Thoom! Thoom!
The grenade launchers thumped softly in his large fists.
Distant concussions and shrapnel took out a tightly packed cluster of disturbingly bipedal mantis-like monsters.
He squeezed the triggers while slowly spreading his arms.
A target rich environment meant that he didn’t need to aim much, just make sure to avoid friendly fire.
Which that hairy fucker was making difficult.
Stocky bastard had plunged into one of the tunnels while on fire.
The spiraling nature of the tunnels had bothered Chance until he went into his partial weredog transformation.
He stood somewhere between man and beast. Added about seventy pounds to his already yoked-out body and got a little hairier than that runty fuck. Teeth got sharper, nails thickened and grew a point.
God damn if he didn’t want to go all out and get into the thick of things.
He knew that he could’ve cut through more of the monsters than the smug runt.
Show who the real alpha was.
He fought the urge.
Kept his eyes on the prize.
Couldn’t screw up on his first Quest to get in the good graces of the people that mattered. The ones that could give him the life that he deserved.
The Deep Azure, the fishmen, and the scions cult turned out to be losers and he was a winner.
“Grenade me!” He tossed the empty launchers over his broad shoulders.
His merc reloaders dived to catch them while another one ran forward with a freshly loaded pair.
Back to empty in a couple of seconds.
Exploded more monsters. Getting bored.
Pleasantly surprised to find out that was it.
No more grenades to launch.
A feral grin split his lips.
He glanced over to the other side of the defense to where Scotty was at.
Huh?
The beta was struggling to keep the dog in check.
Wiry black fur was growing thick on the back of his neck, raised too.
Knowing Scotty, he was itching to get into the thick of things to rip and tear like they were meant to.
Chance dropped the empty grenade launchers.
His voice came out deep, guttural as he let the transformation go to its true destination.
“Get ready to watch a real alpha at work.”
He hefted the huge, cleaver-like blade he had set against the earth mage’s wall.
A weapon seemed stupid to him when he already had all the natural weapons he needed.
They always broke or bent before after just a few whacks.
But this beast was supposed to be different.
Sized for his nine and a half-foot tall full weredog form it was made denser and more resilient by some guy that could mess with the steel on the molecular level or something like that. Honestly, he hadn’t paid much attention to that part of the briefing. A guy messing with metal brought back an unpleasant memory from a long time ago that he didn’t want to remember.
Still, the hundred pound blade felt right in his massive clawed hand.
He leapt from the wall with a howl.
Space vanished quickly with his loping run.
Each stride covered over a dozen feet.
He crashed into the thick of the monster swarm.
Friendly fire?
Fuck it!
Another upside to joining the winning team was his armor.
Chest and back plate.
Two inches thick of some kind of alien metal.
Felt like wearing nothing at all.
Bullets plinked off like nothing.
A grazing shot tore a line across the short, white fur covering his arm.
Was it dumb to opt against sleeves?
Nah.
What was the point of having the biggest real guns if he was just going to cover them up?
Shit healed quick anyways.
He swept the massive blade across like a farmer scything wheat.
Monster bits and blood sprayed everywhere.
The taste got in his fanged muzzle.
Control. Can’t cut loose. Bad impression.
He snapped his maw shut.
Though he would’ve love to take a bite or three, better to fight like a square than give in to the beast inside.
It’d make him look even better when compared to Scotty, who could really only be trusted to not take a bite or swipe at allies.
Strategy and tactics?
From Scotty?
Nah.
That crazy motherfucker was all about ripping and tearing.
Chance glanced back.
Surprise!
Scotty was still on the wall, shooting grenades.
He must’ve really wanted to make a good first impression on the Cruces fuck.
That was the most reasonable take out of the whole thing as far as Chance was concerned.
Manlet motherfucker was gonna solo the Faeran Queen and all her elite guards.
Had to put respect on that.
A praying mantis-looking fuck stabbed into his chest.
The plate took it, but the limb slipped off and pierced into his bicep.
Now that deserved something more than a crushing cut.
He opened wide and chomped down on the narrow, freaky-looking head. He spat it out instantly. Shit tasted bad. With monsters it was a roll of the dice.
Could taste like shit, like the best thing in the world and everything in between.
The headless monster kept striking.
Scythe-like limbs jabbed and slashed at him in a blur.
Most landed on the awesome armor, but enough got him in the arms and head that his short coat of white fur turned pink and red with his own blood.
Fucker!
No one made him bleed his own blood!
Especially not a generic mob!
He held his massive blade in a two-handed grip and gave it his best home run swing, just like the old days when he was a three-sport star back before the spires either ruined things or made things better.
Now that was a coin flip.
On his more honest days in self-reflection he realized that high school was probably the best it was going to get for him. All that was waiting for him was a job, a wife and kids. The same thing day after day only occasional broken up by a weekend drinking with his buddies. Kinda like his dad, the broken drunk fuck.
The spires killed everyone he cared about, but it gave him real power.
He sent the monster’s broken body careening into charging group of scorpion-looking fuckers ranging in size from big to gigantic.
They barely slowed, trampling the headless mantis monster.
He roared.
Let them come and die in his fangs and claws.
It was time to activate a Skill.
His already massively-muscled body swelled as a red haze swept over his vision.
“You’re… dead…” he growled.
He charged even quicker than before, catching the scorpion monsters by surprise.
His massive blade rose and fell with quickness belied by its size and weight.
Claws tore thick chitin.
Teeth feasted on the fleshy muscles hidden within.
Like shitty lobster.
He was only dimly aware of gun fire and spells falling all around him.
Streams of coordinated automatic rifle fire ripped through poison stingers before they could stab him.
Icy blasts froze skittering legs in place long enough for him to fall upon the frozen monsters.
Stone shards sprayed eyes, blinding monsters at the exact moment to protect him from their attacks, while leaving them open for his.
Danger close, though only a few stray rounds plinked off his armor or hit his exposed arms.
The grizzled old American captain saved Chance from real damage with a good company coordination Skill and he had no idea that he owed the man.
Scotty howled in the distance.
Oh good, Chance thought, dimly, because of his Skill, won’t have to listen to him bitch later about not getting any action.
----------------------------------------
The Magus of the Twelve Eyes watched the portal come to life underneath the skilled working of the young wizard.
There was a deliberate elegance in the young Jennylyn’s spell work that was missing from most of the mage-types she had ever witnessed in action.
The magus included herself in that group.
It was instinct that made the difference.
Most casters didn’t truly understand what they did when they conjured a fireball or any other spell.
It was as easy as saying ‘fireball’ for the novice. Or thinking the word as one grew more experienced. The truly experienced could simply cast the spell by intent.
Damage and magnitude was fixed along with the mana cost.
It made her think of a computer program running all the calculations in the background.
Her own spellcasting was such, whether through her monster eyes or not.
The young wizards could control how powerful a given spell was along with how much mana they put into it.
Much more efficient.
She approved.
Yet, even with those advantages Jennylyn or Lynnjenny— the magus sighed— someone needed to say something to Jayde. There was a line that shouldn’t be crossed in regards to all these young people risking their lives for a good cause. They deserved dignity. Not mockery.
The portal casting process was proving difficult.
They had already drained half the mage-types drawn from the local populace and it appeared to be only half-formed to the magus’ eye.
She studied the mana flows.
It was as it should be according to the young wizard’s plan, so she drew back and floated up to the top of their little cavern within a cavern.
Mages had raised a protective dome of stone over the portal casting area, enclosing a circular area of roughly fifty meters with a small opening at the top.
She sent one of her smaller eyes through to check on the battle, which sounded fierce from the muffled noise and occasional explosion shaking the stone dome and showering them with dust and debris.
Members of her family stood on walled platforms arrayed around the opening blasting down on the insect-like monsters with the weapons she had created with and for them.
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Waleed directed fire from rifles made out of monster bones and a single eye set in the tip, like the ones that gave her her name and class.
A large globule of burning liquid arced out of one of the many spiral-grooved tunnels.
Before she could act, Waleed raised a bone and sinew staff topped with a weeping monster eye.
The space in front of the globule opened up and swallowed it, leaving nothing.
One that could see magic would’ve sworn that an ethereal mouth filled with many rows of jagged teeth had devoured it.
Her worries turned to the two young ones that had remained outside Shalindren to aid in the aerial battle over the hot desert sands.
She could only hope that her work had been sufficient.
That the thunderbird’s feathers would grant them swift flight, that its beak would give them lightning strong enough to fell the Faeran, that its bones would protect their bodies, that the power in its split heart would last them through the battle.
“Magus!”
The other young wizard waved his arms.
She descended.
The portal was taking shape. A glowing vertical circle a hand’s span off the ground that crackled and wavered with immense magical energy. It had to for what it was needed to do.
Connecting to a thousand different beacons and opening up a thousand different portals across kilometers in some cases was no small undertaking.
The pile of drained mana gems, crystals and stones attested to that.
As did the mage-types gasping for breath or trying to force down another mana potion or simply unconscious from strain.
The nascent portal was about the size of a double door, which was where it needed to be according to Lynnjenny’s notes.
“Is it time?”
“One last push,” Wet said.
The poor young man had it the worst of all.
She hadn’t understood until the origin of his codename was explained to her.
The magus landed and sat down on the dusty stone floor, crossing her legs.
Her eyes fell into closer orbits.
She needed all her mana for the final push.
“I’m ready.”
Lynnjenny sat just outside the safe circle she had burned into the stone.
Her spell book levitated in front of her, glowing with magical energy. Her eyes hadn’t blinked in what seemed like half an hour, as if the glowing energy refused to be contained. Her pointy, wide-brimmed hat remained in place, which was impressive considering the raging wind that swirled around her.
A strange effect that.
As far as the magus knew the portal had no connection to wind magic.
Perhaps it was a result of the strength of the magical energy being released and pushed into the portal that displaced the air, creating the strange effect.
She remembered that intense wild fires were capable of creating tornadoes.
The temperature around the portal and Lynnjenny were significantly hotter than the ambient temperature.
Though not nearly as hot as a raging fire.
“Last push, magus! We’ve got to give her everything we have!” Wet urged her on. “Anything you guys can give would be great!” He turned to the other mage-types before pushing his focus and mana to Lynnjenny.
Time quickened or slowed depending on where one sat.
For the magus it did both.
Her monster eyes dimmed, listed and finally fell to the stone floor.
All her mana went to the young wizard.
Lynnjenny blazed in the heart of a tornado of magical energy.
The magus could see the mana flows from herself, Wet and the rest, snaking through the air like fast-moving streams and, in her case, a raging river.
The spell book burst into a blinding light that seared her two eyes.
Cries filled the dome.
It was a fortunate thing for them that blindness was no longer a permanent condition.
The magus could see nothing now.
She felt the mana flows dwindle until only one remained. Her raging river had been drained to a near trickle.
The pain grew excruciating.
Her hands wouldn’t obey her as they groped for her bag of holding and the mana potions like a drunkard groped for his last beer.
Somehow— she didn’t know how— a potion was in her hand and pouring down her throat.
The pain pushed all thoughts from her mind with one exception… keep the mana flowing.
Another potion found its way to her lips, then another.
The fourth didn’t come, so shaking fingers grasped at her waist.
Where’s the damn bag! she thought desperately.
That’s more than enough. Sorry.
The mana flows ceased.
They had stopped for what felt like a long time.
She was blind, yet a blazingly bright circle stood out from the center of the dome. She groped blindly, searching for the young wizards’ mana signatures. They had been closer to the source than she had been.
They’re alive, but out. They’re all out. You’re the only one left.
Oh right, she thought, radio telepathy. I’m blind. I’ll need my other eyes, but I don’t know if I can drink another potion.
One more won’t kill you, but you’ll hate me for asking you for… oh… the next month or so.
I will suffer anything for their lives.
The warm glass pressed into her shaking hand.
Another hand helped it to her mouth.
The portals are stable.
Good. I’ll start moving them through. I’ll have them send the rest of their mage-types to help, but it’ll be up to you to keep it that way.
I won’t fail.
What made this portal so difficult to cast was its unprecedented construction.
One side of the flat circle was the exit for a thousand different portals.
Portals that sprang from the stones Eron had placed in each prisoner chamber throughout the miles of Shalindren’s twisted tunnels.
The number, the distances and the thick stone and earth required so much to overcome.
The individual stones couldn’t hold enough mana to open the connection, let alone allow dozens, if not hundreds of captives passage.
The requirements grew more demanding with the other side of the flat circle for it was the entrance to a portal leading out to fortified city many miles away.
It was the safest, closest place to evacuate the captives.
The tent city was too close to the battle raging outside the hive dungeon.
It would be poor of them to rescue the people only to leave them vulnerable to recapture or death if the battle went bad.
A thousand portals to one.
Two portals in one.
Great distances for all.
It had been a great risk.
I’m moving them through.
Needles stabbed her brain, but mana flowed back into her body.
Her eyes blinked to life and resumed their floating orbit around her, if somewhat shaky.
She was no longer blind.
Unconscious captives emerged from the front face of the portal.
They were covered in a substance that looked disturbingly like cracked crystallized honey in a deep, rich amber color.
Each one floated from the front to the back before disappearing into the portal.
A hysterical giggle escaped her lips.
Mana poisoning was close to the feeling of getting high.
The sight before her reminded her of a magic trick, except those had been done with mirrors and curtains.
This was real.
----------------------------------------
Cal showed Queen Zhax’hess’sesha three things.
The death of her unborn children. Disintegrated within their human hosts. Turned into nothing more than protein to be absorbed.
Those very hosts, thousands, being spirited away from her once impregnable hive dungeon to safety.
And finally, the greatest atrocity of them all.
He took her through Shalindren. To each massive nursery chamber where Faeran children were taught and grown until they reached adulthood. It took a year for all strains, except the royals.
Empty.
All of them empty aside from the fires and clouds of ash.
Each act a devastating blow to her very existence. Made more cruel by forcing her to experience the atrocities as he did. He placed the very blade plunged into the heart of her people in her hand to twist and wrench.
She fought him with the desperate instinct of a mother protecting her children.
It was too late for her unborn, but something within her understood what he intended and she knew she couldn’t allow him to do the same to the rest of her Faeran through the hive mind.
He pushed her mental presence aside as though she was a small child.
The entire hive shared in her pain, her despair.
If one believe that evil was a matter of perspective, then he had just cemented himself as the great evil to the Faeran of Shalindren.
The one being to be feared and hated for the infanticide, the genocide.
And all for simply being who they were.
He latched onto the despair like a tiger going for a deer’s throat. He strengthened it, raising it above the swirl of warring emotions within the queen and the entire hive mind. Rage at the murder of their children fell away. Hope at a last moment level up bringing just the needed Skill or spell was strangled in its crib. Many more were swallowed by the irresistible black hole of despair.
He was the boss monster to the Faeran.
One could see it in the way the Faeran threw their all into the fight. In the way the lucky few to survive one of his attacks leveled up quickly and were granted amazing Skills or spells.
Sadly, for them, the last second power ups weren’t nearly enough.
He singled out these individuals and crushed their psyches regardless of the new mental resistance Skills and spells they desperately used.
The Faeran fought a ghost.
He stood beneath their feet, hidden underground, entombed in stone while a mental projection floated amidst the carnage of broken Faeran, killing with every gesture.
The queen suddenly found herself standing alone in her throne chamber.
Her knees trembled, her hands shook.
Tears welled up in her pair of human-like eyes.
“So, you see how hopeless it’s become.”
She turned at the voice and fired a spell of twisting amber energy that pulverized the cavern wall.
“I have taken your future.”
She spun. Amber light illuminated the darkness, revealing corpse mounds many times her height. Blood and guts leaked, forming slow-moving streams ankle deep that traced the cavern floors gentle slopes before pooling into great puddles.
“I have taken their futures.”
She blasted spells at the voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. Enough firepower to flatten a hill amounted to nothing.
“That number dwindles by the second. Your workers, your soldiers, your royals… are dying! Will you watch to the end? When all that remains are you and your royal children?”
The noise that emerged from Zhax’hess’sesha’s mouth caused him pain.
Her crushing despair was his doing.
Magic erupted from the queen, blindingly bright, it lanced out in every direction.
It was time.
He pulled her from the mindscape.
Back into reality.
To show her what she had just done to her Faeran.
Death brought by their queen.
The massive chamber had been stripped of life.
All but a handful of lucky Faeran had been destroyed by their queen’s outburst.
She tried to shut all her eyes to deny herself the sight of what she had just done.
He forced them open, moving her in a circle so that she could truly comprehend the magnitude.
“Do you see? Less than two hundred remain out of thousands. The ones fighting outside and just inside the entrance holding a desperate rearguard that you have just rendered pointless. Or the luckiest ones, even now flying and jumping their way in the futile hope that they can affect the outcome that has just been decided.” He ripped the multi-ton disk doors sealing the chambers to the royal girls and the royal boys. “Next to you, they’re your most important, aren’t they?”
The terrified Faeran children strained and struggled against the invisible hands holding them aloft as he paraded them in front of the queen.
“Are you really going to watch them die when you can save them?”
Once unchallenged pride sagged suddenly, dropping to her knees.
“A quick, certain death weighed against uncertainty. You offer the chance for life on another world, I only see more death. Worse than your evil, I see enslavement. I see countless fates worse than what you’ve brought to my beautiful Shalindren.”
The children would’ve have cried out to support their queen had he not silenced their tongues.
“My world is a Terminus. You can send them to any world, you know? Surely, there is at least one that you could find suitable.”
“Why even give me the choice? We are already at your mercy.”
“Because I made a choice. Now, make yours.” He regarded the children. “Before they run out of protectors.”
The queen fell silent, so he twisted the knife and began counting down from two hundred.
She stiffened, but remained unmoved.
As the number fell, she trembled, digging her claws into the stone floor.
150.
She made the call through their hive mind.
Retreat to me. We have been defeated. We must look to the future. The hive will endure.
She gave her last commands as the Faeran raced through Shalindren.
The bargain had been struck and he saw no duplicity in her thoughts.
All the Faeran would do as their queen commanded. They couldn’t disobey a direct order given through the hive mind.
He sped their flight by calling off his forces and sending the monsters in the Faerans’ path away.
It happened quickly.
The benefits of hive mind communication.
There was no need to take time for questions and answers.
The queen communicated everything in seconds. Their destination world and what to do when they arrived. Plans and contingencies to follow depending on what they found.
The few remaining Faeran skirmishers and assassins entered the spire without so much as a glance in Cal’s direction.
The hive mind connection couldn’t pierce the distance between worlds, but they weren’t bees. They were sapient individuals in their own right. Their loyalty remained strong.
Minutes passed as the remaining workers and soldiers gathered supplies from adjacent emergency storage chambers. They went through the treasure chamber and an armory. Taking as many of their greatest items as they could carry.
He let them because he was soft.
It could be said that the greatest weakness of his powers was the way it left him no choice but to feel empathy.
Even if it was for a species that reproduced by laying their parasitic eggs inside other sapient species.
The mindscape forced him to share the Faeran perspective as if it was his own.
He couldn’t quite bring himself or allow others to kill all the Faeran children.
Ultimately, it was a hollow gesture.
Kill a hundred, spare twenty.
An ineffective balm for the soul.
Did one think that made it less evil?
No.
Of course not.
One dead was already one too many.
Like his own species, the Faeran had just wanted to live. To reproduce. To continue their existence.
And so, mercy… knowing full well that sapients on another world would undoubtedly fall victim to the Faeran.
Or not.
Perhaps they’d be as ruthless as he failed to be and they’d put all the Faeran to the sword?
One of the last remaining royal strain adults, a mage-type, stepped into the spire.
The queen’s children clustered around her.
They embraced each other as they communicated silently for one last time.
He could feel their sadness, their fear.
The queen’s head shot up when the royal emerged.
Just like that it was time.
Soldiers went through.
Followed by workers laden with multiple bags and packs, some mundane, most magical. A few towed wheeled carts behind them.
The royal children went next, book-ended by the last of the queens elite royal guard.
When the last of the few royal mage-types disappeared into the spire it was done.
Not a one had so much as glanced in his direction.
The queen stared at the shimmering surface of the spire for what felt like an eternity before he turned off her mind and allowed her body to die.
The Quest notification chimed in his ears.
You’re done. I’m done.
Eron’s thoughts were a darkened mire of self-hatred and reproach mingled with dim sparks of half-hearted rationalizations.
There were no words to make anyone feel better about killing children, so Cal left them unsaid.
Better to focus on the good they still had to do.
I’m almost done transporting the captives to the safe zone. Can you head over there and make sure the guys I paid to stand guard don’t get any stupid ideas?
Already there.
Despite being deep underground, he felt Shalindren rumble as his brother took the quickest route, which was a straight line through tons of magically-strengthened stone and earth.
With the last captive through the portal he told the magus to shut it off and proceed with passing out.
She had been pushed beyond her limits.
He would handle the rest.