Chapter 51: Chapter 51

I raise my spear, pointing towards the massive scorpion. “Principality of Thunder, attack the Fear on my command! Principality of Lightning, destroy the smaller scorpions! CHAAAAARRRRGGGE!”

The two angelic beings salute with their weapons, before separating and engaging. The sword-wielding angel leaps into the air, wings flaring, bringing its electrified sword down in a vicious cut, the edge screeching across the chitinous skin of the massive arachnid.

Asteria whoops, “Go, angel-dude!” as the air trembles, a sonorous boom cracking through the whole cavern, accompanied by a disgusting squelching sound. Several more thunderous impacts ring out as Marika and the Vulpa begin adding their own AOE spells to the mix. Waves of fire, ice, and tangled vines begin battering the still-growing horde of scorpionlings to paste.

I blink. Marika’s robes are fading from the same ridiculous colour as her neon-pink hair, shifting into a rich, warm green, like a sunlit summer forest, as she lets out a scream, waves of sonic energy cascading from her mouth as Sionnach and the twins cover their ears and complain.

As she shrieks, any scorpion caught in her shockwaves getting blasted away, or dashed to scraps against the walls and stalactites, something rips its way out of the ground, formed from gnarled, thorny roots and brambles. It looks like a mannequin of Marika, as a robe of dried, dead leaves forms around it.  It flexes wooden, twig-like fingers, before hurling a bolt of green fire towards the massive scorpion. It bursts in a flurry of razor-sharp leaves, inflicting dozens of tiny scratches on the boss.

Asteria and Ferrule begin dispensing heals, before I take a blow I hadn’t seen coming. One of the Fear’s tails lashes out, up into the air, right at my airborne position. It slams into the edge of my greatshield, knocking my arm aside, as a second stinger embeds itself in my left side. It slams in, the tip punching through the cuirass on my plate armour, my left fauld tearing away, as a rush of cold, stinging pain flashes up and down my body, before a burning, itching sensation takes over, like a thousand fire ants burrowing beneath my skin.

The Fear flicks its tail, using its stinger to launch me across the cavern. I bounce and roll, several times, like a rock skipping across a pond, my wings screaming in protest as I feel one of the bones in my wing creak, then snap, when I slam into something. My back arches as I howl. FUCK, that hurts! It hurts so badly, and I scramble to get to my feet, leaning on the cracked, tilted stalagmite that arrested my momentum.

Asteria screams for me, before something explodes nearby. I cling to the stalagmite, my head swimming with pain. I can feel the poison flooding my veins, but the worst source of agony comes from my wing. I can’t even furl it without sending knives made of frozen acid lancing up and down my crippled wing.

A gentle hand presses the neck of a bottle to my lips. “Drink!”

I obediently part my lips, and the carrot-like liquid flows down my throat. A frigid chill floods through my body, soothing the burning itch in my veins, the poison counteracted by the antidote. As soon as the bottle’s empty, the buxom Alv’s worried face in coming into focus in front of me.  Her hands gently cup my cheeks, and she murmurs, “I, Asteria Willowthorne of the Sunlight Glade, command you to be well, in mind and body! Full Grand-Healing!”

As glowing vines of light surround my body, knitting my broken wing and puncture wound back together and repairing the bruises and abrasions I’d suffered thanks to the Fear’s attack, the pain fades away. Asteria turns, her shako hat flying off, her long golden locks spilling down her back, before starting to rise and billow in a hot, electro-charged wind that whips up around her. She opens her mouth, and, in a familiar accent, she roars defiance at the giant boss scorpion.

 

“ALREIGHT, YA FECKIN’ DRYSHITE! I’MMA KICK YE IN THE BOLLOCKS AND MAKE YE SING SOPRANO! NOW GET O’ER HERE SO’S I C’N SLAP THE BAKE OFF YE, YA BAWBAG!”

 The Fear seems to freeze, as if trying to figure out what any of these words mean. Before it can decipher the thick brogue and the meaning it carries, a bolt of pure, white light cannons into it, sending it reeling. Asteria glows, her whole body suffused with power, as Naberius writhes around her waist.   A second bolt, this one a darkness so black it swallows the light in its path, bolt after bolt tearing through the air and detonating against the Fear’s carapace like the anti-aircraft guns that served to shoot down the bombers and fighters that swarmed in the skies during the Third World War. She’s firing off spell after spell, heedless of the MP cost. The Principalities are still following the orders I’d given them, mechanically attacking.

As the Fear rallies, lurching round to face my beautiful Alv, Ferrule raises a barrier, catching the tail-strikes with a wall of shimmering violet. Marika and her dryadic clone both emit that sonic scream at the same time, one of the Fear’s legs buckling with a gunshot crack, leaking foul-looking, oily blood.

It screeches, trying to retreat, drool leaking from its maw as it begins to focus on recovery. As it begins to back up towards the ground-dragon’s carcass, a fresh wave of baby scorpions the size of large dogs swarm from the tunnels and crevices. However, the Vulpa twins have, at some point, tampered with the corpse of the drake. On cue, they hurl fireballs, setting the scaled cadaver aflame, the spontaneous inferno preventing the Fear from feeding on it.

With a whoop, the pair high-five, as Sionnach, her greatsword glowing a deep blue, brings it crashing down in an overhead smash, a shockwave crushing a handful of scorpions into revolting pancakes.

I barely pay attention, staring at my girlfriend’s complete and utter lack of chill, as my HP bar fills up steadily. She moves like a wildfire, all elegance and restraint thrown out of the window, each spell and strike landing with cataclysmic force. She’s almost feral, swearing in a mix of English and… Gaelic….

“GO DTUITFEADH AN TIGH ORT!”  (Your house fall upon you!)

“THE DIVVIL BREAK YER BONES!”

“Go ndéana an diabhal dréimire do chnámh do dhroma!!” (I hope the devil uses your spine as a ladder!)

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I don’t need to understand her to both know that voice, and know just how much venom she’s spitting with each curse. She’s this angry… just because I got hurt in a videogame? I can feel my wing-bone shift back into its proper place, the break healing as if it had never happened, the last bruises wiped away as I stand, downing an MP potion, the Principality of Thunder taking two of the Fear’s stingers to the chest. As it begins to crumble, it brings its lightning-imbued greatsword down, severing the stingers and causing the Fear to shriek and flail around. I slam my shield down, pointed base digging into the dirt, and channel power into my left hand and into my right, my spear beginning to crackle and sizzle with threads of golden electricity.

 

Raising my swordspear, I aim the blade towards the Fear, releasing the power in my left so that it meets the charge in my swordspear. Thunder Cannon, channelled through my spear. Wind Shot from my left. Meeting, combining, and forming a ball of wind and thunder, catapulting into the Fear of the Endless Desert.

“Cirrus Crash!”

 

It starts jerking and shuddering, unable to move. Asteria raises a hand, a massive longbow of emerald light appearing, which she… throws to me. “Use it, mo ghràdh! (my love) Ye already have an arrow!”

I blink, then understanding hits. I toss my spear up, catching it by the butt, and then nocking it into the bowstring like a massive greatarrow.

It takes all the strength I have to draw the bowstring back, but I manage, beating my wings to get airborne for a better shot. Asteria baits an attack from the Fear’s tail, then casts a tangling spell that causes one of its pincer’s to be ensnared in the vines. Marika’s dryad attempts to engage in melee and becomes a nature kebab, as one of the two remaining stingers impales it.

 

 It dissipates in a swirl of dead leaves, before I loose, letting my swordspear fly. As it impacts, the bow scatters apart into particles of light. Genevieve takes advantage to attack, having been caught up in holding off a large pack of scorpionlings. With a leap and then a single overhead strike, she cuts some vital tendon or muscle in the claw, causing it to lose the ability to clamp down on prey. Genevieve’s attack causes the paralysis to weaken enough that she earns a smack that launches her several metres for her trouble.

Ferrule starts patching her up, as I look around for the rest of the group. Graus and Bassan are dealing with the scorpions, the Lizzara acting as a living shield for the archer, the scaled hands occasionally snagging arrows from the corpses and passing them off to their original owner, who fires again and again, accuracy and speed over sheer power. He’s pretty good, too, thanks to his reptilian friend keeping the mob focussed on him.

Marika throws a few spells their way, too, before squeaking in shock as a light erupts from a hip-pouch, a cracking sound coming from within. She fumbles the strap open and gently pulls out her gacha egg. It’s jigging and shaking around in her hands as she gently places it down.

 

The egg, once a pale scarlet, is now glowing a brilliant red, cracks splitting the surface like drought-scarred land. The Fear begins to react, as if sensing a great threat from that egg, but, when its two remaining stingers slam down, they ricochet off something with a high-pitched clang. An eerie eagle-call tears through the cavern, and, as the light fades, Marika is blinking, unscathed.

The creature that blocked the tails ruffles its wings… feathers made of shining, glittering steel. The feathers on its body are much the same, darker, but no less reflective. It stands almost as tall as a horse. The front is birdlike, with claws digging into the sandy rock. The back half is leonine, brassy fur and a flicking tail that ends in a small plume of steel feathers. 

The huge, imposing monster cries out again, before clacking its beak and turning its head to Marika, letting out a chirruping warble. Asteria stares, before resuming her attack. I summon in Thunderbun as the second of my Principalities goes down, overwhelmed by the remaining scorpion brood.

My giant electrobnuuy starts playing trampoline whack-a-mole by Goomba-stomping every scorpion she can, as Marika’s new birb screeches, buffeting and clawing at the Fear when it tries to close on the stunned mage. I dive back into the fray as well, launching myself in a two-footed diving kick, grabbing my swordspear’s haft as I impact, using the momentum I’d built up to wrench it free and slashing at the base of the tails, surfing on the giant chitinous back.

Genevieve resumes her assault on the Fear’s horde of baby scorpions, supported by ferrule and the Vulpa, as Sionnach joins me with a leap. Bassan goes down overwhelmed by the scuttling carpet of arachnids, followed by Graus, leaving Ferrule to try and revive them as best she can. I check the radius, estimating my best guess for how close everyone is to me.

As soon as Ferrule gets the pair on their feet, I activate Strength of the Ancient Ones, a ring of light rippling out from my feet, expanding to surround everyone. I can see my health bar start ticking up again, gradually refilling the portion Asteria’s healing spell hadn’t quite recovered. Sionnach nods, her sharp teeth flashing, as she lunges, biting into one of the stingerless tails with her razor fangs.

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