Kumo and Synexus ran as fast as they could down the tunnels. Every fork in their path was a life-or-death decision. Their choice would either lead them deeper into the heart of the infestation or towards the surface.
Instead of leaving a trail for the skinwalkers to follow, Synexus grew a bioluminescent lily that wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet. Kumo had one on the opposite wrist that way they could see each other’s whereabouts even in the dark.
Another precaution they took was to rub a plipio flower on themselves that way they both had a unique smell. It was a quicker way to identify each other if they did get separated later and their enemies tried to play another trick on them.
After growing another tree barricade, the duo took off once more down a random tunnel hoping it was the correct one to get back to their friends. Every minute that passed, however, their dread grew.
Since they eliminated their false companions, they hadn’t seen any other skinwalkers. Every now and then they could hear shrieks or screaming echo through the tunnels behind them, but that was the only indication that they had been able to slip their captors. On one hand, not seeing any signs of the monsters was a good thing, but, on the other hand, Synexus thought that could be because they were already heading in the direction the skinwalkers wanted. For all they knew, every tunnel in the mine could lead to the same place, the nest.
Neither of them was afraid of finding the enemies. Both of them were lethal, well-tested fighters. With even a hundred of the skinwalkers, their odds were good for winning the fight. The problem was that the nest must be the central location for the monsters in the mines and that could mean thousands of the creatures. Kumo was still confident the two of them could eliminate all of them, but Synexus wasn’t sure if that was the right course to take. It would be a better idea to get a much larger group before venturing off into the heart of the infestation.
Their luck didn’t last. When coming up to the next junction of tunnels, a familiar nine figures were standing around waiting. It was, of course, their party plus the two guards and the commander.
“Their you guys are! We thought we’d never find…”
Zuls didn’t even get to finish before a thin cloud blade shot out and pierced her arm. Blood started to trickle out which worried Synexus for a fraction of a second before the creature hissed instead of yelping in pain. A fight began immediately.
Dozens of skinwalkers started pouring out of the dark tunnels behind the original nine. Each one was wearing the altered facade of a human they had copied. Kumo counted at least twenty Vorin’s in the group and a few clones of herself. She ignored the psychological tactics of their enemy and started a fierce offensive.
A dark storm cloud formed in the tunnel and lightning started streaking into the enemies. Cloud blades that were small tempests in their own right, met the mass of enemies head on. Each instance of these attacks bounced to another two targets after the first. A sentient fog formed and pounced on the tightly packed monsters. Her armor hardened into the stormy grey metal to protect her if any of the skinwalkers reached their position. She then activated her vortex from her bracers on the entire horde to ensure they wouldn’t be escaping. All of this happened in the first three seconds of the fight, and their enemies didn’t have time to react.
Synexus watched the onslaught from his best friend and was amazed at the intensity coming from her. She was clearly ready for battle.
He jumped in to help and started to set up several defenses. A tree wall at their back, a field of binding vines in front of them to grab any skinwalkers that came close, plots of razor grass angled to spear the charging monsters in the room ahead, and several of his razor death plant seeds were thrown into the crowd to start propagating from their enemies.
Shrieks, human screams, and hideous laughter left the monsters as they died to the ferocious assault. Some tried to flee but couldn’t thanks to Kumo’s bracers. It was a slaughter, pure and simple. When that became clear, some tried to sacrifice themselves to deal some damage except Synexus’ defenses were too great. Towards the end a few of the smarter foes started to use some sort of a distance attack by shooting their flesh and bones at the pair. The pair were too fast, however, and easily dodged the poor attempt. When the last one fell, Kumo let out a challenging roar of anger. Her voice infused with the gale of a tempest carried forward down each of the upcoming tunnels. Minutes later, none of the skinwalkers came to answer the challenge.
“Kumo, I know this isn’t the safest place, but we do need to rest. I don’t know about yours, but my stamina isn’t looking great.”
“Mine is doing okay, but there is no guarantee that we will be able to find another time to rest.”
“I agree. I’ll incase us in walls of strengthened tree trunks and set up more patches of razor grass with binding and whipping vines peppered throughout. That should give us enough time to react to an attack if one comes.”
He started to work on their defenses while Kumo sat against the trunk of a tree. When he was done, he summoned a couple yuop fruits for both of them to give their resource pools a boost on replenishing themselves. Then he sat down to relax and look at the notifications he had gotten.
Instant Growth has levelled up!
Instant Growth has levelled up!
Body Transmutation has levelled up!
Element Modification has levelled up!
Element Modification has levelled up!
Mana Perception has levelled up!
Enemy Transmutation has levelled up!
Enemy Transmutation has levelled up!
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Enemy Transmutation has levelled up!
Progress Garden has levelled up!
Progress Garden has levelled up!
Progress Garden has levelled up!
He was shocked by how many skills he had levelled up, but it made sense. They hadn’t had time to look at their statuses since the last day in the woods on their way to Goldhill. They had planned to have a day to relax once in the city, but obviously that hadn’t happened. Skills also levelled up much quicker depending on the situation one was in, and they had been in a prolonged dangerous situation using their skills constantly. He was sure Kumo had levelled up several of her skills as well. Chain Lightning probably levelled up multiple times during their time in the mines.
With his progress notifications out of the way, he rested his head against the tree trunk and nodded off.
Sometime later, he woke up to Kumo shaking him.
“Synexus, wake up. We have to keep going.”
“I’m up. I’ll start storing the plants. Were there any attacks?”
“Not that I can tell. I also fell asleep. I’m not sure how long it’s been, but my resources are full.”
Synexus checked his quickly. “Mine are too. Now hopefully we can find our way out.”
Seconds later, all the plants that acted as their defenses disappeared into his Progress Garden and they started running down a random tunnel. It was the only opening that skinwalkers weren’t pouring out of during the fight. With their resources full and them both feeling rested, their pace had increased significantly. Kumo activated a tailwind for them to push even harder. It was clear she wanted out of the tunnels.
Hours passed in silence as they ran. Synexus still felt they were going further down, but it was hard to tell in the cave. If they were going down, then it was a slight decline. None of the tunnels were straight and they found themselves winding through the twisting paths. The skinwalkers had either lost them or were leaving them alone after the massacre that occurred hours before. That fact led them to keep up their pace and put a lot of ground between them and their battlefield. They only stopped when a sweeping smell of rot and death slammed into them like a solid wall.
“What is that?” Kumo yelled out as she conjured up a wind to try and clear it.
“Nothing good. We should slow down and walk. We may be close to our enemies.”
She nodded and they both went into a crouch while still moving forward.
As they continued, the smell got stronger and stronger until it was a dense cloud of sick-inducing toxic gas. Kumo formed air shells around them to try and keep the smell out, but the odor clung to them. There had only been one side tunnel that they decided not to take due to the screams echoing from the darkness that filled it.
From the path in front of them, a strange sound started to become louder. Synexus noticed it first and then about twenty feet further on the path, it reached Kumo. It sounded like someone was trying to walk through mud. A sick plopping sound. Wet sloshing that turned their stomachs combined with the smell in the air. Every now and then a sickening crunch would ring out that would pause their advance until it faded away.
Moving closer to the sounds, the pair removed the lights on their wrists. The last thing they wanted was to be noticed by whatever was up ahead making those noises and creating the foul smell. Instead, they grabbed each other’s hands and quietly walked the last few feet.
They emerged from the tunnel into a massive spherical room. Hundreds of tunnel openings lined the walls all around the top half of the room. In the bottom half resting in the bowl were hundreds of thousands of skinwalkers. The monsters were crawling over each other in a disgusting mass of half-formed bodies. It was clear by the size that these were the monster’s infants, and this was their nest.
Floating in the middle of the room was an obsidian boulder that was shaped almost like a teardrop. A magical light radiated out from it and filled the room. Its surface was filled with circuit-like patterns. Another ring of will pathways floated around the rock in a magical circle.
Synexus could read will pathways, but it wasn’t his first concern when they entered the room. His eyes instead fell upon a group of deformed looking humans surrounding a make-shift cage that held naked humanoids. Most were crying and filthy. There had to be nearly a hundred crammed into a tiny cage. Elves, dwarves, and humans mashed together like a glob of flesh. Even though the smell was strongest while in the room, that sight was still the most revolting thing either of them were experiencing.
His thoughts were racing through a thousand ideas of how to save them when a thought occurred to him. The sound they heard was the mass of skinwalkers chewing the skin and bones. Anger swelled inside him. His thoughts got even faster. He could feel his mana churning ready to be let out into a chain of destructive uses of his skills. The only thing that stopped him was Kumo grabbing his arm. They walked quietly back into the cave to talk.
“Are you okay? I felt your mana like it was in the air itself.”
“I was preparing to slaughter them all. They are feeding those prisoners to that pit, Kumo. Did you see the kids in that cage?
“I did and trust me, if I didn’t think that we must play this carefully then I would have conjured every skill to wipe out those foul creatures, but I do think we need a plan to survive this. There were more than I thought possible and that’s probably not all of them.”
“I’m always one for a good plan, but I don’t know Kumo. Most of their horde are infants or whatever you call little monsters.”
“Still, what if there is a boss level monster somewhere down there or they summon the entire swarm into the main chamber.”
“I suppose you’re right. Wow, normally our roles of this sort of chat are reversed.”
“I know it’s weird being the rational, careful, less fun one. Don’t make me do it again. You have to be the one that keeps your head straight. I’m the one that is supposed to be a violent storm.”
Somehow, that didn’t make any sense to Synexus, he smiled. “How did you calm me down so quickly? I’m convinced that’s some sort of secret skill.”
“Oh yeah. I got loads of secret skills. But don’t let that anger go. We will need it to get out of here alive. What do you believe our plan should be?”
“That depends on how they react.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if we attack their nest, will they all come at us in force? Or are they smarter than that? Will they take up a defensive formation around their young? We just don’t know. If they come at us, that’s the best outcome.”
“How do you figure that?”
“If we attack and they come at us then we can retreat into the cave and choke the flow of their attack while setting up defenses.”
“Alright, I see your point. Now what if they stay in here and set up a defensive position?”
“That makes things harder, but not impossible. In that case we would need to play the part of the relentless aggressors. I mean we would need to continue to lay on a strong offensive to keep their masses in chaos. I’ll need to create more plant variants if we have to go that route. My arsenal can’t deal with the numbers in that room. You’d be fine, but you’d have to go all out which I’m sure you will love.”
“Going all out is what I do best. So, where do we begin?”
“I’m going to create some new plants that are a bit more deadly. Then I believe we can whittle their numbers down a bit before we start our attack without alerting them to our presence.”
“How will we do that?”
“You’ll see.”
“Fine. What about the prisoners?”
“We will need to be careful not to hit them. When we attack, our first attacks should be targeted at the guards. If we can free them, then some may be able to help us fight. Perhaps the class chosen in there aren’t fighting types or know if they use their skills the swarm will rain down on them before they can get anywhere.”
“Sounds like a good plan to me. I’ll keep watch so you can create your plants.”
