Mining and Wine-ing
He had made his choice.
The barbed bat struck lightning itself, a homerun to send an arc of divine lightning into the Flame-Scaled Warrior’s chest. Against the incandescent glow of the monster’s scales, Creature could hardly make out whether or not his blow did any substantial damage, but the swivel of their head, the maddening glare of their eyes, was enough to let Creature know.
Know that the threads of Fate had woven themselves around his neck, pulling tighter and tighter. It would be his neck that snapped next, and as the realization struck that every second that passed was now borrowed time, Creature could feel the
liberation! The stick of dynamite in his spare hand passed through Askera’s torch, fuse ignited, and with a toss that landed true, it flew into the crowd of kobolds swarming the Necroslime, the explosion of heat, force, of hellfire and brimstone being the signal he needed to run! He had to draw the Flame-Scaled as far away as possible, had to buy all the time he could with all the limited time he h-
Creature did not reach the side tunnels he aimed for. It had never been a race he could even think to compete with, possessing neither the Battle Spirits nor the Dynamicism to spark a prodigious speed. There had been an impact, so shocking that the pain never even registered, and then, he found himself lifted up, a scaled fist sprouting out from his torso, his ribs splayed outwards from the impact of the deathblow.
There was a grunt, claws digging into the edges of his back, and as his vision blackened, his vision
split.
She had made her choice.
The thunder of artificial explosion rocked the cavern, rocked her eardrums, but Solaria dove into the fray, Hawnell inspired by the savage valour of the fallen. The shockwave of dynamite had rendered the kobolds that surrounded the Vibeslime distracted, reeling, and she took full advantage of their momentary weakness, blood spraying once more as the sharpened edge of her beloved blade carved into scale and flesh!
The first stumbled, clutching at their throat and squeezing down the severed artery. The second dropped back, criss-cross lacerations scoring their back. The third lost two fingers as they tried to catch the blade. The fourth fell to one knee, tendons severed in a leg. The fifth dodged her blow. And the sixth caught Hawnell in their flesh as the tip jammed into their ribcage.
Right.
These kobolds were awake now. And Solaria had known from the start.
Oh, but like, if you see one that's bigger than you, probably besta either retreat or pull out all the stops.
That had been against one. And this? This was many dozen, each of them highly motivated towards violence! Hawnell remained jammed in the monster’s chest, and without hesitations the others decided, a storm of scale and bone, violence enough to pulverise all that she was made of in a brutal, bloody moment. But so long as their rage was upon her, it would not be directed at the others.
She could take solace in that, as Solaria became an unidentifiable mound of meat.
They had made their choice.
And Askera would have to see it through.
Eruptions of darkness covered his steps, scattering the kobolds that pursued him, shadows surging outwards before rays of prismatic light seared the pursuing monstrosities. Upon the sacrifices of his comrades, he made it to the glass vat, and with both pickaxe and shovel, he reared back his arms and
swung!
It chipped against glass.
Bounced off.
Left a mark, but little else.
What could he have
expected, after all? This was a
Dwarven Distillery, one so sturdy that it could function with no maintenance at all, even after all the abuse that kobolds put it through. It wasn’t
just glass, but something ensorcelled to become so sturdy that it could indefinitely hold the molten materials that gathered within it. He had…failed.
And yet, Askera did not die.
Behind him, the Kobolds, with both targets of enmity well and truly slaughtered, had turned their attention upon the Necroslime. The Flame-Scaled Warrior had not called for his brethren to chase after Askera, but rather, to reform against the only
true threat that remained in the Distillery, and before the white-haired one’s eyes, they punched holes into the gelatinous form of the reanimated slime, steadily reducing its mass.
It would be for naught, soon. All the sacrifice would not end with this foe dispatched, and there was no guarantee either, that Frey and Essence would be able to escape the Flame-Scaled’s pursuit.
It was over.
And yet, it called to him.
Flowing sluggishly still.
The liquor of the dwarves. The molten elixir that granted power overwhelming. The root of the Necroslime’s power was still founded in Askera himself, the reanimation draining away at his overcharged energy meter. If the slime could not reach it, then there was only one choice left.
He would.
And so, he drank.
And so, he burned.
His teeth melted. Tongue charred. Esophagus scorched. Stomach boiled. Intestines seared. Blisters growing from inside out, igniting every parcel of oxygen that flowed through his blood cells, veins popping as vaporized pus erupted like miniature volcanoes! Yet, through it all, he held on! Miraculously, stoically, he took all the power that he could not handle, all the power that he could not clamp down on, and
directed it into the Necroslime.
It expanded.
Fivefold. Tenfold. Twentyfold. Enough to engulf the kobolds in its gelatinous mass, to suffocate them within the folds of bone and stone and blood and slime that composed its taboo form. All Askera had to do was guzzle more of this liquor and hold on to himself! To his life, even as organs fell apart one by one, his skin blackening as
golden light spilled out from the cracks that split his ruined flesh! If he could just hold on!
His mind popped. And so too did the Necroslime, a tidal wave of rainbow-hued matter sweeping all into the deeper tunnels of the Kobold’s Nest. Into regions yet unexplored.
...
Three stayed behind, so two could escape.
And yet, misfortune plagued their every step.
Mind buzzing, lungs heaving, the air turning humid once more as they ran up that incline, chased by beasts much more accustomed to duress than they were. The tunnels they climbed became softer, slicker, mud from the rain still having not dried or seeped away in its entirety, and their joints, their tendons, all cried out in equal agony at the pressure that was put on them! And yet, there was so much more to go still. They were sprinting upwards when the distance they had to cover was a
marathon! They needed advantages, but from where?
From there.
The cavern with the shining pools. The cavern where he had spotted those sparkling fish.
Frey, fatigue effacing all emotion for an instance of clarity, remembered, and
changed directions. Leaping over distended stones. Catching glimmers of the trailblazers that Askera had used to first mark their descent. Useful now, reminders that even now, they were connected within this journey, this expedition that had been miraculous and disastrous in equal parts. The hope remained strong still, Essence’s torch shining bright as the tw-
He fell sideways, an audible snap sounding from his ankle. Agony surged up the entirety of his leg, muscles twitching at conflicting messages between consciousness and subconsciousness, but the adrenaline surged in, that glorious painkiller to stave off the pain. And though he hadn’t intended it to be this way, his own faltering had caused the kobolds themselves to accelerate further, getting closer and closer to the lake that he laid by the side of. Heart beating against his chest. Magic woven without incantation. A freecast formed from desperate wills.
A sun that sparked an aurora fulgent.
The kobolds shrieked, the ones at the front of the pack shielding their eyes, only to be slammed from behind by others. They stumbled, fell, and in the momentary chaos caused by mutual blindness, Frey stumbled away as well, down tunnels marked by fluorescent strips, towards the first cavern they had been able to stretch their legs in.
A cavern rendered maze-like by the stalactites that Essence dragged down from the ceiling. Limestone fell and shattered, great heaps of rock forming. It was an artificial cave-in, burying kobolds beneath stone, obscuring vision and escape paths as they wove through the chaos, both Essence and Frey outrunning the stone that came crashing down.
And yet, eyes still scorched by the manifested sun, neither of them realized that the tunnel they ran into
split off to different sides.
Like that, Essence was alone. Hounded by kobolds that cared not whether she sought ascent or descent. Accompanied only by a distant tremor that wasn’t hers. She could feel her nerves fraying. Synapses bursting like fireworks within her brain. Blood dripped from her nose, brain failing to fully process all the information that it had to filter out. But it neared still, the steps of a faerin that was so much lighter than any other. The gait of a friend who ran even despite the ever-fracturing ankle they nursed. Her geomancy guided her, ignoring all else, and like that, Essence burst out into the open, reunited with Frey.
And Frey watched, as her foot pushed against nothing but empty air, left in the wake of an Earthworm’s ascent.
It was reflexive. It was foolish.
She reached out and so did he, pulling her beyond the gap that separated the two of them, even as the kobolds that pursued them from behind got ever closer due to it. It didn’t matter how close the pursuers got, so long as there remained a gap! And it
did matter that those who sacrificed themselves did not do so to encourage the sacrifice of more!
Together, shouldering each others’ burdens, Essence and Frey ascended. Each step slower than the last, their stamina failing, their pursuers unfatiguing. Injuries mounted, then aggravated further. In the party menu, they could already see the blacked-out names of Creature, Solaria, Askera. And yet, distantly, they could smell the air too. The cold draft of a colder cellar, a slice of civilization and history that felt almost surreal.
They just had to make it.
Essence gave out first, the toll of such complex magics finally claiming the last vestiges of her waking mind. Frey fell soon after, his ankle unable to support the weight of his friend, but his obstinacy unwilling to abandon her either. Soon, those shrieking kobolds would be in sight once more. Soon, he would have to fight to the death, with all that he had left. And if that was the case, then he would just have to offer it all up.
Corruption con-
“Down there!”
A buzzing of wings, and a massive cicada flew overhead, its legs clipping Frey’s cranium and sending the Faerin face-first into the ground, before he felt its jaws clamp onto his back, pulling him and Essence up and away. The first of the kobolds rose up the ascent, eyes glimmering with the faintest spark of confusion! And then shining with the light of something else.
“Fire! In! The! Hole!”
Creature had afforded one stick of Dynamite.
This was a half dozen.
The first kobold became a shadow staining the tunnel, and the fates of the rest were lost when the entire juncture collapsed in the aftershock.
But for the two surviving members of Camp Queenslayer, none of this registered. The blast of thunder and lightning had been the final piece needed to knock them well and truly unconscious.
...
A day had passed since their characters came to, opening their eyes to the shitty little tarp that had been given them by the residents of Camp Hollownook...as well as to the faces of the three who stayed behind.
Stayed behind, and then respawned.
It was a bright, blustery day at the Torim Citadel, and through all the trials and tribulation, all the suffering that they had endured, in the end, they were all still alive.
For Terrasphere, realistic as it was, terrible as it was, remained a game to the end.
And though the quest would not be done until they properly reported their findings, for now, wouldn't it be enough to just eat some breakfast?
