Chapter 39: Grey Strain

I opened my eyes, I was myself again but for one long moment I had been only dimly aware of the world where my friends were waving their arms and calling to me in concern as they clicked their fingers in front of my eyes. In that long moment I had instead become a priest of the Grey Strain. The great Worm, the one with whom these Derro had made a pact had gifted them 3 strains, the paralytic purple with which to bring down slaves, the deleterious grey with which to destroy all foes and the vibrant green with which to fuel the furnaces and grow the mushrooms for the timber needed to arm and nourish the rank and file Derro.

The giant caterpillars we had seen in the first hive had been this green strain, why they looked like caterpillars instead of giant worms I did not know but all three colours were supposedly spawn of this Pact Lord that the Derro served. I wished the dead priest's memories had showed me how many of these interconnected settlements there were down here or how to kill the priests besides surprise attacks. My fingers twitched and I shuddered at the memory of the grey worms crawling within my, I mean, his skin. This circlet would let me do that, give me immunity to the grey strain and allow the little worms to grow within me, burrowing channels through flesh and sinew without crippling me, becoming numb to the horror and the pain in exchange for the power to kill just about anything I could point at. The weapon wasn't perfect though, the little worms only had enough in them to kill a man and the giant monster that could devour a troll or a family of horses would never bow to a human, it knew the will of its true master and would not go against it.

We left shortly after a round of huffing burnt demon-blood and continued our strange trek across No mans land and I kept the circlet on my head as we trudged through the dirt, muck occasionally pulling at our boots when water seeped up from some underground spring. We'd passed the remnants of the kill squads from my vision, nothing but grey poison that even the Cave Hawks hadn't touched. There was no body left by the giant worm however. Had it gone under to wait until it was summoned anew or had the great purple worms been sent to hunt down and subdue it. I did not tap into the circlet again but I kept it on my head for the poison resistance it would give.

"Not getting anything else useful out of those new memories of yours Jack?" Farrah had one of her axes drawn, the other hand was still picking bits of Cave Hawk out of her fur. I shook my head apologetically as we kept our pace, it was weird only being able to see in such a small radius despite the massive open space we were moving in. Occasionally we would hear things move outside the shroud and Victoria began keeping the silence spell active more and more often as we advanced further on the path to whatever the Derro settlement was called.

"Nothing useful, don't even know the name of the City up ahead. That furnace we saw in the last Hive though, I think that was how they forge their cobalt weapons." That got an interested look from the pretty librarian. "It didn't look like one of our furnaces, you're saying that caterpillar gunk is rich enough in energy to melt metals?"

I nodded emphatically, happy to share some knowledge. "The green strain of Worm doesn't have venom, its secretions are still toxic but only over a prolonged period of time. Instead it's used for various forms of energy, the Derro can use it to make things grow, they can feed themselves with it after its been treated and they can make a fire so hot it melts the metals they bring up from below, it fuses metals into alloys that wouldn't otherwise be possible and it enhances the cobalt somehow too, charges it up to unnatural levels of edge retention and sharpness."

I wished I had more details, knew more about the three different factions or classes within the city. Had the betrayal of the grey priest meant that strain was now wiped out or had they been exiled instead? Only time would tell.

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Another half an hour of slow going brought us to the tunnels that Merri believed would lead us around the city's main defences and allow us to approach the farms without taking on an entire army. My dome of darkness prevented me from seeing more than a few feet of the cliff wall but Merri assured us we were at the edge of the chasm and that the wall extended over 200 feet up from where we were now before terminating in solid stone ceiling.

We hugged that black stone wall until we found the right tunnel, passing by multiple small shafts and entryways to twisting mazes that Merri assured us wouldn't take us anywhere we wanted to go.

The correct tunnel had little to set it apart from the others except for the extremely obvious boot prints of the Derro who had last used it. I wondered how old the recording had been, the gondola hadn't been overgrown with moss or mould but I didn't know how long something like that would take and nothing had taken up residence within its hull so I couldn't have counted carcasses or droppings.

All that to say, I wondered if these boot prints were the prints of the kill squads that had assassinated the owner of the circlet. The Cave hawk attack had probably been a wrinkle in that plan, I suspected the infiltrator was only supposed to sabotage the gondola mid transit and allow the kill squad to open fire on the trapped vessel with magic and bolts until everyone on board was dead.

That was one bit of information I did have, the zealots in the Derro's ranks were perfectly happy going on suicide missions as they had no fear of death and were much more commonplace down here in the settlement than cowards like Shazbla were. These zealots had already earned their place in combat and now guarded the Worm breeding grounds and temples with their lives while the unproven were expected to go out and conquer either the surface or whatever remaining settlements they could find underground.

The tunnel with the bootprints was tangibly cooler than the massive cave outside. "Something is messing with the ambient mana, filtering it into cryogenic mana and concentrating it." Luna and Farrah tensed up, Merri sighed and took a few steps ahead of them. "Yeah, have no fear little humans, your resident cartographer and meat-shield is happy to serve on the front line."

I just kept channelling mana as we moved through the cave, it might not have been strictly necessary, the tunnels should protect us from the prying eyes of the Derro but on the off chance that the light might reflect off the walls and out of the tunnel then I would keep up our little umbral curtain until I had no choice but to lower it.

No choice came, as it always did, this time it was in the form of three icicles about a foot long and half an inch in diameter being fired in a high velocity volley straight at our front line. There was no warning, Merri just stiffened in the front of the pack and then doubled over with a gasp, I heard ice crack and pop as bloody ichor splattered on the floor. My skin itched, reflexes subconsciously looking to propel grey strain infused worms at the attacker like in the vision. Fortunately for my sanity there were no worms, unfortunately for my health there were plenty more icicles.

Shrik, Shrik, Shrik. Another three razor sharp arrows of solid ice embedded themselves in flesh, this time two hit Luna and whirled her around like a marionette before dropping her while the third stuck me in the belly and then shattered into a numbing mist that caused my legs to lock up and my body to tilt backwards, toppling awkwardly to the ground. Victoria threw up an offensive barrier in front of Luna and while i was still drawing myself up into a sitting position she forced it forwards, shaping the purplish energy into a spiked wall that impaled the hapless creatures in its way.

I still couldn't move my legs, a status message had popped up warning me of the frozen condition and I had to move myself out of the line of fire by scooting along on my hands. Farrah caught a spike in the shoulder but followed through with an axe strike to the body of a swirling icy thing just beyond my sight. Karl would have seen the ambush coming before it got this bad. I scooted away as another spike slipped through and Victoria called out the name of our newest foe. "Frost elementals!"