James curled his massive frame into the surprisingly spacious back seat of the dune buggy, it gave a little to accommodate his size with a little ripple of tiny unfolding panels. Kyra did a leaping no-hands cartwheel over the buggy, the outside of the frame made up of so many bladed edges she didn’t want to touch it and landed on the far side before grabbing one of the smooth handles to swing in. They both noticed as they got in that is was as if the whole buggy was closed off from the outside, none of the swirling sand was coming inside the open sides.
“That sand amulet comes in handy!” Kyra said to Teddy.
They had used it a few times now in desert travel. The effect was a clear area around the wearer that filtered sand out of the air to give clean breathing space. Teddy shot Lucy an annoyed look before accelerating hard.
“Sore subject.” Lucy said. “I may have accidentally… kind of… destroyed the amulet, turns out I had to destructively test a theory to replicate the effect, kind of didn’t tell him thats what I was doing. Good news is that I can now apply it to different items! So I can actually replace the amulet but he’s still grumpy.”
“Ah, so he doesn’t have it when he’s off the buggy now then.”
“Not for now. But I PROMISE I’ll make you another one as soon as we have the time and materials Teddy.”
Teddy grumpily steered the buggy around a huge cactus at top speed on the outside of the village making his way around the huts.
“Fine, I’m fine, just brief them on what’s going on.”
“Right, so we finished the buggy and we were about to take it out for a test ride to make sure it wasn’t going to blow up…”
“You were about to? You’re sure this isn’t going to blow up right?” James interjected.
“Yes we’re mostly sure. Anyway, we had a look at the info you posted on the interface about the contracts you were dealing with, I don’t suppose you got to the part where you check where the Wrym nest in the cliff is yet did you?”
Teddy pulled a hard corner and the buggy slide slightly on its knobbly rubber wheels, the outside wheels were half on, half off the edge of the cliff, right near the edge of the village.
“Oh, thats what I’ve been feeling through the ground.” Kyra said.
With her Earth essence she could feel vibrations through the ground and a power called Seismic Sense gave her an accurate reading of the environment around her.
“Can you get us an location to where we’re meant to be going? We realised you guys wouldn’t know that the cliff face is the one the village was sat on. I’m just heading to the centre of the cliff.” Teddy said, unperturbed by the proximity to the edge.
Kyra leant out the side of the buggy, in one hand she summoned a diamond shield, it was part of her diamond armour weapon set she could summon but she didn’t use the shield very often. She held it out so she could lean out and duck behind it without the sand and rocks hitting her. With her other hand she dug it into the rocky ground as if it was water passing by a boat.
“It’s sort of all over the place, get to the bottom of the cliff and It’ll be easier, I can see some large blank sections which I think will be access holes.” Kyra pulled herself back into the buggy.
Teddy was sat on the side nearest the cliff he leaned his head over the edge and shrugged then turned the wheel, driving the buggy off the cliff. As the front wheels went over the edge he pulled a few levers, the back of the buggy elevated slightly and then as the rear wheels got to the edge of the cliff they almost stopped and dug in hard, pivoting the buggy over the edge so the front wheels slammed into the vertical wall, as they did they stuck like magnets. Teddy slammed the levers back the other way and released the brakes on the rear wheels so they kept their momentum going headfirst down the cliff, the knobbly wheels stuck to the rock wall and the buggy went down the face like a squirrel racing down a tree.
“Yeehaw!” James yelled as they all leant into the front of their harnesses.
Teddy was scanning the ground ahead of them to see the best part to hit the ground, to their left there had been a partial collapse and a shallow slop would round them out onto the floor below the cliff, he angled the buggy that way. Suddenly in front of them was a massive hole in the wall. Teddy pulled another lever back and as he did the whole buggy seemed to crouch, Teddy threw the same lever forward and the buggy jumped, clearing the dark hole and managed to hit the wall again just before the slope. He drove a small way out then skidded to a stop facing the cliff. All four Mitchells got out of the buggy to look up at the cliff.
They could see the roofs of a few of the nearest mud huts at the top of the cliff, they could make out the tracks of the buggy hitting the wall and seen that they had luckily cut a track through a few of the dark holes before coming across the one that they had to jump.
“I love this dune buggy!” James exclaimed. “Dibs on driving it next.”
“Yeh I don’t think dark tunnels is going to be the place for the dune buggy.” Teddy replied.
He reached back and grabbed the bull bar on the front, it started folding up from the rear until he had a miniature model of the buggy in his hand. He made a small horizontal slash in front of him and dropped the model in.
“J, what does the book say on Wyrms?” Teddy asked.
“Well see this is where I ruin the mood, the book says that it’s a monster that can appear by itself, but over time attracts other Wyrms, if left for long enough they will attract a Wyrm Matriarch, a bronze rank monster that will spawn more iron rank Wyrms. I’d say from the amount of exit holes in the cliff there has to be more than one.”
“And some of those holes are old. You can see the weather marks and how they’ve had constant rubbing.” Kyra added.
“So rock Wyrms, how do we kill them nice and easy?” Teddy asked.
James thought for a moment before speaking. “We need to see how many there are. As fun as it would be to just wander into the dark and chew through one Wyrm after the other until we run out of steam it’s probably better to draw them out.”
“Ok, so I can see almost a half dozen tunnels, we block some to funnel them and concentrate firepower on two tunnels that are separated. Kyra, block two of them. I’ll get another one and James and Lucy get ready for the first ones coming out on your side. Everyone happy?”
They nodded and split up, Kyra got to within range and rose both wrists up together in front of her and a solid wall appeared from the floor of the centre tunnel to completely block it. She used an earth spike under her feet to launch herself into the air towards the cliff, when she was close enough she pulled out a mirror and a circle of diamond powder appeared in the smallest hole, she willed power into it and it suddenly a giant diamond cannonball filled in the aperture, her golem summon completely blocked the tunnel, squeezing into the rock.
Teddy blurred forwards, almost too fast to track with normal vision. He was in the mouth of the tunnel just taller than himself before the others had moved very far. He made chopping motions up across the front of his body while moving backwards towards the mouth of the tunnel, he left a diagonal rift all across the middle of the tunnel from bottom to top. When he got to the mouth he backflipped off and ran down the wall towards the others. He unclipped the sleeve of his light armour and looked at his tattoo. He often forgot the tattoo and relied on consumables, it was only as they were nearing the end of iron rank and they had the discussion that they would lose their iron rank magic tattoos that he was making more of an effort to use it. He had it done at the same time as James on a trip to Vitesse when they were at the academy annex, where James had a cartoon bear with a wizards hat Teddy’s had been a bit more intense. They had got James’ when they were both drunk, the girls having turned in early, when they sobered up they realised that Teddy also needed one to make it fair. They had gone back and he had got a full sleeve tattoo of swirling galaxies and nebulas, James’ tattoo recharged over time to give him a burst of mana, Teddy had gone for a slightly different tattoo that also gave mana. It was recharged by movement, the tattoo could be used in its entirety or he could ‘sip’ at it, the tattoo faded from the wrist as it was used and became more vibrant as it was charged. The benefit was that Teddy could really shift when he wanted to, with the swift essence he moved rapidly across the terrain and there was a chance in a protracted battle he could even recharge it fully again. He drained the whole sleeve now, having burnt all his mana on the rift in the tunnel.
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They had let two of the tunnels at ground level that were the furthest apart stay open. Teddy motioned James and Lucy to take the one on the right while he and Kyra took the left.
Kyra concentrated with her palm on the ground. “There’s a lot of movement underground, far more than when we first turned up in the village, which explains the earthquake, but none of it is directed this way. How are you going to draw them out?”
“Well there’s only one guy I know with enough talent to piss off this many monsters in one go.” Teddy said, looking over at James.
The big man rolled his eyes before taking a wide stance and cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Hear me roar!”
The voice had the timbre of magic in it, they could almost see it rippling away from them towards the cliff face, Lucy could actually see it. They had a list of notifications come back.
Essence ability [Apex Predator] has successfully influenced 30 enemies.
21 Rock Wyrms have been afflicted with [Vulnerable] and have their resistances lowered.
8 Rock Wyrms have been enraged by [Apex Predator].
1 Rock Matriarch has been enraged by [Apex Predator].
There was a beat where no one said anything as they took in the notifications.
“Holy cow, twenty nine iron rank monsters and a bronze, who’s pissed.” Teddy said, looking a little shocked.
“Change of plans?” James asked.
Teddy looked at the tunnels and at his team. Then the open space behind him they could just run away before turning back to the huts at the top of the cliff. The villagers had noticed the rumbling from below, the monsters had no ability to roar back but they made a terrible noise scraping underground. The whole village stood vulnerably at the top nervously looking down.
“The plan stays the same, we don’t need to change it.”
The others followed his gaze to the civilians at the top of the cliff. They squared their shoulders and got ready. James released Koda and a snake slithered out from the top of his vambrace ready to throw. Lucy had absorbed Lechuza, the tell-tale eye markings of feathers to show an absorbed familiar, the benefit was that it had the chance to deflect incoming physical damage, they hadn’t actually had the chance to test it out in its entirety yet. Kyra summoned her sword and shield, Lucky remained absorbed until they could see where to deploy him. She was monitoring the tremors in the ground, the mass that was coming towards them was terrifying.
The monsters all hit the ends of the tunnels at the same time. The sealed tunnels did their job, the earth wall shook and a crack appeared. The diamond golem shuddered in place from the impact and dust came off its back but it held and they could hear the golem fighting hard on the other side even without being able to move. The tunnel that Teddy had blocked off was disgusting, bits of Wyrm tumbled out of the end in a hosepipe of fleshy chunks.
The teams were both coordinating individually. James and Lucy had a game plan, as soon as they saw the first Rock Wyrm they were going to lay out a surprise. The head of the monster took up most of the tunnel, it’s tiny eyes were tiny and heavily shielded, its maw was most of the size of its head. Circular rows of teeth disappeared back into its throat, strong enough to bite through and crush the rock to make the tunnels. As soon as she saw the head Lucy hit it with a spell.
“While the left hand waves the right makes the move.”
Her Kansas City Shuffle power created small illusions to distract enemies, the Wyrm froze in place. They were relying on the fact that some of the Wyrms James had been unsuccessful in inflicting with the Vulnerable condition and instead enraged them, the lead Wyrm was the cork in the bottle that had just been shaken. The Wyrm behind took offence to his path to his prey being blocked and in its anger attacked the Wyrm under the illusion, the pair could see the body shuddering under the attack whilst immobilised by the spell. As the Wyrm gave up and was now just a dead block to the tunnel they could see it starting to be pushed out the way by those behind. They had warned the other team of their plan and Lucy looked over to see a Wyrm appear from the tunnel on the left.
“Exchange your fates.”
The dead Wyrm was teleported with the live one, the monsters behind were freshly frustrated by the blockage and they heard the grinding again as they attacked the new monster on instinct after they had killed the first.
On the left side of the battlefield Kyra and Teddy were just getting started. The dead monster that was teleported over was quickly shoved out the way by the first Wyrm out, Kyra had been quick with a earth spike to hit it from the side before it had even got its full length out of the tunnel, it reared in pain, unnerving that they made no sound in pain, the spike had pierced the body only so far before bodily shoving it sideways. As it rolled off the spike it curled around to head straight-line towards the pair again, she hit it with another spike erupting from the ground on the other side and it had the same effect, punching it sideways after partially piercing it. It flopped off and charged again. Now that it was completely in the open they could see what they were dealing with, it looked like a huge grey maggot, at its thickest it was the height of Teddy. It powered itself along the ground with no visible method of propulsion. Teddy ran forward to attack. The Wyrm belched at the pair and a shower of rocks flew at them, Teddy found them easy to dodge and the few that made their way back to Kyra she blocked one with her shield and contemptuously cut one in half with her sword.
[Thats not so bad if thats all they’ve got in terms of ranged attacks.] Kyra put on the interface.
Three more Wyrms had made their way out of the tunnel and were now negotiating Kyra’s chicane she had made with the earth spikes, when they felt their brethren belch rocks they decided to fire as well. This time Teddy found it a little harder to dodge. Kyra had to take a knee and duck behind her shield as the rocks smashed into it. After taking the hit she stood and used her boulder throw power to conjure and fire a huge boulder down the gullet of the first Wyrm as Teddy attacked.
While the Wyrm was smashed in the teeth with the boulder Teddy danced to the side, he conjured his blade almost directly into the wound that Kyra’s earth spike had caused in the tough armoured hide. He left the blade there as he used his winged feet power to double jump over the monster to the other side to re-conjure his sword into the other wound, the first blade disappearing as he could only summon one at a time. The creature bled profusely from both wounds and now that it had cleared the boulder from its mouth it turned to try and bite Teddy, unfortunately its body was so big and fat with no neck on the thick creature it just had to turn its whole body, Teddy nimbly jumped over to the first wound, now the creature was bent the other way he summoned his blade deep inside the monster and with both hands leant into the blade to open the cut backwards down the monster through the thick armour. He soon gave up as he was sinking too much mana into the cut and wasn’t doing enough damage for the cost. As he flipped away Kyra used another earth spike into the wound that Teddy had been working on, this time it sunk deep poking the inside of the tough armour on the opposite side. It came up at a sharp angle so that the monster was actually partially lifted off the ground and it seemed to give up.
Teddy could sense his rift that he had left blocking one of the tunnels. The amount of monsters that had tried to push their way through and then been forced through by their brethren had left a mess of gore spilling down the cliff face. He could feel that the rift was about to be consumed, he could only add so much mana to each one and it was depleted for the damage it caused.
[James, I need a launch.]
He ran towards his brother, crossing paths with Koda as the big bear swapped out to help Kyra on the left while Teddy was busy. James was stood facing the cliff as Teddy ran behind him, as he did James’ rat tail materialised from the back of his armour and Teddy grabbed it, a mix of swinging around James and the tail whipping him and he was suddenly airbourne heading straight towards the cliff and the tunnel entrance, he saw that he was going to land just inside, and into the Wyrms open mouth.