Here's today's chapter. This one has a much more gentle cliff at the end. Not really a cliff at all, really--more of a grassy hillside.

Thanks for reading!

-Plum

44 – Siege

When Andy’s vision cleared, he knew that more time had passed than the mere seconds he’d experienced. The air was full of dust, and a rhythmic pounding shook the ground, the walls, and the ceiling, sending bits of plaster flaking down onto his face. He leaped to his feet, stooped to pick up Scirocco, and called out, “Are you still out there? Blondie? Gus?”

Nobody answered, so Andy shoved the desk to the side and reached for the handle. Then he paused and reminded himself to use his brain. He closed his eyes and let his other senses do some exploration.

The thuds were distant—something heavy hitting stone and wood. Yells and screams echoed through the hallways, so he knew the survivors were still alive, still fighting. He heard feet stomping on the hard floors, and he knew at least one person was coming toward him.

Andy pulled the door open and looked out to see Gus charging toward him. Further on, he saw Blondie at the corner, looking around. “There’s a Behemoth on the doors!”

Andy didn’t have to ask what a “Behemoth” was; the name was descriptive enough. “Will they hold?”

Gus shook his head. “Not for long!” He looked at Andy. “Is your change done? Can you get us out?”

Andy thought about it—even with the improvements he’d made to his Greater Axiom of Passage, he didn’t think he could take everyone out in one shot. He felt like he’d be lucky to get fifty through the passage before it started to collapse. He shook his head. “Not fast enough. I can get us some help, though. We can kill it.”

Gus twisted his hands on his crossbow, shaking his head. “I don’t think so, Andy—we lost twenty of our best fighters to kill the one that broke into the silo.”

“Best I can do,” Andy said, “is to try.”

A crowd of people ran by the hallway junction, some of them carrying or dragging others. “We’re moving people out of the main church—those who can’t fight,” Gus said.

Andy felt the urgency of the situation, far more acutely than was probably good for his judgement, but he didn’t care; he’d seen those people—those kids—suffering in the church. They needed help, and he could help; it was that simple. He wished he had Omar with him or Denise, but Lucy and Bea were powerful, and Jace—Jace was tough.

With a few rapid flicks of his fingers, he sketched the axiom in the air, and the passage back to the restaurant in Tucson swirled into being. “I’ll be right back,” he said, striding into the magical opening. He focused his will, maintaining the axiom, ensuring the tunnel wouldn’t collapse behind him. When he stepped into the restaurant, his party was arrayed before him—they’d seen his magic open the fabric of the universe.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked, clutching a double-bladed axe that bore Lydia’s maker’s mark stamped into the steel.

“I found the survivors!” Andy said, looking from Frank to Lucy to Jace and then Bea. “They’re in trouble. Right now, they’re taking shelter at San Xavier, but the Lentiss—the green insects—are breaking in. They’re not pushovers.”

“Can’t you just bring them here?” Lucy asked, stepping forward, her bow clutched in her left hand.

Andy shook his head. “There are more than five hundred survivors. We have to stop the attack, at least for a while, ’cause I’m going to need to rest for mana.”

“Let’s go!” Jace growled, hefting his spiked club; he’d traded in his older two-handed club for a sturdier one-handed version and a heavy shield.

Andy nodded, glancing at Bea. She was ready, her staff in hand. He cleared his throat, wanting to warn his friends, but also aware that they had to hurry. “I’m not in my best fighting class, but if shit goes really badly, I’ll open a passage out. We’ll save as many as we can.”

“That sounds fair to me,” Bea said, gesturing toward his still-swirling passage. “After you.”

With one more glance at Lucy, who nodded quickly, Andy turned and stepped back into the passage. A moment later, he was striding into the dust-covered hallway with Gus and Blondie standing there staring, mouths agape.

“You’re back!” Blondie cried.

“Can’t we just leave through that?” Gus asked, but then Jace barreled through, followed closely by the others.

“No,” Andy replied, and he didn’t take the time to explain further. He cut his flow of mana, sealing the passage without a second thought; he’d need his mana for the fight, and he wasn’t going to waste time trying to pick the lucky few who could go through that one passage. He hefted Scirocco and jogged down the corridor to the junction, pushing against the tide of people, many of whom were injured, toward the church and the increasingly loud crunches of something pounding against the big wooden doors.

“Dominic’s almost out of mana!” someone cried, and Andy glanced at Gus, who was gamely running along beside him.

“He’s the Ice Mage!” When Andy narrowed his eyes, Gus added. “He’s freezing the door—reinforcing it!”

“Right.” By the time Andy reached the side door leading into the church and pushed his way inside, he found a scene vastly different from his brief visit just minutes earlier. Most of the people were gone. Plaster and debris—chunks of adobe, splintered timbers, paneling, and scattered belongings—covered the floor, and about ten people stood in the open area before the big outer doors.

“Let me by,” Bea said, pushing past him. He watched as she raised her staff and felt an enormous rush of mana as it began to glow with blue light. The air surrounding Bea swirled, like a miniature cloud, and then, to everyone’s audible amazement, the ground beneath the defenders erupted with mist. “Mists of Rejuvenation!” Bea cried, and Andy saw the same pulsing blue light soak into the people gathered before the doors. He heard their cries of relief as Bea’s healing magic washed through them.

“That’s new,” he remarked.

Bea smiled at him. “Think I’ve been standing around kicking rocks while you’ve been off saving the world?”

Andy grunted his acknowledgment, then worked his way to the central aisle and the other defenders with Jace and Frank right beside him. He was aware of Lucy, too, moving up to the altar with Gus, no doubt planning to support them from range.

“Who is that amazing beauty with the heals?” a shield-bearing man gasped, touching his blood-soaked leather armor, probing a wound beneath. “I’m almost healed!”

Andy glanced at Bea, wondering if she’d heard. From the smirking half-smile she wore, he had a feeling she did.

Frank grumbled something about ageism, and then he hefted his round shield and pushed Andy forward, growling, “If you get hurt, back up to me!”

“I can’t renew the ice again,” a short, stocky man said, leaning on a gnarled staff. “I have to rest.”

“Back out then,” Andy said. “We’ll have to kill the thing.”

Another man stepped forward, adjusting a poorly fitted iron helmet. “The thing? You mean the Behemoth pounding on the—” The wide-eyed man’s outburst was cut off as a tremendous crash shook the door, and a chunk of ice the size of a person crashed to the ground.

“If you can’t stand against it,” Jace roared, “then get the fuck back!” Andy appreciated Jace’s enthusiasm for a fight, though in truth, the big man was under-leveled. Still, he was strong and sturdy, and he didn’t have to kill one of the threshers or this Behemoth—whatever it was—by himself.

Scirocco vibrated in his hands, and the spear’s voice echoed through his mind: “You’ve removed your fiery blessing!”

“Wrong class,” Andy muttered between clenched teeth, watching the door splinter and shudder as huge chitin-covered blades pounded against it. “Don’t hold back, buddy.”

“I will unleash my own brand of hell! Drive me into their soft spots, Andy!”

While Scirocco spoke, four or five of the defenders backed away from the door, some of them surreptitiously edging to the sides and back, but others turning and outright running. As another massive chunk of ice and wood broke off, providing a glimpse of a glowing red, saucer-sized eye amid heavy deep-green chitin, Andy realized that he and Jace were front and center with only five strangers standing with them before the doors.

“Get ready,” Andy said, unworried, despite the fact he was in his Axiomatic Pathfinder class. His unnatural Speed and Perception gave him such an advantage against brute-force enemies that his only real concern was for the safety of the others. When another tremendous crash shook the building, and the doors finally broke into pieces, he came face to face with his first Lentiss Behemoth, though, and his confidence took a nosedive.

It was roughly the same shape as the other Lentiss soldiers—the unwinged ones. However, it was easily twice their size, and its armored shell looked as thick and heavy as the steel on a bulldozer’s blade. Its huge eyes glowed with red animosity, and its bladed, scythe-like arms looked long and heavy enough to cleave a person in two. It tried to demonstrate that by lunging forward, its rear legs skittering as it pushed its way through the broken doors, and hacking down toward Jace and Andy.

Andy saw the attack coming from a mile away and stepped into it, inside the arc of the downward chop. Jace lifted his iron-strapped shield and braced himself with some sort of Fighter talent; Andy could feel the rush of pure mana. He only had a fraction of a second to think about it; he was busy listening to the instincts granted him by Critical Mastery, driving Scirocco straight up, aiming for the chitin between the Behemoth’s mandibles and its thorax.

A gust of wind surged from the spear, doing nothing to the giant insect. His blade had a better effect, chipping the chitin where it was thinner, and apparently hurting enough to make the monster rear back. Andy darted to the side, readying another attack, glancing left to see that Jace was still on his feet, but his shield didn’t look good; one of the wooden planks was splintered, and the iron frame was bent. Still, he nodded at Andy, black eyes fierce.

Several fiery arrows whistled by, slammed into the insect’s chitin, and then bounced to the side. Meanwhile, the Behemoth charged, hacking its scythe arms left and right. Andy was forced to retreat, and if he weren’t so nimble, he would have gotten tripped up by a man with a huge axe. As it was, he lunged to the side, ducking a sweep, and the man was cut in half. As hot blood showered, a flash of guilt ran through Andy’s mind, but he couldn’t afford to dwell on it. He darted in, aiming Scirocco at the seam where the insect’s upper body joined the lower.

This time, Scirocco sank in several inches, and he flashed with fire, delivering a bit of elemental damage. The Behemoth whirled on Andy, exposing its side to Jace and the others, and Andy stabbed again and again, nimbly dodging the scythe arms as they tore the church floor, the pews, and the doorway to pieces. Andy was trying to turn it, to pull it toward the door again, but the Behemoth wasn’t alone—there were dozens of soldiers out there, clamoring against each other, pushing at the door to get in.

Suddenly wishing he’d taken the time to switch back to Brimstone Stalker, Andy thought about running for it, diving past the Behemoth and calling his friends to follow. If they went into one of the smaller rooms, he could open a passage and maybe they’d save fifty people or so. Then, a blazing ball of fire streaked down from above, smashed into the throng of soldiers and set many of them alight. There was some kind of magic user up on the roof or one of the balconies providing support.

Andy stabbed and dodged, moving faster than a human eye could track, taunting the Behemoth with Scirocco’s shallow bites and stinging elemental attacks. The spear even delivered its caustic venom a time or two, but it was impossible for Andy to tell if it had any effect. As far as he could tell, he was like a bee stinging an enraged bull. Even so, he’d kept the monster’s attention, and he was backing it into the doorway, exposing the insect’s back to his friends. The problem was that their attacks were even less effective than his own.

Andy glanced over his shoulder and was relieved to see more and more spells raining down on the throngs of Lentiss soldiers, driving them back. He renewed his efforts, wondering what it would be like if his Strength were a match for his Speed. Would he be able to puncture the Behemoth’s armor? That was when it hit him: he wasn’t even trying to make use of his active class abilities.

Without another thought, Andy focused on the giant insect’s chest and, while he ducked and dodged, he switched Scirocco to a one-handed grip and used his left hand to sketch the glyph for the Axiom of Separation. It was his first time casting the spell since he’d upgraded Axiomatic Artistry, and it came together in just a pair of seconds. When it glowed in the air between him and the Behemoth, Andy fueled it with mana and pushed his will against the Behemoth’s nature.

He felt the insect’s powerful Will; he felt the very universe arguing with him—the carapace was one piece!—but Andy insisted, and though the effect wasn’t as spectacular as he’d hoped, a crack appeared. It was all he needed. With the speed of a viper, he dove forward, lancing Scirocco’s diamond-hard tip into the crack. The impact sounded like a cleaver cutting through a block of wood; the crack split wide, and the spear sank two feet into the monster’s insides, and to Andy’s delight, Scirocco delivered a torrent of caustic venom.

The giant insect hissed and clacked its mandibles. It hacked its scythe arms wildly, and Andy was forced to jump back, pulling Scirocco with him. The creature was direly wounded, and it continued to back up, right into the attacks and spells of the others in the church. Andy hastily scrawled the Axiom of Separation again, and this time the Behemoth’s resistance was weakened. More of its carapace split, and pieces of thick green shell fell to the ground. Grinning, Andy did it again—and again.

Lucy and the others capitalized. Arrows sank through the softened armor. Axes, maces, and clubs shattered the weakened segments. Before long, the monster was on the ground, its legs kicking wildly, as the defenders went wild, smashing it to an oozing pulp. Andy joined in, and by the time the giant insect stopped twitching, everyone in the church was covered in blue-tinted gore.

“Help me get the door!” a man yelled from one of the side exits, and then five or ten more people hurried into the church, propping up the remnants of the door and piling pews and other salvaged wood in place.

“Get Dominic!” Gus cried. “He’s got to have enough mana for another ice wall by now!”

Andy looked over the slaughtered insect, caught Jace’s thumbs-up and nod, then lifted his gaze to lock eyes with Lucy. She smiled. A moment later, the System delivered another bright yellow message:

**Congratulations, Andy! You and your team have helped to slay a Lentiss Behemoth! For your efforts, you’ve gained 4 levels in your Axiomatic Pathfinder class, resulting in 2 Improvement Points and 80 maximum mana. Additionally, you’ve made progress in your quest to rescue the survivors of the Titan Silo Society. Make haste before the Lentiss can bring more siege troops to the front!**