugged, thinking it might come in handy.
Nearly two days of wandering later, He had begun to worry he would have to send the hive back out to eat soon. When they heard the noises of battle, coming down from above. The tunnel dead ended at a vertical shaft. Several bodies littered the floor where it dropped into their corridor. Most were the autumn hive, but a few were…something else entirely.