Lief was currently examining the rough map of the cavern he had made, which he’d projected onto the central table. He had learned a number of things with his scout drone. Yes, their safe zone of quintessence was shrinking. Yes, they were roughly in the center, although the zone was more like an oval, and it encompassed the lake, a processing center where the imperial plums had been turned into glitter, and additional farm plots in caverns that stretched perpendicular to the lake.
The dotted red line on his map where he estimated the edge of the zone had shrunk inwards ever so slightly.
“We’ve been over this a few times,” Lief said, “but I’m watching the dead zone shrink bit by bit right now. Little signs of life: worms, ants, whatever I can vaguely see scurrying on top of the ground, suddenly stopping and curling up, dead.”
“Why is it shrinking though?” Thorn asked. “C’mon professor.”
“I’m gonna regrow an arm and a leg just so I can smack you with them, the next time you mock me,” Lief replied. “We’ve beaten the topic to death, and frankly, it doesn’t matter why. Maybe it’s the way the four-dimensional topology is working. Maybe it’s because the beasts keep consuming each other, the stronger growing stronger by preying on the weak.
“It could be the sheer amount of bound quintessence weighing on the dimensional fabric. Or there’re just too many beasts, their cores all sucking up the remaining quintessence in our tiny bubble of life.”
“I still think it might matter,” Thorn muttered. “But you're right in the sense that it doesn’t change what we both know needs to happen next.”
They needed to kill the beasts and harvest the cores for themselves. If they could gather enough free quintessence, then maybe, just maybe…they could make a run for it, bleeding quints out as they traversed the dead zone. Sitting around and waiting wasn’t a viable strategy; no one was going to save them, and they were on a countdown.
“All right, I think I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be,” Thorn said. “Is the greenhouse still our first target?”
“Yup,” Lief said. “I think it’s the softest target. There’s something big and deep in the lake, but it looks like it’s almost sleeping.
“The fincroc’s territory is on the far side of the lake and around the production facility; we don’t have the firepower to go after that thing. I’m still thinking of a strategy for taking my revenge, but I got nothing so far.
“There’re a few caverns I haven’t fully scouted yet, but one other tunnel I explored is a viper’s pit… almost literally. I think they’re the same type of awakened snake that we fought this past weekend. I also think that tunnel is the way out; it’s wide, straight and had to be how they moved all of the equipment in here. The stream where we came in was the back door, I believe.
“So yeah, the greenhouse’s new occupants are by far the quickest and safest of the threats out there to take out. Or take advantage of, depending on your perspective.”
Thorn nodded at Lief’s assessment. They might eventually have to go after all of the beasts trapped in here with them, but they could at least pick an easy fight first.
“Be cautious,” Lief said. “Move quickly. That type of rifle is loud. Much louder than you’re used to, and firing will draw a lot of attention. It has a lot more recoil as well, which makes it more difficult to aim follow-up shots. It’s too bad there’s no practice range in this bunker.”
“Why have this kind of rifle?” Thorn asked. “They’re like relics. Collectibles.”
“They operate with or without quintessence or any other energy charge,” Lief said. “Why do you think they had this kind of rifle?”
Because they would work inside of a dead zone, or after traveling through one and being drained of quintessence. Which meant, if he was right, that they were prepared for the possibility of a dead zone.
“Anyways,” Lief continued, clearly nervous even though he was staying behind. “Just a quick out and back. I’m looking at the suckers right now, and they’re isolated; it may not stay that way for too much longer though.”
“Let’s do it then,” Thorn said, standing up from the table.
“You coming with me?” he asked the crow. It stared at him with its beady blue eye, then pecked the table with a harsh thunk before hopping over to Thorn and climbing up his arm to its spot on his shoulder.
Thorn gave Lief a mock salute and left the control room. He made his way through the dark living area and eased out of the doorway onto the observation platform in the cavern. The light at the end of the lake was still shining brightly. There was a calm over the lake, a silence that Thorn hadn’t appreciated before, when he’d been running for his life.
There was still the faint scent of corpses in the air, but much less potent than before. He looked over the edge of the platform to where he’d dropped them, and saw that they were gone. Chairs, corpses, clothes and all; all that remained was a dark stain on the dirt below.
He began walking down the stairs, rifle held in a ready position. Halfway down, the crow pecked him on the neck, hard.
“What was that for?” Thorn asked.
“Oh. Thanks for the translation.”
Thorn couldn’t see anything, but he backed up a few stairs anyways. Was there something waiting at the bottom? There could be a beast hidden around the corner.
He pulled a meat stick out of his pocket that he had been saving as a snack for later and threw it at the bottom of the stairs. He was very glad that he had the crow with him to scout for dangers because as soon as the meat stick hit the dirt, there was a flash of dust and an enormous spider, at least a meter wide, appeared out of nowhere.
It had come out of a hole in the ground, and quick as it had appeared, it disappeared back into its hole, covering itself up. The beast was some kind of trapdoor spider and had laid a trap. Its camouflaged lid was indistinguishable from the rough ground.
Lief must have missed it when he was scouting with his drone.
“Why is everything in here an awakened nightmare…” Thorn complained.
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Thorn’s System had been more helpful in the last three hours than it had been in the last three years. And it hadn’t told him once to run for all he was worth back to the CES. The sudden change still made him uneasy, but its newfound usefulness was appreciated.
The bottom of the stairs was a no-go. He could try and shoot the spider and kill it, but the gunfire might attract others, and that wasn’t what he wanted right now. As a matter of fact, their friendly neighborhood spider was currently operating as something of a door guard.
So instead of going after the spider, he pulled out his rope and tied it to the old weapons’ placement at the side of the observation platform. He waited for a moment, and when there was no warning peck, he rappelled down to the other side.
The plan was for him to make his way back towards the dark end of the lake, but once Thorn was on the ground and moving, the crow had a different idea.
It kept pecking him on the side of the head, trying to get him to turn right and head back the other way, down the road towards the rest of the facility. He’d learned that these type of pecks weren’t warnings of danger; they were directions. He ignored the crow’s attempts to drive him like a piece of machine tech armor, enduring the pecks, until a particularly sharp one made him lose his cool.
He reached over and grabbed the crow by the beak and looked it in the eye. He shook the crow’s beak once more and then let it go.
It pecked him softly on the side of the head, and Thorn almost threw the crow on the ground and shot it with his rifle. But he resisted the impulse, and after that, the crow stopped urging him to turn around.
As he walked, Thorn kept his head on a swivel for threats. He didn’t see anything, and before he knew it, he had made it all the way back to the greenhouse. Lief’s drone was hovering outside, and gave a dip and bob as he came into sight.
Thorn took a knee behind a low boulder, about twenty meters from the greenhouse. He was ready.
The compartment on the underside of Lief’s drone opened up, and out rained a small shower of glitter pills.
This had been Thorn’s idea: the beasts were attracted to the imperial plums; why wouldn’t they also be attracted to the product they were made into? The crow didn’t seem to want any of the pills, and Thorn watched closely to see if it would hop off his shoulder, but it didn’t. The crow also seemed much more intelligent than the average beast, if less powerful; maybe it could tell the pills were more poison than power.
Thorn didn’t have to wait long before a long snout poked out of the greenhouse. It was followed by a second, and a third, and then there was a rush. About ten pale, white salamanders, all awakened and grown to double their normal size, rushed towards the bait.
Thorn waited until he was confident all of the salamanders had exited the greenhouse and were swarming the glitter pills, and then he opened fire.
The rifle bucked in his hands, and a few shots hit the ground in little puffs of dirt. His shooting was much less smooth than what he was used to, but he adjusted. He started again with short bursts, the loud shots echoing off the cavern walls. Red wounds appeared on the salamanders, and they writhed and thrashed in the dim light.
A few noticed the source of the attack and began to rush towards him. He held the trigger down, engaging automatic fire, and managed to stop the three salamanders that had rushed towards him before the bullets in the magazine ran out.
He froze as he tried to recall how to change the magazine. He’d practiced fifty times in the control room until he was comfortable, but now, under pressure, he was drawing a blank. The crow pecked him in the head, hard, and the pain snapped him out of his panic.
HIs hands moved without him thinking about it. Another magazine was in place and he was firing before the sting of the crow’s beak had faded.
He used about half of the magazine to clean up the remaining salamanders still thrashing in the dirt. When everything was over, the sudden stillness was shocking, compared to the loud, quick violence that had just preceded it.
Thorn pulled out his knife and got to work. He was looking for cores, and he moved first to the bodies closest to him. The crow hopped off his shoulder and pecked at one of the salamander’s chests. Thorn dove in quickly with his knife, finding a core exactly where the crow had pecked.
That was handy.
It pecked the next one, this time further down on the salamander’s body. Thorn had to dig around a bit near its spine, but he found another one.
Trusting the crow to show him where the cores were, he made quick work and recovered a total of six cores out of the eleven salamanders.
The crow hopped towards the greenhouse, then turned to look at Thorn.
“Tok, tok,” the crow said.
Lief’s drone suddenly appeared in front of him, bobbing up and down. That was the signal to drop everything and run.
Thorn ran, grabbed the crow (which protested the rough bird-handling with a squawk) and proceeded to book it back towards their base. There was a large splash behind them.
Thorn risked a look back and almost stumbled.
It was hard to tell what he was looking at in the dim light. Originally, it might have been a catfish, from the meters-long whiskers hanging off of its gaping mouth, but only if catfish could grow to roughly the size of a horse.
And it had legs as well. At least they were short and stumpy, and it was having a difficult time climbing over some of the rocks towards the dead salamanders.
Thorn ran until he was back inside the short tunnel by the lakeshore. The crow pecked at his neck in the fashion that Thorn had learned meant “stop,” so he turned to look back again.
The catfish beast had consumed most of the bodies of the salamanders, but was clearly dissatisfied. Someone had taken the cores and run away. It had its head up in the air, and its whiskers were waving around. Little blue sparks crackled up and down the whiskers as it bobbed its head up and down, long, thin bits of weeds and other detritus from the bottom of the lake falling from its back.
It wasn’t part of the plan, but it was an opportunity. Thorn sighted his rifle at the catfish beast, aiming for a spot between its eyes, and pulled the trigger.
The catfish’s head snapped backwards, like it had been punched. A thin line of reddish gold trickled down its forehead, and it turned a baleful eye towards Thorn. The crackling sparks on its whiskers ramped up a notch, and it began to waddle toward Thorn.
He fired again, a short burst this time. More holes appeared in the beast’s flesh, but it shrugged them off and kept coming.
The crow hopped off of his shoulder, turning its head and giving him an eye, as if to say, stay there.
Thorn decided to empty the rest of his mag into the catfish, then quickly reload. As he was doing so, he kept an eye out in front of him. He froze, mid-reload, as an electric blur streaked out of the darkness towards him. It was too fast for him to react.
The crow intercepted the blur, its precise peck also a blur to Thorn’s eyes. Its beak had speared what appeared to be an eel, about two meters long and still sparking, even though it was clearly dead. The crow had driven its beak right through an eye and directly into the eel’s brain.
Another eel attacked, and the crow took care of this one too in the same fashion. Apparently, the weeds that had fallen off the back of catfish had not, in fact, been weeds; they had been eels.
“That’s not fair,” Thorn said as he reloaded his rifle. He had two more mags left. “Beasts aren’t supposed to have friends.”
He looked over at the crow, and corrected himself, just in case the crow could understand him. “Except for you, of course. You can be our friend.”
While the crow was taking care of the eels, Thorn unloaded another magazine into the approaching catfish. It was clearly out of its element and moving much more slowly on land, but it was also shrugging off the damage from Thorn’s bullets.
Thorn sighed in frustration as it absorbed another shot to the head. A quick glance showed that the crow had taken out two more eels. Meanwhile, the catfish was about fifty meters away. It would be a tight fit, but it could likely follow them down the tunnel.
Thorn made a quick decision. Bending down, he grabbed the dead eels and slung their slicked bodies under his arm. The crow, seeing what he was doing, hopped up his arm and onto his shoulder, and Thorn turned and ran back into the tunnel.
At end of the tunnel, Thorn saw Lief’s drone ahead of him, making sure there were no threats between them and their base. After confirming that the catfish was following them into the tunnel, he fired two quick shots.
It was impossible to miss; the catfish was nearly as wide as the tunnel. But all his shots did was piss it off more. It sped up slightly, and a few more blue sparks fell from its whiskers.
The crow pecked him on the shoulder, hard, and Thorn dodged to the side. He was too slow, however, and he felt a shocking pain on his leg. He fell onto his side. An eel had bit into his calf and was attempting to wrap itself around his leg.
The crow hopped down and speared the eel with its beak, putting an end to the threat. Thorn tried to stand back up, but his leg was spasming and wouldn’t support him.
The catfish, seeing that its prey was close, accelerated more.
Thorn rolled onto his stomach and began to fire.