-“Ruminations” Emperor Garifax
A cry of unimaginable rage and indignation follows the wave of magic, the sound loud enough that it shakes the stone itself. I lose my understanding of the world outside my barrier, but the blindness does not last long as the golden shield cracks and fades.
The meat that had decorated the floor sizzles all around, charred black by a wave of incomprehensible acidic magic, I would know the taste of its passing anywhere. All around, the adventurers we brought to investigate the egg lay scattered. Half of us are dead, wiped away in an instant, their flesh eaten so horribly by the blast of corrosive magic that bones show in their wounds. Those that survived either did so by having defensive items of their own or by withstanding the blast of magic.
Desperately, I look to my left, letting the termite king slip from my mind for a moment as I search for Jess. The rising dread in my heart abates the instant I see her kneeling on the ground, unharmed by the blast of magic except for a few minor scorch marks. Dovik stands in front of her, his arms crossed in front of his face, his clothes looking like they have just been through a fire. Burns mar all of his exposed skin, but he smiles despite it.
“That was stupid,” Jess complains at him.
“I knew I could take it,” he says. His eyes flick over to me. “No more holding back.”
I am just about to point out that I haven’t been holding back when I realize the soul presences pressing down on me have vanished. Black sand begins to spin into life around me, and I feel unshackled, like a baying hound finally let off the leash.
The flash of confidence disintegrates as the magical chains around the termite king’s legs snap, falling to motes of magic. Those that remain crawl back to their feet, a few of those I thought to be dead moving slightly on the ground as magical light surrounds their wounds. The termite king does not move, looking around at each of us as if we are beneath him.
If it weren’t for my soul presence digging into the ground beneath me, I never would have felt the attack coming. The warning that the two inches of penetration offer saves my life. I soar back into the air, away from the rumble beneath me, but the eight-foot-long blade of chitin still manages to slice open my leg. In three other places around the termite king, similar blades stab up from the ground, cutting into one other adventurer as the final two manage to fully dodge.
Holes crack in the stone floor, and my soul presence pours down inside. The very air of the egg chamber beneath us pushes against my senses, but I have just enough detail to understand what is happening. Attached to the ceiling of the chamber beneath us, a monster so massive that it makes the royal guardians look small, stabs up at us from below with its twelve legs. In the hazy sight of my soul presence, it looks almost like a disjointed crab with too many legs, beady red eyes glaring at the stone it clings to.
Acid Termite Royal Attendant
We face more than one rank-three monster now, both far beyond the power of the royal guardians. People move erratically, dodging the blades stabbing up from the earth, retreating away as they keep their eyes on the termite king. The king moves too fast for my eyes to track any longer, too fast for me to react to. A man in the group of surviving adventurers hardly has enough time to begin to raise his shield before his head is struck from his neck.
This isn’t a battle we win. It is one we survive.
Dovik is there again, this time with Jess next to him, both forcing the termite king to focus his attention on them. Neither is as fast as the monster in front of them, not even close, but instincts and skills refined over dozens of life-or-death battles keep them ahead of the newborn monster. But they are already tired from the battle today; they will give out long before it does.
People run, decorum broken in most as they try to flee the blades spiking up from the ground. A woman is cut in two by the attendant striking from below mid-stride, Iona’s powers not nearly sufficient to save her as her corpse spills out onto the floor, mixing with the charred viscera.
I don’t even need to throw the first blast of dragonfire at these monsters to know that it will be ineffective. Trying to engage them in melee will be an act of suicide. Desperate and stupid action is all that I am left.
It is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do when I turn away from the fight, taking my attention away from my friends as they fight for their lives, focusing on the top of the chamber above me. I soar upward, calling on all of my speed to close the distance between me and the stone above as quickly as possible.
The battle below almost falls away, becoming a distant thing, as I stare up at the uneven surface of the stone. My magic might not harm these creatures, but that doesn’t make it useless.
Six orbs of black sand hover around me, growing with green and white light as I prepare my attack, the head of my staff burning with a star of condensed and deadly energy. Blasts of corrosive, growing fire slam into the roof of the chamber, the emerald fire spreading like a starving beast across the stone. The first bits of ash begin to trickle down after only a second, but I do not let up on my barrage, laying all of my mana bear as I set the ceiling on fire. The emerald flames eat into the stone far faster than I expect, the growth affix infused into the fire working even more ravenously with the green fire than the orange.
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In just a few moments, stones begin to fall from the sea of flame, the rocks overhead groaning as the structure is eaten away at. The main chamber glows with emerald light, adventurers throughout pausing, staring up at the calamity growing overhead. Forty feet away from me, a stalactite as big as a chapel gives way, plummeting silently through the air before crashing into the stone below with enough force to punch straight into the egg chamber below.
By now, no one in the room needs to be told what is going on. People flee for the tunnel entrance, the adventurers that had managed to make it almost halfway toward the middle of the chamber quickly turning back.
I speed down toward the melee around the termite king, the stones above giving way in clumps, falling with deadly speed toward the ground. Those still breathing around the center of the chamber flee toward the tunnel with movement abilities or the pumping of their legs. Even if they don’t have a way to bring themselves to safety, there should be enough time for everyone to get clear, should be.
“We are fine,” Dovik yells at me as I approach, the momentary lapse in his concentration allowing the termite king to score a cut across his arm. I want to protest the man, but one look from Jess stops me cold.
Rather than helping my friends, my eyes land on the sight of Iona, lying unmoving on the ground just a short distance away. A rock the size of a sheep lands just a few inches away from her head with enough force to end even a third ranker’s life. Half of her face lies bloody, probably from whatever blow knocked her unconscious. I snap up the woman’s body as I turn my attention to the tunnel entrance myself, pushing for the exit.
Stones fall from above, creating an obstacle course for me to navigate as I flee for my life. Overhead, the sea of hungry flames paints the world in green and shadow, making the falling boulders difficult to see. I fly more by the sensation of my soul presence than what my eyes tell me. It takes me more than twenty seconds to make the distance to the tunnel, and by the time I get there, more than a third of the main chamber lies in ruin.
The running adventurers do not stop at the entrance of the tunnel, but I do, turning back in the air next to Jor’Mari as we stare out toward the middle of the chamber. Jess and Dovik continue to fight there, their combat with the termite king brilliant, a beautiful scene painted in emerald and black.
I’ve always known that I stand no chance in a fight with Dovik, but the depths of his skill with the swords he wields surpass what I can understand. He seems almost to move before the termite king decides to attack. No, he provokes attacks, reacting to them with absolute certainty.
Jess struggles to keep up with the man, but she manages through a genius instinct for battle. She comes the closest to landing blows on the monster as it continues to grow faster and stronger, taking risks with the fight that Dovik never dares.
The exchange is such a thing to watch that I almost forget about the collapse of the chamber. A stone as big as Arabella’s flying mansion falling from the roof and crashing through the stone snaps me out of my reverie. The attendant below wails as it is knocked from its perch, falling away into the egg chamber and out of the reach of my soul presence. Stone falls like rain through the main chamber, no space spared from them, the three combatants left in the middle of the room, pushed to fight with the falling rocks more than they do with each other.
Jor’Mari grabs me as I try to dive forward, back into the room, pulling me out of the air with his powerful arms. I yell for my friends, as the deadly rain grows so thick I can barely see them. Just before they are obscured, covered up by the hail of death as the ceiling caves in, I see Jess grab Dovik, pulling him tight.
My breath catches, the certainty that I just saw my friends die ripping my heart up.
Then, the pair appears in front of me, their bodies appearing from a snake of silver light that navigates through the rain of stones. My hand presses to my mouth as they are made solid in front of me, a sob choked in my throat.
“I told you we would be fine,” Dovik says, seeing me. He looks back too Jess. “Thanks to you.”
“Run, idiots!” Jor’Mari yells, slinging Iona over his back.
Run we do, spurring away from the collapsing stone. Somewhere in the rain of rock behind us, I hear a final scream of rage from an inhuman voice. Then, nothing, the sound cut short by the deafening crash of a mountain falling in.
We don’t stop running for miles, fleeing through the tunnel after the people ahead of us. We see light before we find people, the orange of the late-afternoon sun pointing our way to the exit. Finally, we catch the rest of the army, and Jor’Mari deposits the still unconscious Iona Nepsin with them before we find a place to catch our breaths.
The ruins of the west hive do not so much tower before us as lie in a broken pile. I watch the slow shift of the rocks as I suck down water. Vaguely, I am aware of the murmuring through the gathered army, people discussing the awful events of the last few hours. Myself, I am caught up in looking at the northern hive in the distance, finding that the hive has collapsed in the last few hours as well.
“Do you think we got them?” Jess asks, lying sprawled in the dirt next to me, holding a skin of water to her forehead.
“We did,” I tell her. “We did.”
You have defeated Acid Termite King
You have defeated Acid Termite Attendant
You have defeated Termite Hive Guardian
You have defeated Termite Hive Guardian
You have defeated Termite Hive Guardian
You have defeated Termite Hive Guardian
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite
You have defeated Acidic Termite(Egg)
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
THRESHOLD FOR SOUL REINFORCEMENT REACHED!
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