Chapter 288: Fire and Retreat

Alex finished casting Call through Ice, not resisting the strange power’s help with the spell. The monster’s nine pairs of jaws were snapping, blood flowed freely onto its chest wound, cooling it. Cedric sped toward the massive creature, looking to press his advantage.

A portal was open in front of Alex’s Hands, ready to receive his sleep potion. The potion bottle dropped in as another portal appeared in front of the monster’s snapping jaws: instantly, it teleported between a gnashing pair.

Crunch!

Glass shattered.

Nine necks recoiled in surprise.

Vapour erupted, spreading through the air surrounding it, filling every nostril, mouth, and lung in an instant.

Already, the potion was showing its effects. Drowsiness was taking over; its flight was slowing.

The Chosen saw the advantage and didn’t hesitate.

With a single thought, his shield shifted, turning into a long, sharp-edged lance. The hardening blood-hydra blood crumbled away as the shape changed, and Cedric placed his hand on the weapon then uttered a spell.

In a flare of orange light, the lance was wrapped in flame.

The blood-hydra glanced down at Cedric, desperate to get away, but its movements were now slow and sluggish.

Schnk.

He stabbed his burning lance into the creature’s side.

It shrieked, freezing for an instant as flame began running along its body, then it twisted free, wrenching itself off the lance, blasting blood with five heads to drown the flame and drive the Chosen back. Four other heads sprayed blood haltingly.

Then another Wizard’s Hand reached it.

A fist formed around a potion bottle.

Crunch!

Poof!

The booby-trapped flight potion erupted into mist as multiple dragon heads inhaled, then reared back. But, it was too late. The flight magic shot most of the creature’s body backwards, but a head shot forward until-

Riiiiip!

-it ripped from its neck.

Weakening cries arose from other heads; shaking and flailing about, trying to fight the effects of the sleeping potion as the monster pitched around in the air. Alex threw a booby-trapped sensory enhancement potion and another sleep potion to his Wizard’s Hands, shooting them toward the creature, tracking its erratic flight path.

He watched, waiting for his moment.

Cedric swore loudly. “What in Uldar’s name’d you do? I-Oh hell!”

Whooosh!

The blood-hydra suddenly plummeted toward the earth like dead weight.

Crash!

Sweeping through the swarm of blood-draks, it slammed into the smaller creatures, shattering their bodies against its massive form.

Crunch! Rrrrrrp!

Kicking up a cloud of soil and flesh, it was slammed into the earth then dragged through chitterers, tearing a devastating swath through their ranks.

“Oi, Hart, watch yourself!” Cedric shouted.

The monster was coming up behind the Champion like a runaway bull.

With a loud laugh, Hart leapt up—turned in midair—and struck out, severing a leg and one of its necks in a single swing as they passed each other.

It roared with rage and pain, then was abruptly catapulted up into the air by the uncontrollable flight magic. The creature froze in mid-air for a heartbeat—torn between the remaining flight magic coursing through it—and its own fight to right itself with those powerful wings.

The crimson, glowing Wizard’s Hands shot at the monster’s writhing jaws then shattered the potion bottles right in front of its mouths. It inhaled the vapour, shrieking and lurching as the already jolted senses of eight heads, sixteen eyes, nostrils and ears went into overdrive.

‘At your size you’re going to burn through those potions fast,’ Alex thought. ‘But…Claygon? Why don’t you give our friend a real reason to burn.’

Whooooom.

He heard the comforting sound of the fire-gems powering up from within the thinning blood-drak swarm. It seemed like the other Heroes had the same idea.

Cedric began chanting a fireball spell.

Mana was thundering as Drestra conjured a tremendous power while shooting skyward, gaining altitude above the creature.

As Claygon’s gems powered up and the Heroes’ spells built, the blood-hydra began losing some of the effects of the booby-trapped flight potion, but its drowsiness and overwhelmed senses still remained.

Alex shot his forceballs forward, whirling and spinning them around its eyes and through gaps between its writhing necks. He poured mana into them.

Both forceballs flared.

The beast roared, spraying its blood-breath in all directions, panicking further as the whirling lights completely overwhelmed its sight. Streams of blood hit both forceballs, popping them, but also filling the creature's own eyes. Long necks whipped around as they spasmed in all directions, working to shed the congealing blood from its eyes, becoming entangled. The creature suddenly began spiralling down from the sky like a millstone.

And that was when Claygon finished charging his fire-beams.

And the Heroes finished casting their spells.

Whooooosh!

The red rays blasted into the air, striking the middle of the blood-hydra’s body.

Boooooom!

An explosion of flame ripped across the monster’s hard exoskeleton as Claygon’s fire-beams struck. Wings caught fire like the sails of a burning ship and the rest of its body was ablaze within heartbeats. Fragments of shell shattered from the heat and its roaring waned.

Booom!

Then Cedric’s fireball hit, stoking the flames higher.

Whoooosh

Drestra's blasts of wind immediately followed, feeding the hungry flames and pushing the creature toward the earth.

The remaining blood-draks froze in place, seemingly stunned into silence until their commander struck the earth in a burning heap. The remaining Ravener-spawn seemed to take that as a signal. Suddenly, there erupted a flurry of activity from the monsters. It wasn’t a regrouping, it was a full retreat toward their nests. The chitterers turned, clambering over each other in a mad rush to escape into their holes. Drestra kept raining ice shards down on them.

Others were cut down before they could flee into their holes by the front line of Hart, Grimloch, Thundar, Theresa, Brutus and other wizards’ summoned monsters which gave the expedition teams a chance to get off the hill and away from the dungeons.

The monsters were in full escape mode.

Alex took one final look at the two dungeons before calling Claygon, his summoned monsters, and beginning to cycle through mana regeneration techniques as he flew away.

“That’s givin’ it to ‘em, lads n’ lasses!” Cedric called. “There’s a nasty little black eye for the bastards!”

Drestra flew after the group toward a granite topped hill they were gathering on.

And so, the first part of the battle ended with the monsters retreating, taking a lot of losses but…their dungeons still awaited. And in times like this, it was important to press the advantage.

The expedition and Heroes set up a temporary camp on the tall hill. The first order of business was to assign sentries to watch the dungeons and the second was to continue caring for the wounded.

Cedric went to each injured person, calling upon Uldar’s grace and divinity to heal them. The results were—fittingly—miraculous. While the medical staff’s blood magic had cleaned the wounds to keep them free from infection and start the healing process, the divinity of Uldar went far beyond that.

It not only accelerated the healing process, it actually rebuilt each wounded body: lacerations closed instantaneously. Infectious blood from the blood-draks purged from wounds and dissipated through divine power, leaving the body untainted.

The relief everyone felt was palpable while the Chosen worked.

The other two Heroes stood with a gathering of Generasians watching the dungeons. A debate was brewing among the group:

“We need to press our advantage,” Alex said, standing beside Theresa. “They took heavy losses, while we actually haven’t taken any: between Cedric and our blood mages, we’ll have our wounded back on their feet in no time. So, I say we go after the dungeons before the cores can build up more mana and replenish their forces. We should smash ‘em and get it done.”

“No way.” One of the other survey team-members shook his head. “You weren’t here before: they came out of the ground like worms after a rainfall and took us by surprise.”

One of the other surveyors shuddered at the memory.

“There were hundreds of them…maybe more,” the first man continued. “I don’t even want to think about how many more are down there.”

“It could be a lot,” Drestra jumped in. “Especially in the chitterer’s dungeon. If you’ve been seeing chitterers in Greymoor for some time, then they’ve had all the time they’d need to build up an army.”

“Yeah,” Hart agreed. “You said you kept finding them around the moors? Well, blood-draks could’ve been flying chitterers out of the dungeon at night and dropping them off to scout what you all were doing. Dungeon cores can control the terrain in their dungeons: big changes take a long time to pull off, but they could close up their holes after they released their scouts: make it look like there was nothing more to the hills than grass, rocks, brush and moles.”

His large eyes focused on the dungeons like a hawk’s. “I think we should get down there too.”

“And I say we should wait for Baelin,” the younger surveyor said. “If we wait for him, he can put spell-marks on us and then we can go down there safely.”

“He can bring more reinforcements too, and we can raid the dungeon while we’re fresh,” another young woman jumped in. “And his spells’ll make quick work of anything the dungeons have to throw at us.”

“That’s a bullshit idea,” Tyris said, folding her arms in front of her chest. “We spend two days waiting for Baelin and that’s going to give them even more time to build up their forces.”

“Which won’t matter because we’ll have Baelin,” the young woman fired back.

“I dunno about that,” Alex said. “If we give them more time, then the dungeons can scatter monsters, send a bunch of blood-draks out into the moors to ambush us over the next few days, or even attack the encampment or Lothering.”

He looked at the two dungeons. “We know that they’re there now, so they’ve got no reason to keep hiding. If I were one of those Ravener-spawn, I’d fly waves of blood-draks out at night and have them spew that diseased blood of theirs into the surrounding rivers: poison whatever they can. Then we’ll be in real trouble.”

“We’ll watch the hills day and night, in case any leave,” one of the other surveyors said.

“And the dungeon cores can just make more entrances. We have no idea how deep or wide those dungeons are.”

“Aye, that’s true. An’ poisonin’ rivers an’ wells s’a common tactic for blood-draks,” Cedric said as he stepped into the discussion. “We’ve got an entire division of the army set to patrolin’ waterways. They’re makin’ sure venom-walkers, blood-draks and other nasty things don’t go about poisonin’ things that they’d have ta heal with Uldar’s blessin’. ”

“And if we give those monsters time, they’ll be able to spread out and hide all over the moors. We could be dealing with them for months, meanwhile, we’d have to waste a bunch of time watching our water supplies.” Alex said.

“So we go in now and risk getting slaughtered?” someone jumped in.

“No…” Alex said. “We could still do things strategically. Does anyone here know how to cast Wizard’s Eye?”

Several people raised their hands.

“Great, we can send those in to scout out the tunnels,” Alex suggested. “They’ll let us know what’s down there. Then, summoned monsters can go in and engage any clusters of Ravener-spawn they find. After that, strike teams can enter the dungeons—in small groups—and head straight for the dungeon cores. That way we’re doing things cautiously, but can still get in a quick strike that takes advantage of the damage we just did to them.”

Several people nodded, others shook their heads.

“That’s a kickass ide-”

There was a pause.

Two voices had spoken at once; both Hart Redflecther and Tyris Goldtooth stared at each other in surprise.

“Agreed,” a deep voice said, before anyone else could say anything.

Khalik stepped forward, rising to his full height. “When an enemy is broken and running, that is when they are most vulnerable. This is why we must strike now before they recover or have the chance to hatch any plans that could be devastating. If we break them here and now, these dungeons will be broken forever. And besides…are we cowards?”

He looked all around. “We all volunteered for this expedition. We knew the dangers. We knew the risks. Now we have the opportunity to get our first specimens of dungeon cores and what…we wait? We run? How will that look to Baelin, to see us here cringing, hiding, and waiting so that we might hide behind his robes? There will come a day when we are graduated and cannot rely on chancellors, professors or Watchers. We will need to stand on our own.” His jaw tightened. “We are wizards. Let us not get in the habit of cringing like frightened dogs.”

Watcher Shaw cleared his throat. “Right…we’ll put it to a vote just to see what the general feeling is, though I’ll have final say. All who’re in favour of waiting for the chancellor?”

Some hands were raised.

“And all who want to press our advantage?”

Many more hands rose up.

“Right, then.” Watcher Shaw banged his staff on the granite at their feet. “That’s what I was thinking. We come up with a plan, send a message back to the encampment, wait for any survey teams that are coming, then we get to it.”

He looked at Alex. “That plan of yours wasn’t half bad. You want to break it down and give us more details?”

Alex squared his shoulders. “Right. First, we’ll break down the plan: then-”

He glanced toward the dungeons.

“-we’ll break those rotting bastards.”