When I woke up, I almost immediately cast Heal again, my whole lower half feeling raw. Something finally clicked and my legs started to jerk around before I could control them again. There was a shout of surprise, but it soon got quiet again. I made sure to channel the spell until it couldn’t find anything else to heal.

  There were tears in my eyes, and I wiped at them, but the pain was still fresh. A hand rested on my shoulder, and I saw it was Zaion. I nodded in appreciation, and he offered a cup filled with water. Considering he didn’t have much on him anymore, I had to wonder where he’d gotten either.

  I sipped, and Deacon started to stand up. “When you can walk, meet us outside. If we leave now, we’ll meet the dawn and have an easier time getting somewhere more… hospitable.” I nodded in agreement, and they both left.

  When they were both outside, I groaned, quietly, “Fuuuuuuck that hurt…” It was an understatement, but I didn’t have time to appreciate just how little that described what I’d just done. I need to practice those skills before using them again. I do not want to do this a second time.

  Hesitantly, I started trying to move legs, starting with my toes. They wiggled, and I had far more control over them than I thought I should, able to move them individually from each other at the same time. High Dexterity? I asked myself, but ignored it as an idle thought.

  Next I checked that I could move my feet, then legs, and finally I tried to stand. I was weak, but mobile. I did a few stretches and movements to try and get things working right again. It was awkward, but I went outside to the pale light of the world.

  “Good, I was worried I’d need to carry you.” Elayne said, her expression stern. “Everything working?” When I nodded, so did she, “Good. We’re going to try and move fast. We don’t know how extensive this… infestation is.”

  Deacon nodded, furrowing his brow. “The pitch has changed.”

  “What does that mean?” Zaion asked before Elayne or I could.

  He looked at Zaion, “Change in tone, change in behavior is likely. I’d say we need to be cautious…”

  “But that goes without saying.” Elayne said. She took the cup from me and finished the water before putting it in her pack. “Let’s go. Lady Danielle, can you use your map to find the direction for Cotton Rock?”

  I nodded, pulling it up. It took a little looking, and some turning to get my bearings, but I finally pointed. “It’s closer than Davesville, somehow.”

  “Makes sense. We were traveling mostly counter and away.” Deacon replied. “Keep an eye on the map, make sure we’re heading in the right way. Zaion, try to spot any potential sinkholes. With all these bugs around, I don’t want to fall into one filled with them. Elayne is on point.”

  Elayne didn’t even say anything as she started to walk. We all followed behind quickly, not saying much. Deacon looked like he was struggling with whatever he was doing. Maybe the change is costing more mana to counter?

  We met the core as it’s light spread across the land and we watched as several craters began to open up along the hilly terrain. Elayne led us away from where they were appearing in clusters. I looked back and sincerely wished I hadn’t.

  Two of the insects had started to fly, shells splitting to reveal wings. They were starting to fight though, and I saw smaller ones crawling over the two massive bugs. The two battled with an insane amount of aggression, I couldn’t hear them, but I could feel the clash.

  Elayne started jogging, looking back over her shoulder. “Deacon… That’s not good.”

  “No shit!” He said back, keeping up.

  I made sure Zaion was ahead of me and kept an eye on the combative insects behind us. They crashed down into the ground, close to where we’d been sleeping. The ground was torn up, through dirt up in clouds. I thought that would be the end of it… But another started to come out of the ground. I could barely make out tiny wounds on it as smaller bugs crawled inside.

  I had to turn away or I risked throwing up.

  We kept moving, Zaion guiding us around large craters. We traveled for over half the day, barely resting. Nothing as large as the first three large bugs made another appearance, but many closer to our size did.

  A few of them were even in the way.

  Elayne was having none of it, though. Rather than let us help, she’d whip out her massive blade and cleave them almost in two. The smaller ones that appeared were easy enough to crush underfoot as we ran. Some of the craters we passed were seemingly boiling with the insects as they seemed to cannibalize each other.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Deacon, what the fuck is going on?!” I shouted after stomping on a bug that had latched onto Zaion’s back and started clawing at the elf. I started healing him right away. The grateful elf stuck his hand in the goop of the bug and pulled all the moisture from it. He had about five such orbs hovering around him already, and was replacing them whenever he got a chance.

  “I don’t fucking know?” He shouted back, having lost his hat when a few small ones had dive bombed him.

  “Guess!” I responded as we followed after Elayne.

  Even running, I could see how frustrated he was, “If I had to guess, when I tried to tune into their higher pitched frequencies I broke something.”

  I swore, but helped Zaion to his feet and pushed him forward.

  Things didn’t change even as the night began to fall. The only difference was the dark started to hide the various bugs. We’d have to put up a light soon, but that was likely to attract everything within kilometers.

  Which is when we noticed someone else doing it for us.

  A large pillar of flame erupted from the ground in the distance. It was far enough away that I couldn’t tell who cast it, but hope bloomed inside of me. “Deacon, do we meet up, or keep going.”

  We stopped briefly and he looked towards where more flames began to ignite the air. Clouds of insects vanished in both the bloom of the fire, and the fading night. “Keep going.” He said, “We travel through the night. We’re going to move towards the road though, we should be close enough to see it soon.”

  “How?” I asked, whipping out a tonfa to club a Prius that came up to my hip. “We were still a couple days away!”

  “Movement buff! Lets go!” Elayne yelled, before letting out a shout and a shockwave shot out of her sword. It went horizontally in a line in front of her, shredding through dozens of the the insects. She’d done it a few times before, but each one seemed to take something out of her.

  Zaion was starting to lag behind, and I took him by the arm trying to keep him moving. He was out of water to cast his spells again, but somehow he was still managing. The mage was getting noticeably tired, though. We can’t keep going like this.

  Deacon pulled glowing stones from his backpack and did something with it. It started floating above his head, releasing enough light for us to see out to twenty meters. The bugs loved that, and instead of fighting the occasional, it was now a slog. I handed Zaion a dagger and did my best to keep them off of him and Deacon, but there were too many.

  And then it stopped.

  We stumbled onto a man made road, lights barely flickering along the sides so I hadn’t seen them because of ours. I started crushing anything that made it past the line they seemingly wouldn’t pass. As I watched, it seemed more like an arch, none of them wanting to enter the roadway.

  We all looked ready to collapse, but the breather was appreciated. I started to kick at a bug that was trying to come over and Deacon put a hand out to stop me. “It’ll break the protection.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, stepping back so I was closer to the middle of the road. It was large enough I could lay down across it and not reach the other end, but that only provided so much comfort.

  “System protection. The road is a deterrent. Not enough for anything too strong, but weaker creatures won’t try to pass without being provoked.” Elayne explained. “It won’t protect against wild striders or something like a howlbear, but insects…”

  “Keep moving.” Deacon said. “I don’t want to see what happens when enough gather to flood over the sides.”

  We started to walk, no one complaining. I walked around casting heal on everyone for a couple seconds, taking care of the worst of the injuries. We were quiet in the bubble of silence surrounding us, concerned.

  “Is this going to hit Davesville?” I asked, finally.

  It was silent for several minutes, and I didn’t expect an answer. It was Zaion who finally spoke, “The guards should be able to keep the ones that break through back, but they have better protections than the roads in towns with a crystal.”

  “How do you know?” I said, looking at him.

  “I have suffered sieges by creatures, when too many guards were injured in my home.” He said solemnly. “The farms near Cotton Rock will be under the city’s protections for the most part as well, I suspect.”

  Deacon nodded at the front, “Probably farther back. We’ll find out as we get closer.”

  We walked in silence, the swarms keeping pace, following our light. Despite that, Deacon didn’t put it away. I didn’t want him to, either, as I looked the way we’d come. The dim lights on the sides of the road showed just enough of the bugs to see them moving, but not enough to see individual ones. It just looked like water, trying to fill a container.

  Well… at least I’ll have new nightmares now. I thought with a deep wariness and sarcasm.

  The dawn was in the distance, and I could see the vertical line of the light seeming to paint the world in colors. The insects had lessened, thankfully, but we were all getting tired. Camping on the road didn’t seem like a good prospect, and I was eager to get back to the city.

  “Stop.” Deacon said, throwing out one arm to stop us. I saw him turning his head, scanning the road ahead of us. We were starting to come up on one of the furthest farm’s fields and I was hopeful that whatever barrier was covering the city would give us at least a little time to rest.

  It didn’t look like that was happening.

  The air a few meters in front of Deacon started to shimmer, and a man stepped out from nothing. Slowly, more people began to fade into view, until there were ten of them fanned out in front of us on the road.

  His mouth moved, but we couldn’t hear him. We all looked between each other and back to the man who’d appeared from nothing.

  His mouth moved again. We all just kept looking confused.

  Watching his mouth, I could just make out the next words. “Fuck it. Kill them.”

  Shit.