Larek learned that the Calamities throughout the Kingdom were as different from each other as could be. He still remembered the first one he’d helped to close, which had transformed the environment so much that the landscape had been converted into relatively featureless stone and was populated by Slimes of different kinds. The next one he closed was full of flying birds and had large grasslands, separated by enormous trees that acted as conduits for the energy used by the central Aperture to spawn additional monsters. The most recent visit to a Calamity had been to the southwestern one, which had a dead, barren land that was full of undead, though he didn’t go deep enough to see the different kinds of undead past the Bone Wraiths there were.
The northeastern Calamity, which the SIC had been in charge of culling and controlling almost since it appeared, was similar to the southeastern one – if only because the environment wasn’t completely barren of living vegetation. In fact, it was basically the opposite of the undead Calamity, because this one was full of plants as far as the eye could see.
“There are a few methods that we’ve developed over the years to move quickly through the environment that populates the landscape all the way to the center,” Paluna informed everyone on board The Hopper, “though this method puts them all to shame.”
Flying over the border of the Calamity never seemed to get old as the pressure of the giant Aperture could be felt even this far out. The biggest difference in this one was the fact that the air was apparently warm, despite the constant mist that suffused the area, making the air heavy with moisture. Larek and most of the people on The Hopper couldn’t feel the temperature difference or the moisture, but the mist was let through the Buoyant Sphere that surrounded the vessel and accumulated on just about every surface, inside and outside.
Down below, through the fine mist, a jungle-like landscape dominated the view as thin trees only as wide as his leg grew haphazardly around each other, with the large-leaved foliage only slightly blocking what light there was from getting through, which meant that the jungle floor was filled with vegetation so thick that Larek knew it had to be difficult to traverse.
“One method is the use of Flame Breath, an easy spell for Mages to maintain for a while to clear out the underbrush, which works extremely well because it is highly flammable for some reason, despite the moisture in the air,” Paluna continued. “The trees, though? Not so much. If they need to, Martials can chop their way through dense sections, as the trees may be resistant to fire, but not to the sharp edges of their blades. Sections of the environment cleared like this will actually last for upwards of a week before the Calamity grows it all up again in a matter of hours, so this is commonly what is used for most of the culling for subservient Apertures around the border and up to a day’s journey inside. Because of these pathways that are cleared, it is much easier to reach their destinations without too many issues or delays.
“When we need to go further inside, a different method is utilized.” She pointed toward the ground, where multiple breaks in the jungle appeared like squiggly lines running through the trees. “The rivers here are relatively wide and fast, and they all flow toward the center, though many of them take a fairly circuitous route. Using sailboats and the application of air-based spells, such as Focused Gale, which produces a fairly continuous stream of air for a limited duration, we’re able to move quite quickly through the Calamity. It was this method that allowed the SIC to have better control over its expansion and to cull the subservient Apertures deeper inside of its territory than most of the other Calamities – though I suppose there are only two others, now that two of them have been closed,” she finished with a look toward Larek. He wasn’t sure if Paluna was just indicating that she knew that was him who had orchestrated their closures, or if she was somehow blaming him for the events; he’d have to watch her in the future to see what her real feelings were on the issue.
“This method was also used by the Generals and the reinforcements to travel toward the center of the Calamity, allowing them to arrive within days instead of the weeks of travel it would normally take,” she continued, pointing down at a particular river underneath them. “If we follow this one here, we’ll be able to track their route and see if something interrupted them along the way.”
Larek had been planning on simply flying straight toward the center Aperture and looking for the SIC leadership there, but he figured he might as well do as the Martial suggested and follow the river. It wouldn’t delay them all that much, after all, and he didn’t want to have to backtrack later if it turned out the ones they were looking for weren’t there. He still wanted to save the regular members of the SIC if they were in trouble near the center, but his whole intention of even traveling to Kilvering had been to find a way to get the SIC to stop fighting him and the Volunteers and work together for the good of the Kingdom.
That wouldn’t happen with the current leadership still in charge, but he had to find them first.
While he kept The Hopper following the river that Paluna pointed out, he also had it venturing off the path a bit to check out the nearby subservient Apertures. What he found were large circles of cleared land that the jungle environment didn’t encroach upon, though like most Apertures, their landscape varied differently, depending on the monsters inside. He saw one that looked like a volcano had just erupted, and another that had purple crystalline grasses and trees composing the vegetation. Yet another had large mounds of loose dirt scattered around it, and there was even one that was dark, like a shadowy dome had descended upon the jungle and held secrets inside.
For the most part, the Apertures were empty of any monsters, though he did spot some reinforcements that had recently spawned and were heading toward the center of the Calamity, just as The Hopper was. None of these monsters seemed to even notice Larek or the others, not only because they were airborne and most of the monsters he saw were landbound, but also because their attention was on something else entirely. His experience with closing Calamities told him that these monsters were moving to help defend the central Aperture, which also meant that it hadn’t been seriously attacked quite yet, which would’ve stopped the production of the reinforcements. That didn’t bode well for the SIC forces inside, because if they were under siege by the entire Calamity’s reinforcements, they could be in serious trouble.
“What was the plan to control the constant respawning from the subservient Apertures?” Larek asked. While he might know a bit more about this Calamity than the others he’d visited, that didn’t mean he knew the plan the SIC had to close it. Bartholomew had filled in some of the details, but his expertise had been focused on other areas while he worked for them.
“Small teams were supposed to be left behind from the main groups heading toward the center of the Calamity, which would handle the reinforcements after the subservient Apertures were initially cleared,” Paluna explained. “This was why the planning had taken so long to come together, as we needed to ensure that we had as many bodies as possible to stem the tide of monsters while the strongest members assaulted the center. This included recruiting thousands of civilians to act as—”
“Wait—they actually went through with that?” Bartholomew cut in incredulously. “I thought that idea was abandoned more than a year ago.”
“It was… until General Maxwell reinitiated the program shortly after it was shut down. He believed it was better to be prepared for their help and not have to use it than to be short defenders when it came time to move. Strangely enough, there were plenty of people who were eager to contribute and participate in the program, so it was actually quite successful.”
“What are you two talking about?” Nedira asked.
Mygor took up the explanation. “Civilians were given weapons and a little bit of training in how to use them, with the thought that they could easily handle the reinforcements after the SIC initially cleared out the subservient Apertures on their way toward the center. For the most part, it was believed that they would be absolutely fine because of their large numbers, though the further they went and the stronger the monsters, the SIC would have to leave more of its members there to maintain the safety of these civilian defenders.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
It sounds like they were doing something similar to the Volunteers; unfortunately for these civilians, though, they didn’t have powerful weapons like my VREP staves – and they certainly hadn’t unlocked their potential. I can only imagine that they would suffer horrendous casualties over time, but I suppose that if they didn’t have any other methods to stem the tide of reinforcements, then this was what had to be done.
“So, where are these civilians? I don’t sense them anywhere,” the Fusionist noted, reaching out with his Magical Detection Skill. While there weren’t any magical signatures that would be given off by those without their potential unlocked, they still had trace amounts of Corrupted and semi-Pure Aetheric Force around them naturally; he could use these traces amounts to locate large groups of civilians, though tracking a single one would be a lot more difficult.
“That’s what I’d also like to know,” Paluna answered. “There should be at least some of our civilian defenders here on the border, especially near some of these weaker subservient Apertures. Like that one, for instance,” she said as she pointed toward an empty Aperture that had a gentle green field as an environment. “It only has Grassland Dogmites for a monster type, and I’ve personally seen a pair of civilians with simple sharp sticks kill one of them before without being hurt. They can be deadly if one is unprepared, but there should’ve been at least a dozen civilians stationed there to handle the reinforcements.”
Larek thought back to what he knew about Dogmites, and he seemed to remember that they looked like mutated dogs, but much smaller; they were probably only about the size of a normal cat, if not a little bit bigger. He couldn’t imagine a group of civilians would be threatened by one or two of them; a large pack, maybe, but it was unlikely that an Aperture would spawn a pack of more than 3 or 4 as reinforcements, especially based on the relative size of its territory that he could see.
“I don’t see any bodies,” Bartholomew added, which made Larek realize that he hadn’t seen any either. That could be because the territory of the Aperture absorbed them, but typically there was at least some trace of them left behind if it happened recently. Of course, they didn’t go to inspect the area, so it was possible that it was there, but the fact of the matter was that there weren’t any visible people nearby.
Larek posed a question to the two SIC members. “Is this an isolated occurrence, or do you think this is happening all over the Calamity? And if so, why do you think all these people aren’t where they are supposed to be?”
It took a little while for Paluna to finally respond for the two of them after some contemplation. “If this was anywhere else along the Calamity, I might think it was just an unfortunate and isolated occurrence, but this was the strongest section of the region because of the SIC headquartering in Kilvering. If this section is bereft of civilian defenders, then it’s entirely possible that the rest of the Calamity is in the same state.
“However, the fact that there are still monster reinforcements visually heading toward the center means that someone is still alive and fighting. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be on the move. Whatever happened to the civilians, I can only hope that we might find them there.” She didn’t seem like she believed in what she was saying, but he knew she was right about one thing.
Someone was still fighting, and it was up to them to save them. No matter how many were left, he had to rescue at least some of them, or else this region would suffer greatly from the lack of defenders – even if they managed to close the Aperture in the center and to collapse the Calamity.
Ideally, and as much as he wanted to be the one to permanently remove the SIC leadership from their positions of power, they would show up to find a large group of SIC members under siege by monsters, with the SIC leadership dead through a valiant-but-fatal defense, which would allow him to swoop in and save the day. He could then help close the Calamity, incorporate the SIC into the Volunteer Militia, and organize a defense of the region with the remaining former-SIC group, providing them with the Fusions and the means to move quickly and fight with greater power behind them.
Naturally, he expected it not to turn out to be as easy as that, but he could at least hope.
The interior of The Hopper was silent after that as they moved further into the Calamity, keeping to the general area of the river that supposedly took the SIC leadership with reinforcements toward the center. No matter where they looked and checked the nearby Apertures, there wasn’t a single sighting of an actual person defending against the monster reinforcements still periodically appearing and moving quickly toward the center.
But there was something else that they didn’t see, either.
“Where are the Calamity’s monsters?” one of the Volunteers asked at one point. “What were they, again?”
“It is unlikely that you’d see the lowest evolution of the Calamity’s monsters, even if you were on the ground,” Mygor answered. “The Juvenile Dryads that inhabit the majority of the jungle-like environment are very difficult to see, as they camouflage themselves well within the vegetation down there. The reason they were able to expand so quickly at first was because of this difficulty in locating them, as they are strangely hesitant to attack unless they have an overwhelming number of them nearby, so they are more likely to hide than to put themselves in danger of being killed – even when their Aperture is directly attacked. This led to some lazy culling a few years ago, which allowed it to expand, and before we knew it, it had grown to the point where an evolved form of the monster appeared, making it even more dangerous.”
“You’re talking about the Elder Dryads, aren’t you?” Nedira asked.
Mygor nodded. “Exactly. The Elder Dryads have a particular bond with the environment that allowed them to create a physical shield over their Aperture, made of repurposed trees, vines, and other foliage that made it difficult to penetrate. By the time we realized it was a problem, the SIC was still trying to get a grip on the influx of Apertures and attempting to spread out our resources, and none was left over to allocate to closing this newly protected Aperture. When we realized our mistake in not handling it sooner, it was already too late, as it had grown so large that we weren’t equipped to handle it.
“Further inside, you’ll find Nature Elementals as the next evolutionary step in the Dryad monster, and they are quite annoying and powerful. Thankfully, all of the monsters are vulnerable to fire, which is why you’ll find many Pyromancers within our ranks, and bladed weapon Skills are a must to chop them up as they attempt to regenerate.”
When he didn’t go on, Larek asked the question that he was fairly certain he already knew the answer to, as he hadn’t heard about it yet. “What about the fourth-tier evolution? What’s protecting the Aperture?”
Both Mygor and Paluna shook their heads. “No one knows. We’ve never been able to get that close before. But with thousands of SIC fighters pitted against whatever it is, there’s no way we can lose,” Paluna said confidently.
“It seems obvious now that that isn’t the case,” the Fusionist pointed out. “Otherwise, the Calamity would’ve already been closed.”
He saw the denial in her eyes, but in the end, she didn’t refute his statement.
As an hour passed by, the subservient Apertures they saw became larger and larger, showing that they were bound to have at least a single evolved monster, if not two, along with their original versions; but just like the ones they’d already passed, their territories were empty apart from a random respawned reinforcement monster here and there. Each and every one they saw also continued to head toward the center of the Calamity, meaning that there was still hope that there were SIC people still alive.
The jungle below them somehow became even fuller than before, with vegetation choking the ground in its spread, and the trees also became taller and their trunks wider, though none of them even approached the trees he was used to in the Rushwood. They might be as numerous, but they couldn’t hold a candle to the ones he’d seen as a Logger.
That was until, through the dense mist of the Calamity, he finally spotted something ahead of them. It wasn’t visible until The Hopper came within about a mile of it, because it was obscured by the weather, but once he caught a glimpse of it, it was the only thing he could see.
It was an enormous tree. Not like the trees that had acted as conduits for Ghost Ravens or the other avian monsters in the southeastern Calamity, however; those had been huge, but they looked like saplings compared to what he witnessed ahead of them. The trunk alone was at least 2,000 feet wide at its base, and as it shot up into the air nearly 3 miles in height, it didn’t taper off that much. The crown of branches at the top was so wide that he had trouble even grasping the scale of it, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it reached at least a mile in diameter.
He could sense the central Aperture nearby, but when he tried to visually pick it out, he couldn’t; it only took him a few seconds to realize that it was inside the tree, protected by the trunk, which could be why it hadn’t been attacked yet. He also sensed quite a few faint magical signatures down below, and he stopped The Hopper as he tried to figure out what was going on. Nothing he sensed from what had to be thousands of people felt normal to him, and he wanted to know why before he took them in further.
“I think we found them, but I’m not sure—” he announced, even as he searched the jungle-laden ground for what he sensed, but he was cut off when an enormous root ripped itself out of the ground and smacked The Hopper right out of the sky.