Chapter Forty-Three: A Pain in the Bug

  By the time Selriph’s mind caught up to the danger barrelling towards him, the beetle’s mandibles were mere seconds from a lethal, bone-crushing embrace. A desperate lunge to the side would have been suicide, and a vertical escape was the only path forward—a direction he could not reach by physical evasion alone.

  Selriph, however, had a means at his disposal: a solution that his subconscious had already begun to summon, seeking to invoke the same improvisational magic that had saved him from Kaelan’s golem.

  The youth bent at the knees as arcane energy surged through his legs. Its blue glow peaked through the fabric of his trousers as it travelled to his feet, turning abruptly to a deep red as the image of an explosive combustion formed in his mind.

  It sounded like a mix of a flint striking steel and the controlled ignition of a runepowder cannon. Bright orange flames erupted from beneath the soles of his boots, and at the exact moment every muscle in Selriph’s legs flexed, he shot upwards, boosted by the pyromantic jet of flames.

  The adrenaline and battle focus seemed to stretch the perception of time like molasses, or perhaps temporal dilation brought about by the arcane energy. Either way, Selriph felt the kinetic wave of energy travel up his legs as he felt a profound feeling of weightlessness wash over him. The beetle, which had been at the centre of his vision, travelled downwards in the blink of an eye.

  He swore he almost felt the metallic pincer brush against his shin, though it was likely imagined as he found himself in mid-air, travelling overhead, in the direction where the beetle had come from.

  His gaze shot down, fixed onto the translucent wings that were barely visible in the cavern—an opportunity. Two arcs of purple trailed his ascent. The crackle of electricity forming from his fingers echoed in the cavern above.

  As Selriph reached the peak of his ascent, he gathered the electric arcs as he raised his hands, and static hummed against his skin. With a slight thrust of his palms, two streaks of lightning shot downward, arcing straight toward the beetle’s exposed elytra and delicate wings.

  In the next moment, the darkness carried a near-incomprehensible series of sounds. First was the beetle’s inevitable collision with the wall, its organic-metallic mandibles striking and digging into the stone, which buckled and crumbled under the impact. The crackling of Selriph’s lightning followed, connecting with the creature’s outstretched wings. Finally, a high-pitched scream from the beetle filled the cavern, accompanied by the scent of charred flesh and the sight of electrified embers and smoke rising from its wings.

  That was the last thing Selriph could see before he shifted his focus to the earth below. The ground was rushing up to greet him, his face poised for a brutal collision with the stone.

  Once more, pyromantic energy flared; this time, a series of controlled bursts of flames came from both hands and feet as he tried to control his vertical descent. However, his body was unable to find stability, and with each propulsion, he spun and twisted like a marionette as his limbs flailed uncontrollably from the inertia.

  Damnit. If I don’t—

  In a final act of desperation, with the ground a mere second away, Selriph pointed all of his limbs toward the cavern floor, hoping to at least slow his fall. A jet of flames erupted one last time, and a bone-rattling jolt travelled through his body.

  Then he felt it—the cold, hard floor of the cavern as he tumbled limb over limb. Pain flared through his back and flowed in a painful wave across the rest of his body as he rag-dolled across the cavern.

  The gloom twisted around him, and the streaks of darkened Mithril were a nauseating kaleidoscope of blue in his vision. Slowly but surely, he came to a stop. The sound of flesh and skin on stone gave way to the crumble of stone in his ears.

  Not near him, but further away, accompanied by the grunts from a masculine and feminine voice.

  The youth fought through the pain as he willed his muscles to obey. The familiar ache was an indication that he had incurred only cuts and contusions at most—injuries minor enough to continue the fight. He stumbled to his feet, almost losing his footing as his head still spun from the acrobatic forces that had ravaged his internal equilibrium.

  When his vision returned to some semblance of a comprehensible tableau, the first thing he noticed was Kela, staff outstretched, earthen tendrils attempting to restrain the mandibles of the beetle. The creature thrashed around, breaking through the earthen restraints, only to be re-entangled a split second later.

  A masculine voice bellowed out. “Book-for-brains, help Kela! Buy me time.” He ducked behind his wooden shield, his free hand hovering over the focusing orb. Terramantic energy formed with the rumble of stone and dirt, assembling upwards into the legs of the would-be earthen elemental.

  Smart idea! For once.

  Selriph nodded in agreement, although he wasn’t sure if the male elf could see the subtle gesture in the gloom. Regardless, the hum of arcane energy and the tendrils that shot out of Selriph’s hands towards the beetle all but confirmed his affirmative acknowledgement.

  The arcane tendrils wrapped around the abdomen of the mithril beetle. The elytra pressed upwards against the conjured, lasso-like construct, the beetle moving in violent jerks, attempting to break the arcane and terramantic forces holding it in place.

  Beads of sweat formed along Selriph’s brow, the exertion of arcane energy matched by the feeling he was wrestling a bovine monstrosity with his bare hands.

  He sensed it: despite the two mages restraining the beast, its strength prevailed over their arcane implements. The magical density of Kela’s earthen spells was ebbing, and each re-conjuring came slower than the last. Her shaking hands and the flickering sputter of her terramantic energy were clear indicators of that.

  One didn’t require a seer’s sight to foresee what would happen in the next moment. The creature’s mandibles finally broke free from its earthen restraints, allowing it to swing the front of its body. This added further stress to Selriph’s herculean task of holding the oversize beetle, well over the size of three dire wolves.

  Just as Selriph felt the arcane energies begin to unravel—the muscular prowess of the metallic beast finally won out over his first-tier spell—a lumbering silhouette entered from the corner of his vision.

  The earthen golem then landed a blow straight at the creature’s head. Its pincers reeled upwards as if it had received a sucker punch.

  There, if we can just make it topple over…!

  In that moment, Selriph unravelled the tendrils, springing forward and then sending out a fresh set of arcane energy, attempting to grapple onto the reeling pincers.

  Kaelan, who had witnessed Selriph’s earlier experimentation, now thrust his shield forward. Its bark glowed with terramantic energy, and the golem responded in kind, pushing its arms of flat earth up, trying to topple the reeling creature over.

  In the same instant, Selriph’s tendrils found purchase on the mandibles.

  With a grunt of effort, Selriph’s feet flared once more with pyromantic energy, the jet of flames pulling his body back and attempting to pull the creature over.

  However, it would not be so simple. The beetle’s pincers pinched inward in a swift flash, cutting through Selriph’s arcane tendrils like they were mere fabric. After the mystical restraints came undone, Selriph careened backwards toward the cave floor. The air was knocked from his lungs as his spine met the hard floor, a hard grunt escaping the youth.

  Argh, damn. This isn’t good…

  Once more, the boy scrambled to his feet, his eyes locking in on the scene: Kela pelting the Mithril Scarab Beetle with rocky bolts aimed at its head—a futile gesture given they simply shattered on impact. The beetle lunged as it began to prevail in the wrestling match against its earthen, conjured adversary.

  This is bad… the earthen golem isn’t going to be able to best it. If this keeps up, we’ll be done for.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Kaelan, Kela! We need to retreat; there is no way we can beat this thing!” Selriph called out, his voice in a desperate plea.

  His eyes shot over to Selriph. “What cowardly curse has come over you? This is just an oversized bug; between the three of us, we could—”

  Kaelan’s voice got cut off as he heard the sickening crunch of stone and the distinct sound of a glass-like material shattering — a result of his momentary distraction.

  Framed just beyond the mithril doors, the beetle’s jaws had pierced through his earthen elemental, its pincers protruding the other end, the arcane core shattered and breaking at the seams, the golem’s life—if it could even be called that—ebbed away as its power source began to glow erratically.

  Kaelan called out, scrambling into a sprint. “Crud. You are right, run, it’s going to blow!” as he ran, his shield a flashing glimpse of bark at his side in his haste.

  Wait, no… if the orb is going to explode…!

  Selriph, in an unexpected reversal of his earlier statement, instead called out, “Stop! Push the orb under the beetle, quick!”

  “Wait? Are you crazy? It is going to—”

  “Explode, exactly!” Selriph’s arcane energy flared once more, sending a wave of it toward the creature. The energy wrapped into an ellipsoidal disc under the monster’s jaws and head. With a heave, he pushed his hands skyward. The arcane energy mirrored his action, lifting the creature’s neck, causing it to tilt upward.

  A wordless understanding travelled to the twins as they conjured two earthen pillars, the movements perfectly synchronised, as if rehearsed for years. Then, they thrust their respective casting catalysts—staff and shield. The pillars struck the orb in a simultaneous shove, launching it violently toward the beetle’s exposed underside.

  The moment it contacted the mithrilite carapace, it exploded with a deafening crack.

  The Selriph, anticipating the concussive wave of air, erected a translucent, arcane barrier that rippled and buffeted against the oncoming explosion, his feet sliding back against the floor from the explosion.

  Through the translucent shield, Selriph could make out the hastily conjured walls of terramancy the twins had erected. Although cracked, they withstood the explosion.

  His eyes flashed to the beetle, unconscious—or rather, stunned—toppled over on its back.

  He did not waste a second.

  “Quick, restrain its legs!”

  With a flick of his wrists, the arcane barrier dissipated as he ran towards the overturned beetle.

  As he jumped onto the creature, his boots clacked on the giant insectoid’s carapace, his estoc drawn in a flash of steel.

  In that moment, the earthen mounds came to life, the terramantic constructs holding down the joints of the beetle’s six limbs. Each side of the creature was under the purview of a single twin.

  In this position, the hinges and pivots of the arthropod’s limbs were all but exposed. Selriph sent his estoc in a precise flash toward the nearest limb to his right. However, instead of the expectant soft tissue, his estoc only met a hard carapace, the steel unable to render limb from body as it bounced off with a clang.

  “Damn, the legs are too tough… if it…”

  As if endeavouring to answer Selriph’s budding concerns, the creature stirred from its state of concussive disorientation, its legs flexing, breaking through two of the mounds on Kaelan’s side, its pincers flailing and closing in panic and protest.

  Selriph held his estoc up, his eyes locked on the oncoming leg. The blade met the insectoid leg in a grotesque blade-lock. A theatrical standoff ensued between a boy honed in the blade, fencing off against the limbs of an oversized, carapaced monster.

  Over the next seconds, the battle was a confusing blur of the twins desperately attempting to maintain their restraints on the existing earthen mounds while simultaneously trying to conjure fresh earthen tendrils to restrain the flailing limbs, all the while the runaway mage-templar engaged in a fencing dance of steel against mithril.

  However, as precious seconds passed, the twins’ concentrations waned, the fatigue of the scuffle catching up to them.

  One leg came free, then another, held in place by Selriph’s arcane energy, just mere inches from impaling the boy’s back.

  At this rate… is there anything??

  In the faint glow of the battle, Selriph’s gaze shot down to the upper area of the torso where the arcane orb had met its mark.

  He could see under the faint arcane light of his off-hand spell the indentation in the organic-metallic carapace.

  An idea began to form, one that would almost certainly be painful, not just for the creature, but for him, if the twins could not keep the limbs of the creature at bay.

  Is it even possible? Should we just retreat now…? Perhaps—

  Earthern tendrils suddenly wrapped around the two legs that he held back with arcane energy. Selriph’s head flashed back and forth in quick succession at the sight of elven figures and their catalysts—staff and shield glowing.

  That was the opening he needed.

  Selriph’s grip on his estoc loosened completely, not from fatigue, but a deliberate act to free his other hand. Red pyromantic energy flowed once more into Selriph’s hands. In an instant, far faster and hotter than any other attempt he had made previously, the forge-worthy flames came to life, concentrated at the indented spot in the creature’s carapace.

  The seconds went by like the turning of a great, grinding millstone, Selriph’s eyes darting occasionally to the restrained limbs just overhead, poised to impale his back, the crumbling buckle of stone sending a jolt of fear up his spine, urging him to run.

  But he remained as the smell of charred organic tissue and smoky metallic fumes filled his nostrils.

  Fifteen seconds… no… ten… just need to soften the carapace enough to—

  An unwelcome, dreaded sound came, first to his right. Kaelan’s earthen tendril had failed; the sharp bolt of pain came as the razor-sharp tip bore straight into Selriph’s back, the pain a close contender with the acid-soaked whips he had endured in the templar compound.

  But it was only that—a contender. The youth gritted his teeth and persisted in his arcane endeavour, ignoring the distressed calls for retreat bellowing from the female elf to his left.

  Come on… a few more seconds…

  As the carapace turned red hot, the creature let out a painful shriek. A surge of energy allowed its second leg to break free, grazing Selriph’s left side. He heard the sound of tearing flesh, and a hot, stinging pain was drawn across his body.

  “Argh…!” Selriph bellowed out in pain.

  Kela’s voice then cut through the fog of battle, her voice now a desperate yell. “Get away now! Forget the vault! Even if you got through its shell—”

  Then, at last, it came — the distinct smell of charred flesh—the flames had burnt through the carapace.

  Selriph turned to Kela, her face now a tearful mess as her hands trembled around her staff, desperately holding the limbs from impaling Selriph.

  The command was brief. “Give me your staff now!”

  Kela hesitated for the briefest second, a protesting query boiling to her lips. She paused, however, as her crimson eyes locked with Selriph’s. There was no understanding in her gaze, but a flicker of trust in whatever unsaid scheme the boy had in mind.

  For in their brief acquaintanceship, one thing was certain: Kela knew the Eldeitian deserter was anything but suicidal.

  Kela threw the staff, the magical catalyst spinning end over end. As it parted ways with its owner, its terramantic energy faded. The elf, hands outstretched, held the gravelly tendrils in a desperate wrangle with the creature’s limbs, the last thing Selriph’s vision saw before it tracked the airborne weapon.

  He stood, feeling a stinging crack of bone and the tearing of flesh in his back as the leg lodged inside him shifted.

  His left hand, outstretched, caught the staff.

  With a guttural groan of exertion, Selriph brought the staff up like a spear and thrust it into the smoking indent his flames had carved.

  In the next moment, the wood went straight into the creature like a skewer through tender beef.

  The beetle, far from compliant to the sudden intrusion of elderbark in its innards, broke free fully from Kela’s restraints—the three legs to the left thrashed violently, tearing into flesh and fabric alike.

  Yet Selriph endured the pain as his body took in the sensation of the catalyst in his hand, pyromantic energy welling up through his core, into his shoulders, arms, and hands.

  Straight into Kela’s staff, the casting catalyst flared to life in an orange-red hue.

  The staff plunged further into the creature, and then the roar came—what resembled a dragon’s call. A searing jet of flames erupted from the wood, and a new sound joined the cacophony: a sickening, vicious churning from within the monster’s body. The air filled with the smell of burning flesh as the creature was cooked—immolated alive.

  From the inside out.

  The caverns filled with the wretched fumes — pungent, acidic, metallic, and charred. The cloying stench permeates the air. This stench accompanied the gradual slowing of the mithril scarab’s movements, its mandibles ceasing their frantic clicking, ebbing into a lethargy. Selriph could feel the once solid inwards turning into putrid mush– one made of liquified innards and charred blood.

  In the corners of his vision, the legs began to loosen, slowly curling in on themselves, no longer in a bid to impale the daring youth, but standing on its back, in surrender to death.

  Satisfied with the state of death that he had finally been rendered on the oversized monstrosity, Selriph’s vision blurred, as the toxic fumes overwhelmed his olfactory senses, nausea and dizziness overwhelming him as the pyromantic flames faded — just as the last shudder of life came from the beetle, a deafening click through its chitinous body as it surrendered to death.

  In the same moment, the boy’s vision turned black, passing out from the fumes, the blood from his injuries, as his body swayed to the left.

  But the hard ground did not meet him; instead, it was the soft embrace of fabric and flesh.

  Kela’s voice filled his mind before he passed out.