Chapter 65: Book 2 Chapter 19 – The Great Volcanic Escape

Berri donned her backpack basket with glee. She said, “My path came from the entrance. It should be the fastest way out!”

Jake gathered from the other girls that they had spent their time recovering awaiting Jake’s call instead of exploring their paths, because judging from the Champion of Apophis’s words, it would have been quite the trek to even find Jake and he was sure he could call upon them.

Jake quickly retrieved his shield and his spider drill and hopped into the back of Bloodberri’s basket. Bloodberri blazed through the hole she created in the wall, and Jake thought back to the Champion’s words about the paths being perilous. While it would be for a human, with small walkways and steep cliffs that would lead to someone potentially falling to their death, it was no problem at all for his girls. Ophelia and Fhesiah flew almost lazily as they followed Bloodberry as her snake body weaved through the cavern.

The rumbling and shaking of the earth continued, and rocks dislodged from the roof of the cave. Jake weaved a runic spell, filling Bloodberri with as much speed as he could, and refreshed his [Advanced Stamina Regeneration] buff on all of the girls. Bloodberri sped up, and Fhesiah and Ophelia had to work just a little harder to keep up.

Jake felt they were lucky Bloodberri was so familiar with the caves, as there were many paths. Ira and Fhesiah could have led them out, but it would have taken a little more time than her. The quaking of the cave became even more violent, and Bloodberri even had to dodge or knock away some rocks with her club.

They entered a massive cavern, for which Jake saw they were at the top end of it. While there were paths leading down both sides, the bottom of the cavern was more than a hundred or two hundred meters down. Fhesiah wrapped some chains around the armor of Bloodberri’s torso and handed one end to Ophelia, taking the other for herself, and said, “Let’s take a shortcut. Bloodberri leap into the air!”

She leaped into the air without hesitation, and Fhesiah and Ophelia floated her down rapidly, the descent not too fast to lead to bones breaking. Jake kept his thoughts to himself, but he felt like he was on some sort of demented Santa's sleigh, riding on one of his women, being pulled through the air by his other women. Just what was Jake’s life?

“Jake, I can’t help but feel you just had a rude thought, but I couldn’t hear it. Something you want to share?”

Fhesiah’s question caused Jake to sweat a bit, but he shook his head and coughed into his hand. Apparently, she didn’t need to hear his thoughts in order to somehow read his mind.

Ophelia said, “This wasn’t what I had in mind for carrying you off into the clouds, Jake.”

Jake laughed, “Maybe later? We seem to be in a bit of a hurry.” 

They landed on the ground, and exiting the cavern, Jake recognized the room they were in: it was the room where they faced Alisara. The rumbling and quaking became even more urgent, and just as they were about to reach the stairs that lead to the throne room, the cave collapsed, covering it.

Despite the rock being absolutely massive, the three girls weren’t having it. Bloodberri filled herself with holy might, and Jake felt Fhesiah draw some mana with [Energy Sharing] and be empowered by some draconic flames, making her bulk up in size slightly. Even Ophelia was bathed in light, and Jake did his best to add runic strength buffs to them as they all heaved and shoved the rock that was even larger than Bloodberri out of the way, giving enough room to go up the stairs.

The throne room was covered in rocks, but their rapid pace moved them through and into the reception hall, and out the main gate that they had broken through. Just as they started to make some distance from the keep, the mountain erupted.

A large plume of flames, dust, and rock blasted into the sky, and a large avalanche of rock rained down on the keep that they just exited. Lava streamed down the volcano, and Jake now saw a new threat: red wyverns. There were at least a hundred of them, and they were circling around the volcano. Jake spotted Antonius’ party in the distance, mounted on horses on a hill nearby.

“Jake! I’m glad you made it out. When the mountain shook, we retreated. It looks like we have an additional problem, don’t we?”

Jake looked and found the wyverns appeared to start moving as a group in one direction.

“That isn’t good. Roseberg’s in that direction. I think I can coordinate a response, but it’ll be tough. Defending against that type of creature in the city, there will be a lot of collateral damage; killing of the uninitiated.”

Jake remembered that the battlegroup had headed to the makeshift keep before they headed into their battle. He thought this would put quite the burden on Fhesiah and Ophelia, but he could protect them by using [Call Summon] if things got tough for them. Jake thought this was quite the vicious plan. If his party hadn’t made it out to help, perhaps [Tartarus] still would have won the day in terms of the change of the conquest meter, despite having lost the [Fortress Assault].

Jake went with Bloodberri and Antonius’ group to the makeshift keep, and Fhesiah and Ophelia did their best to change the swarm’s direction. They worked in tandem to cut them down from the sky, avoiding their breath attacks and slicing their wings with ease. It wasn’t until they had taken four of them down that they paid them any attention, and they had nearly killed ten before the swarm started to treat them seriously and chase after them.

Ophelia and Fhesiah were barely faster than the high-level creatures, so they were able to kill a few more to keep them interested in the chase. These wyverns were different from the ones they had previously faced, having a fire or lava aspect instead of poison or bile. While this made Fhesiah strong to their breath attacks, it meant that she didn’t have an effective tool for killing them besides her claws, without going all-out.

By the time Jake and the rest reached the keep, he could already see the swarm of wyverns on the horizon, only taking longer to arrive due to Ophelia and Fhesiah taking a winding path to the keep. Antonius had called ahead with the headset, and the ballista were already manned and the archers and casters preparing on the ramparts.

Berri said, “Yay, now we get to be the ones defending! This should be fun!”

All told there were over 60 Alliance members versus the near one hundred creatures, but Jake hoped that he could just keep the losses to a minimum. The ballista started firing their rounds, and Jake grimaced as he saw that only one of the first salvo of the four pieces of siege equipment actually hit its mark. Hopefully, the operators of the smaller siege equipment meant for taking out aerial targets would get better.

Using the runic bubbles in Jake’s hearth and preparing a simple spear of ice spell using his staff, he was able to manage launching three at a time. His goal was to simply down the creatures, allowing the battlegroup and Bloodberri to finish them. Jake was surprised to find that Bloodberri had joined Jake in firing spears of ice, using runes of Elvish script. The predatory smirk on her face as she used it told him it was Blood driving their actions.

Ophelia too threw runic spears of ice, and they had downed a dozen of them in short order, along with the battlegroup’s own archers, and mages using their own shards of ice attacks. But it wasn’t long before the swarm of wyverns reached a critical mass, and was able to start raining fire down on the battlegroup.

Jake and Ophelia did their best to coordinate their [Sacrifical Barriers] and cover up the flames, but were unable to block them all, the rain of fire too massive. Thankfully, Fhesiah was able to divert the remaining flames, as the several dozen wyvern’s initial salvo was deflected. They circled the keep, as ballistas and archers took shots at them.

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The warriors of the battlegroup focused on protecting the archers, along with taking out any downed wyverns that landed in the courtyard. While far from weak, they were not a major challenge after falling out of the sky and breaking many of their bones. Bloodberri was often there to finish them off, able to move much faster than the armored melee, but the snake woman wasn’t satisfied with just that.

She took out a pile of her bowling ball sized baseballs and dumped them on the ground in front of her. Her tail snaked around, and the tip began lifting and throwing the balls to herself like a lazy underhanded pitch. Before Jake knew it, she was blasting hits at the wyverns, knocking them out of the sky.

The cycle of a large number of wyverns raining fiery death down on the battlegroup and flying away happened 2 more times, before their behavior started to change. Jake guessed that nearly half of them had been taken down already, but the ones remaining were clearly the larger and more aged examples of their species. They formed a single unit, and Jake could see the largest of them all was leading them. This one was easily double, almost triple the size of the other wyvern, and would possibly stand taller than Bloodberri could reel herself up on her tail.

Jake had thought his spell-rod made him powerful, but the reality is that it was more like he had achieved a Tier 1 spell at Tier 0; of course it was a big deal, at the time. But now, it could merely be considered the bare minimum to harm this type of creature, that was at the peak of its tier. Many of the Tier 1 spellcasters in the battlegroup could achieve something similar, but it would take them a bit of time to be ready.

Still, Jake prepared it, and shoved as much mana into creating as large a Runic Spear of Ice that he could. He blasted it at the lava wyvern Alpha, right at center mass. It nailed it right in the chest, and it roared as it slammed into the ground and slid dozens of meters in front of the keep. The nearby wyvern roared and spat balls of fire at the keep, blowing away chunks of rock, and trying to strike those on the battlements.

Ophelia did her best to shield against the damage, but could not cover an entire side of the keep. The walls on one side began to crumble, and Bloodberri blurred towards a hole that formed, heading for the downed Alpha that was now getting up. Two casters up on the ramparts had begun to fall, but Jake was surprised when Bloodberri’s tail snapped back and placed them out of harm’s way, before she continued to the downed alpha. Jake was impressed at the precision required to accomplish this without slashing them with some blade or spike on her armor.

Ice had spread from where the large spear had struck it, and that spear still remained lodged in its chest. Fhesiah instead flew covered in draconic flames for the large number of wyverns that had formed up in support of the Alpha, and she had her own hands formed into draconic claws. She swiped the air, and a wave of magical force the shape of her claws powered by her heavenly law continued, forming a slash a dozen meters across.

The slash swept into a group of wyverns five wide, and a shower of gore and blood was released from where they were struck. Several had their wings ripped to pieces, and many had their chest or throats sliced through. All of them landed on the ground, never to get up. She swiped one more time at another group of four, with the results similar.

Meanwhile, the Alpha moved to meet Bloodberri, and with a smile she moved even faster than expected, and slammed her mace into Jake’s spear of ice. It drove it in like a railroad spike, and Jake could tell it exited their back. It roared and tried spraying her with flames, but she moved out of the way and slapped them across the face with her heavy tail, redirecting the flames away from her. Jake focused on casting more spears of ice at the groups supporting the alpha, and shielding them with Ophelia as he could tell Bloodberri didn’t need his help to win.

Fhesiah wasn’t able to do anymore of her widespread claw attack, but she was able to continue cutting through their wings or going for their throats. The ballistas kept firing and with so many targets to choose from in a small area, most were hitting and taking them down. Eventually, the caster groups had managed to cast some group spells of their own, casting large ice spikes that were as powerful as Jake’s and killing their respective wyverns they struck.

Jake saw that Bloodberri layered on several debuffs on the wyvern alpha, and systematically destroyed their ability to stand or fly away using blows to its joints or slices with her blade and spiked tail. In the end, she put it out of its misery with a [Mace of Hestia] to the creature’s head, killing it. It died with a pitiful wail, and the remaining wyverns, less than a dozen, fled.

Jake was going to send Ophelia and Fhesiah to chase and finish them off, but Antonius stopped them. “Those creatures are native to this world, but [Tartarus] had taken control over them to some extent. Once we reclaim the world, its control over them will be rescinded. It’s for the best that we just leave them. It would take a long time for them to repopulate into a meaningful attack without [Tartarus’] help, anyway.”

Jake somewhat understood. While a world was contested, [Tartarus] would gain from any deaths that occurred during combat and some other means, and it could to some extent take control of creatures and use them within its zone of control. Rifts would lead to its zone of control extending as they took over towns, villages, and cities.

This was why normally it could not send something like a max level creature to defend a lower level rift; it did not own that territory, and so it would use its cunning to take advantage where it could.

Once [Tartarus] was gone, if the adventurers made some creature extinct, it’d still be extinct once they won. It was better to drive the creatures off, so they had a chance at survival.

Jake overheard an update over the headsets, and they were happy to learn that the conquest progress had moved a whole fifteen percent back in the alliance’s direction. The attitude was cheery among those that won, and it surprised Jake that nobody had died even against the wyverns. It was the additional healers that Ophelia had managed to convince to come help outside of the battlegroup that had made a significant difference.

“We need to get going, Antonius. You did good work getting this battlegroup together. If the [Sons of Rome] need help in the future, we’ll do our best to come if we’re called.”

“Thank you, Jake. You really showed us all how important it is for us to challenge our own trial. Of course, this is not different from the information our guild gives us, but seeing is really believing.”

“I think if someone does everything possible to prepare: maximizing their skills, equipment, and other preparations such as filling in their weaknesses, they have a good shot at success. I understand the risk, but if everyone avoids the trial, I think that helps [Tartarus] win. Never pushing yourself to end up too weak to succeed is not very different from feeding the dungeon.”

“I…will keep that in mind. I think I will better myself and then try to take the trial. I want to see just how far I can go. I know I might never be as strong as you and your ladies, but I know I can be better than I am now.”

Jake had learned that Antonius had two options for taking his trial. He could be scaled down to level ten, similar to how the enemy champion was when taking on his trial, or he could take on a trial that was scaled to his level, for which he should wait until he has passed level 20. You were only allowed to take on one trial per tier, and in a way, Antonius had missed out on his Tier 0 trial.

The rewards for taking on the Trial scaled down would be less, but the advantage of doing this was he would get a chance at a new class immediately, which was a reward all on its own. Completing the Tier 1 trial would only allow him to select his new class once he reached Tier 2, the merit of completing the trial being added to his selections.

“I think you can too, Antonius. You take care.”

Jake then called upon his [Refuge], and a portal opened that only those he invited could enter. Jake and his girls waved goodbye, and got some cheering from the battlegroup in return. Bloodberri specifically got several people to thank her, knowing it was she that saved them. She preened at the praise, and Jake could tell they were proud of themselves, both Blood and Berri.

They entered their [Refuge], and started getting cleaned up, which included removing Bloodberri’s complicated suit of armor. Jake was nearly paralyzed in shock when Fhesiah took out a magical torch and it began floating near her, though. Just what was that?

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