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Chapter 320 - The battle at the passage
🕑 Added 2021-09-29 21:30:50 +0000 UTC##### Author's Note ####
Hey everyone! I'm sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. Since last week I'm not feeling very well. I ended up going to the doctor on Sunday and got some meds that really knocked me out.
I woke up this morning thinking it was Tuesday, lol.
I'm still not feeling all that well, but I'm steadily improving, and I hope I'll be fine by the end of the week.
I believe that this will be the last hiccup with posting because of this, but I can't be sure.
One of my symptoms is dizziness, and trying to write while everything spins is not that great, lol.
Oh, one last thing, you guys don't need to worry. According to the doctor is nothing serious, just a stomach bug that I got and really messed me up. I did a bunch of tests (including a COVID-19 one), and they all came negative.
Fear not, I'll be back to my normal self really soon! And enjoy today's chapter!
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It took only a few minutes for the passage to turn into a scene from a horror movie. Hundreds of spiders and scarabs kept crawling over each other, trying to reach Hera and the others. The creatures were swarming them as if they were a plague, forcing the humans to retreat farther and farther back the spiral passage. The monsters were climbing the walls and even the ceiling, trying to reach this new source of meat that had just invaded their home. In fact, running to the passage was a strategic move that helped the party a great deal. Instead of worrying about monsters coming from all directions, they only have to worry about those coming from the front.
Shane fired her stone bullets and her electric nets at the monsters trying to cross through the ceiling. She tried to use her explosive shot once, but that was a sure-fire way to cause problems in such a tight space. Not just because the force of the blast would travel through the passage, but burning the monsters now would create a large smokescreen that could both help hide the creatures and start to suffocate the party.
Bonnie was using her spells to push the monsters out of the walls and give the rest of the party a better way to deal with the creatures. She was also doing her best to keep everyone out of the line of sight of the scarabs on the back. The stings they could shot would be enough to hinder the group's defenses. However, thanks to her quick thinking and spells, Bonnie was able to push the spiders in front of the scarabs to stop them from shooting. To make things even better, the scarabs would sometimes shoot and hit the spiders, causing a small struggle that was enough to give some breathing room to the humans.
Mylo, Alex, and Blue were taking care of the vanguard. They were able to push back some of the monsters, but it was an uphill battle. For each creature they managed to kill, another two would take their place. Blue was feeling freer now that everyone knew about her legacy. She could use her clouds to attack and block the monsters, even calling Sunny, who was now a part of Stormcloud, to the fight. The mount could have lost some of its strength, but it could now be used in combat. Of course, it wasn't something that strong, and Sunny could barely push a monster back, but that small help was all that Blue needed to kill the incoming spiders. Alex kept jumping from monster to monster. She was like a circus acrobat doing flips and pirouettes while slashing the monsters with her daggers. Her hiding skills were even more impressive. She was out in the open, but that didn't stop her from getting the [Sneak Attack] skill or her [Hide] benefits. It seemed like she had found a way to keep her buffs even when she was seen, or she had a different skill that worked like a loophole.
As the last member of the vanguard, Mylo was having a blast. These monsters weren't able to break his skin thanks to his endurance, and while using his flower staff, he could squash the bugs with a single move. The part he enjoyed the most was clearing out the corpses that ended up falling from all directions. He used his staff as a club to send the carcasses flying towards the middle of the swarm. After doing that a couple of times, he realized that there was something better to do with those bodies. Instead of just lobbing them in the distance, he could use them as a weapon. One of his spells allowed him to inject thorns in objects and toss them like grenades before the spell made vines shot out from the item. When a monster died, its body was no longer something living, and there wouldn't be any push back when using the spell on the corpses.
On the back, Helena was focusing on hindering the incoming monsters. She would remove their sight or sense of touch to make them miss attacks and follow that up by creating illusory senses that would make the creature hit its friends and start a struggle. Occasionally, the mage would also use a shadow spell to bind the monsters or rip them apart with her grabbers. Still, since this was already a long fight, Helena focused on cost-effectiveness instead of pure destructive power to make sure she wouldn't run out of mana. Silah was by her side, using her metal shaping spell to cut off limbs from any of the bugs. She was also being the second line of defense alongside Hera, protecting Shane and Helena on the back. Unlike what most of the party members expected, the dwarf was great at close range. She was Hera's teacher while she learned the [Subtle Strike] style, and that showed during the fight. Several times, Silah looked like she was about to get hit by an attack, only to dodge it at the last moment. She always followed that up with a move that if it didn't kill the assailant, it would severely cripple it.
To anyone watching the struggle, Hera would look like the one having trouble pulling her own weight. It took her several moves to kill even a small spider, and the orange projectiles she kept flinging towards the swarm seemed to do little to nothing. What wasn't obvious was how much her spells were affecting the fight as a whole. Her poison needles were spreading fast. In a fight against so many enemies, the bracelet that Risli made was constantly triggered, making her ailments jump to other creatures in the area. Every five minutes or so, Hera would activate her poison control spell to kill dozens of monsters at once and give the group a small break.
Even with this well-organized strategy, Hera and the others were being pushed back. They were already halfway up the passage, and if they reached the top floor, all these monsters would spill out into the valley, making an already tough fight much more complicated. Individually, the monsters were not a danger to the group. The problem was in the sheer number of creatures that were attacking. They had already killed hundreds of them, but there was no sign of the swarm stopping.
"Anyone has any ideas?" Shane yelled while she was reloading her gun.
"Kill them!" Mylo shouted back.
"No shit. I'm asking how to end this. We don't know how many are still out there."
"I could try my grease fire spell," Hera replied.
"What if we hide?" Alex jumped away from a spider who just nicked her leg. The attack wasn't enough to cut through the armor, but it was enough to stop the assassin's flow.
"Then what? What if those things go the outpost," Bonnie threw two fists at a scarab on the back of the swarm to stop it from firing its stingers.
"They would have to cross the chasm. If we can hide and let them pass, we might be able to go down the passage and block it off," Helena made a web of shadows to grab some of the monsters on the walls and toss them back.
"How do we do that then?" Blue punched two spiders away and used one of her clouds to block a scarab.
"Hera and I can go up. We make a hole on the side of the passage so we can hide there as we did in the bunker," Silah sent her spinning blades to the middle of the swarm, carving a large path that was quickly filled with more monsters.
"Then Lena can use that spell she used to hide from the wendigos. I bet that's more than enough to deal with those things," Hera used a poison needle along with a wind feather to see if she could disperse her poison in a broader area, but that didn't work. The spells just flew together without interacting with each other.
"Then go. Hurry, make the passage clear to us and get ready to close it!" Shane yelled. Even if she was s few levels higher than the monsters, facing this many was unnerving, to say the least.
Hera and Silah tossed a couple more spells at the swarm and dashed up the passage. While fighting the monsters, the group was moving steadily, which gave them more or less an idea of how much ground they would have to cover to be hidden from the monsters.
"Should we go higher?" Silah asked after they couldn't see the monsters anymore.
"Let's do another half lap, but we'll need to be quick on making the hole," Hera replied
"We should do it in the inner walls. If we make it on the ground, we are going to have to consider the weight of those things."
"That's a good idea. Just remember to give us a signal of where that thing is," Bonnie said through the communicator.
They kept running as fast as they could until they reached a point where they felt comfortable enough to make their hiding spot. Hera and Silah quickly got to work opening the inner wall of the passage and creating a secondary bunker. Since they had no idea how long it would take for the swarm to pass, they had to make it deep enough to allow for enough air to be there. If not, they would have to make holes on the wall, which could warn the monsters of their location.
"Hera, I found something," Silah was already deep in the hole they created.
"Do you need to show now?"
"It can wait."
"Then just make it wider so everyone can get inside."
"Ok, but don't make this tunnel more than 5 meters wide. You'll understand later."
Hera nodded and kept going. In less than two minutes, they managed to create a tunnel long enough so that everyone would be able to enter. Silah made a point to stay on the back of the passage while Hera had to be by the entrance so she could close it when everyone was inside.
"We are ready!" Hera called in the communicator.
"Got it. Everyone do your big spells. Blue, can you make a cloud to stall them?" Shane replied.
"I think I can!" a yell echoed through the tunnel.
There were some loud rumblings followed by the noise of hurried footsteps. Hera peeked out of the tunnel to signal their location to everyone. In a few moments, Alex appeared and jumped inside the passage, already trying to steady her breath not to make too much noise. Shane and Mylo were the next ones, with Helena right on their heels. The mage got inside and already created the sense deprivation barrier that stopped the wendigos from finding her on the Qeeroni Wilds. Hera was still halfway out of the tunnel, waiting for Blue.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, where are you?" Hera mumbled under her breath, worried about her friend.
A thick layer of white smoke started to fill up the passage, and soon Hera couldn't even see what was going on around her.
"Guys!" Blue yelled from within the smoke.
"Here!" Hera called out and put out her arm, trying to find her friend.
Seconds went by, and Hera was already in cold sweats. The cloud wasn't supposed to be this thick. The idea was just to stall the monsters and not to make them unable to see each other. Maybe this wasn't even something that Blue had done. What if this was made by one of the monsters?
Before she could spiral out of control, Hera felt a familiar hand grasping her wrist. She pulled Blue inside the passage with a swift motion and blocked it off with a stone slab. Helena kept her barrier up, and the entire party just stood there in silence. They even snuffed out all the lights. They had to be sure not to attract the monsters. Blue felt her clouds disperse after a minute, and they heard the rumbling of thousands of legs running outside. The group remained there motionless, trying not to even make noise to breathe while the swarm crossed the passage.
Ten tense minutes went by until the sound finally stopped. Shane asked everyone to wait for a couple of minutes more before doing anything, just to be safe.
"I think we are good to go now," Shane said."
"Let me open the door," Hera prepared her spell, but Silah spoke up.
"Hang on. Come back here, guys. There is something you might want to see," Silah made a small light and pointed to a part of the tunnel that didn't seem to have been created recently.
"What's that?" Blue asked.
"No clue. It was already here when I found it. That's why I said to everyone stay back, I don't know what's in there," Silah explained.
The group carefully walked towards that path. The tunned that Hera and Silah had made ended up in a spiral structure, much like the passage, but this one had one significant difference. The decorations. Sculptures of gold and jewels were spread around in that passage, each in a unique position and unique characteristics.
Silah turned back to Shane after seeing all that, "So? Change of plans?"
Shane opened a big smile, "Absolutely!"
