Chapter 16 #2
Twenty motes of power burst from all around him. They curved towards the insects who, to his shock, jumped around to avoid.
Only half of the missiles hit their target, disabling the constructs. The rest either missed or hit them from the wrong angle, rattling them without destroying the crystal.
Six of them poured from behind the pillars behind them. They crossed the floor in bursts, stopping and starting, changing direction with jarring speed, their legs clicking on the stone.
Luna jumped towards them. “I’ve got the rear,” she shouted.
As the first construct leapt towards her, she moved by it in a move that didn’t even look like an attack, but the construct landed with a shattered gem.
The spiraled dagger only flashed in Luna’s hand, held at her side in a stance that looked casual.
Sonja spun, firing two arrows near Luna, hitting two more of them. “I’ve got you, Kitten.”
Garrett and Theron braced the front. Marena’s staff flared, her motes streaming outward, coating both of them in protective light.
Two constructs lunged at Garrett. He caught the first on his shield, the impact lighter than the statues.
The construct bounced off and immediately darted to his right, trying to flank.
The second went low, aiming for his legs with the pincers.
He stomped on it, pinning one of its legs, and brought his sword down on its back.
The blade cracked and smashed its crystal.
Theron swung wide, his axe catching a construct mid-lunge. The blow sent it spinning across the floor, shattering. But two more replaced it, darting in from different angles, their tails whipping forward.
“Watch the tails!” Garrett barked. He dodged a strike that came from a construct Alsen hadn’t even seen approach. It scraped his shield arm, cutting a line across his bracer.
Three constructs made it through Theron and Garrett, rushing towards Alsen and Marena. He needed a different attack spell. Now.
Alsen stepped in, charging a spell into his fingers. He slashed the fingers in a broad swing.
Curve cut.
The power cut a curve in front of him, slashing two constructs apart at the crystal. It only got the front legs of the third one, though. Marena jumped to it and hit it with her staff. The precise jab hit the crystal on its back, destroying it.
Sonja turned back toward the front and destroyed two more constructs with two quick arrows.
One of the constructs broke past the frontline, running along the wall before it jumped at Marena.
Luna slid by Marena’s side and hit the construct with a curved dagger from the top. Alsen only saw the dagger flash among Luna’s loose sleeves before it vanished.
Theron and Garrett each finished off one more construct. They had a small pile around themselves. Everyone stopped moving. No visible targets remained, so they listened.
No more sounds of scuttling legs.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ENEMIES DEFEATED – GEMBOUND SCORPION CONSTRUCTS (17)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 1275]
[LEVEL: 12]
Alsen exhaled. Everyone did.
Garrett checked his bracer where the tail had scraped him. No blood. “Everyone all right?”
“Cut on the thigh,” Theron reported. He pressed a hand against his leg. “From one with the pincers.”
Sonja had a scratch on her forearm, barely bleeding.
“Let me see,” Marena said, moving to Theron first. She placed her hands over the wound, the familiar warm light of her healing spells gathering between her palms. She worked in focused silence, then moved to Sonja.
Sonja sat on the floor, letting Marena tend the scratch. Her eyes tracked Luna across the room.
Luna had already moved away from the group. She crouched over one of the dead constructs, poking at it with a plain-looking dagger, prying at its segments.
Sonja stared at Luna, transfixed.
Alsen snapped to reality and walked towards her. The way Luna fought was entirely different from how she fought previously. Against the ogres and the stone priestess, she fought in a way Alsen could understand. She fought how he would have roughly expected her to.
Today, her move seemed incomprehensible. He crouched over the scorpion next to her, together with Garrett, who approached from the other side.
Luna poked at the tail. “There’s a small hollow in the last segment. We should check it for poison.”
Alsen pushed a bit of power into his fingers. Line cut. He slashed the tail cleanly in two. Dark purple, almost black liquid flooded out.
Luna smelled it. “Nothing I recognize.”
“Marena,” Garrett shouted. “Come take a look at something.”
Luna rose, heading towards the back.
“One second,” Marena finished wrapping Sonja’s arm. “I’m coming.” She rushed to Garrett.
Alsen focused on the poison, firing off a couple of analysis scans. No hints of magic, no life, but he detected moving microorganisms inside the liquid. A whole lot of them. The entire liquid served more as a vessel for some tiny creatures. He would need a microscope to study them further.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Luna’s shout cleaved the air, making even Alsen jump in his skin. They all turned.
Sonja sat on the ground, Luna standing above her.
“You’re risking both yourself and your friends over being stupid,” Luna shouted. “Focus on the normal way you fight.”
“But I was trying to—”
“I don’t need help,” Luna shouted again, not letting Sonja finish the sentence. “Theron and Garrett are counting on you. I’m not. I fight by myself, so trying to babysit me is harmful.”
“But you look—”
“That doesn’t matter!” Luna spun on her heel and headed back to the dissected scorpion.
Sonja remained behind, staring with a gaping mouth, eyes watering.
Luna ducked by Marena, who was just hovering her hand above the venom. Her hand shone with faint, teal light. “How does it look?” Luna asked.
“Right, ehh… pretty bad.” Marena flushed. “I mean, the venom. It’s a paralytic parasite-based venom. I’ve read about this type in one of my mentor’s tomes. Or, well, the natural version of this. This is highly concentrated and enhanced with other substances.”
“What does it do?” Alsen asked.
“If you get injected with this, the parasites will start spreading through the body, feeding on the nervous system. The area they sting will become paralyzed almost instantly. But the spreading won’t stop.
The paralysis will progress through the entire body, paralyzing the major muscles first. Then, it will progress through softer tissue until the person is completely paralyzed, and in a couple of hours at most, even the lungs and heart are paralyzed, leading to death. ”
Sweat beaded on Alsen’s forehead. Even Garrett slightly paled, looking at the scratched bracer. “Can you heal it?” Garrett asked.
“No,” Marena admitted. “If it’s a smaller dose on a limb, it might help to immediately sever the limb, but once it gets to the torso, there’s nothing I can do. Or anyone else…” her voice faded.
“Let’s not get hit then,” Garrett straightened, sheathing his sword. “Let’s move.” He stepped forward.
Luna took his side, silent, jaw clenched.
Theron slowly followed.
Alsen and Marena waited for Sonja, who came, bow still in hand, quiver ready by the belt. “Are you all right?” Alsen asked.
“I guess.” Sonja shook her head. “I didn’t think Kitten could be so intense.”
“Luna’s really good at fighting,” Alsen said, even though he had no idea how good, actually. “She’ll be all right.”
“I had a partner like that, once,” Sonja said, voice uncharacteristically weak. “Back before I met Garrett. His name was Elan. He taught me to track and to shoot a bow. He both loved and mentored me as we traveled. I couldn’t do anything at first, but he always had patience with me.”
Alsen let her talk, listening.
“We adventured together for eight months. Small quests, nothing dangerous. I liked him a lot. I never told him anything, though. I kept thinking there’d be a perfect time for it.
Tomorrow, next week, after the next quest, or whenever he opens up about it.
It wasn’t even that I was scared. I just…
didn’t feel any urgency. We were young with our entire lives ahead of us. ”
Alsen nodded.
“I got sick one winter. He took a solo quest. Tracking a wounded frost bear that had been hitting a farm. A simple, routine job, easy for one person. I wanted to come, but he insisted I stay in the cottage to recover. He told me he’d be back by evening with a hot dinner.”
Sonja’s hands went still.
“He didn’t come back by evening. Or the next morning.
I went out looking for him by noon. I easily found his trail, the way he once taught me to.
After a few hours, I found where he fought the bear.
And where the second bear came from and caught him from behind.
” Her voice was steady in the way of someone who’d said these words before, not only to herself.
“I found his pack, his weapons, splatters of his blood. I never found the body.”
The silence stretched.
“I met Garrett a few days after I gave up the search. It’s been years, but I can’t ignore seeing her walking into danger,” Sonja finished.
Alsen understood her, in a way. “You should tell her that.”
Sonja snorted. “She doesn’t want to hear anything from me right now.”
“Not right now, no. But eventually.”
She sped up, so they reformed into a much tighter formation. Garrett took point. Theron on his left, axe in hand. Luna on his right, still looking unarmed. Sonja walked a few steps behind them, bow half-drawn, scanning the pillars. Alsen and Marena held the rear.
They moved in measured steps, the silence broken only by their footfalls and nothing else.
Carvings covered every surface. Alsen’s fingers itched to touch them, to study them, to decode more of the language he’d cracked at the gate. But this wasn’t the time. The carvings could wait. The envenomed constructs couldn’t.
The gallery ended at a wide archway. Beyond it, a corridor branched left and right. Theron tracked the air, holding a hand up at each passage.
“Left pulls,” he said. “Air’s moving from deeper in.”
“Left it is,” Garrett decided.