Happy Friday! Here's your delivery. Sorry for the cliffs!

-Plum

43 – The Lentiss

Andy’s lungs screamed with the explosion of mana that rushed into them. He exhaled immediately, and the heat of the air that billowed out of his mouth washed back over him; it felt like opening a thousand-degree oven and being engulfed in the draft of steamy, burning air. What he experienced, though, was nothing compared to what happened to the creatures before him.

The hot air that left his lungs seemed to spark to life just inches from his lips like a welder’s torch being lit. Orange-red flames billowed in great rolling loops, covering the ground before him, rolling to the right as he turned his head away from the building and washed the courtyard in the blast. The insects immediately erupted into flames. Most of them collapsed right away, legs and arms curling in as their carapaces blackened and split.

Andy inwardly rejoiced as he finished exhaling; he’d doused the entire courtyard in the flames, and though the wooden doors had blackened as the fire washed by, he’d kept from directly igniting the mission’s buildings. More than that, he’d hit every insect inside the square and crawling on the exterior courtyard wall. Hellfire Miasma was a resounding success—far more deadly than his old Cinderstorm Blast.

Every creature succumbed—save one. One of the flying insects stood boldly in the flames, allowing them to billow around it, rebuffed by an invisible shield. The insect focused its purple-blue multifaceted eyes on Andy and advanced, walking right through the hellfire. Andy lifted Scirocco, watching it come. He was wreathed in the flames of his spell, and though they didn’t hurt him, the heat was intense. Still, the insect advanced.

As it drew within a few yards of Andy, the green, chitinous creature reared up on its many lower legs. Andy knew it would bring its scythe-bladed arms down on him. Gritting his teeth, he drove Scirocco forward, using the spear’s length and brutally sharp blade to strike before the much larger foe could bring its weight to bear.

Even as he attacked, his hellfire faded, but his spell wasn’t done. As the fire burned out, it didn’t do so cleanly; it left behind a thick, oily black smoke that rapidly blended with the hot air, making it heavy and oppressive—and caustic. Scirocco slammed into the insect’s abdominal carapace, and though it was a resounding hit, accompanied by an electrical discharge, the mighty weapon barely cracked the insect’s armor, and only an inch of the blade penetrated.

Stunned by Scirocco’s failure, Andy drove his weight against the spear, trying to hold the monster back as it came down, hacking its curved, bladed arms at Scirocco’s haft and Andy’s arms. The monstrous insect’s weight was too much for him, pushing him back until his shoulders were pressed against the hot, scorched adobe of the mission. Still, it allowed him to brace Scirocco’s haft against the wall, frustrating his foe as it continued to hack at him.

When Andy pulled his hands out of reach, and when Scirocco’s haft proved too dense and magically tough to chop through, the insect started to hiss and click, and Andy felt a surge of mana. He felt just as trapped as the insect pinned by Scirocco; his back was to the wall, and if he moved to either side, he’d put himself in range of those slashing arms. He only entertained that thought for an instant; he knew better.

The insect’s hacks were predictable and regular, and Andy was fast. He didn’t even have to watch his foe as he timed his move, jerking his spear to the right and then charging in the same direction, diving and rolling. He almost moved fast enough to evade the insect’s spell, but not quite. Its wings fluttered wide, and a hailstorm of barbed hairs erupted from its long abdomen, showering the courtyard—and Andy—with their thorny needles.

Andy screamed. Most of the tiny missiles that hit him struck his coat and barely penetrated, but dozens hit his scalp, his ears, his neck, and the backs of his legs. His gloves mostly stopped the needles, but still, some sank through into his fingers and knuckles. Only the fact that he kept his face tucked and turned away from the insect saved him from likely blindness.

As the insect hissed and clicked and its feet clattered on the adobe pavers, Andy staggered forward, his body aflame with agony. His arms felt numb; his legs were almost unresponsive, but still he turned and readied his spear, only to see the insect swaying left and right, deep blue blood oozing from hundreds of cracks in its thick exoskeleton. Andy watched as more cracks appeared—the thing’s carapace was crumbling. It had managed to resist his hellfire—maybe with some kind of elemental shield spell—but the miasma was another matter.

Its big octagonal eyes were swollen, and they oozed with the same blue fluid. It no longer seemed able to focus on him, so Andy didn’t waste any time. He reached into his storage ring and took out one of the precious regenerative waters that Bea had given him. He leaned on Scirocco, watching the insect die as he guzzled the fluid—slightly sour, but instantly warming as it touched his tongue and throat.

He could feel the magical healing at odds with the fire spreading through his scalp—the needles hurt more than anything he could recall. He hadn’t realized it, but his vision had been fading, going dark at the edges and getting blurry in the middle. As Bea’s magic worked, he saw pulses of light spread from the center of his vision toward its darkened edges, and he knew those pulses were his heartbeat.

As his scalp went numb, which he much preferred to acidic fire, the insect collapsed with a squelching clatter. Still leaning on Scirocco, Andy looked left and right, scanning the roofline to see if more enemies were coming. He didn’t see any yet, so he took a step toward the blackened doors where the insects had been trying to batter their way in. He was about to call out, but then with a grinding creak, one of the doors opened, and a man’s face appeared—thankfully human.

“Get in here, brother!”

Andy started forward and almost fell; his legs were still full of tingles. He caught himself and tried again, staggering toward the opening. “Stand back,” he said, waving the miasma away from the door as he slipped through. “The air is poisonous out here.”

He stumbled through the narrow gap, and the man, bandana over his face, didn’t hesitate to shove the door closed. Andy took in the situation, realizing that there were other people facing him. They looked dangerous—desperate and wild, wounded and wielding weapons. “That was some spell,” an older man with a crossbow said. “You killed more in a few seconds than we did all day.”

“Yeah,” Andy said, once again leaning on Scirocco. “I’m here to help.”

“You came here on purpose?” a young woman with curly blonde hair asked. She clutched a staff, and Andy thought he felt heat and wind emanating from her. That’s new, he reflected; was he starting to be able to discern different types of mana?

“Are you going to live?” another man asked. He was bearded and burly and held a massive sledgehammer. His chest was covered with a thick black-iron breastplate. “We saw the thresher launch its nettles.”

Andy brushed the back of his head, feeling the brittle needles fall apart as his glove passed through them. Bea’s healing water had won the contest. “Yeah, I’ll live.”

“Goddamn!” the first man said. “He took a full hit from that thresher.”

“Thresher?” Andy asked.

“Yeah, they’re like…Lentiss special forces.”

“Ah, so those are the Lentiss—” Andy’s words were cut short as the System flashed messages across his vision:

**Congratulations, Andy! You’ve slain 14 Lentiss soldiers, earning enough experience to gain 3 levels in your Brimstone Stalker class. You also killed a Lentiss Thresher, resulting in another 3 levels. For your level gains, you’ve been awarded 3 Improvement Points and 90 maximum mana points. Additionally, for surpassing the level fifty milestone, you’ve earned an Evolution Point.**

**New Quest: Rescue the survivors of the Titan Silo Society. If you can safely recover the survivors from where they’ve taken shelter, bringing them to your settlement, then Mesquite Mesa will be awarded a unique System Boon.**

“Shit,” Andy said, surprised by both his sizeable level gain and the Evolution Point.

“Something wrong?” the bearded man with the hammer asked.

“He just got his System notifications,” the crossbow wielder said. “Didn’t you see his eyes unfocus?”

“Right,” the woman with the staff said.

“Help us bar the door!” another man cried, and Andy turned to see him and some others pushing heavy furniture back in front of the door.

“Listen,” Andy said. “There are hundreds of those insects out there and hundreds more coming.”

“Hah,” the bearded guy scoffed. “You think that’s all? They hit our settlement with a couple thousand. Nah, we’re gonna be bug food in no time.”

“Hush, Nolan!” the blonde woman said. “There are kids nearby.”

Nolan shouldered his hammer and strode off, grumbling. The older man with the crossbow looked at Andy. “You have some kind of idea? I sure hope so, considering you were crazy enough to come in here.”

Andy looked around the wide hallway, noting wooden doors leading in every direction. The place was ornate—carved wood, paintings, fancy, heavy furniture, most of which was pushed up against the exterior doors. “How many you have in the building?”

“Everyone we’ve got left,” the older man said, glancing at the younger woman with the curls as if for confirmation.

“More than five hundred. Lots of wounded,” she replied, licking her lips and looking toward the newly barricaded doors. “Maybe fifty kids.”

Andy’s eyes widened. “Seriously? Here?”

She nodded. “They’re in the main church.”

Andy glanced at the doors and the dozen or so fighters gathered in the wide hallway. “How long do you think you can hold them off?”

“They mostly attack the front, but we have defenders there—people out on the balconies, too,” the older man said. He glanced around at everyone, lowering his voice to a rough whisper. “Maybe an hour.”

“Can you take me to the others? I have to change my class, but then I should be able to get you guys out of here.”

“What?” the older man asked. “Are you being serious, man?”

“Yeah, I’m serious,” Andy replied. He recognized he was feeling irritable, and he tried to rein it in. He’d been hurt, sure, but these people had been through a lot, too. “I’m Andy, by the way. I’m from a settlement east of Tucson.”

“Seriously?” the older man said.

“How’d you get here?” the woman asked.

“I flew.” Andy motioned with his spear toward the interior doors. “Come on. We need to hurry.”

“Right!” The guy with the crossbow started forward, and he said over his shoulder, “I’m Gus, and that’s Blondie.”

Andy arched an eyebrow at the woman with the staff, and she shrugged. “Been my nickname forever.”

They’d just reached the inner door when something heavy slammed against the outer wall, rattling the door and the furniture propped against it. One of the other defenders screamed, “Get ready!”

“Come on,” Gus said, pulling the door open. Andy followed them through some kind of banquet room where a dozen other people were resting, and then down another hallway and through a huge ornate door into the church.

He stopped in the doorway, catching his breath. He’d never been to the mission before—never set foot in a building like it, in fact. It was like something out of a movie. Gold leaf abounded, especially up by the altar and around niches where statues of saints looked down. Intricate art covered the walls and even parts of the ceiling. Hundreds of people were gathered in there, clustered in groups, lying on the floor and on the pews.

The massive arched windows let in light, but not as much as they should; someone had used magic to close them off with thick ice. Andy could tell because it dripped in rivulets down the plaster walls.

“Come on,” Blondie said, grabbing his sleeve.

Andy followed her through, gingerly stepping between the clusters of crying children and wounded people of all ages lying on the floor. The air was thick with the stench of blood, vomit, and urine. He looked around, saw the haunted, tear-streaked faces looking his way, and he stepped forward to grab Gus’s arm. “I gotta get you guys out of here, man. Is there a closet or something I could use?”

Blondie took his arm again. “This way!” She turned around, pulling Andy back to the door. They went through, back into the hallway, and Gus followed. Blondie hurried past a few doors and around a corner to another door. She opened it and pointed. “An office.”

“Thanks.” Andy stepped inside, but before he closed the door, he looked past Blondie to Gus and asked, “Was your settlement at the silo?”

Gus nodded. “The damn bugs dug their way right down to the bottom—used magic to break through the concrete and steel.”

“How many were you?” Andy asked, looking past him, his mind drifting back to the crowded church.

“We had over two thousand for a while,” Gus replied. “We were even building outside—on the surface.”

Blondie scoffed bitterly. “We were going to rebuild society.”

“I’m sorry,” Andy replied. “We’re going to get out of here—I won’t let the rest of you die here.”

“I get why you want to be alone in there—to change your class. You can trust us, though,” Gus said. “Me and Blondie—we’ll guard this door.”

“Are you the leaders?”

Gus shook his head. “No, we lost most of our best people back at the silo. They held the Lentiss off while the rest of us ran for it.”

“We thought we got away for a while,” Blondie said. “Then, the bugs’ scouts found us.”

Andy looked at her for a minute, saw the exhaustion in her eyes, and then turned to Gus. The older man looked like he was on the verge of collapse. “Just hang on a little longer, you guys. I’ll be out of here in about ten minutes.” As they stepped back, he closed the door, and then he dragged the desk over to barricade it.

He had a feeling they weren’t lying about being trustworthy, but Andy didn’t like the idea of being helpless among strangers. He sat down with his back to the desk, then, with Scirocco on his lap, he closed his eyes, opened his status sheet, and selected his Axiomatic Pathfinder class. As the darkness rushed in, dragging him into unconsciousness, he swore he felt the ground shake and heard the distant sounds of screams.