Ironically, the psychic miasma generated by the mother worm was a boon to Cooper.
The Dread Paladin drew nothing from the worm-ridden trogs since the worms were resistant.
Now that he was surrounded his mind cleared.
The fight above had Cooper falling deeper in the Dread Paladin more than he had in many years.
He saw them, felt their fear and dread as they fought against the worm-ridden near one end of huge cavern.
The way out had been shut.
The worms could shape the earth better than even the Bat People.
It took every bit of skill and power the latter had to keep the former out of their territory. And even then they suffered occasional incursions.
But this?
This was bad.
The worms had never before reached so close to the surface.
There was too much space to cover with the wards and the Threnosh speakers.
Three dimensions made it much harder.
An ocean of stone and earth.
Cooper’s limbs were lead.
His entire body thrummed and throb from countless wounds.
The severity was only just eclipsed by the variety.
They healed, but slowly as he had expended much strength with little to draw from the worm-ridden trogs.
He resisted taking more from the people.
Driving them to terror would weaken them against the worms and they served a better purpose by fighting.
He reaped the twisted white-skinned trogs by the dozens with his spear and sword while their crude weapons bounced of his heavily-damaged armor.
Fodder.
Irrelevant.
The mother worm was the important target.
She had to be nearby.
Somewhere in the cavern hiding in the darkness? Or, more likely, safely ensconced in stone and earth.
But, they were hungry, greedy things.
The biological imperative to go forth and multiply was just below the imperative to survive.
The Bat People were immune, so they weren’t attacked with mindless fervor.
Humans were different.
It had been made clear in past encounters.
As it was now with the way the worm-ridden trogs began to ignore Cooper in favor of swarming toward the others.
The adventuring band had bitten off more than they could chew with their foolish invasion attempt.
Cooper blamed himself for not killing them all up above when he had the chance.
Now, they were going to suffer infection.
And yet, they fought.
Spells and bullets flew, mowing the worm-ridden trogs by the dozens.
Their white-skin burned or were riddled with holes, yet they continued to attack.
The worms in their brains forced the body to move well-past the point it could be considered biologically viable.
“Destroy the heads!” the dark-skinned mage punctuated the order with a thin beam of light from his hand that entered through a worm-ridden trog’s eye before exploding it.
The small young woman with the lopsided clay jug sent a hundred thread-like tendrils of blood to coat a hundred heads. Her gaze narrowed for a split-second before the blood-drenched heads caught fire.
She hadn’t used that spell on Cooper from what he remembered.
The fierce battle ended abruptly.
Their gazes snapped to him.
It wasn’t over.
The worms wouldn’t have expended so much energy to open up hundreds, if not thousands of feet of earth and stone to bring them down here just to give up after throwing a thousand fodder at them.
“Stop,” he rasped. “They aren’t done.”
He allowed the dark helm to recede into nothing.
One eye was still dark, he noticed.
“What did you say?” the dark-skinned mage said.
Cooper, not the Dread Paladin, explained their situation in precise, perfunctory words.
Fight and live or fight and die.
There was no running.
Not this deep.
Help was on the way.
The Bat People would have detected the worms’ working. They knew to contact Cal. But, they weren’t coming. They would stick to defending their caverns as was protocol.
“He’s lying.” The short young woman with the very dangerous fang sword glared.
“I didn’t hear you say what you wanted,” the dark-skinned mage said.
Cooper regarded them with silence for several long seconds.
“So, these worm things are going to go in our brains and take over? And you’re down here working with the bat monsters to keep them from getting to the surface. That’s because you and them are immune. That’s why no humans, except you— and I use that term loosely— are down here full time.”
“Yeah.”
The tall young woman with the weird helmet had never taken her strange gun off him. “Did we just give them a way out?”
“He’s lying.”
“Not about the worms.” The small young woman with the jug full of blood used one tendril to root around in a pulped trog head. She pulled out a wriggling white thing. It was about a foot long and as thick around as a noodle. Tiny tendrils impossible to see unless one had enhanced vision or it happened to catch the light just right emerged from its glistening skin and stretched hungrily towards them. “Yuck.” Her face twisted. “Should I save it for study?”
“No,” Cooper said. “Destroy it.”
“You don’t call the shots. You look like you can barely stand,” the big man with the big gauntlets said.
“Once it burrows into your skin you have minutes at best to kill it, seconds at worst. I’ve been told that being ridden is beyond your worst nightmare. You’re conscious throughout. It won’t allow you to sleep. Won’t allow you a moment’s silence. No rest. Not even oblivion. You will know, see and feel everything it does with your body until it finally ends. Some of those trogs you killed are centuries old.”
“Bullshit!” the big man spat.
“The worms master your biology in ways we can only dream of. You’d be functionally immortal.”
“Yeah, okay, so bad news. Don’t get any worms in you,” the dark-skinned mage chuckled. “So what? That was good advice even before the spires. We do the same. Kill the worms. And that mother thing you mentioned.”
Their eyes unfocused for a split-second.
“New quest,” the dark-skinned mage said. “Perfect! As protectors of humanity we were going to take them out where you failed. The only question is what to do with you.”
“You’d still fight me after what I told you?”
“You’re a murderer—”
The mage’s words were swallowed by the sudden and violent rumbling all around them.
“I warned you.” Cooper re-formed his helmet. “The trogs weren’t the worms’ only victims,” he rasped.
“Scatter!” the dark-skinned mage said.
The fang sword-wielding rogue-type vanished.
The big man scooped up the mage and the gunwoman under each arm while the bloody jug woman leapt on his back, grabbing the handle built into his armor.
He made a mighty leap out of the massive jaws sweeping up from beneath the stone and earth.
The giant monster was bigger than a tank.
It was mole-like aside from the lack of a head.
Why have a head when it could just have a teeth-filled mouth in the neck?
Cooper didn’t know if it was the monster’s original form since the worms could alter their host’s anatomy to suit their needs.
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The monster was a tank and A.P.C. in one horrible package.
It landed its bulk on the floor like a beached whale, cracking stone and scattering plumes of dust and debris.
Blisters on its sides and back recessed into its thick, stone-like white hide popped.
They disgorged hundreds of worm-ridden monsters and trogs.
Cooper strode forward with a weapon in each hand.
He was stopped short by an acrid liquid splashing between him and the worms.
The blaze ignited a split-second later.
A wide arc of chest high fire cut the charge off.
The sudden brightness stopped them more than the heat for their hosts were adapted to the dark.
“Lights out!” the dark-skinned mage fired multiple light orbs in random directions.
Blood splattered then ignited into little bonfires.
The big man hurled mundane road flares all the way to the thousand foot cavern ceiling. A few got trapped in crevices while most fell back to the floor.
“This place is fucking huge,” he said. “Like that movie, man. Drums in the deep and shit, but it’s not drums is it? It’s worm monsters inside other monsters.”
“There’s a tunnel back there.” The rogue-type gestured to the far end of the cavern.
“Don’t. Down here you don’t blindly trust tunnels. You saw what they did to bring us down here,” Cooper rasped.
“You know the way out?” the dark-skinned mage said.
“No.”
“Then shut up if you aren’t going to be helpful. I don’t think we should run anyways. We can take them. I’ve still got plenty of mana.” As if to prove it, he raised his hand and added to the flames, pushing them forward like a wave.
Worm-ridden monsters and trogs screamed, bubbled and burst.
“Deon, I’m running low on ammo,” the young woman with the weird helmet and gun whispered.
“I’m good to fight,” the big man said.
“Same,” the bloody young woman said.
“It’s moot.” Cooper had superior hearing. He heard it coming from the very same tunnel.
The worm mother, grotesquely swollen crawled on the ground like a slug. Other… things… helped push and drag her.
So many different light sources cast so many shadows.
They writhed and this time it wasn’t the Dread Paladin’s doing.
The worm mother’s scream was silent.
It wasn’t a thing of sound to be heard with the ears.
Their brains exploded with sudden, stabbing pain.
“Counter… Deon…” the big man said through grit teeth.
The rest, besides the mage, had been rendered momentarily unconscious.
“I don’t even know what to counter!”
The Dread Paladin hurled his spear like a rocket.
The worm mother ate it.
Her scream silenced.
“Don’t let her concentrate.”
The worm mother wasn’t alone.
More worm-ridden swarmed out of the tunnel, squeezing past her swollen bulk even as Deon blasted her face with a surprisingly varied array of spells.
Most higher level mages tended to specialize because through that path lay more powerful upgrades to the basic spells. One could only pick up so many spells through level ups and purchasing them from the spires. It was also a matter of mana efficiency.
The big man punched the floor. It broke in a wave-like motion, tossing the leading monsters off their feet.
The rest woke up.
The young woman with the weird helmet and gun shot a wide, cone-shaped spread that ripped them to pieces.
Bloody whips struck heads or where the small mage thought the head was.
As for the rogue-type?
The Dread Paladin had lost track of her.
She reappeared on top of the worm mother.
The nightmare monster was backing into the tunnel to escape the barrage she was being fed.
“Hollis!” Deon screamed. “Get back!”
She didn’t listen.
Instead, she stabbed the fang sword into the worm mother.
The Dread Paladin had felt its bite.
The venom was potent.
Had he not been of high level and stout supernatural constitution he would’ve died then.
As it was the venom still coursed through his body, fighting against his naturally powerful healing abilities.
The worm mother was strong, but even her bloated flesh began to melt.
Unfortunately for the one called Hollis the worms were masters of the host body.
They could make it do things heretofore unknown or even that which science had deemed impossible.
The flesh Hollis stood on turned soft like quicksand. Sticky like honey.
She cursed and stabbed around her boots as she sunk quickly to her knees.
The flesh melted, allowing her a moment to pull free.
One boot popped out.
Then she screamed before toppling off the worm mother’s back and to the floor with her leg gone at the knee. The blood trailed her in the air from the stump.
“Shit! Brand!” Deon snapped as he fired spells at the worm-ridden monsters rushing to his teammate.
The worm mother rolled over the screaming Hollis before the big man could reach her.
He landed a leaping punch in the mother’s flabby side, sending rippling shockwaves across her body.
Somehow, he managed to push her off and drag his teammate free.
Another mighty leap and he was back with Hollis in his arms like a child.
She was covered in the slime familiar to the Dread Paladin.
“The worms! Are they in her?” Brand said. “Fuck! Get them out, now!”
Deon held a hand over her as she began to convulse.
“How!” he snapped. “Elandria! Any ideas?”
The tall young woman with the weird helmet and gun kept shooting.
“Saint! The worms are in Hollis. In her blood. Can’t you just kill them?”
“I can try, but someone’s going to have to hold the monsters off. I need all my concentration not to mess her insides up.”
“You better hurry,” the Dread Paladin warned. “It one reaches her brain—”
“Shut up, murderer!” Deon snapped.
Saint turned her blood tendrils to Hollis. She pushed them through the nose, ears and mouth.
Smart to attempt to head the worms off at their destination rather than chasing them.
He couldn’t see what was happening inside Hollis, so all he had to go on by how her body reacted and the look on Saint’s face.
The former convulsed violently as Brand tried to gently hold her in place.
Beads of bloody sweat formed on the latter’s forehead.
Even in their fierce fight, the Dread Paladin had seen nothing but cool composure from the small, young woman.
Deon joined Elandria on the defense. He raised shields and fired deadly blasts while she drew on her last remaining Skills to create ammunition out of nothing.
“No! Fuck!” Saint snapped.
“What—” Brand’s eyes widened.
“One got past me! It’s in her brain!”
The Dread Paladin acted without hesitation.
He cleaved Hollis’ head from her shoulders, then pulped it with a shadowy blast.
“The worm must be destroyed,” he rasped.
Brand cursed, grabbing him by the head and holding him high with one fist cocked back.
“We have a common enemy.”
“Maybe, but we can kill them without you, murderer!” Brand roared.
Gauntleted fist struck.
Right into a dark gray blade.
Enchanted artifact met supernaturally powerful conjured weapon.
The two were blown apart by the impact, along with the tenuous peace.
Time ceased to have meaning for the combatants.
It flowed quickly as they traded attacks with fierce desperation.
It ground to a halt as they defended themselves from a slow-moving horror.
The humans fought the worms. They fought each other.
Fist and blade clashed.
Spells destroyed white skin and scorched dark gray plate.
Dark blade cut steel and superstrong skin.
Magic shields blocked dark bolts and javelins.
The chaos swirled like a whirlpool, pulling combatants from each other and throwing them against others.
In the end, no battle could last forever.
Even those beyond normal humanity had limits.
The big man, Brand, superstrong and durable found himself finally buried under a small mountain of worm-ridden monsters and trogs.
It was an open question to the Dread Paladin on whether or not the man was vulnerable to infection.
Saint’s ugly jug finally ran out of blood, but not before she had traversed the massive cavern several times on a slick red carpet like an ice skater of old. She had felled hundreds if not thousands with her red spears and whirling buzz saws.
In her final moment she had detonated another hundred along with herself rather than be taken like Hollis.
Elandria went next.
One last, terrible Skill aimed at her own feet took her in a flash of blinding light along with the entire front half of the looming worm mother.
That death sent the remaining worm-ridden in their thousands into a frenzy.
Deon cast and recast shields with one hand while firing spells with the other.
The Dread Paladin had never seen a mage cast so many spells of such intensity for so long.
He could see the heat within the dark-skinned mage rise to white hot levels.
That thing in Deon’s spine glowed like the sun.
Two remained amid mountains of corpses and a shallow sea of blood and offal.
Deon thrust his hand at the Dread Paladin, who parried the fireball with the flat of his blade.
“This is your fault. My friends. Are. Dead. Why are you even down here?”
“Atonement,” Cooper rasped.
“Funny way of doing it. We came here for humanity.”
“You were warned. By me, by the Golden Eagles. But your greed for Quest rewards deafened you.”
“You’re a murderer! You team up with literal monsters!”
“The Bat People are no different from us.”
“Bullshit!”
“They could’ve shown you had you taken a moment to stop and observe, but instead you attacked first. Killed them and your own kind.”
“They didn’t listen! None of them would’ve gotten hurt if they just let us through!”
“They are the true heroes here. Don’t you see what’s around you?”
The small mountain of corpses in the distance rumbled.
Deon glanced over.
“Your big friend’s buried underneath that. He’s superhuman, but I don’t know if he’s immune to the worms.”
“He’s too strong for them.”
“Hopefully, but are you prepared to do what’s necessary if he isn’t?”
“Shut up! I’m not killing my friend.”
“You’d be freeing him from a hellish existence.”
“According to you and I’m not just going to take the word of a murderer.”
The mountain of corpses groaned.
“There has to be a way to get them out. A spell or Skill. Anti-parasite medicine. I know alchemists.”
“So do we and nothing we’ve tried has worked. Once the worm burrows into the brain there is no way to remove it without also killing the person. The connection forged is more than just a physical one.”
“I’m not letting you kill him. I’ve already lost too much.”
“Infected can’t be allowed to reach the surface.”
“That won’t happen.”
The mountain erupted.