Mark had once read somewhere that a piece of shrapnel from a frag grenade is launched at around 1,500 to 2,000 feet per second. If you are standing anywhere near one of these when they go off they are more than likely to turn your insides to mush, and that's just the small bits. The bigger shrapnel will go right through you, your best bud, and several more people after that.
That’s exactly what was happening now.
A confined space didn't help things, in fact, the domed room contained the explosions doing more damage than if the energy were allowed to escape upward feely.
Mark felt every fragmented bit burst into his construct.
“Again!” sounded out as four more grenades followed shortly.
The pressure was strong and very unpleasant, but Mark could handle it.
If he were to compare, the sensation felt like time Mark had gone dune surfing in California and the wind had picked up. Blowing the dry grains of sand against his skin like thousands of tiny pinpricks stabbing into him.
Or at least that’s what it felt like against his shield.
The second time the grenades went out Mark saw two of them travel into the passageway behind the squad.
After the second detonation a moment of silence, the sounds in the room kicked back in. Everyone started moving again. The Corrupted that survived the explosions were still limping or crawling forward. The Ghasts had been ripped from the skies with shredded wings. Many of the pustules had been crushed by the explosions.
The frontline moved out from under the dome. The grenades killed many of the Corrupted, but not as many as it crippled.
Mark maintained the shield while the frontline swept through the room cleaning up the stragglers. Sam and Jaya focused on keeping the passage clear behind them as the narrow space had limited the number of Corrupted injured in the blast.
Mark's eyes when up toward the ceiling, trying to determine if the explosions had done any damage to the surrounding structure. Surprisingly he couldn't see too much additional damage. As luck would have it the fungal growths in this part of the Subway were so thick that they were actually acting as structural supports. Holes had been blown into the network of mold covering the walls, but if one looked close enough they could see that it was already repairing itself, filling the new cracks. The purple light in the room had dulled slightly but was still at the level that one could see.
As soon as Jonathan gave the all-clear they returned to help with the Corrupted battling to enter the room.
Soon enough they had finished off them too.
“Right, taking stock we only have two frag grenades left. Along with five impact grenades, but we will only use those in an absolute emergency. They are even more likely to bring this place down on our heads” Davis said.
“So we used our get out of jail free card. We’ll survive” Sam said while smiling. She had taken out a small plastic vial and was scraping a sample of the mold into it.
“My fear is we won’t” Ava muttered darkly to herself.
“Should we try to get rid of this stuff?” Chris asked while pointing at the mold.
“Negative, our job is to clear the dungeon. Once we do that we can figure out what to do about that stuff” Davis said.
Jonathan nodded.
“Agreed. Is everyone ready to move? Whatever hatched from that thing needs to be dealt with”
“One sec lemme just find one of the rat guys for command,” Sam said while looking through piles of corpses.
Mark had been looking at the Marketplace to find the price of frag grenades since they had worked so well. They were 107 Sp. Expensive, but Mark had seen them in action now. The problem was they were still sold out.
Once everyone had sounded off and Sam had gotten her selfie they continued.
Taking the path that led off down one of the branches, they followed the trail of ichor that lead from the room.
As they did so Mark noticed that it stopped looking like one long trail and tapered off into patches.
It took Mark a moment, but looking at the pattern he eventually realized they were footprints. Whatever this thing was it must have found its feet at that point. And it wasn't walking on two legs. Mark counted four legs before the trail became too faint to follow.
He pointed it out to the party, a couple of whom had noticed the same thing.
Sam pointed out more burst pustules in this corridor. The pustules looked dried out compared to the ones back at the junction. They were definitely hatched much earlier with trails leading deeper into the tunnel.
“Looks like we have a possible new species on our hands,” Sam said with a little too much interest in her eyes.
They kept moving down the passage, looking for any signs of danger.
After an hour or so of walking Jonathan called out to the squad.
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“Stop, we got something up ahead”
Jonathan, Davis, and Daphne went ahead. Mark saw Daphne covering her nose in distaste.
After a moment they returned with grim faces.
“Okay, we got humanoid remains down here. Though judging by what's left we think they were Corrupted” Jonathan said.
“Wait. Something is fucking eating the Corrupted?” Ava said with disgust.
“We don't know that yet,” Davis reassured her.
“We need to keep moving,” Jonathan said.
They rejoined the group and the party kept moving forward.
There was a pungent odor in the air, carrying a foul, sourness that everyone familiar with the task of assisting a drunken, retching friend home at two AM would recognize. It was the unmistakable smell of stomach acid.
Mark spotted the remains that they were talking about and he didn't like what he saw.
The remains were bones. The flesh was picked clean on most of them, but Mark spotted the odd patch of gray Corrupted skin here and there. The unnerving thing was that almost every corpse here showed signs of melting, even the bone did not escape this fate. Like something had dissolved the corpse while ripping into it.
One thing Mark was sure of was that something was definitely feeding down here.
Sam was muttering into her camera while inspecting the remains.
“Interesting, perhaps they have some sort of food chain in their ranks”
The party moved through the area almost unmolested. Passing through the tunnels in silence, Mark almost wished some zombies would show up to break the eerie atmosphere. That was until they heard the sound of tearing flesh.
Davis held up a fist which Mark understood to be the international sign for freeze. Then putting two fingers two his lips in a silencing gesture he then pointed towards the origin of the sound.
Mark killed the light.
Their squad moved as silently as possible, using the light created by the mold.
Up ahead they could just make out a portion of the tunnel. There stood a single Corrupted surrounded by remains.
However, it wasn't the Corrupted that captured their attention. Instead, it was the presence of a hound-like creature hunching right beside it. It came to about chest height for the average human male.
Balanced on all fours, its twisted paws extended up to thin, emaciated legs. Its skin appeared gaunt and malnourished, stretched to its limits unlike the excess seen on Ghasts. As it moved, bones protruded from beneath its skin. The creature had feeble hind legs and a barrel-like chest that ascended into a thick throat, from which drool steadily dribbled. Each droplet hissed upon contact with the stonework, releasing acidic fumes that filled the air.
If the presence of the creature wasn't distressing enough, it was the head that truly drove home the sense of a waking nightmare. Emerging near the base of its throat, a mouth stretched into a pointed snout capable of opening both vertically and horizontally. Atop its earless head, two entirely black eyes watched the Corrupted with an unnerving intensity.
The real kicker was that the Corrupted didn't attack or run. It just stood there, staring up at the approaching beast. When the creature got to the Corrupted it opened its maw and bit down on its shoulder. Trying to shove as much of the Corrupted in its mouth as it could. The Corrupted still did not struggle, remaining passive, offering no resistance as the creature consumed it.
“Jesus” Ava whispered.
The creature froze, unlatching its jaw from the Corrupted, and whipped its head around to face them.
It growled at them menacingly, as if it could clearly see them.
“Shit! Get ready!” Jonathan said.
Then the creature did something unexpected. Its chest began to expand as it did its throat until something reached its jaws. finally releasing something from its jaws, the damned thing fired a baseball-sized globule of acidic spit at the squad.
Mark, Sam, and Jaya reacted at the same time.
Mark threw up a [Shape Mana], flaring his light back into existence. Sam fired a bolt of fire and Jaya sent a band of water forward. As it turned out the fire reached the incoming projectile first. Dashing the liquid back toward the source in a shotgun effect. Though it never reached its target.
The creature let loose a howl at the top of its lungs that sound like a demented coyote.
“Shut that thing up!” Davis yelled.
Jaya turned the band of water into a blade and sent it forward. At the same time, the frontline opened fire.
The creature cut its cry short and dashed to the side dodging the blade, but taking some bullets in the process. It was fast. Then it charged them. While it was still running toward them its chest expanded again. A bolt of acid flew forward as the hound went right for Ava.
Mark pushed his shield forward and caught the acidic projectile, which slattered against the pane of force. Landing on the stonework below.
He was bracing for the creature to hit his construct, but the impact never came. As it turned out Jonathan dashed forward cleaving through the thing in one smooth horizontal slash before it could even reach the frontline.
The creature dropped to the ground with a yelp and stopped moving. Smoke sizzled where its blood touched the stone.
The passage echoed with shrill howls. More were approaching and judging by the sound of it they were close.
“Alright. Reload there are more of those things on the way, get ready,” Davis called out.
Mark could see Jonathan wiping the blood off his blade and looking at himself where the tiny splatters of blood had hit him. The biggest patch was on one of his hands.
Mark moved forward quickly to inspect the wound. He heard Daphne crushing the half-eaten Corrupted.
Pulling out a bottle of water Mark poured it over the patch.
“These things are unpleasant and it looks like their blood is the same as their spit if any gets on you flush the wound with water. It’ll dilute the acid till I can get to you.” Mark said to everyone.
As the water washed away the blood, Mark saw a light red spot on Jonathan's skin. Almost as if he had a heavy sunburn in just that area.
This shit had eaten through stone and all it seem to do to Jonathan was cause a mild skin irritation. Though If he left it on long enough perhaps it could cause some damage.
“You are lucky your Aura is so high,” Mark said to him.
“Listen, Aura seems to provide you with protection, but do not get careless. Acid burns will be one of the hardest wounds to heal as it’ll continue to burn your flesh until we can neutralize it” Mark warned them.
“Huh, just checked the system these things are called Ghouls,” Daphne said.
Mark’s eye flicker to the remains around them. It fit a little too well for his liking.
The cries were much closer now and seemed to bounce down the tunnel.
Mark reshaped his construct into a cube with a rounded top and set his light there.
Jaya pulled a massive amount of water into the area around them.
Sam was working on some kind of pressurized air spell and the frontline was locked and loaded.
Suddenly the howling stopped altogether.
A minute of absolute silence passed.
Then a bolt shot forth from the darkness and splattered against the screen. Then another and another, and pretty soon the air was filled with acid.