Two of Kiowa were currently left in Cecil’s room to deal with guard duty as the rest of The Whales were engaged with dispatching the still-living aberrations and dragging their carcasses over to a neat collection pile. Giant centipedes known as red crawlers were moving in, leaving Ian and Lester along with Cecil to shoot down them with their slingshots. Despite their highly dangerous venom and large size, their carapaces were no match for the high-velocity metal balls fired from the trio’s slingshots and the number of arriving centipedes weren’t enough to merit more mice on guard duty.
This allowed the team to quickly finish with the clean up and store the aberrations as well as multi-legged newcomers in record time. Arek, the team’s porter, occasionally glanced at his drone that was still observing the Arkoth nest.
“They’re still moving. I guess they assumed it’s just another case of infighting in this dungeon.” Arek’s mandibles clickled rapidly.
“We take them out and then we exit from the dungeon.” Ingrid said.
“Everyone let’s head to a redoubt.” she scanned her eyes on a nearby diagram painted on one of the walls. “We’ll reload from there.”
Ingrid pointed at the right side set of Escape Tunnels and the team jogged there. “Shooters watch the ceilings. This is the fourth level, so there could be anythi-”
“Engaging!” Cecil said, team Apache quickly shot a group of centipedes hanging from the ceiling while Kiowa hovered behind, making sure they weren’t being followed. As they needed to alert the team urgently enough if something came at them, they used their rifles.
“This takes us closer to the Arkoth nest, how ironic” Arek said as he skittered along. Behind him, Viel cast her Telekinesis spelling allowing her to drag the carcasses of felled centipedes along with them. Team Montesa also joined in shooting the centipedes, focusing on the ones further ahead.
“We’ll dispatch them!” Kinu and Kvaris quickly parkoured up the walls in order to get ahead of the team, spearing the felled centipedes to make sure they’re really dead.
As the team reached the heavy, secured door, Ingrid went first to open it up, making sure there was nothing inside. Kinu stepped up, sniffing around before announcing it was clean. With that, Ingrid hopped from wall to wall so she was the last of the team to enter Redoubt 4-3. Viel then dragged in with her telekinesis the pile of centipede carcasses before Ingrid closed the door and started putting them into her Item Box.
Inside, the mice quickly got to work reloading their guns and filling up the magazines. Selphie did the same, filling up the hollow drum barrel of her pellet gun.
Iohan started going from one party member to the next to bestow blessings on everyone. As she did so, each one paused in their activity to hold still. Glowing particles of magic and a holy symbol appeared above each party member, wrapping them in a comforting warmth. Ingrid was laying out a battle plan so Iohann gave her the blessings last. The blessing gave everyone enhanced strength. Not just simply a boost in their power output; such as how hard one could swing a sword. but also increasing constitution thus allowing them to not just run faster but run longer, for example.
“Our plan is to lure the monsters into a corridor,” Ingrid said as she laid out the battle plan.”Cecil, ready your BMG ammo, use all of it, aim for the thickest of the mobs to cut a swathe through them. “
“Understood!” Cecil said, then he hurried over to clear away the other guns a short distance away, in case he ever needed them.
“Ralph do the same for your sniper rifle, use piercing rounds.” Ralph squeaked in response.
Ingrid continued “Give the 189 additional magazines, there’s a chance they could burn through their ammunition.” again, the mice squeaked in assent. “Aim your bullets so it goes through as much weakspots like the head or chest and through as many bodies as possible.”
Ingrid patted Selphie’s head. “I want you to make a wall of whipcrawlers, so find a way to reload your weapon as quickly as possible.” Selphie nodded and she padded over to Arek so he could find a way to make this possible.
“Arek, given our situation, you will have to shoot as well.” Ingrid added.
“Yes’m” came his usual reply.
“Okay, now the warriors, and I do mean the warriors. That’s you lively bunch” Ingrid said as she turned and addressed Kinu, Kvaris, and Sammy. “I’ll need you all to stay back until I say otherwise or the enemies get too close.”
She turned towards the two casters. “Iohann get the Nyx Fish out as soon as possible, and Siria I’ll need some kind of persistent spell like your lightning strike, as well as anything you can shoot over the heads of the line of whip-crawlers.” Both girls nod.
Looking at the rest of the group she says “We’ll focus on ranged attacks as much as possible, hopefully by then, we'll have much more manageable numbers for close range combat.”
At that Iohann then approached Ingrid for her blessings. Uttering a prayer, Ingrid was wrapped in warmth and felt rejuvenated.
“Thanks Iohann.” she said.
“Booooo!” Arek teased. “Hug already!”
Ingrid scratched the back of her head and laughed nervously.
The team took one last drink of their chilled ale that Cecil had in the fridge before everyone adjusted their gear and got ready for the battle ahead.
___
Ingrid peeked over the corner found the Arkoth’s occupying the huge chamber, giving them about a good fifty feet of corridor to work with.
They were around six to eight feet tall with some outliers standing at around twelve. Their large muscular bodies had patches of scales as if they were reptiles in the last stages of adopting skin to impersonate mammals. Their horns were curved outward or to the side like bovines but they were segmented the same way one would find from sheep or goats. Their legs bend “backwards” the same way one would see from quadrupeds but their feet ended up in grotesque “paws” instead of hoofs.
Some of them were equipped with clubs and others large cleaver-like swords. For armor, they wore primitive patches of leather. None were wearing helmets, either it had something to do with their culture or they’ve yet to consider the concept, or probably they’ve yet to develop the technique to get one around their horns.
She wondered if she was looking at a village but aside from a few bonfires, totem, and carcasses hanging on a rope strung between two poles. It was likely this was some kind of hunting party or the forefront of an invasion force.
Apart from the bonfires, totems, and barebones structures to hold up smoked meat, there were no tents or larger structures. It was likely however that the dungeon’s pleasant conditions precluded such needs and they simply slept on the floor. The Arkoths were simply milling about, some were fighting each other to the excited howls and grunts of onlookers, others were tending fires where a large animal was being roasted, while others carried in the results of a fresh hunt, the monster already being beheaded. None of them were standing guard, everyone was simply minding their own business.
Kvaris peeked over as well.
“Sometimes I think they’re a big group of adventurers just like us,” Ingrid said quietly. “Or a really big hunting party.”
“Possibly, but Arkoths have always been hostile to people.” Siria said. “They’re known as the bandits of the dungeon. They see people as prey. Attempts have been made to make contact with them and they just end up being that day’s dinner.”
“Sooo…we’re looking at extra pay if we rescue any adventurers.” Ingrid said.
“I doubt it, I’ve seen no non-arkoths so far on the drone.” Arek said.
“Let’s do this then.” Ingrid said “time to represent New Gorpisal.”
Ingrid jumped in and with faster-than-the-eye-can-follow rapid succession she threw the electronic noisemakers into random directions at the demonic-looking Arkoths, followed by tear gas.
“Now!” Ingrid yelled.
At once, Arek remotely activated the noisemakers, on which he juiced the speakers so the sound was extremely loud and annoying. The ensuing irritating clouds and noise had the monsters up infighting amongst themselves as they blindly swiped at the direction of the noise.
This allowed The Whales to quickly get into position.
“Selphie, engaging!” The dryad said, shooting bursts of high-velocity wood balls into the crowd, the seeds growing aerodynamic leaves like stabilizing fins to assist with the flight. She stopped in the middle and dropped to one knee and continued shooting so long as she could see valid targets. The large number of whip-crawlers then started advancing towards the confused horde of Arkoths who still hadn't wisened up to what was going on.
At the same time, Iroquois got into action, opening fire and observing the plan that Ingrid laid out for them and making sure their shots didn’t hit the whip-crawlers to preserve their numbers. They hovered just high enough to make head and chest shots easy.
Cecil angled his shots,sweeping his gun clockwise by a bit every time he opened fire. The enhanced bullets had a devastating vacuum force that created a horizontal whirlwind that sucked in enemies and shredded them.
The 189 had taken the place of Kiowa’s portals, giving them an excellent angle of fire as well as further enhanced bullets, effectively giving Iroquois four high-powered machinegun nests. Kiowa on the ground in the meantime limited themselves to pot shots at anything that slipped past whip-crawlers, which Kinu, Kvaris, and Sammy helped with using their ring-axes and spear.
Iohan’s Nyx Fish flew into the center of the huge chamber where it hovered above reach, raining bolts of destructive energy and occasionally diving down to devour an Arkoth to refuel itself.
Meanwhile as soon as Ingrid jumped into the monsters’ view, Iohann had already begun casting her barrier spell, erecting a wall of force. It worked only one way, allowing the team to shoot through it but preventing anything else from coming in. Then, she hurried over to catch up with the team, grabbing the Ruger hunting rifle that Arek had mounted on his rig. She kept focus on the other corridor and acted as a lookout. She called to Cassie, who understood and interposed himself between the team and any interloper. Some time later during the barrage of ranged attacks, a party of bugbears wandered into view and the sight of a cockatrice had them hurrying along.
Seeing that the whip-crawlers were gaining ground, Siria used a modified Hailstone Fusillade instead, and stretched its effective area over a wider range. Large stalactites formed in thin air before dropping onto the Arkoth mobs, rolling around and crushing a few more before detonating. She also used Tempest Assault over the entrance to the corridor, creating a black cloud that attacked those that entered its range with a stroke of lightning that chained to nearby targets.
Some Arkoth spears and arrows flew through and bounced off Iohann’s barrier. Sammy, seeing a particularly big and heavy spear, turned to Viel, who understood and nodded. She used her telekinesis to bring over the big heavy spears to her. Taking a spear in hand, she jumped high, then focused mana into her body and threw it hard. It flew at extreme velocity, punching through several bodies.
Arek and Ingrid kept an eye at their escape route along with Iohann just to make sure they weren’t getting pincered. A few centipedes were attracted to the noise, causing her to direct Chris and Aiden to join Iohann on focusing on the centipedes and try to scare them off. The Arkoth numbers were becoming more manageable now and the whip-crawlers were still numerous enough. Ingrid was tempted to have the mice handle all of this but they needed to conserve bullets just in case they had another encounter.
Ingrid issued the next commands “Selphie, cease fire! 189 and Kiowa, return to your posts! Iroquois go pellets! Viel, now’s your turn!”
Selphie stepped away to the side to reload her pellet, the 189 hopped off the main portal while Kiowa resumed their posts.
“Arthur, mind those centipedes to our left!” Ingrid added.
Meanwhile, Iohann and Viel cast a spell together.
“Thorns Armor!”
“Displacer Visage!”
They uttered their spells in unison and Viel glowed with a pink aura. A doppelganger of her was created, with a swirling ring of yellow motes around her. This doppelganger then ran towards the Arkoths, taunting them and grabbing their attention as she used her cat-like agility to jump on their shoulders and generally make a nuisance of herself. Those that struck the doppelganger suffered the wrath of Iohann’s Thorns armor.
“Would you say there’s about a hundred of them left?” Ingrid said, surveying the current number of Arkoths still standing.
“About so, yes.” Kvaris says, squinting down the expanse of the chamber. “Fair odds I say.”
Ingrid smiled.
“Cease fire. Shooters, watch for the centipedes.”
Then, nodding to the melee fighters, Ingrid issued one order.
“Charge!!!”
Ingrid, Kinu, Kvaris, Sammy, and Cassie formed a line and ran at the advancing monsters. The Nyx Fish was still there, now just diving in and snatching another monster to eat while Viel’s Doppelganger continued to sow chaos among the ranks. The kobolds and Sammy were able to throw several axes and spears before they reached melee range, Cassie’s cockatrice eyes glowed and paralyzed several Arkoths, causing them to collapse and have convulsions.
In a move that reminded Ingrid of kung-fu movies, Cassie leapt and performed rapid kicks with talons as he sailed over their horned heads before quickly running around and repeating the process. On occasion he would also “punch” Arkoths with his deceptively long wings, aiming for their knees which buckled them and allowed him to pounce and tear the demon-like creatures’ head off in a single motion.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The Kobolds saw extensive use of their spears thanks to the large open space they were fighting in. They alternated these with axe and sword throws allowing them to attack rapidly in short intervals.
They also developed a new tactic of using them like pogo sticks by jumping at an enemy, summoning their spear and using it to push themselves back into the air, from which they could throw any of their three ring-weapons.
Sammy and Ingrid on the other hand slashed and smashed their way through the throng. Sammy’s Guardian Swords and Ingrid’s explosive punches tore through the numbers with ease, allowing them to then pincer the left and right sides along with the kobolds and Cassie.
The last surviving Arkoth was then kicked hard by Ingrid, knocking it to the ground as she called “Clean up time!”
The Arkoth groggily tried to get up only to be clubbed to death by swarm mice, squeaking angrily that its friends had cost them so much bullets.
“Okay everyone, rest up a bit.” Ingrid called, motioning for everyone to sit at the center of the room. Viel however, feeling a little industrious, started moving the bodies from a seated position. Arek and Cecil’s drones kept watch as they patrolled the nearby corridors silently. The 189 swapped places with the mice of team Apache so they could start refilling their magazines.
“That’s a pretty thing you two had going, Iohann, Viel.” Arek said, referring to the doppelganger with thorns armor.
Iohann scratched her head. “I wish I had thought of it sooner, I’d heard of Viel’s Displacer Visage only recently when she talked about what she does to get out of a sticky situation but it was only now that I thought of equipping her double with Thorns Armor.”
“Are both spells costly?” Ingrid asked, curious.
Both shook their heads. They had similar answers; due to the usefulness of such spells they had spent a great amount of time further refining these spells, allowing them to cast these with minimal cost.
As they rested, the Nyx Fish continued to float above, occasionally swooping down and consuming another carcass, Cassie did the same and Ingrid let them. Iohann had told Ingrid that Nyx Fish especially liked terrestrial creatures as food due to it not being common in the deep seas and thus this would help it bond with its summoner.
Meanwhile as Viel’s telekinesis scooped up a batch of monsters piled against a wall, she noticed peeking out from the pile of carcasses the gold-rimmed frame of a vault door.
“There’s our other reward then.” Ingrid smiled. “Let’s get back to work!”
Invigorated with the sight of treasure, The Whales picked themselves off the ground and got to work with clean-up duty.
Ingrid clapped once to get everyone’s attention “Guys leave the transporting to me and Sammy, these monsters are too big and heavy. Just do the dispatching, use your polearms.”
As she said this, she channeled a generous amount of her mana into Viel’s to help replenish her energy. Rejuvenated, Viel was able to hurry with her task. Given the large size of the monsters, it still took quite a bit of time. As usual, there were quite a few opportunistic centipedes that showed up, and these were predictably shot by the mice and unexpectedly, eaten up by the Nyx Fish.
___
Once completed with the clean up, The Whales hurried to the Vault room and checked the chests for traps and curses. Finding none, Siria recommends they have Viel use her Item Box.
“Compartmented Item Box?” Ingrid asked.
“Viel’s Item Box is way more advanced, not in terms of capacity but has a much longer duration and she can divide it into ‘separate chambers’. Which means we can peruse these items later once we’re back at Kaguya’s.” Siria explained.
“Viel it is then.” Ingrid replied. “But we do need to rest and reload.”
At that, the mice got to work with reloading. Ian headed over to the refrigerator to bring out the food and refreshments and lay them on the floor. Arek took off rig and unfolded his “Barbecue Grill from Outer Space™”, which despite the pompous title was merely a common item found in Braxis-2 which he got on sale. Still, it was rugged and had fittings below to work off both charcoal and batteries. The grilling area was actually a flat metal sheet with a teflon-like layer atop it, slightly angled so the extra grease ran down a collection groove. With only a single motion, the barbecue grill opened up from below and deployed its legs and side trays. Arek would be using the batteries that were charging in Cecil’s room. After Ian handed one to him, he got to work.
Selphie got to reloading as well. The pouches on her belt were made of felt-like leather and had a vine wrapped around their neck. These vines had attached themselves to her belt through a technique that Arek had taught her: velcro.
Imitating this method, Selphie was able to instantly attach and retrieve her ammo pouches while keeping them secured as if sewn on. She consolidated all of her belt ammo into her pellet gun, of the four pouches she had on her belt, she was down to one.
A vine growing on the drum mag opened up a hatch while she tipped over the contents of the pouch. The vines around the pouch’s necks opened up as soon as she inserted the puckered “tip” of the pouch.
At the same time another side of vines grew from inside her backpack. These had more ammo pouches taken from inside. Selphie took these proffered bags and “velcro’d” them to her belt.
Meanwhile, the rest were looking into the treasures.
“These are the Two-Swords…” Kvaris said, peering into one of the chests.
“What’s a two-sword?” Cecil asked, wondering if it was this world’s name for those silly swords with another blade at the opposite end.
“No, THE Two-Swords.” Kinu replied, “they’re a known group of adventurers who carry enchanted weapons that let them switch between two of them at will. Like one of them, can switch between his great sword and battle-axe depending on the situation.”
Kinu laid on the floor a couple of fancy-looking wand-like objects, they had a jewel embedded on them, near where a thumb would probably be. A tassel was tied to the handle and silver inscriptions were engraved on their white ashwood shafts.
“Wands of Duality” Kinu announced. “A specialty of the Two-Swords team.”
“These are the wands that are embedded into the weapon. It works just like Sammy’s Guardian swords.” Kvaris said. “This is what lets them change the weapon in their hands at will.”
“I’ll take one then.” Sammy said, picking up a great sword. She stepped away and gave it a few swings, showing to the others her experience in using a sword with a very long blade. An experience she honed as a warrior of the Sun Mane tribe before she earned the right to become a rider. She performed several high-speed slashes as she whirled the blade in varying angles around herself as she recalled a myriad of striking techniques.
“Whoa!” Ingrid, Arek and Cecil chorused. Clapping as they did so.
Satisfied, Sammy touched the halberd, great sword, and the duality wand together, with the wand in the middle. Uttering a spell; the three items glowed and vanished, replaced with an altered version of her familiar halberd. She twirled it around first, then performed another round of slashes and thrusts, alternating between the halberd and great sword to great effect. As she switched weapons, the current one faded into something that reminded the earthlings of fairydust: lighter-than-air particles of light.
“This will do nicely.” Sammy said as she registered her halberd-sword to her ring of apport. The halberd now rested in Cecil’s room.
“You gotta name that sword-halberd thing.” Cecil said, “might get confusing.”
“Silent Storm” Sammy said quickly. “I’ll just use my halberd’s name over it.”
Meanwhile, the Kobolds brought up their bastard swords, and conferring with its length, looked around for another sword of about the same size. They hefted their newfound swords, checking its weight and balance before heading over an empty spot and trying out using the sword with their “weaker arm” by sparring with each other. Sammy joined in, using her halberd to test how well they could defend themselves and see if they could get in striking distance.
They were all of course, holding back, but still it looked like the kobolds were handling themselves pretty well using a sword in this manner.
“Thinking of wielding two swords at once?” Sammy asked Kinu as he tried sparring with her.
“We’ll link our shields with these swords, there’s advantages after all in using two swords as opposed to a sword and shield.” he replied, fending off her thrusts.
“Sometimes but not all.” Kvaris reminded him.
After finding their left arms suitable enough, the kobolds then followed Sammy’s example of linking their newfound swords with their shields. A holographic mark of a sword was emblazoned on their round shields.
Kvaris laughed with dark glee as he pulled out one of the larger chests some large two-handed flails. It consisted of a long handle, though shorter than a spear’s shaft. Dangling on a short chain on one end was the striking head. The longest ones were about a third of the handle’s length and lined with spikes.
“These are enchanted” Iohann said, coming over for a look. “These striking heads are pretty light until you start attacking, then they resume their lightweightedness once you’re finished attacking. The same applies to the handle, these can be used one handed.”
“You know these, Iohann?” Kvaris asked.
“Flails are a speciality of my Order.” Iohann said “but they’ve never gotten around to producing such enchanted weapons due to lack of materials and magic skill required. We’ve heard of them but never had one.”
“You should take one.” Kvaris said. “With the Two-Sword’s Duality wands, you won’t have problems carrying it around.”
She took one with the longest handle and a striking head a quarter of the handle’s length. Kinu and Kvaris took the ones with the longest heads and they dispersed to another corner of the room to test it out.
Iohann was right, and the two kobolds had a great time swinging their flails around.
“We’re going to thresh not grain, but brains!” Kvaris laughed.
The kobolds linked the flails to their swords while Iohann to her mace.
Seeing as there were no other takers for now, Cecil took the rest of the wands to his room and propped onto the same shelf were the Totem rested.
Meanwhile, Siria went to the chest filled with magician’s items and held up a totem. It was a large diamond-like gem cut in the shape of a football and about the same size of a smartphone. Both ends were shod in black lacquered metal and dainty inlays of gold snaked around the metal and some around the gem.
The most interesting part however was a second gem inside it, it was rough and uncut and was a brilliant amethyst color.
“What does this do?” Cecil asked, hovering over.
“Put it in your room.” she said.
___
The Whales settled down to eat their hamburgers, the mice had made them and experimented with different kinds of seasonings. A few batches of pre-made patties used a different spice rub while another was ground by the mice themselves after it had been marinating for a day. These were topped with salads and bacon that the mice had been given after helping their farmer neighbor with pest control. A wheel of cheese lay on a table and two pitchers of chilled ale as well as several cups for everyone.
“Were you considering heading sometime to the rift in this dungeon?” Kvaris asked. Ingrid shook her head.
“At least until I make sure Melrondia isn’t here.” She replied. “Besides, I’m having fun here. Were you planning on leaving the party?”
Kvaris laughed. “No, we’re doing great there. Kinu?” his brother shook his head, indicating that he preferred to stay.
“I am, however,” Ingrid said. “Planning to travel somewhere, anywhere. Teth-Odin’s nice but I wanna see other places.” she looked at Arek who shrugged.
“Living a life of adventure here. Why not?” he replied.
“Well, let’s keep on adventuring… any objections?” Everyone shook their heads.
“I wanna fly.” Iohann said.
“But if we’re gonna leave Teth-Odin, we better be stocked up.” Siria added. Ingrid looked at her.
“Do we need to tell the Fenrir guild anything?” Siria and the Kobolds shook their heads again.
“We’re adventures!” Kvaris said, his tongue lolling in an expression of kobold amusement. “We just leave a word with the nearest guild and they’ll mail it over. Other than that, we’re free to travel.”
“You mentioned you lived in a mining town. Iohann.” Ingrid said. Iohann nodded. “Nothing to find there though unless you’re looking to dig up gems to use for mana-channeling stones.”
“No,” Ingrid had a slight smile on her face. “You mentioned the Blue Hook bandits that sometimes plied their ‘trade’ in that town.”
“They’re mostly under control though.” Iohann said. “The local townsguard keeps their harassment of the townsfolk minimal.”
“Maybe we can take care of them.” Ingrid shrugged.
“How?” Iohann frowned.
In response, Sammy summoned her Silent Storm halberd while Kinu and Kavaris summoned their spears. The mice summoned their glaives. They struck the floor with the butt of their polearms in unison.
“When you talked about them, you looked like they might have been somewhat responsible for you going out for an adventure.” Sammy said.
“Ingrid’s got some experience roughing up a couple of punks.” Cecil said.
“We have to pay your town back for giving us the world’s best cleric.” Arek nodded, clicking his mandibles assuringly.
Iohann wiped a tear from her eye and said “Thank you.”
“To Fairhaven we go!” Ingrid said, raising her fist.
___
Through the cracks of the opening doors of the Vault, Selphie sighted a few werewolf-like scavengers, and shot one. It quickly was taken over by her whip-crawler, its wildly whipping vines lashing out against all of its ten companions. Ingrid quickly slipped out first, scanning the area for more problems. Viel quickly used her telekinesis to shuffle the bodies around, and seeing no survivors, quickly opened up her item box and brought them in.
Arek’s drone scouted ahead, which gave Ingrid the info needed on whether or not to proceed. The ones with lots of monsters marching through were avoided while those that had smaller groups were quietly taken out. Meanwhile Cecil’s drone lagged behind every corner to keep rear watch. Across the distant end of one intersection there were Arkoths and bugbears fighting it out.
“Ignore them. Let’s just go past.” Ingrid said over her earpiece.
“Why aren’t we taking the Escape Tunnels again?” Iohann asked.
“No sense leaving out small groups for pick up” Ingrid said, dragged behind the group via Viel’s telekinesis were about fifty red crawlers, ten bugbears, and rather hefty Arkoth with it’s whip-crawler parasite still menacingly whipping its vines around. The grotesque sight made any would-be ambusher hesitate.
The team let out a sigh of relief as they were in front of the door of Vault 4-1 again. Viel then added the collected monsters to her Item Box. Ingrid gave her a head pat, causing her to meow.
“You sure that didn’t cost you a lot of mana?”
“Nooo” she meowed “I can handle it.”
Kinu looked upward, sniffing, he let out a growl. “Something big’s lurking upstairs.”
“It’s gotta be that big if you can smell that up here.” Ingrid said.
“It is.” Kvaris said, sniffing around.
“Is it Cluthas?” Siria asked.
“No.” Kinu replied quickly. “This isn’t him.”
“I think it’s our Umber Hulk friend. I’ll go ahead and say ‘Hi’.” and with that Ingrid pinballed herself from wall to wall, accelerating further and further ahead until she reached the ramp's exit.
It was fifty feet tall, bug-like, with black chitinous armor. It reminded her of a scarab beetle made in the shape of a muscular humanoid. It had to be the umber hulk. Besides its bulky, muscular body it also had a powerful mana signature.
Ingrid exited from her tunnel at an angle, it saw her flying upwards with a flying kick and despite her extreme velocity and its bulky body it was able to raise a hand and attempt to swat her away. It too could move very fast.
But not fast enough. Ingrid’s upward-angled flying kick struck its forearm, snapping it backwards and letting green blood spray everywhere from the open fracture. Rather than waiting until she hit the wall, Ingrid created a barrier in mid-air and used it to catapult herself towards its head. The Umber Hulk turned just in time to receive the equivalent of a haymaker to the face as Ingrid’s high velocity dive kick made contact. Just before she made it to the floor, she made a second barrier and angled it so she would kneecap the Umber Hulk with her next kick.
This toppled the creature, before it got up it was shot in the head by Cecil with his BMG.
“Nuh, uh uh!” Cecil said. “No lone ranger stuff!”
Ingrid helped lift the Umber Hulk around so the mice could tie ropes around the creature’s carcass. She decided that the Umber Hulk being dragged around the corridors would frighten off anything that came their way.
The Mice were squeaking and jumping around, waving their guns as they stood stop the Umber Hulk’s carcass, the 189 taking places in “corners” to maximize the angle of fire of their SCAR’s with their high-capacity magazines. Cassie stalked up and down the carcass, his wide range of vision making sure nothing tried to surprise his flock. The rest of the party followed behind Ingrid as she pulled the carcass alone.
Some monsters did peek out to see why there were singing mice only to retreat when they saw a huge Umber Hulk being dragged around. One group of bugbears however, thought differently.
“Let’s thresh some grain!” Kinu and Kvaris said, rushing forward. Sammy was about to rush in when Iohann went ahead of her.
“You mean some brains!”
The three summoned their two handed flails and began swinging wildly at the group of twenty bugbears. They proved to be very effective weapons, driving the bugbears back. Their enchantments allowed them to be swung very quickly and strike with extreme force, they heard and even felt bones break and as the striking heads of the flails connected with their targets. They aimed for heads, knees, stomachs, and collarbones to quickly topple their enemies.
The mice aimed the guns but the trio were handling themselves very well. As they saw the bugbears begin to spook and run, they shot the ones that broke away. Viel then hurried over and jostled the bodies to make sure there were no survivors then cast her Item Box.
It was a short affair and by the time Ingrid the rest came along without needing to slow down.
___
“Not embarrassed anymore, Siria?” Cecil said as the speakers played something about some boys being back.
“No, at least we got something to show for it.” the elf smiled, partly because of what was ahead of them.
Once again the mice were marching ahead of the group as they made their way to the Dismantling House, performing various fancy drills as they moved in intricate patterns. Arthur marched ahead of the group, squeaking loudly as he made the marching orders and the mice responded snappily, twirling their M-14’s in the air, and catching them perfectly. Behind them was Cassie and the rest, with Ingrid bringing up the rear, dragging behind her the Umber Hulk.
Cecil sidled up to Ingrid.
“You don’t look too happy, Ingrid.” He said.
“Yeah well, I can’t make people laugh without my Mister Dino suit.” Ingrid said as she pulled the giant behind her.
“Okay, okay, I’ll get you your silly dino suit.” Cecil said, chuckling. As he tugged on the mascot, the door it was leaning on opened up.
“INGRID!!!”
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Season 2, Teth-Odin Dungeon Crawl Arc: END