Sahara Desert, April 2047
Shalindren.
The name was carved perfectly over the entrance and lit up with magic to make it visible from many miles away.
The Faeran hive dungeon was taller than the tallest skyscraper. It was as wide as its height. A great, blocky shape standing out of the flat, empty dunes.
A mega structure to put any of the man made ones to shame.
From a distance the tan surface looked smooth. It wasn’t until one got close could they see that it was pockmarked with holes, some large enough to drive giant earth movers through.
A raging sandstorm assaulted Shalindren on all sides with a hot, whirling sand strong enough to scour the flesh off a man or the chitin off a Faeran.
Strangely, the storm left the sprawling tent city a half mile away alone.
“Fuckin’ hell, mate. This is the first Quest they send us on?”
“Shut up, Scotty. No complaints. We’re on our best behavior, remember?”
The smaller muscle-bound man shoved the larger muscle-bound man’s hand off his chest plate.
“‘Us’,” the third man was as tall as the second, but much leaner. “Not ‘they’. It’s ‘us’ now, remember?”
The trio sat in a closed tent.
It was huge, tall enough for them to stand to their full height, though when two of them transformed the roomy space would get awfully cramped quickly.
The sat on cushions waiting.
Cal entered without a word.
The trio stood and tried to loom over him.
A natural testing of each other for dominance in their mistaken belief in the alpha concept of pack dynamics.
Flawed for a variety of reasons, least of which was that they weren’t dogs, they were humans… mostly.
“Chance, Scotty and Malachi,” he pointed to the largest, the shortest and the leanest.
The first participants of the California State Government’s amnesty program.
“I’m ‘Cal Cruces’. You’re here by choice, yes?”
Three nods.
“This is your last chance to back out. Say the word and I’ll hold you out of the Quest. You’ll wait here and when I take you back to Sacramento you can get on with your quiet, productive life. No more fighting unless it’s in defense of the city.”
Silence.
“I suppose a short introduction is in order. You don’t know me, but I’m one half of the pair that shattered the Deep Azure’s physical avatar. I also occasionally clear out fishmen deep in our oceans. They are scattered at best.”
That drew wide eyes and a scowl.
“I promise you that they’ll never rise to the same power that they had over your city. So, if you’re clinging to that hope, don’t.”
Malachi raised a hand. “I wasn’t. Fuck those weird cult guys.”
“And yet you stayed with them even as they weakened over the years. As more and more people risked the distance and dangers to flee to Sacramento.”
“I was helping people escape. Covering for them and stuff like that. Uh… they tested me under truth spell.”
“You only started doing that five years ago.”
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “I don’t know, it was hella wack, you know? I was just a kid, got a crazy power and I thought I was helping people. Life was pretty good. Kept the monsters away. Had plenty of food and stuff. We were living lives that wasn’t much different from before the spires.” The man’s words came out in a torrent. “The cult stuff was weird. People getting tentacles and lobster claws, but I figured it was just like all the magic and Skills. Fishmen. Didn’t believe that stuff about them using women to… uh… spawn. Thought it was just Sactown propaganda cause they were jealous. When I realized it was true it was too late. We’d been fighting for a while. I killed Sactown fighters. They tried to kill me. I figured I had nowhere else to go, so I did what I could to help. When… uh… you, I guess, got rid of the Deep Azure it wasn’t as bad. Fishmen stopped being around as much. Sometimes it’d be years before I saw one. The cult was still kinda sketchy, but cult’s gonna cult, you know?” He shrugged.
“No.”
“Yeah… er…” Malachi stammered into silence.
Cal regarded the two weredogs.
“That’s where Malachi stands. Do either of you want to unburden yourselves?”
“I don’t got shite,” Scotty grunted. “Did bad shite. Kill or be killed. Dinnae rape nobody, dinnae kill nobody that wasn’t trying to do me the same.”
“What my friends are trying to say, sir, is that we understand our positions here. We recognize that we fought on the wrong side. We’re willing to do everything it takes to prove ourselves valuable to your cause,” Chance said.
“That’s why you’re here. Follow orders. I don’t waste lives, so get that thought out of your heads. I’m here because the governor asked for a favor. This is your first test and the start of your atonement. It’s going to be a difficult road, but if you truly believe that you want and deserve the opportunity then you’ll walk it no matter how long and thorn-filled it is. That’ll be all. Your time is yours until Quest start. I’d suggest reviewing the briefing.”
Malachi lingered in the tent.
“Um… sir?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll do anything to stop the dreams.”
“There are deeper consequences for consorting with eldritch evils, but maybe in time and with honest effort your nights will grow less dark.”
“I hope so.”
Cal remained standing.
Sitting in the cushions wouldn’t project the right image.
An old American soldier ducked into the tent shortly after Malachi’s departure.
The man’s face was cracked and beaten by decades of harsh exposure to the hot sun and dry winds. His hair and beard had gone snow white.
The weight of ages lay upon the soldier’s shoulders like a thick cloak. Despite it, he straightened and did his best to loom.
There were drawbacks to usually being the shortest man in any given space and Cal refused to be so petty as to float a foot off the ground just to be the one looking down on others.
“People need us, so I’ll make this quick. We don’t need you and your troops.”
Captain Walker spat a brown goop onto the sand, revealing stained and missing teeth.
“Then why’re you wasting my time?”
“Doing you a favor. I can take you home.”
“Then just do it and you’ll have my eternal gratitude.”
“No. You and your soldiers have done bad things.”
“I ain’t proud, but we did what he had to survive. You going to add the good things we’ve done to your moral calculations?”
“Yes, actually. If you had gone full marauder we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Alright, that’s clear. You can take us home? Some of us will want that. So, the only thing I want to hear out of your mouth is what we’re gonna have to do to get that? I’m thinking its got something to do with the fucking bugs.”
“We’re going to kill them all and rescue their captives.”
“Figured,” Captain Walker snorted. “Knew that Terminus shit was gonna screw things. Over ten years of Shalindren being a great place to level, get Quests and gear. One fucking night and it goes to shit.” He spat. “Bugs just buzzed out of there and started grabbing people from all the closest settlements. We fought them, you know? My company. Lost a lot of good men and women. Some of the last that have been with me since the beginning bit it. Good local soldiers too. Listen, I know they aren’t American citizens, but they get a spot too, if they want it.”
Calling Captain Walker’s company that was a bit of a misnomer.
It was much larger at about 500 fighting men and women.
The night of terror against the Faeran swarm had whittled a fifth away.
The vast majority of his men and women had been drawn from various local populations in the decades since the spires had emerged and cut the American soldiers off from their home.
Of the original they were down to less than 30 grizzled veterans. Most of them were well past retirement age.
The rest had died in the intervening years or had given up thoughts of returning home to settle at one of the local settlements.
“Anyone that wants to go will be included.”
“Loot? We want twenty percent of the shared rewards. Standard distribution. You pick, I pick draft style. Descending level order.”
“No.”
Captain Walker frowned.
“You can stay for that if you want, but you’ll miss the flight. When I leave, you leave or your stuck here until the next time I happen to be in the area.”
The captain chewed in silence and glared.
He spat again.
“I want to get you a list of people I’m taking with me. You can’t leave until all of them are accounted for.”
“Agreed. You can fit your greed rolling for loot in that window. Let’s say, fifteen minutes. I’ll make the announcement for departure and will wait that long. Not a second longer.”
“What about casualties? What if my guys are too injured to travel?”
“A non-issue.” He didn’t elaborate.
“What do we need to do?”
“You’re with me. We’re going into the heart of the hive to kill the queen.”
“Fuck off!” Captain Walker spat. “That Quest is rated Level 70 for a twenty man group.”
“That’s why I’m going to suggest you only bring along those above 40. That should keep you close to parity with her elite.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re not directly fighting the queen. You’re going to provide extra manpower to pull out captives and protect them and the way out. It’s search and rescue for you and your troops. I fight the queen, you sweep the central area of the hive.”
“I’m not stupid. That sounds like a grinder.”
“It is. Casualty rates will be much lower for the groups fighting outside the hive and assaulting the entrance.”
“You’re going to hold the hope of home over our heads to get us to go on this suicide mission?”
“You’re soldiers. Isn’t your existence transactional? You fight and risk your lives in exchange for something. A cause. A way out of poverty. Tuition. The chance to do violence where it’s perceived as acceptable. That’s how it’s always been. Correct me if I’m wrong.”
“What about my guys that aren’t leveled enough?”
“They can fight with the rest. I will consider their tickets home on an individual basis. The better person they are the more likely they’ll get one. Scumbags will have to stay here. I will keep them in mind for future Quests and future opportunities to go home.”
“You’re a cold bastard. How much time do we got?”
“A little over thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be back in fifteen.” Captain Walker turned on his heel and strode out of the tent.
When he returned Cal had the entire company at his disposal.
The Quest clock ticked ever closer to zero.
Cal walked through the tent city.
The woman kept her storm on Shalindren, but stray gusts would periodically sweep over the colorful canvas and cloth.
Sand got everywhere.
In hair.
In fur.
In eyes, ears and nostrils.
Except for Cal and a few others with the means, like the magus and her small group.
They waited within her magical forcefield.
The monster eye blinked down upon them with its benevolent gaze, which was ironic considering the monster she had taken it from was nothing of the sort.
“Cal.” The magus waved him through when he allowed her to notice him standing just on the edge of her dome.
“It’s almost time. Are you ready?”
“We are.”
“The younglings?”
“Hey, we’re, like, over twenty,” Willy said.
“Hmm, when I look at you I still see the same chubby-cheeked kids hanging onto Ms. Teacher’s robes when we first met.”
“Mr. Cruces is just hazing us as is the standard practice,” Jennylyn said.
“Which one of them talked? Cammi? Rupert?”
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She simply gazed at him with serenity.
“That look is very Ms. Teacher-like. Practicing daily in front of the mirror is paying off.”
She reddened.
How had he known?
“We are ready to do our part,” she said stiffly, rallying.
One hand lay on the spellbook chained to her waist.
Its pulsing warmth brought the young wizard comfort.
“Good. Because we are about to start.”
Radio telepathy on, he thought.
Howard checking in. Mercs are locked and loaded.
This is the Solar Tyrant’s dad. I’m ready to crack this abomination, finally.
“Who’s that?” Willy whispered.
“Shut up! You’re distracting everyone!” Jennylyn hissed.
Gearlok here with Khamaseen and the rest. We’re waiting on your go.
Emerald Raptor speaking. I’ve got eyes on Faeran hiding in their holes. Ready to give them a warm hello.
Cal regarded the magus.
“I’m ready,” she said. Her jaw clenched. She hadn’t taken part in anything more dangerous than a standard monster attack defense in the decade since the carnage at the Slaver King’s banquet. And she had always fought from a distance. Not in close quarters like the hive. “My people are in there and they need us.”
He turned to Willy and Jennylyn.
“Quest’s on. So, you ready, Wet? Lynjenny?”
He scowled at the injustice.
She rolled her eyes at the laziness.
We are a go. Fight well. Don’t die.
----------------------------------------
The dreaded desert wind, Khamaseen, grunted from the strain.
Heat had stopped bothering her the moment she had gained her powers decades ago, yet sweat dripped down her smooth face.
She had never maintained a sandstorm of such size for the duration while keeping it in one place.
Her loyal family surrounded her, guarding against the insects and the disparate groups of hardened fighters gathered for the grandest quest most of them had ever participated in.
Locals mixed with bands from old countries on the shores of the Mediterranean, from the Middle East and Africa.
Among their number were several bands of foreigners, soldiers and such, that had been cut off from their true homes when the spires had emerged long ago.
“Beware the bullet in the back,” Marwan urged the others.
They stood surrounded by dangerous men and women. Many of whom they had clashed with in the past.
Shalindren was a dark, ominous mountain partially-hidden in her sandstorm.
It had been a place of uneasy truce for over a decade.
The rewards of the dungeon had stayed the blades of long-held grudges and natural enmity.
Until the treacherous insects had revealed their truth intentions with the Terminus Decree.
In one night great buzzing swarms swept across the closest communities, carrying people back to their hive dungeon.
Khamaseen had never trusted the invaders and thus she found herself allied with more invaders.
Better human invaders than insect ones.
Her band was one of the smaller. Less than a dozen. What they lacked in numbers they made up for in levels. Not a one was below 40. Battle-hardened from years of constant conflict. Against monsters. Against other humans. And against a fouler thing on that one terrible occasion.
Unlike the other groups, she had left those under Level 30 to guard their hidden desert oasis and the rest of their family.
“Halt!” Marwan barked.
“Relax.” The machine man’s voice was deep and booming. “We’re on the same side.”
“For now. What is it you want, foreigner?”
The wind carried the soft whirring sounds and hums emanating from the Black American with his every movement to her ears.
“Half you guys are facing the wrong way,” he nodded to the circle surrounding her. “You don’t got to do that. There ain’t gonna be no backstabbing today.”
“Concern yourself with your duties. We’ll handle ours.”
“That’s what I’m doing. We’re about to start. I’m here to let her know when to drop the giant tornado.”
The machine man stood silently, bristling with weapons.
Just like an American to be covered in enough guns for an entire squad.
He had old guns. The same kinds that had killed countless numbers of innocent people in her lands going back generations.
He had new guns. Sleek, shiny things that glowed with colored lights. The kinds that belonged to the fantastical worlds in the movies she remembered watching as a child.
Minutes of silence passed.
Pride granted a stone mask over her face.
To show weakness while surrounded with enemies and potential enemies couldn’t be allowed.
The machine man raised a hand.
“Drop the storm!” he barked.
She almost sagged with relief as she released her power.
The sandstorm dwindled to nothing faster than what was possible for a natural one.
Shalindren, the great pentagonal mountain, stood revealed for a brief moment before fire from all sides engulfed it.
The barrage lasted mere seconds.
The powerful foreigners had scoured the entire region for old artillery weapons.
Time had been against them to refurbish and rearm the ancient dealers of death of countless innocent civilians.
Thus, they were already out of ammunition.
A falling star burned bright even in the daylight as it plunged straight from the heavens into Shalindren with the crash of a hundred thousand thunders that shook the ground beneath their feet, sending a cloud of sand rushing in their direction with the shockwave.
Khamaseen blew it away with a wave of her hand, protecting her family and temporary allies.
War cries erupted as they moved toward the Faeran hive dungeon.
Marwan held her family back.
Let the bloodthirsty pay for their greed.
She gazed back toward the massive tent city a half mile away that had sprung up over a decade ago.
The place served as a base catering to the greedy fools hungering for the dungeon’s rewards.
It had grown impressively over the years.
There!
She spotted the tiny shapes flying straight up.
They vanished suddenly.
The echo of a distant boom reached her ears a split-second later.
It was good to have confirmation that the powerful foreigners were true to their words… so far.
She turned her attention back to Shalindren.
A Skilled eye might’ve noticed the shapes displacing the whirling dust and sand as they moved through the cloud. Or, perhaps, a spell that detected movement.
Many among the gathered had these Skills and spells.
However, the battlefield was equal in the sense that both sides possessed Skills and spells.
Faeran skirmishers and assassins shed their camouflage to strike.
Death heralded by buzzing wings descended upon them.
Faeran guns, partially-living things connected to their bodies by worm-like tubes burrowing underneath their colorful chitin, spat finger-length darts that ate through armor and burrowed into flesh with an acid-like enzyme and a circular mouth filled with hundreds of serrated teeth.
Their second set of arms, scythe-like, speared through armor or took heads.
It was like facing a seven-foot tall hybrid between a mantis or wasp and a human.
The greater part of their number struck at Khamaseen’s position.
Oh, they knew each other well.
For twelve years she and her family had eschewed most of the dungeon’s Quests to focus on the ones that placed them in direct combat with the Faeran.
She knew this day would come and she had wanted to kill as many of them as she could.
Taunting Skills pulled their ire from her to her family.
She called on the wind, moving her arms in circular motions to sweep each stealthy assassin in their own personal tornado of hot, scouring sand.
She stripped them of their chitin, microscopic layer by layer, but the true killer was the heat.
From experience, she knew that they’re insides cooked long before their natural armor failed.
Apparently, they tasted like the worst lobster in the world according to Marwan and a few of the others.
They reasoned that since the Faeran ate human flesh, then it was a fair exchange. An eye for an eye. A pound for a pound.
The machine man shouted something she didn’t catch over the cacophony of violence. He gestured to the sky in the direction of the hive dungeon.
She glanced and saw nothing, not even the telltale voids in the dust and sand that revealed the camouflaged monsters.
He snarled and shook his head, drawing that large, sleek gun from his back and shot into the sky.
A bright blue orb of crackling electricity the size of a fig streaked out.
It reached perhaps 200 meters when it exploded outward into a massive sphere.
A dozen suddenly-revealed Faeran fell to the sand twitching. Their charred chitin and softer underflesh smoked as they fought to regain control of their nervous systems.
Ball Lightning? Lightning ball? Or any of the derivative spells?
Khamaseen was familiar with how those felt.
The machine man’s gun had shot a spell if she could trust the senses she received from the threads of wind flowing to her.
The roar of jet engine overhead made her flinch, taking her back to her childhood.
She reminded herself that she was no longer a powerless child.
A big, stocky man in green and purple armor flew atop a sleek, silvery wing, like from that old movie.
He cut through her dust cloud like a shark through water.
Bullets ripped from the guns mounted in the wing, shredding through a handful of buzzing Faeran that hadn’t been visible a moment before.
Damn Americans, she thought, they can see through the camouflage.
A new world and their weapons of war were still beyond her people.
She envied the flier.
Her flight was nowhere near as graceful or effortless.
He zoomed over the downed Faeran.
A small, glinting object dropped from his wing to consume the insects in a sudden bloom of yellow-orange.
The machine man gesticulated toward another patch of sky.
“Damn you! I don’t have your fancy eye! To see through their cloak, let alone the sand! Marwan!”
“Yes, leader?”
“Where that American is pointing…”
Marwan squinted through his goggles.
“I see nothing.”
“Hidden insects.”
“Understood.” He whistled for two other family members. “Explosion bullets!” He pointed to the same spot as the machine man.
Old guns spat bullets. An entire magazine in seconds.
Ordinary bullets, until transformed by a powerful Skill.
Each bullet became a roadside bomb.
Fire, explosive force and the equivalent of a few boxes of nails sent shooting out at tremendous speed.
A wide swathe of dust-obscured sky cleared instantaneously, revealing bloodied Faeran.
“Hatem!” she pointed.
The old man raised his hands and chanted a prayer.
A column of flame erupted from the ground to swallow the Faeran.
“Now, my leader!” he panted.
She punched her hand into the sky and enveloped the fire and the Faeran inside a swirling ball of wind.
Marwan enjoyed calling it the world’s deadliest convection oven.
Her family cheered, roaring her name.
“Khamaseen! Khamaseen! Khamaseen!”
The machine man pushed his way past her protectors.
Bold and unafraid of their weapons and strength.
She instantly hated him for his arrogance.
“You guys need to move up and support them, like agreed,” he growled, gesturing toward the enormous ramp leading up to Shalindren’s entrance.
The ramp itself was the size of one of the smaller pyramids her homeland was famous for.
Men and women fought Faeran.
Their standard soldiers were larger, beefier than the swift and agile skirmishers and assassins.
Some of the soldiers, the ones with the thickest chitin and the extra pair of shield-like arms held a thin line across the entire breadth of the ramp.
They and those behind them fired their living ammunition into the magic shield erected by mage-types and priest-types.
The Faeran had their own spellcasters hidden amongst the soldiers.
Their presence only made known by the interlocking hexagonal shields of amber-colored light protecting their heads from the spells and grenades lobbed by her temporary allies.
“We need to threaten a breach. Draw out more of them. That’s only a fraction of their numbers. We need to empty the hive down to the tiniest insect.”
“I remember your plans. My family!” she called. “Come. Once again we fight for our people. Twelve years we struggled alone against that insidious blight upon our home!” she thrust her finger toward Shalindren. “While the rest were blinded by their greed, our eyes remained open. Today is the day that it ends!” she roared. The wind howled, echoing her rage. “Destroy the insects! Save our people!”
Her family roared her name and raised their weapons to the hot winds swirling above them for while it cooked and scoured their enemies it caressed their faces with the warm, gentle hand of a loving mother.
“You are heavy,” she said to the machine man.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got jump jets. Ain’t no landing I can’t handle, no matter who rough the flight.”
“We’ll see about that,” she snorted.
The winds answered her call and carried them to the battle.
The landing was rough and hard as it always was.
The damn American had tiny jets in the back of his boots and in the pack on his back.
True to his word he landed like he had just stepped off a curb rather than fall from five feet above the sandstone ramp.
“We’re pincering!” he barked into his metal wrist. “We need you to push hard!”
The American was half machine.
She wondered what had led him to such a ghastly existence.
One arm, one leg and most of one side of his torso was made of metal and composite materials. Plastic certainly and plates that resembled the ceramic found in the bullet resistant vests soldiers wore.
His face was the worst.
Only half of the original flesh and blood remained.
His dark skin was lined and weathered.
He looked more like a grandfather when one didn’t look at his strong, muscular body.
The old man’s one natural eye looked tired.
Faeran soldiers at the rear of the formation turned to face them.
Her family and the machine man didn’t need further orders.
They opened fire.
Her side won the exchange.
Their levels carried them over the advantages the Faeran possessed in their natural physical superiority and in the quality of their chitin armor and living guns.
The machine man’s futuristic gun was better than them all.
He blasted through an amber shield.
The second round pierced straight into the heart of the entire Faeran formation, spreading crackling lightning to dozens.
That was definitely just like Nesma’s chain lightning.
A sudden quaking threatened to take them off their feet.
“That’s it,” the machine man grunted. “We’ve got incoming.”
She gazed up to Shalindren.
The angry hive had enough of being kicked.
Thousands of wings filled the sky with a deep, droning dread.
They swarmed out from three different places.
Slithering like snakes, the dark columns were thick enough to shade those fighting on ground from the sun.
The swarms split in five directions.
She could do nothing for the other four.
That wasn’t the end of the nightmare rapidly approaching them all.
Skittering legs crawled out of the holes pockmarking Shalindren’s otherwise smooth, sand-colored walls.
True insects.
Stinging scorpions and wasps.
Flesh-tearing scarabs and beetles.
There were normal ones.
And there were those twisted by the Faeran’s magic or brought from other worlds.
Those grew up to sizes large enough cut a man in half with one snip of its massive claws or to carry a man away into the night sky.
“How will you take care of this?” she thrust a finger at the machine man.
His leader had said that the overwhelming numbers wouldn’t be a big issues and had failed to elaborate when she had pressed him.
For a moment, she regretted not being more forceful as the hordes bore down on them.
Until they suddenly weren’t.
She blinked.
The insect hordes exploded.
Pulped into the hard stone walls of Shalindren or into the desert sands.
It was as though a million giant boots had just stepped on all of them.
Oh, a few remained, partially crushed, lucky enough to avoid being splattered entirely or large and powerful enough to survive.
As for the Faeran?
Most of the flying ones plummeted to the ground as though their wings had been plucked by a sadistic child.
“Y’all wanted a leveling opportunity. You got it. It’s still the fight of your lives, but it ain’t no stomp anymore. And it ought to empty that damn place out of all but the queen’s guards, so that we can do what really matters,” the machine man said.
“Save the people,” she nodded.
“Yup.”
Her jaw firmed.
She raised a hand and swept her arm across.
A mighty wind blew the Faeran out of formation.
Human warriors roared up the ramp, while her family pressed from above.
She turned with the machine man to face the Faeran marching out of the entrance.