There were two more fights in another handful of blocks, both of which had at least ten Grue each. Alex tore through them and helped her teammates rip apart the remnants. By the time the third fight was over, though she’d confirmed something unfortunate. While the others had the same normal Hidden Quest to wipe out extra Grue, she did not.
“That could be a good thing, right?” Alessa looked from her to the other Surveyors. “If she doesn’t level up as quickly, that means we can catch up.”
“Yeah, but that means we’re going to have the same problems once we get to her level. Right?” Sam grimaced. “Things are already tough enough as it is.”
Tim looked around at the group, his reluctance obvious. “Well, we’re keeping up with things for the moment. Do we want to try for the Library wherever it is?”
“What, so we can be nice and tired for the Killer back at the portal?” Brian snorted. “It’s like we’d be asking for trouble.”
“He’s right.” Alex shook her head. “I’d love to finish it off, but if it means putting you all at risk, it’s better that we take things more slowly. Especially since things might be extra dangerous today.”
The others shifted their feet, looking at each other. Sam, however, looked more closely at her. “How did you know it would be so much worse today? You never said.”
Alex looked away. “I just…had a hunch, is all.”
“A hunch.” Brian looked just as skeptical as he sounded. “You went around making sure we were on high alert for a hunch.”
Sam didn’t seem convinced either. “Come to think of it, you’ve been spending a lot of time training out by the portal, right? I heard someone mention that you come out here to run during your spare time. Does your hunch have anything to do with that?”
Alex glared at the Adept. “Look, you don’t want to know. I just know that it’s probably a good idea to get in and out today. So let’s keep moving, all right?”
Tim straightened up and gave her a salute. “As ordered, team captain!”
She switched her glare to him, but he burst out laughing. Even Brian was starting to chuckle.
Then a howl rose over the ruins, and they all froze. It was clearly from the direction of the portal.
Alex reacted immediately. “Into the house! Go, go, go!”
She led the way as they sprinted towards the house on the left side of the street. It was a simple, two-story colonial. The door had been smashed open at some point, which made it all the easier to dive into the building for cover. Her teammates were right behind her, scrambling inside and searching for any sign of Grue waiting for them.
There were none, but as they took cover in the house, more howling sounds rose over the dead town. One of them came from just the other side of the house, and Alex ran to see where the noise was coming from. Sam was right on her heels, moving quicker than she would have expected of an Adept. She crouched at one of the rear windows, half hidden behind some long abandoned kitchen sink.
She froze. There was a small army gathering in the next street over.
Sam swore quietly next to her as Grue spilled from a large building across the street. It was a brick structure, at least three stories tall with flat, dirty windows. The parking lot wasn’t large, but it definitely wasn’t some kind of shop. At the same time, it was hard to ignore the notification that the Screen displayed in the corner of her vision.
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Destroy the Grue Killer]
It was there, right at the head of nearly twenty Grue, with more still spilling from that big building. The same bandolier of Talismans was strapped across its chest; she could have sworn that there were more looped through the cord now, and her fist clenched around the haft of her axe as she realized why. The thing prowled in front of the Grue, as if checking them over. When the last of the Grue came out of the building, it nodded, and a Grue that had stayed back near the building lifted a twisted horn of smoke and flame to its lips.
Another grim howl echoed out over the ruins, answered by whatever was waiting near the portal. The Killer gave some sort of growling order, and the small army began moving down the street in the direction of the portal, their spears held at the ready. As they left, the Grue with the horn retreated back into the building.
Alex held her breath, restraining herself from rushing out to confront the monster. Even with her Skill and her increased level, there was no way she could throw her team against that army and win. Especially not with the advanced Grue there picking Surveyors off. She stayed crouched at the window, watching as her enemy disappeared down the street, headed to block their escape.
“That was a lot of Grue.” Tim had silently crept up next to them. He gave them an unsteady smile. “And that one at the front…”
“The same one from the ambush, yeah.” Alex let herself relax slightly. There was going to be an ambush waiting for them, but there had to be a way out of it. Maybe they would be able to draw off some of the Grue without fighting the whole pack of them. “How many of those things were there at the start of the first one?”
“Eighty, at least. Maybe not all at once, though. More kept coming in as the battle kept going.” Brian’s voice was quiet, lethally serious. “There’s going to be at least that many this time too, huh?”
Alessa was clutching at her staff, standing back from the window. A ruined kitchen table was sitting in a heap next to her. “So this is it. We’re dead, right?”
Alex shook her head. “We aren’t dead yet. We don’t have to head for the portal right away. We can hide for a little, maybe force them to look for us. We might even be able to wear them down enough that we can get through.”
Tim frowned. “How long can we actually stay in here? I’ve never wanted to actually ask that before.”
Sam answered, his voice distracted. “You’re considered dead after twenty-four hours. Nobody’s come back after that long, anyway.”
Brian snorted. “I don’t think I’ve got a full day of this in me. Maybe another battle or two, but can we really avoid those things for that long?”
Alex shrugged. “We’re going to have to. I’m going to get all of you home.” She said it with as much determination as she could, trying to will her commitment into them. They couldn’t give up now. Not when she was just starting to get through to them.
“Easy for you to say. I’m betting you’re fast enough to get through.” Brian’s shrug was a much more helpless gesture. His voice was an equal mixture of reassurance and bitterness. “We’ll do our best to give you a good shot at it. Don’t feel bad. You did your best.”
“No. You’re all getting out.” Alex felt her anger flare. It couldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t let it. “All we need to do is come up with a plan.”
Sam laughed, and Alex glanced at him in surprise. She expected him to be looking at her in disbelief or anger, but instead, he was staring at the brick building. He lifted a hand to point at it. “Well, should we start there, then?”
She turned and saw what he was looking at. It was a sign at the entrance to the parking lot for the building where the Grue had come from. It was covered in more of that unreadable text, but there was a picture underneath the words that said far more than any of them. Alex felt her jaw drop open as she recognized the clear depiction of a book. “No way.”
“The Library.” Sam gave her a half-smile. “Turns out that we might finish that Quest for you after all, Alex.”
“It has to be a Camp. That’s what has to be in there.”
Alex was whispering to her teammates as they crept toward the building. They had waited long enough to make sure that the Killer and its friends were definitely gone. A patrol of ten Grue had wandered past, failing to sniff them out in the ruins. They’d watched the monsters leave carefully, not wanting to raise enough of a commotion that might bring the entire mass of Grue down on them.
Alessa frowned, her breath coming shallow as she crouched next to Tim. “What’s a Camp? I’ve never heard of those before.”
Sam answered first. “They’re supposed to be where new Grue come from. Never seen one myself.” He looked questioningly at Alex, who nodded.
“My last team found one in the shopping mall. We got a Hidden Quest to clear it. The Screen must want us to do the same thing here.”
Brian was crouched right up next to her. They were nearly at the side door to the place. “How many Grue were guarding it?”
“Things weren’t as bad then, but there were at least twenty.” She saw Brian’s shoulders slump slightly. “At the same time, we just saw a bunch leave, and the ones we found last time weren’t all ready for combat. Their spears were all stacked up in the corner. Maybe we can take them by surprise.”
“If we want to do that, maybe we should be a bit quieter?” Sam’s voice was uncharacteristically tense. He hadn’t told anyone how he knew how to pick locks, but no one had any questions given the fact that he was now working on opening the door for them. The rest of the team fell silent as he turned back to the task. Moments later, the door opened with an audible chonk, and he opened it for the rest of them to creep in.
There had been more howling calls in the town, and occasionally the Grue at the Library had come out to answer them. Alex knew that once they cleared the Camp, it would mean that the Grue would eventually know something was wrong. Truth be told, she wanted it to happen that way. The more Grue that came here, the less would be waiting at the portal.
They snuck through the empty halls of the Library, moving past empty offices and storage rooms choked with dust. It was a part of a library that she’d never seen before; books stacked up and waiting to either join their friends on the shelves or to be thrown out. Most of them looked like they’d been vandalized or damaged, as if the Grue had not been able to stand the sight of the words on the pages. At one point Alessa slipped on a patch of loose paper, but Brian caught her before she could fall.
Eventually, they came out into the main area. Rows of bookshelves were still standing, though the ranks of books mostly seemed ruined and torn. The lighting that had once stood over the rest of the building had gone dark; the only light was filtering through the wide-open windows at the front of the building, putting the majority of it into dust filled shadows.
Alex could hear yips and growls up ahead, along with the uneasy light of purple fire. She risked ducking out from a bookshelf, and was rewarded with the sight of a reading lobby filled with Grue tents, and a purple flame beneath another large purple crystal. She grimaced as her Screen gave her another notification.
[Hidden Quest Discovered! Clear the Grue Camp]
[Main Quest Completed! The Library has been explored]
[Inspect has advanced to level 5!]
She looked back at the rest of her teammates and nodded. Sam stole forward and peaked out, pulling back as he glanced to where his own Screen must have flickered. “Yep. That’s our last Hidden Quest.”
Brian moved forward, turning their tidy line into a tight huddle. “Are they armed? Or watching out for us?”
Tim glanced the same way that Sam had and shook his head. “Looks like the spears are stacked against a bookshelf. Only two armed, up at the front of the building on the opposite side of the camp.”
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“So if we move fast enough, we can be between them and their weapons.” Brian looked at Alex. “How many? Can we take them?”
“We can take them better than we can the ones at the portal.” She paused, trying to run through it in her mind. “Yeah, I think we can do this. Just watch the claws and teeth. They like to pounce when they don’t have a spear. It can take you off guard.”
“Noted.” Sam glanced at Alessa. “We can secure the spears. Want to give us a shield wall to work behind?”
Alex and the others nodded. They formed up behind the bookshelves, getting ready. Then they paused, all looking around for another one of them to start the madness. Sam grinned suddenly. “Anybody have something they want to check out first? Must be fascinating stuff.”
They all tried to stifle their nervous chuckles, and Alex gave him a flat look. Then she snagged a couple of books from a nearby shelf, giving him a smirk. “Why not?”
Then she turned back to the Camp, feeling that same tension build within her. For all her confidence, nothing was actually certain about this fight. If there were really twenty Grue out there, her team could easily get overwhelmed by the mob of enemies. All the same, it wasn’t going to get better if she kept just sitting there.
So she braced herself and stepped out along with the others. They rushed at first in silence, pushing forward along two of the rows, with Tim and Brian leading Alessa, and Sam following her in. She caught sight of the reading tables stacked up along the front of the building in a makeshift barricade. Apparently, the Grue had failed to consider an attack from the opposite direction.
Their luck couldn’t last forever, though. A Grue paused as they were doing something, peering back into the shadows of the shelves. It straightened up in alarm, giving off a panicked yelp. Other Grue stuck their heads out of tents and turned from where they had been sitting near the purple flame, their grey eyes going wide. Most of them looked towards where the front doors were located, where the only two armed Grue were looking back and forth from the outside to the depths of the library.
By the time they started to orient themselves correctly, Alex and the others were throwing themselves on the Grue, weapons flashing and striking. Alex cut down two Grue even as they hesitated between charging and running away, Brian and the others threw themselves into the crowd just as quickly. Only one of the Grue reached the weapon rack, just in time for Alessa to land a two-handed overhead strike that smashed it utterly flat. Sam caught another one trying to edge along the side, killing it with a single thrust.
Then the battle was joined, with Grue throwing themselves forward without hesitation, trying to claw their way past shields to reach flesh, or shove their way through the Surveyors to catch hold of their spears. Alex lashed out with both shield and axe, knocking them down or cutting them to bits as they came. There was nothing fine or calculated about it; the battle had quickly degraded into a contest. If the Surveyors could kill them all before the Grue found a way to break through, then they would survive. Otherwise, it was over.
One of the Grue suddenly pounced on her, knocking her back onto the grimy library carpet. She fought with it, keeping the shield between it and her. Luckily, she kept ahold of her axe this time, and shortened her grip on the haft so she could deliver repeated strikes to its head. As it went limp, another tried to jump over her to get at the spears; it caught Sam’s spearpoint in the throat and went down. Another pushed forward, only for Alessa to lay it out flat.
Then Sam was yanking her up again, getting her back on her feet. She spared a nod for him, and then shield-checked a Grue onto the carpet. Sam laughed in thanks and went after it, while she dodged low and put the back spike of her axe in another Grue’s knee. It tumbled forward, and Alessa dealt it a finishing blow.
Then came the two armed Grue, their spears lashing out at her. She blocked one, trapped another and wrenched it free of the Grue’s grip, and then stepped forward to hack at both of them. Neither reacted quickly enough to stop her, and by the time she finished cutting them apart, the rest of the Grue were down, and her team was staring at them in faint shock.
Sam ran his eyes over them as they started to light up in flame. “I’d say fifteen? Maybe sixteen?” The others nodded, even as a sudden cracking sound made them tense. Alex looked over and saw the purple flame bursting up through the hovering crystal at the center of the camp. It shattered, collapsing in on itself like a window encountering a baseball.
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield has advanced to level 17!]
[Hidden Quest Completed! Grue Camp cleared]
Alex felt the tension go out of her shoulders. At least with the Hidden Quests done, her teammates would be able to get the boost from returning with all their Quests done. If they made it back, they’d catch up to her at least a little.
Brian was looking around at the burning Grue with a faint sense of shock. He shook his head. “Well, I didn’t expect that to work, honestly.” Alessa gave him a glare, and he shrugged. “What? It was a long shot. You can’t blame me.”
Alex broke in before the Porter could lecture him. “I don’t. Still, he who dares, wins, right?” Tim gave her an approving grin, and even Brian cracked a smile. “Now, let’s gather what we can and head out. They’ll figure out what happened eventually, and we want to be ready to slip past them. We probably don’t have—”
She stopped as she heard a faint howl-horn echo through the library. Other horns answered it, and then there was another horn from the direction of the portal. It blew three times in quick, frantic succession, and the others exchanged raised eyebrows of surprise. Sam started to speak. “But how—”
Alex shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Grab what you can, and let’s move. We need distance between here and the most direct path to the portal. Sam, get us at least one or two streets away, and then as straight a course as you can. Let’s go!”
They spent only a few frantic moments grabbing crystals, fragments, and the occasional book from the shelves. Alex paused by what seemed like a rack of travel brochures, recognizing the shape of maps and geography books. She snagged a handful of them before hurrying out of the library, back the way they’d come.
By the time they stepped out on the street, the horn by the portal had blown another three frantic times. This time it seemed closer, and it gave the Surveyors the sense of urgency they absolutely needed. Alex kept herself at the back as they ran; Sam was leading the way with his face half-buried in his map, with the others in a loose formation behind him. She held tight to a desperate hope that the Grue wouldn’t stumble onto them as they ran, trying to get to the portal which was their only way home.
They only paused once, about five minutes into their flight. Sam abruptly threw himself into the bushes, and the others followed him immediately. Alex paused just long enough to hear the clatter of far too many claws on pavement before she joined them. The sound of at least twenty Grue went by them, headed in the direction of the Library on a parallel street, and as soon as they were gone, the Surveyors were up and running again.
It took them another ten minutes to reach the area around the portal. In that time, the horn had blown again, from behind them. The three short notes had carried a touch of indescribable rage and malice in them, and the answers from other parts of the ruined town echoed the same terrible anger. Notably, however, no horn had answered them from the portal site. Had the Grue abandoned it entirely?
Sam signaled for them to stop a block away from the portal, leading them into the space between two broken houses. He was a little out of breath as he tried to whisper to them. “I saw…Grue. Not a lot…but some. What…do we do?”
Alex looked around at her team, knowing what the answer had to be. They were tired, close to exhaustion, but if the Killer had led some of its friends away, they probably weren’t going to get a better chance at the portal. “Whatever is waiting for us there, they are the only thing between us and home. Who wants to stay here another three hours playing hide and seek with that Killer?” She didn’t really need to look around for their answer to that question, but she did anyway. The resignation and determination was clear on all of their faces. “We hit the guards, we kill as many of them as we need to, and we get through that portal. Anybody goes down, we pick them up and run. I want every single one of you through that portal, or I’m going to beat you half to death myself. Understand?”
They nodded. Tim gave her another salute, and though they chuckled a little, she still returned it. Mockery was fine, as long as they made it. As long as they lived.
Sam spoke up, his breathing a little steadier. “Let’s come at it from the opposite side. They might not be guarding it as well, since we can’t go through that way.” They all nodded; all of them had been told that entering a portal from the wrong direction just led to instant death. “We can break into one of the houses on the side and jump out in front. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“Good plan. Let’s do it.” Alex motioned for them to get up and moving, trying to sound confident. “All right, we’re close to home. Give it one more push, and we’ll be home in no time.”
They nodded, and they started moving down the street again. All of them moved in silence again, hoping to avoid any notice at all until home was within reach.
Unfortunately, that chance was not in the cards. A quartet of Grue stepped out into the street ahead of them—obviously patrolling the rear of the portal—and caught sight of them immediately. They howled in warning, and all four rushed towards them in a mass.
This time, Alex sped straight into them, her Speed granting her enough of an advantage that she leapt out in front of the others. “Keep going!” She slammed into the first Grue, snapping its spear and smashing its face flat with her shield. The second one came at her from the side; she slipped out to the left, letting momentum carry the point past her, and then slammed her axe into its face. Both of the others struck at her shield, and only a determined grip kept it from twisting out of her defense. “Get to the portal!”
Sam darted out and around her, his face grim. He gave a passing thrust at the Grue closest to him. It yipped and backed up, turning to bring its spear to bear on the Adept as he ran past. She grimaced, dodging the other’s spear thrust so she could cut the other one down before it could impale him. The others followed after Sam, rushing for the nearest house while Alex turned to face the last one.
It snarled and snapped at her, but she didn’t bother retreating. She took its thrust on her shield and lashed out to hook its knee with the back of her axe. The thing went down on one hand, and she finished it with another strike to the head.
The delay hadn’t been long, but it had been enough for Sam to kick in the closest door. Tim had sprinted in past him, shield and spear up. Brian and Alessa went in right after him. Pained howls echoed out after they entered, with Brian yelling. Sam paused, looking in her direction. Then his eyes widened, and he looked past her.
Alex glanced back and felt her stomach sink. There were well over twenty Grue running in the street behind her. They howled in rage, their spears held high. Grey eyes full of hate fixed on her, and she was certain that some of them might simply hurl themselves on her without bothering to use their weapons.
At their head was the Killer, running with a lethal grace. Its eyes were locked on her, and a part of her thought she saw a hint of recognition there. It howled, a low, hateful sound, and the Grue at its side raised a familiar-looking horn. Three sharp notes rang out, growling over the town between the ruined buildings and the broken grey sky. Answers rolled back like hateful thunder.
She ran for the door, yelling at Sam as she did. “Get inside you idiot!” He jumped, and sprinted into the door, just as a dying Grue went flying out of a nearby window. Alex caught sight of Alessa swinging her staff in the opening, and then of Tim ducking in under a spear thrust to answer it with one of his own. Sam joined them a moment later, his expression panicked even as he took down another enemy.
Alex glanced back again, just in time to see the Killer pause. It had sprinted ahead of the pack, far enough that there was nobody to jostle its elbow as it drew back the longbow. She whirled, bringing her shield around just in time for the arrow to bury itself in the sturdy wood. The impact shoved her back a little, but she still grinned at it as she turned and ran harder for the house. It howled in rage, but it didn’t manage a second shot before she reached the opening.
The interior of the house was strewn with wreckage and dead Grue. At least seven of them had gone down in the place, and she caught sight of the rest of her teammates piling through another side door into the space between the houses where the portal lay. They were still fighting, but none of them were dead, and her heart soared as she recognized how close they were.
She nearly sprinted past the open window, but she had just enough forethought to put her shield up as she went by. Another arrow buried itself in her shield, and she laughed in wild joy. They were going to make it! Her team was almost there!
When she burst into the alleyway, she found herself separated from her team by a small wall of Grue. The monsters were pressing her team back, snarling, snapping, and stabbing at them. They were fighting grimly, but Brian had taken a spear thrust in the arm somewhere, and Sam was bleeding from a scratch on his face. With the enemies right there, running for the portal would only mean spears in the back.
At least, until she had arrived.
Alex tore into them like she was chopping firewood in a competition. The first two Grue didn’t have the chance to turn before she hacked them down; the third swung its spear at her, but she just ducked low and cut the legs out from under it, before moving past it to keep hacking. Her shield turned aside one spear, then broke another, and then the Grue were all falling, either under her axe or the weapons of the Surveyors behind them. In what seemed like heartbeats, they were all down.
Her team looked at her in a virtual daze, and Alex felt a burst of incredulous impatience. “Portal! Now!”
She heard claws on the roof and spun to bring her shield high. A third arrow slammed into it, on a trajectory that would have put it in Alessa’s gut. The Killer snarled at her from the rooftop, drawing another arrow from its quiver.
The others yelled and ran for the portal. She glanced back to see Sam vanish, followed by Alessa. Tim and Brian were next, both leaning on each other. Crashing echoed from the house they’d gone through, along with enraged howls. Alex backed towards the portal, looking up at the Killer.
She felt a pull to stay, to try to finish the thing aiming yet another arrow at her from above. Without teammates weighing her down, she could get to the roof and drag it down. It would die beneath her axe, and the Surveyors it had killed would be avenged.
Yet even as she felt that, Alex remembered her promise to Clara. She saw the first of the Grue pack reaching the door, and knew that if she stayed, she wouldn’t be leaving.
So instead of charging, Alex snarled at the Killer and leapt backward into the embrace of the light…
She found herself floating once again.
[Mission Report]
[Successful Return! +20 Experience]
[Main Quests Completed! +60 Experience]
[Secondary Purge Quest Completed! +40 Experience]
[Secondary Adversary Quest Not Completed.]
Alex let out a slow breath of relief. She had made it. Her team had made it. Wounded, exhausted, but not dead.
[Combined Arms–Axe/Shield increased from 14 to 17!]
[Inspect increased from 4 to 8!]
[Running increased from 8 to 10!]
[Dodging increased from 7 to 10!]
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Running and Dodging?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
She dismissed the option; she wasn’t quite done with either of the Skills yet. Unfortunately, the Screen wasn’t finished with her yet.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Running and Inspect?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
Another dismissal.
[Skill Chain available. Do you wish to combine Dodging and Inspect?]
[Warning: Chained Skills lose all previous levels.]
Yet another dismissal. How many of these Chains did she need to deny?
Finally, however, the Screen didn’t give her another option. Instead, the light washed over her again…