Riftside 2 - Chapter 48

We headed for the cave mouth, Knut holding up his one-handed mace, and Edwin with fire already dancing along his sword’s blade. I walked behind them, Roq a comforting weight in my hand, with Eryn and Isaac trailing after me. Ming and Nabeeh followed, their staves tapping a rhythmic beat on the rocky ground. Alex, Edwin’s healer, came next, and Rowan covered our rear. His footsteps barely made any sound that I turned to check, just to be sure that he was truly there. He raised his swords as if saying ‘hi there, yes, I am here, do not fret’. “Monsters,” Knut grunted, his voice slightly echoing into the cavern as we carefully stepped inside.

We didn’t hurry, and instead approached it as the dangerous quest it was. Further inside the tunnel were three more identical crystalline figures. Strikers. Eryn and Isaac shot one each, shattering them before they even knew what hit them. “A clean kill,” Roq said, magnanimously. “Not bad for a s… bow.”

“Immolation,” Nabeeh said as the third creature charged. It barely managed two steps before its crystal body exploded from the internal heat.

“Your approval is… noted, Hammer,” Arclight said. “I am close to the sixth level.”

“Ash, you need to start killing more monsters,” Roq whispered. “All this standing around won’t get us any stronger and we can’t risk the stick thrower to outgrow us!”

For a moment, I wondered if only I could hear him and chuckled, but I glanced at Eryn and saw her struggle to hide a smile. Seems she’d heard Roq too. No private conversations. Good to know.

“You holding back and saving your strength?” Nabeeh asked Ming.

The lightning mage shrugged, her dark hair swaying as she did.

“We’re in a cave. When I truly let loose, it’s… loud. Devastating, yes, but the sound alone could rattle your teeth out. Edwin’s lot are used to it, but none of you are to my knowledge.”“I appreciate the thought,” I said, stepping over a scattering of crystal shards. “But next time, don’t hold back. We need to know what to expect. Better to experience it now than when we’re facing something that could eat us for breakfast.”

“As you wish, Ash,” Ming said and I could hear her chuckle.

We advanced, the passage bending, and saw more and more of the glowing crystals covering the walls like frozen fungi. I thought back on our first run, and remembered our fights. No, there hadn’t been that much of the stuff. Not even nearly.

“Am blind, or more crystals on wall than last time?” Knut asked.

“I’m pretty sure there is,” I said, genuinely sure of the matter as I studied the walls and ceiling. There were a lot, not a fully thick layer, but there were several lines of the stuff where there had been only one before. “I’m pretty sure it’s denser, too,” Eryn agreed. “And this is what the enemy spellcasters were using?” Edwin asked, reaching out with his tower shield and shattering some of the brittle stuff.

“Yes,” I said as he took some of it and crushed it in his gauntlet.

We continued onward for a bit longer, when the passage up ahead narrowed, allowing only a single person at a time to go through.

“Hold on,” I said. “This is where we had the toughest fight with the Crystalkin the first time we were here. We shouldn’t have a problem with the normal monsters, but let’s not take any chances.” With the others watching, I ran Roq along the wall, crushing the crystal and making sure to interrupt any long lines. “Just so we have a place to retreat if things go sideways,” I said, explaining very little. They would have to see how the weavers worked for themselves before they could understand the symbiotic relation between monster and nature.

“You were quite the handful back then.”

“More like you were a fumbling and bumbling weakling who relied on me doing all the work!” Roq said and I could swear he was blowing a raspberry.

I tapped Knut on the backwith the shield and we pushed on, taking our positions again.

There were no more monsters for a short while, and as we headed further inward, the tunnel opened up into a wider and taller chamber.

This one definitely wasn’t empty.

Two Weavers, their slender forms lit from within, stood near the back. Three Vanguards, bulky and plated, formed a small defensive line, and four Strikers stood around them, two on each side.

“Ming. Would you mind doing your thing?” I asked.

“Not at all, raid leader. It would be my pleasure,” she said, and for a moment I just stood there, watching in anticipation.

She could see well past us, but we all hugged the walls so she had a clear line of sight.

“Chain Lightning,” Ming said, and a bolt of raw energy erupted from her staff, momentarily whiting out my vision. The boom that followed was incredible, a deafening crack that slammed into me like a physical blow. Knut, Eryn, Nabeeh, and I staggered, though my helmet absorbed some of the shock.

I blinked my eyes clear, only to find Edwin striding into the chamber, his shoulders shaking. The commander was definitely enjoying himself, maybe even laughing. I couldn’t tell as my ears weren’t working.

Both Weavers and two of the Strikers were simply gone, shattered into shards by her spell, but two more and all three Vanguards remained. Isaac shot an arrow into another Striker’s chest, killing it, leaving only four more targets. Edwin raised his shield, bracing for the charging Vanguards.

“Ironburst,” I whispered with a grin of my own, and energy shot down my arm and into Roq’s head as I brought him down on the cavern floor.

The ground beneath the three Vanguards erupted. Four spears of steelhusk burst upwards into each of them, one less than I’d used last time. It was enough, and they all shattered. The remaining three spears I directed at the final Striker, and it too was obliterated.

Edwin grunted and lowered his shield.

“Alex told me about this ability after the siege,” he said as he turned. “Useful,” he said, giving me a curt nod. “I like it.”

I grinned in my helmet as I joined him inside the room. Approval from the commander was worth the mana expenditure.

“Effective,” Knut grunted, shaking his head as if Ming’s thunder still rattled around inside.

“Mind gem in the Weaver!” Roq said.

“And the Striker Ash destroyed,” Arclight added, her voice smooth as polished glass in my mind, almost at the same instant.

I didn’t hesitate, quickly swiping both carcasses into my spatial storage.

Nabeeh caught my eye and she smiled conspiratorially.

Before we’d met up with Edwin’s group, I’d laid it out for my team. We needed Mind Gems, twenty-five at least. Enough so that with the quest reward we could cover the debt to House Domitius. If we had a way to offload the mind gems…

It might be wrong, taking more than our share when raiding with another party, but the nobles had us by the throat. Also, I was pretty sure that if they’d known about our ‘ability’ to sniff out gems, they’d agree to help. This once.

Once Pa was safe, we’d make it up to Edwin and his crew by getting them their half of the gems in value.

Nabeeh, Eryn, and Knut had all agreed, though I knew this was a slippery slope. There would always be something we needed Mind Gems for. This had to be the last time I did it. In the Twisted Titan I hadn’t thought of it. After Nabeeh pointed it out, though, I didn’t have any excuse.

Alex joined us in the room, frowning.

“A bit… overkill, perhaps?”

“Huh?” I asked.

“Your ability. Ironburst, was it?” Alex said, and I nodded.

Rowan walked over to us.

“What is the cooldown on the ability?” he asked, his voice a low rasp.

“About ten minutes,” I said. “Why?”

“My level twelve ability has a five-minute cooldown,” he said. “Much less powerful.”

I shrugged.

“Means you get to use yours more often, though.”

Rowan just nodded, then went to cover the entrance.

We fought a few more scattered Crystalkin as we pressed deeper, until I called the group to a halt in the tunnel a ways off from a vast chamber.

“This is where Eryn and I fought the largest force last time,” I said, my voice low. “There are multiple tunnels going in all directions, and they all feed right into it.”

Knut leaned forward and shrugged.

“Looks empty.”

I eyed the room, and noticed that the floor and walls were covered in crystalline growths.

“Let’s not assume,” I said. “Once we get in, Edwin, you and Knut secure the tunnels on the far side. The entrances are tight, so you should be able to hold off any monsters long enough for us to provide support.”

“Understood,” Edwin said.

We all approached the larger room, and I noticed more of the stuff, but Knut was right. It looked more empty than I liked to admit.

Knut strode in first, mace and shield at the ready, heading for the tunnels.

Edwin followed, his fiery sword fighting off the darkness that surrounded him. Unlike Knut, the first thing Edwin did as he stepped into the room, was look up toward the ceiling.

I was a step from following him inside, when everything seemed to happen at once.

“Ambush!” Edwin yelled.

Portal piss.

I stopped in the opening as Strikers and Vanguards erupted from the tunnels Knut was heading toward.

A group of Strikers dropped to land around Edwin. Those must be what Edwin had spotted hidden up above.

“Taunt!” the commander shouted, and they all froze for a split second, turned toward him, and charged as one.

What had looked like three crystalline outcrops detached themselves from the wall, turning into a new type of Crystalkin I hadn’t seen before, smaller than Strikers. Their arms blurred as they hurled sharpened crystal projectiles, ignoring Edwin and Knut, and aimed right for us. Or, more likely, the archers and mages behind me. I blocked two with my shield and one struck my chest but it failed to penetrate.

Most disconcerting werethe five lines of light rushing across the floor from the walls. Three came from spots that I could see from where I stood, and I realised there were Resonant Weavers hidden inside the crystals.

Trusting Knut and Edwin to hold their own for a moment, I decided to deal with the bigger threat: the Weavers. If they reached our back line with their magic, they would shoot crystal spears from the floor, killing them.

“Resonant Weavers are in the walls!” I shouted and held up my shield as I smashed Roq at one of them, crushing through the crystalline growths, and working to create a barrier to protect Eryn and the others.

Alex shouted, and a golden light similar to the one I’d seen on Edwin during the siege of Sentinel Station enveloped Knut.

“Warden’s Embrace!” Eryn said, and I hoped she’d cast it on Nabeeh, Ming, or herself.

Nabeeh’s Fireball flashed past me, close enough that it made me jerk to the side. The spell was aimed at one of the wall-bound Weavers across the room, but it splashed harmlessly against the thick crystal.

Ming loosed a single, concentrated bolt of lightning at another. That, at least, chipped away some of the outer crystal, but it didn’t penetrate enough to get at the Weaver.

“Monsters are behind us,” Rowan said, his voice calm. “I’ve got them.”

“Helping!” Nabeeh and Alex said, and I heard them turn as I dragged Roq through the crystals above us, and quickly turned on the other side. Isaac loosed an arrow past me, and it detonated against the far wall with the two Weavers. I glanced over to see what had happened, and saw the crystal covering one’s face had been blasted away, and one of the ranged Crystalkin had been obliterated.

Then, as I kneeled and completed the break in the crystals, the light from the Weavers in the wall reached the tunnel entrance, and I raised my shield to ward off any spears.

None came.

Instead, a solid wall of crystal erupted, covering the tunnel opening, sealing Edwin and Knut inside.

Riftrot!

“Smash!” I yelled, and Roq was enveloped by a golden glow as I channeled the ability.

I hammered the barrier, and it shattered with a satisfying crash. Eryn shot an arrow through the hole, killing one of the Strikers.

But before I could move, the crystal wall reformed.

I hit it again, a normal strike this time.

Roq bit deep, taking out a good third of it, but that wasn’t enough for anyone to go through. I did manage to see Edwin felling a Striker, with another one lying dead at his feet. Further in, Knut fared less well, furiously blocking and giving ground to five monsters attacking him.

Then the wall repaired itself again.

Before I could strike a third time, spears of crystal shot from the wall to slam into my torso and helmet. My armor held, thank the forge, but the impact drove me back and had me almost vomiting. Even though they didn’t go through, the attack still hurt badly.

Isaac caught my arm, steadying me.

“We need to get in there, Ash!” he said.

“Arclight, tell Eryn to triple armour-piercing shot the wall. Roq prepare Armor Break.”

My chest ached from the hit and I was wheezing for a breath.

“Ming, hit the wall with your strongest lightning. I’ll punch through. Isaac, the second I’m in, take out the Weaver you almost killed!”

“Don’t hit Knut or Edwin.”

Metal on crystal sounded from behind us, followed by the sound of Nabeeh’s Fire Trap, as Eryn lined up her shot.

“One… two… three!” I roared, as Roq flared with a fierce red light. “Now!”

Lightning struck the crystal wall just as Eryn’s three armor-piercing arrows punched three distinct holes, and I charged, Roq leading the way.

My hammer smashed through the weakened barrier, and my shield followed, widening the opening enough to go through.

I tumbled headfirst into the chamber beyond, my feet catching on the jagged bottom edge of the crystalline barricade.

An arrow, trailing fire, streaked above me, striking one of the exposed Weavers in the face. The creature’s light died instantly.

One down.