PoA The Concept of Death Chapter 6

PoA The Concept of Death Chapter 6

PoA The Concept of Death 6

Melinda cursed and rechecked her surroundings. They were on a cliff with a half-decent position, but it wasn't ideal.

Move right and get into a defensive position.

She looked over the cliff and added, Vinny, protect our feet. Don't let them collapse the ground under us.

Her team immediately responded to her orders and ran along the lip of the ravine, but Melinda felt like she was missing something that she just couldn't see.

Tara let loose an arrow, and someone vanished from the mass of confused workers and defenders.

Try to not hit the workers.

Tara sounded miffed as she responded, They moved in front. That's not on me.

She loosed another arrow that raced out to remove another of the charging attackers. The ground rumbled underneath their feet, causing them all to stumble, and Kyle and Sam to drop to a knee to stabilize themselves.

Vinnie had both arms in the ground up to his elbows, and his face was pale with effort as the cliff around their group started to disintegrate.

Stronger than me, Vinnie spat out with trembling lips. Best I can do is control the fall.

Melinda wanted to curse, but avoided wasting time and called out, Sam! Get something poisonous down there! Medium burn.

Her poison master teammate pulled a vial of purple liquid out of her waist pouch and threw it to Kyle, who lobbed it into the group of attackers. Tara, having heard the command for poison, held her arrow until the vial was directly over the attackers. Once it was in position, she shot the vial, causing the noxious liquid to spray everywhere.

Melinda didn't actually know what this poison was. Sam was always mixing new batches with various levels of lethality. The one she called for was something that would take at least three minutes to kill a monster of human size. It ensured that she could heal her teammates if any of the poison escaped the control of Sams Talent-based manipulation of poisons and venoms, and blew back onto their team.

The liquid started to vaporize once it was free of its glass container, causing a fog of miasma to obscure their vision of the attacking group. Sadly, it was mostly for naught, as a huge gust of wind blew the gas cloud back at their still descending team.

Sam was better, and shunted the poison off to the side, unwilling to fight a wind mage for control over a gas. They had practiced this exact scenario in a rift with wind mage birds, and it was almost always a losing proposition.

An arrow exploded in a flash of lightning as it hit nearby, causing Melinda to flick a look back at Tara, who seemed just as surprised as she was. Matts little gift was coming back to pay dividends, but she didn't know how many arrows Taras quiver had the time to enchant. She hadn't asked their archer exactly how her new growth item worked, and was only going by the quick explanation that Matt had given at the table. It was something she had overlooked, but it would be good to know exactly how the quiver worked, so she could anticipate its uses in any engagement.

Regardless, it was proving to be a useful addition.

They slammed into the bottom of the ravine, creating a plume of dust and rubble. While everyone else wobbled on their feet, struggling to stand, Mathew stood strong. He was already taking his position at the front of the group, thanks to the stability granted by his Tier 3 Talent.

A huge hunk of wood that was more tree than log flew directly at them, but Kyle quickly stepped forward and swung his massive sword. He deflected the projectile away from their group, and slammed it into the cliff wall.

The group of Kingdom fighters rushed forward, but between Kyle and Mathew, they were able to hold off the attackers long enough for everyone to get into a defensive position around Vinnie. He was busy fighting enemy earth mages in order to keep control of the ground around them. The area outside of Vinnies control was full of rising pillars that he shattered, and spikes of earth trying to stab them from behind, which he halted as well. Even the ground around them was being turned to sand.

Their earth mage was effectively out of the fight, but he was heavily limiting the enemies avenues of attack.

With Kyle and Mathew acting as a wall of steel, Sam ducked forward to cut overextended legs and arms, putting [Venom Strike] to good use. It would take a full minute to actually kill an enemy with poison alone, but the venoms effect slowed the reaction speed and coordination of any who were struck. That allowed the melee duo to take their weakened opponents down quickly. Kyle was busy directly cutting through lax defenses, while Mathew's precise strikes with his mace handled the rest.

After a few frantic minutes of fighting, Melinda and her team stood alone while the last few workers retreated down the other end of the ravine, along with the final few defenders. Tara continued to launch arrows at them, but considering their wall of shields, it was more to harry them in their retreat than to actually inflict casualties.

After checking that their backup was quickly approaching, Melinda inspected her teammates. They were mostly fine, except a few light wounds here and there. Against her better instincts, she left them alone to save mana.

Sam was helping Vinnie to his feet and brushing off the clinging dirt from their teammate .

Vinnie said, We need to be careful. The earth mage retreated, and he's strong as fuck. He spit out a glob of blood that was a worrying shade of pink, so Melinda moved over and inspected him as he continued. I think it's a Kingdom fighter. Not another Pather. He's got too many skills, and I think he's using [Entomb], which is Tier 14.

She found that he had bitten deeply into his cheek and tongue during his fight, and had swallowed a good amount of blood. A quick [Directed Heal] took care of both wounds, but she wouldnt be able to help with the nausea that would come from his swallowing so much blood.

Kyle, who had walked away from their group, kicked open a box he had found. Multiple chunks of copper ore fell out into a pile. He picked one up and tossed it in their direction after a quick inspection.

Tier 6 copper. Why is this worth a special hidden mine?

Vinnie brought the chunk to his hands with a pillar of earth and examined it

No, this is definitely worth it.

He bounced the chunk of ore in his hand, showing it off. This is natural, mana infused copper. Tier 6 version of it as well. It's only found on new planets, as it takes forever to form naturally. This shit is extremely valuable; it's impossible to find the infused version in a rift.

Seeing their confusion, he shrugged and added, I don't know every detail about how it's made, but rifts create everything inside right at the moment of the instance first coming into being, while this ore is made over an extended period of time. Otherwise, making it artificially is extravagantly expensive. I think it's made by blasting the ore with buckets of mana over an insane amount of time. Basically, a vein of this stuff so close to the surface is extremely valuable.

As she watched their reinforcements move along her AIs map, Melinda asked, What's it used for? They were within the influence of the bases anti-flying runes, so they were forced to proceed on foot, which slowed them down.

Enchanting, as far as I know. It allows mana to flow with nearly no loss. I'm pretty sure theyre used for permanent rune enchanting; big shit, like the city-wide defenses. I don't really know for sure, but thats my best educated guess.

Melinda sent the information back up to headquarters. It was good to know, and they might get some more points out of the find, if the ore really was that useful.

Their reinforcements came in in such a hurry, Melinda was bracing for a betrayal. Instead, she was shouted at.

Prepare for another attack! We saw them coming back in numbers.

She didn't hesitate and called out to her team, Lets take this wall!

With the order given, they all rushed to take a position at the now dismantled wall that theyd just brought down. Kyle raced over, and they formed up as a group. Vinnie created a small wall of earth about waist high, which they all fell in behind. The wall slowly grew until it covered the entire bottom of the ravine.

Their Queendom allies ran to the wall and took their places. Not a full minute later, from the other side of the ravine, a wave of at least forty people came down the slope at a run.

At the sight of each other, a variety of spells and volleys of arrows were launched by both sides.

As much as she wanted to rush forward and get teleported to the hospital as well, she could only join her teammates if she died. That wasn't exactly a good choice, no matter how much her conscience screamed at her that she was the only one who could protect her friends.

Instead, she started to move to the remaining wounded. She was at around half mana after her battle ministrations, and her three fast converting mana stones were empty as well. Still, she had enough mana to cast [Area Healing], and she let its longer-lasting healing take care of the easiest wounds of those up and walking.

That left her with just three people who were too wounded to move. She healed an amputated foot, a shattered collarbone, and an arrow through the pelvis. The amputated foot would need to be checked out by the hospital, as without her Talent, it would be a patch job at best. But she was pretty sure that Baxter would cover for her, and just fake the healing needed. She had prevented the woman from bleeding out and losing her points.

As she finished the last wounded fighter, the leader came over and asked, Can you move yet? I don't know what poison that was, but I want to get the fuck out of this area.

Melinda nodded and pointed. Those two need to be carried, they need to stay off their feet, but let's get out now. I can do healing checks once were clear.

The other fighters had been waiting for just those words.They threw their comrades over their shoulders and started running out of the valley. Vinnie had been put to work, and had created a winding set of switchback stairs that the Queendom fighters were flooding up.

The commander kept pace right behind Melinda, ensuring that they were the last two to leave the now quartered valley.

As they reached the top of the hill, Melinda used a tiny fraction of mana to check herself and the commander, whose name she still didn't know. She didn't have net access to bring up his public profile, and he wasn't on the top one hundred most important Queendom fighters list that she had downloaded.

She stuck out a hand and said, Melinda. Healer and leader of my Path team.

The man removed his helmet and returned the hand with his own. Adam. Tier 7 platoon leader in her Majesty's army.

He tucked the helmet under his arm, and after letting go of her hand, said, Marvelous that you found this place and all, but do you know what that poison your teammate talked about was? Or even a guess at what it could be?

As Kyle, Tara, and Vinnie joined her, she said, No, and Im finding nothing inside of us either. So I don't think it was spreading or anything. Our teammate is a poison user herself, so while she might know, I haven't a clue.

Adam cursed under his breath before saying, Well I assume well be placed under quarantine and act as a guarding force at the same time. At least until we get a report of what that was.

With that, he ordered everyone to start felling trees to create a makeshift barrier for them to defend. Melinda didn't have an axe, so she helped haul the logs into place before Adam called a halt.

We got a reply back from the hospital. Our men were hit with a byproduct of the mining. Something called depleted copper. According to the report, its the inverse of the mana infused copper that this place is teeming with. It seems like it's copper that forms around the mana conductive version, and it absorbs the mana of anyone it is near. Its a nasty byproduct of mining the stuff, but its not exactly lethal. That's the good news. The bad news is that we all will apparently need to detox later, and from the cursing I'm getting from Jamie, its pretty foul both going in and coming out. At least they didn't actually die. They were brought out as a precaution, since it's easier to treat sooner rather than later.

Adam shrugged. So, well be guarding this place for a bit before we make our way back to the neutral city and check ourselves into the hospital. But headquarters is greatly pleased that we pushed the Kingdom back. Leadership expects that they took the little bit of copper theyd already mined, and left us to deal with the dirty junk they left behind. Luckily, we stopped them from getting a foothold, or mining more than a few hours' worth of material.

Melinda wasnt in range of a network ,and had to take the man at his word, but it didn't seem too bad.

Adam moved over to her team and plopped down after wiping his sweat-slicked hair. Fucking Kingdom tried to screw us good on this one, but they managed to fuck it up.

Tara raised an eyebrow as she asked, How so?

Our analysts did the math, and apparently, they didn't get to blow up the boxes of depleted copper. Or not all of them. If they had broken more of them, the radius of the poison outbreak would have been much larger. They couldn't even do that right. Cowards.

He ended the statement by spitting to the side over the barrier.

Kyle peered over the edge of the cliff into the ravine. What if they already disposed of the rest of it?

Adam looked thoughtful at that suggestion, but finally shook his head. Maybe, but its doubtful. The nearest rift is half a mile deeper into our territory, and that's the only safe way to dispose of the toxic waste. Chuck it into a rift and let the instance cycle. No, I think theres a few boxes of the stuff sitting down there under the rubble.

Vinnie just shook his head. I sure as shit don't want to be a part of the clean-up team that has to work that job. Or the new mining team for that matter.

Adam raised his canteen to that, and they jokingly toasted to not being so unlucky.

An hour later, their relief team came in sealed suits, and they dropped off some additional suits for them. The suits came equipped with air runes to keep the air breathable, but the long flight back to the main city left Melinda hot and sweaty as she was led through quarantine procedures.

Having someone else scrub her down while she raised and lowered her arms as directed wasn't the most pleasant experience, but it was worth it to know that she and her gear were being professionally cleared of any lingering depleted copper.

To amuse herself while being scrubbed down, she read about the stuff, and cursed at the Kingdom for being so petty as to detonate the boxes of waste.

The material started off as perfectly normal copper when left in a mana rich area. The higher the mana concentration relative to the Tier of the mineral, the faster it absorbed the ambient mana. But as the copper drew mana deeper into itself, the outermost layer had so much mana moving through it. The layer took on the opposite property, and started to repel mana.

That layer would dissolve into the surrounding soil, and then start to slow the growth of the mana infused copper, until it reached an equilibrium.

That was the problem, though. It made mining the special copper annoying if all precautions were taken, and quite dangerous if not. The contaminated soil was separated off and tossed into rifts to be destroyed ,as it could poison the land for months at Tier 6, until its properties were equalized with the environment.

If introduced to a person, the effects were much worse. If the dosage was high enough and left long enough, it could cripple the persons ability to use mana until it was purged. Then, the body had to be almost fully regrown limb by limb to replace the infected tissue. Apparently, a high enough Tier healer could speed up the process, or you could spend a few million mana to simply overwhelm the absorption properties of the copper.

The best and fastest way to deal with it was to quickly purge the body, and do it quickly.

It took a message to Baxter to completely settle her fears. The dosage her teammates had gotten was nothing to be worried about. It was only one-tenth the most dangerous levels. The army watchers had confirmed that only one-quarter of a box had been detonated, and unless someone directly ate that amount, it was mostly harmless. At worst, without treatment, her teammates wouldve had higher mana costs for a few months. Still, the army wasn't going to risk it, and immediately pulled them out.

An hour later, she met with her teammates, and they were given a chalky white drink that seemed to cling to her insides as she drank. It tasted like rotten sewage dipped in a corpse.

She managed to choke it down while glaring at Baxter, who delivered the potion.

It can't be made to taste any better?

She was pretty sure he was fucking with them, or at least her, by leaving out something to make the drink taste at least somewhat palatable.

His cocky grin grew wider. Nope. There really isn't. It's frog bane. Its nearly a poison all on its own for how bad it tastes, but it sticks to your insides like a film ,and will grab anything remaining inside of you. Like inhaled or swallowed copper dust, for example. Then, theres the harpies cleanser, which also tastes absolutely awful. But thats even worse, as it also makes you shit your brains out, on top of coughing up a lung or three.

He smiled and said, You can all go home at any time you'd like now, but Id recommend staying, as youre going to want more than one toilet to hug. If you have to share, itll get messy quickly.

I hate you. I hate you soooooo much right now.

Baxter laughed as their faces contorted, and they all ran to the curtained-off bathrooms. To Melinda's horror, the toilet had a sink right in front of it.

This would not be fun.