The Land: Forging (Chaos Seeds Book 2) (28 page)

Richter threw his shoulders against the doors trying to get them open another few inches. It barely budged. Sion and Daniella were firing imbued arrows at the high speed of one per second, but it was like trying to stop a flood by throwing rocks at it. Yoshi stood in front of them ready to strike any that got too close. Alma helped by sending psychic pulses into the swarm, but the damned things jumped! She was having to weave in the air to avoid being
brought down and torn apart. Richter threw his shoulder against the door again. It moved a bit but not enough! The gears were rusted shut. If only he could oil them,
or g-!

Quickly, Richter cast
Grease
, not on floor
but on the wall that held the door. He wasn’t even sure he could cast the spell vertically, but thankfully the familiar brown gravy colored slickness coated the wall and the hinges. Richter slammed his shoulder into the door again and felt it give a little. Another shove and it flew open, making him sprawl on the floor of the tunnel beyond. The loud boom of the door against the inside of wall, coupled with the impacts of the sprites imbued arrows in a confined space, robbed Richter of all of his hearing.

The sprites had rushed in after him, still firing back into the antechamber. Richter looked up confused, his bell rung from hitting his head on the ground. Yoshi shouted at him, but it sounded like a
far-off
sound heard while under water. The sword adept spoke again moving his mouth in an exaggerated fashion so Richter could read his lips. He still couldn’t get
what Yoshi was saying
. All of a sudden the sound came back like someone had unplugged his ears.

“DOOR,” Yoshi shouted for a third
time.

Richter stumbled to his feet and put his back to the door trying to shove it closed. He was wondering why they hadn’t all been
eaten by now,
and saw that there were three factors contributing to their continued survival. One, Sion was holding a vial that had bright white light was coming out of. It was forcing the insects back. The ones in
back
kept surging forward over their hesitant fellows to in turn be driven back by the light themselves. Two, Daniella’s was still firing imbued arrows into the swarm of bugs. Each strike momentarily cleared a section of the
antechamber floor, but it would immediately be filled again with more of the giant insects. Three, the attention of the bugs was divided between trying to kill the party of adventures… and eating
their
own wounded. As Richter tried to yank the door closed, he had one thought on his mind. He really hoped he had been down on the ground less than thirty seconds. That was the duration of
Grease
, and if the spell ran out… well… then they were all about to become termite shit.

Both Yoshi and Richter strained against the door to no avail for several seconds, but once again, when it started moving, it slammed shut quickly. Several bugs were crushed between the doors and others were left on the same side as Richter and the others. They were saved from the majority of the ravaging horde of insects now locked outside in the antechamber, at least momentarily. The sprites immediately started dispatching any of the giant roaches locked on this side of the door. Before all the bugs killed, Richter Analyzed one.

Esurient Beetle. Lvl 2. Health 40. Mana 0. Stamina 50. Disposition: N/A. Esurient Beetles are a plague upon The Land. Also known as hell bugs, eaters, or ‘the
scourge’,
these voracious creatures perform only two actions, eating and reproducing. Highly territorial and aggressive, every sentient species no matter the alignment hates these creatures, and will kill them on sight. Entire regions have been lost to these swarms of esurient beetles. Fortunately, their queen has a short lifespan of one year, after which that particular nest will not resurge for a century. Unfortunately, that one year is enough to turn forests into wastelands.

God! If those things had been able to bear any of them to the ground, or Alma… Alma!

*
Alma, where are you?
*

*
Here*,
she thought to him soothingly. He looked
up,
and saw her clinging to an empty torch bracket set into the side of the tunnel. He exhaled in relief.

There were only a few eaters left on their side of the door, Yoshi having dispatched the rest. A thought occurred to Richter. “Wait,” he called out. The sprites pulled back from the five insects remaining insects.

“What,” Yoshi said irritated. The bugs were clustered in a corner gnashing their serrated teeth in anger, but not willing to rush the dangerous sprites.

*
Stun them
*, Richter thought.

Alma swooped to the corner where the bugs were and let loose a psi blast. The bugs fell over in a stupor. It appeared her attack worked well on the simple creatures. Thank Abrams and Whedon for small favors.

“Disable them, but don’t kill them if you can help it,” he said to the sprites. It was a relatively simple matter for them to cut the eaters’ legs off while they were disabled. By the
time
the bugs could respond, their mobility was gone. Richter consumed a Potion of Clarity, and then looked up at Alma. Curious what would happen he offered her a Potion of Clarity as well. She took the end of the vial in her mouth, and then put her head back letting the potion slide down her throat. Richter gave a vicious smile and then said, “Drain them.”

The dragonling let loose an excited cry and pounced on the first eater. Richter cast
Soul Trap
on each in turn. She took less than a minute before moving on to the next. As she finished each, a ribbon of multicolored light flew into his Bag of Holding. While he watched her
kill the beetles, Richter re-enabled his prompts showing experience from kills. He had disabled it soon after coming to The Land because it was too distracting. With each
kill,
though, his experience went up by 75-90 depending on the beetle’s level not including the 25% boost that the Potion of Clarity gave. He also received a second prompt because of his familiar’s
Brain Drain
ability. Depending on the level of eaters that Alma consumed he would get between 30 or 80 experience as well. The awesome news was that experience from
Brain Drain
was increased by his Potion as well! True, these monsters were low level, and didn’t give much experience, but it boded well for the future! He disabled the experience prompts again before he forgot. Those things were seriously distracting and cluttered his notification log.

While he was waiting, he also looked at the backlog of experience prompts from the frantic fight with the eaters. Just like the battle with the bugbears, it seemed that he
got
experience even from the sprites kills. A quick question revealed that the sprites got experience from his kills as well. Yoshi explained that in group battles everyone that contributed to a kill would get some decreased experience. The more people involved, the less the individual experience each person got. Up to a party of
five,
though, everyone got an equal and unreduced level of experience from completed quests. It seemed The Land followed old D&D rules. Most people accepted that the ideal party size was four, but you always made a party of five. That way if someone had some bad lo mein, and subsequently was spraying dark miso soup out of their bottom, you were still ready to rock with the four who made it to your mom’s garage.

Richter had been slightly concerned that the sprites would have a problem with what Alma was doing, but they just looked curious. Yoshi asked about what was happening, and
when Richter explained he just nodded in agreement, “Any opportunity to get stronger should be taken.” It was clear he was still irritated with Richter from the way he spoke, though.

Once Alma was done, they took stock of their surroundings. Sion’s bottle of Pure Light had gone out, and if not for Futen, there would be no light in the subterranean tunnel. The stone of the hallway was different from the antechamber. It was
grey
slate and the blocks were expertly laid together. Most importantly there were no holes in the walls. After seeing the eaters speed out of holes that should have been too small to accommodate their bodies no less, it was a relief to know that they wouldn’t be swarmed from all directions. The
tunnel led
on into the darkness. Futen’s light only extended about twenty yards, past that nothing could be seen.

Alma had perched back on his shoulders when she was finished killing the eaters. Yoshi was cleaning his blades, and Sion and Daniella were shouldering their bows and checking their arrows. Other than the quiet sounds the four of them were making, the tunnel was as still and quiet as the grave.

“Well how do we get out of there,” Yoshi asked.

It was quiet for a moment until Richter realized the question was directed at him.

“How should I know,” he asked.

“That internal map that you have been bragging about,” Yoshi said sharply. “Find us a way out.”

“It only works on places that I’ve already been.”

“Only works on where you’ve already been? Not where you are going,” Yoshi asked putting emphasis on the last word. “You do know that’s the exact OPPOSITE of the purpose of a map, right?”

“Oh! Is my magic map not good enough for you,” Richter asked loudly. Not giving Yoshi a chance to respond, “Well let me just check and see if CAN
tell
us anything. Looking, looking, looking. Wait! I was wrong! It does say something. Yup. It says right here that we’re fucked. Wait, let me check again. Yup! We’re fucked!”

Before Richter and Yoshi started wailing on each other, Daniella pulled the sword adept away, whispering urgently to him. Richter walked up to
Sion, who was checking his quiver.

“What is wrong with that guy,” Richter asked.

“Well,” Sion replied, “he’s just kind of in a bad mood. Probably due to falling down a pit, then nearly being eaten, and now being buried alive.”

Richter was quiet for a moment, “Well yeah! But what’s his problem with
me
?”

“Well,” Sion said again, “all of that happened because you activated whatever was set into that stone.”

Richter was quiet a bit longer this time, “Yeah well, that’s still no reason for him to be a total twat!”

Sion sighed, “I don’t know what that means, butttt, I’m guessing if there were reasons to be a… total twat, then being dropped down a pit, almost being eaten alive, and
then
being trapped in an underground tunnel, would all be pretty good reasons.”

Richter chewed on Sion’s words
and realized his Companion might have had a point. He looked over at Yoshi. “Hey Yoshi, I feel… partly responsible for all of this. I want to apologize.”

The adept looked at him with squinted eyes, and then half raised one hand. He did something peculiar with his
fingers
though, with only the second and fourth ones extended. As soon as he made the gesture, Daniella grabbed it and pulled it back down.

Richter looked at Sion, “What did that mean?”

Sion looked back and forth between the two men, “Uhhhh, it means he accepts your apology.” He quickly redirected Richter’s attention from
the Yoshi’s
blatant insult, “If we are going to be trapped in here long, then we might be in trouble. I just used a third of my arrows,” Sion said.

Daniella chimed in to help with the distraction. Walking over, she said, “I used a bit less, but if we run into more hell bugs, my arrows will deplete quickly.”

Richter looked at the two sprites, quite sure that hand gesture did not mean ‘I accept your apology,’ but seeing Yoshi leaning against the tunnel wall clearly pissed, he decided to let it go. This
was
at least partly his fault after all.

“Not a problem,” Richter said. “I asked Hisako to make me more sprite arrows before we left. She went a bit overboard.” Richter pulled out one of the bundles Hisako had left for him near the Great Seal. Each of the three contained hundreds of arrows. The sprites replenished their stores and Richter put the rest of the arrows back into his Bag. Richter also took the time to give them ten Potions of Clarity each. Yoshi scowled initially, saying he could
not afford them, and despite Richter’s insistence he continued to refuse. When Richter repeated Yoshi’s own words about not missing opportunities to get stronger though, he finally accepted.

“So those things were eaters,” Richter asked.

“I can’t believe there is a nest in the Forest,” Yoshi spat. “I still remember fighting to clear the last nest forty years ago. They shouldn’t be back for at least another fifty or sixty years! We lost good sprites during that fight,” he said in a regretful tone. “This is no longer about your quest, Lord Richter. We need to find the
nest,
and destroy it. Will you help?”

You have been offered a Quest: Scourge the Scourge I. Yoshi has just discovered the Forest has an infestation of hell bugs. He has made clear that finding the nest is more important that anything. He wants your help. Not accepting will cause Yoshi to leave the party and decrease your reputation with him. Yes or No?

Like there was really a choice, he thought. “Okay, how do we start,” Richter asked.

Yoshi looked around at the hallway that contained them and the iron door behind
them. He made eye contact with Richter, “We go forward.”

Remembering what had happened when unlocking his first power, he told Futen to move ahead of them and scan for traps. The remnant moved ten yards ahead of
them
and waited. When they started walking after him, the
grey
orb matched their pace, staying in front. Richter took
lead, followed by Sion and Daniella
who had arrows nocked to their bows, and Yoshi brought up the rear.