As our life stories came to an end, we began discussing what our next plan of action should be. While the space we were in was safe for now, there was no telling when that would change. Thus, a plan was needed to escape the cave. The biggest problem was that, as it happened, Sieg had snuck most of the way down into the depths of the cave with his iconic mask. From his account, there were legions of those lovely roaches between us and the surface. While they were smaller the closer one went to the surface, the pure volume of nasties made us give up on a direct exit. No, if we were going to get out of this mess, we were going to have to go all the way to the bottom, we were going to have to face the guardian beast of the divine essence. Killing the guardian beast and removing the essence would greatly weaken the rest of the creatures in the area. Sieg even had a detector for divine essences that while very crude, indicated that the essence was very close.
Thus we needed a plan, and as the resident vessel for a victory god I gave it my best shot. It helped that Sieg’s backstory had given me an idea or hunch as Verethragna would have put it. That idea eventually blossomed into a full plan, one that you could even call impressive for two teens out of their depths. The real issue was that while it was the best plan available to us… Sieg hated the plan and complained all the way to the guardians chamber.
"Like I was saying," said Sieg as the duo made their way downward, "This is a terrible idea."
"Coming from the guy who thought he could stealth his way through this whole cave system, I really think this plan is better than your original," I replied.
"Okay, look, fine I've admitted to both my stupidity and how greatly I underestimated this cave multiple times at this point, but the guardian beast is going to kill us. You know, this thing will basically be a mini great beast. Even at my most arrogant, I never actually thought I could kill a guardian beast," Sieg said.
"Yes, but you aren't an accessor like I am. I have the powers of the god of victory," I said.
"Sure, sure you may have powers, but you certainly don't have any kind of skill with them. And it's ascender, not accessor," Sieg corrected me.
"Tomato, tomato."
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"What in the ever-burning forge of Hephaestus is a tomato?"
"Nevermind, we just need to stick to the plan and everything will work out."
"Ugh, I just know that the guardian beast is going to be a bigger one of these... What do you call them, super roaches? Yea, so this thing is going to be at least three times the size of those others that almost killed both of us."
"Yes, but don't worry, we were separated and not working together last time. Besides, this time we have a plan."
"The reason you're so in favor of the plan is because you aren't the one in direct danger. How the hell did you get the less dangerous role, with your god-damned ascender?"
"Hey, man, don't sell yourself short. You have the burning hammer thing."
"The burning hammer thing... THE BURNING HAMMER THING!!! The so-called burning hammer thing is an expression of the favor of Hephaestus. Since all divine smiths are basically his clergy, I have some use of the power. That being said, I am also basically excommunicated now, so using the power is extremely difficult. Also, the flames of Hephaestus' forge aren't generally used for combat anyway."
"I think you're just selling yourself short," I said to Sieg. But before he could respond, we rounded a turn and came upon an entrance to a massive cavern. Scattered around the entrance were the remains of many different super roaches. These super roaches were each in various different levels of decay. What really worried us was that each of the corpses was significantly bigger than any of the original trio that we had fought.
"It's crunch time, Sieg," I said, donning the mask that the smith had risked everything on.
"Crunch time? Is that a bad joke for what's about to happen to us? Whatever, let's get on with it," Sieg replied.
"I just hope this fancy trinket of yours actually works, or our gooses are cooked," I said, tapping the mask.
"Trust the mask, it's my greatest work. And if we survive, we have to work on your language. You have the oddest sayings," Sieg replied. With that last declaration, Sieg strode into the chamber, hands white-knuckling his hammer, which he held in a two-handed grip right in front of him, ready for just about anything. Of course, that just about anything certainly excluded the titanic insectoid monstrosity that arose from the various debris that littered this cave floor.
This guardian beast looked somewhat like its smaller relatives, except there was just a lot more of it. It stood reared up on its hind legs, over thirty feet tall and must have been around forty feet long and ten feet wide. Instead of the two fearsome scythes the smaller trio had, this absolute unit had six in total, with eighteen long legs. Instantly, I saw Sieg’s pants grow wet and seemed to be inwardly cursing me out.