Chapter 296: Harvest

Alex spun through the air toward the gibbering legion, using the remnants of Haste potion burning through his body and the creature’s sluggishness. Its weapons stabbed upward, clumsily driving at him: a thicket of jabbing spears, blades and spinning axes.

They cut the air, but the Fool sailed higher as his forceshield rushed down, blocking them.

Alex activated the Mark: memories of past flight manoeuvres, Cleansing Movements, acrobatics and dance steps filled his mind, uniting to create a burst of graceful motion.

In a heartbeat, he became a whirl of deflection.

Legs kicked away spears.

Force-armoured arms guided swords from his path.

His forceshield deflected more weapons, until he’d stopped enough of them.

Then one final flip in mid-air let him land squarely on the monster’s shields.

It let out a weak gibbering cry and lurched around, desperate to eject him. It swiped at him with many arms, but he was a blur on its back. Even with the haste potion now spent, his trained speed let him slip through gaps in the monster’s erratic stabbing attacks.

Alex’s hands whipped about, guiding weapons away as he danced across the monster’s back with controlled balance. The chitterers surrounding their commander shrieked in frustration. Some tried climbing up to reach Alex, but couldn’t find stable footing on its lurching form.

Dark mana…seething around Alex; the dungeon core’s displeasure seemed to burn his senses with its rage, but there was little it could do about him. It would skewer its own commander if it shot spears at him now.

The chitterer attendant screeched in outrage, gesturing at Alex and chanting; three stone discs—thin and razor sharp—appeared, spinning, above its hand.

With a flick of the wrist, it shot them toward Alex.

Whiiish!

They cut through the air.

His hands shot up.

Weaving out of the way of one, he deflected the other pair to the side.

Schnk!

They slashed Ravener-spawn nearby, cutting them down.

The attendant screeched louder, aiming the core at Alex. Dark mana surged…but it was weakening. Less rose than before.

Stone shuddered where the chitterers stood, a platform rose beneath them, catapulting the monsters toward Alex. The Fool rolled backward, hopping on two of the commander’s shields and somersaulting off the side of the beast.

By the time the chitterers hit the gibbering legion, Alex was already springing away.

Then he finally heard the sweet noise of what sounded like a choir of engeli to his ears: Claygon’s gems were almost finished charging. With a quick thought, he shot Wizard’s Hands toward the attendant.

Then he turned toward the other gibbering legion, and shouted a command at his golem: “Claygon! Punch through that bastard’s hide and blast it from the inside! Shoot the one near me and blow that thing holding the orb to bits!”

He reinforced his words with a mental command.

Claygon raised one of his fists—red light leaked from between his clay fingers—then he drove it home.

Splortch!

It collided with the monster’s side, burying itself up to the elbow, forcing the breath from it.

“Oh shit!” Theresa’s eyes went wide. She leapt off the monster’s back. “Everyone get clear! Now!”

Grimloch took one look at Claygon, released the beast, tore his hammer free and jumped back. Cedric looked confused for a moment, then his eyes went wide: red light was escaping from the gibbering legion around the golem’s arm. The Chosen sprang away as heat and sound built up, shimmering around the beast and the golem.

Claygon raised another fire-gem toward the other commander while smoothly turning his head to face the dungeon core and its chitterer attendant. The Ravener-spawn screeched in alarm, blasting an incoming pair of Wizard’s Hands with another volley of stone disks. Both hands shattered, and it instantly turned its full attention on Claygon, using more of the dungeon core’s power to—

Thooom!

Raise a stone wall between it and fiery death.

-oooom!

The fire-gems finished charging.

Whooooosh!

All three blasted out at the same time.

The first beam fired directly into the legion Claygon had rammed his fist into…blasting it from inside. There was a hiss like steam escaping as the monster swelled with heat and growing red light. Smoke billowed from a multitude of mouths.

The wooden shields covering it began burning and popping like corks.

And then—

Booom!

—it exploded.

A column of flame roared as burning bits of monster rained down throughout the chamber. Through the column of flame, two more fire-beams erupted.

The first struck the second gibbering legion, blasting it and the chitterers on its back with roaring flame. Fire danced over the monsters’ forms, consuming them while they shrieked and fell. The second beam hit the newly erected wall. For the space of a few heartbeats the stone held: under the heat, lines of cracks ran freely along its surface…and then, it exploded, flinging shards of rock and dust everywhere.

But in those few heartbeats, the attendant saw an opportunity for escape. Its magic carried it through the fiery explosion—yelping as the heat scorched its hide—flying through the air, tightly clutching the dungeon core.

It glanced behind as flames consumed where it had been standing…

…just as Alex had planned.

A secretive grin spread across his mouth.

The thing was, he hadn’t sent two Wizard’s Hands toward the attendant earlier.

He’d sent three.

One carrying a water elemental.

Another had been a decoy that only appeared to be holding something.

And the third? That one had been holding Bubbles.

He’d slipped it in behind the core and its attendant, weaving the Hand through cocoons while the attendant was distracted with the other two and Claygon.

Now, the third Hand appeared as the airborne chitterer grunted in surprise.

Wizard’s Hand shot up behind it, and casually dropped Bubbles…

…right on its head.

Its grunt of surprise instantly died as the first Small Water Elemental Alex had ever conjured enveloped its skull. Bubbles injected the sleeping potion through the Ravener-spawn’s skin then slipped into the creature’s head through its mouth, nose and ears, drowning it, sucking liquid, spraying purified water through the air while making satisfied little sounds. The attendant’s eyes flew wide then promptly went limp from either the sleeping potion, drowning, or desiccation, or maybe all three: Alex had no way of knowing.

But he did know that the dungeon core was rolling from its limp hand and dropping to the ground.

He watched it arc through the air and, for an instant, he considered diving for it.

Its mana was low.

Its power spent: this could be an opportunity to try and take control of another core…that is, if another Hero wasn’t standing right there.

Then he heard Cedric’s roar.

The Chosen was charging right for the falling dungeon core, chanting a spell of running enhancement. He shouted a prayer to Uldar: “Oh mighty Uldar, guide my hand so that my aim is true!”

Light flared around his weapon, and Alex watched, only watched. And he was fine with that. He knew there’d be other opportunities in more…private circumstances...without having to risk discovery. Now was the time to collect a sample of dungeon core remains. This time he could research them in the open, not in secret…and if he could, claim enough of the spoils for himself.

He did have a staff to make, after all.

Yes, now was the time to celebrate victory for what it was.

He smiled as the Chosen’s weapon slammed into the creature.

There was a sound like screeching, shattering glass. Cracks snaked through the dark orb as Cedric’s strength and Uldar’s power overwhelmed it.

And then it shattered.

And Alex’s smile faded.

A wave of dark mana blasted from the dungeon core, carrying a final emotion with it, touching his mind.

Anger was what he might have expected to feel from it. Or fear, or even despair.

But that wasn’t the emotion the dungeon core conveyed in death.

It was…

…relief.

With the core destroyed, a gibbering legion blown to bits, and the other burning, it didn’t take the team long to clear the rest of the chamber. Most of the cocoons were burning. The chitterers had already been decimated; they couldn’t offer much resistance when the team’s melee fighters got to them.

Cedric threw a few blasting spells into the cocoons and chitterers, then charged the burning gibbering legion. His weapon blurred as he struck at it, transforming from spear, to sword, to mace and to axe with each strike.

Wounds piled onto the monster while it tried to defend itself through the flames. With each strike, it grew weaker, finally collapsing from Uldar’s retribution and becoming still. Soon it was nothing more than a mound of ash and sparks gently drifting through the air.

At last, the chamber was cleared, but the battle still wasn’t over.

From sounds of conflict reaching the chamber, monsters were still putting up a fight in other tunnels.

During the fight, the flow of creatures that reached the entrance to the dungeon core’s chamber had slowed to a trickle, and the team soon discovered why.

The other strike teams had pushed deep into the dungeon from other tunnels and hit back at any chitterer horde they found, tying them up, stopping them from reinforcing the core or its commanders.

Spells roaring from the distance shook the dungeon.

“We’d better help ‘em,” Cedric said as the team recovered their breath. “S’not like there’s much left to do here.”

“Just one more thing,” Alex said. “I’ll gather the dungeon core remains, then we can finish this fight.”

He felt the Chosen’s eyes following him as he scooped up the black dust and placed it in a sealed container. A slight smile had touched his lips as he bent down; they’d destroyed another dungeon core and collected another sample.

It left Alex feeling elated; he couldn’t wait to see what the expedition's senior wizards got up to with it. As he stood and rejoined the team, he and Theresa exchanged triumphant looks with each other. They couldn’t talk about what the victory meant to them now, but they would celebrate it later.

When the Chosen was gone.

The team gathered themselves up, then pushed into the tunnels to finish off the dregs of the dungeon’s inhabitants. If needed, most of the heavy lifting would be done by the non-wizards: the cabal and Meikara were all but spent in terms of mana.

Cedric—being the Chosen—had more than enough magic to spare.

‘There’s a proper divine-granted superpower for you,’ Alex thought, without a hint of bitterness.

His mana was low, but he was also tired. More tired than he had been in a long time. Tossing potions from the back of the group would be good enough for him. His help probably wouldn’t be needed, anyway. When his team reached the other teams—and pinned resisting chitterers between them—it didn’t take long to overpower the monsters.

But, there was still one final part of their task to complete.

“Now, we sweep this place clean,” one of the Watchers said. “Make sure there’s no backways or hidey-holes for them to escape through. We don’t want to be wasting time hunting these nasty things through the moors for months to come. Then. We head to the blood-drak dungeon and clear that one out if there’s anything left to do in there. Let’s move!”

The strike forces hunted through the dungeon, cleaning up chitterers they found hiding in dark corners. Lots of folks were tired. Apart from the most powerful and experienced wizards—like the Watchers and Cedric— most of them had used up the bulk of their mana, but there were few monsters left to fight anymore.

Once the dungeon had been thoroughly scrubbed of Ravener-spawn, the teams moved onto the blood-drak dungeon, but there was little left waiting for them there.

Hart, Drestra, Tyris, the Watchers and the other strike team members had already destroyed that dungeon core. The blood-draks had put up a hell of a fight, but the disease spewing monsters’ numbers had already been whittled in the battle atop the hill. So, their chances of preventing the Sage and Champion from reaching the core had been slim, with the Generasians fighting beside them, the odds had dropped to zero.

While the reunited expedition members finished clearing out the rest of the blood-draks, Vesuvius and the wizards outside killed every monster hoping to escape their allies' fate.

By early evening, the expedition’s first battle against the Ravener had ended in crushing victory. Spirits were high and they celebrated with the Heroes of Thameland, looking forward to doing some serious feasting back at camp.

Yet, all was not settled in Alex’s spirit.

As their task wrapped up, he wondered about the dungeon core and the emotion he’d felt leaving it.

Why would it have felt relief at its own destruction? Why relief?

It had recognized, then tried to kill him, and desperately at that: either it knew he’d controlled a dungeon core before, or it sensed that he’d used the essence of a core to build Claygon. Considering it had left his golem alone…he didn’t think it knew what Claygon’s core was made of. And speaking of noticing…

He’d felt Cedric’s eyes on him a lot since the battle began.

Grimloch’s and Meikara’s too.

They would’ve had to have been asleep not to notice how much the dungeon core had focused on him. Like it was personal. Whatever questions came, he was ready with answers; there was a reason why he’d made sure to give Claygon his commands out loud.

Hopefully, it would be enough.

As Alex and everyone who’d battled monsters underground left the blood-drak dungeon, the young wizard was deep in his own thoughts. He didn’t notice Claygon pause as he left the dungeon then look behind, back into the darkness.

It was only for a heartbeat, and none of the others seemed to give it any thought.

But Alex hadn’t given his golem a command to look back.

A breath later, Claygon was walking along with the rest of the expedition.

As if he’d never paused at all.