Chapter 12 Part 1 of 6 (Patreon)

Erik tilted his head to the side. A Chimora screeched out on the left flank.

The two teams worked as one now, two thirds shifted around to face whatever had alerted the Chimora while the rest turned to cover their backs incase any other creatures were drawn by their screeching holler.

A baying grunt rose from beyond the street followed by several charging feet.

Minotaurs.

“Push on,” Roska ordered.

Silently they filtered down the road, checking as they went.

Erik threw out some scrap meat, working with the Chimora had turned out to be a beneficial relationship, they got scraps and they gained an alarm system that didn’t rile up too many of the creaures in the Under-City.

The minatours weren’t the smartest, once they heard the Chimora, the creatures would dive into the ground and they’d dig to try and pull them out. It gave the teams time to move away before they started fighting one another or smashing other things.

They sneaked through the buildings, moving into the under-warren, the guts of the city where all the sewers ran.

The Chimora were chittering to one another below, communicating in their odd way. They were one of the few races that didn’t openly kill their own unless they were starving.

“Devils,” Esther warned, up front on point.

Erik saw the creation from different creatures that had been cobbled together into some kind of shrine.

Great, more of the little bastards.”

They moved up cautiously, watching every nook and cranny. The Chimora wouldn’t be nearly as helpful here, eating up the scraps left on the Devil’s totems and scattered around their domain.

They disarmed traps as they went, the devil’s favorite past-time.

A thin fog grew as they pressed forward. A poisonous cloud created by the little creatures.

They reached more totems, marking the other side of the Devil’s territory. Their steps lightened as they moved on Edmond’s heading.

Erik heard a snap in the distance, of a breaking twig.

No, please no.

A group of Chimora screeched out, one of the totems turned into a trap for the little beasts.

Cackling noises filled the sewers as the teams moved as quickly as possible.

“Set Charges behind us rear team, one minute.” Roska said.

They pushed on, hearing the Devils wake from their slumbers and gather to where the Chimora had died.

Several Devils ran into the point team, their formation silenced rounds and guns only making the barest of flashes as they removed the oncoming threat.

They increased their pace.

“They’re starting to look this way,” Nymira said from the rear.

They picked up the pace, getting into a half-jog as Devils let out their squeaking growls that constituted a language between them before they started to sound closer.

Erik ran past the ones that had run into the point team, yellow and red, it was the only two colors the devils took on, poison leaking from the pores of the yellow Devil in death, coloring the surrounding fog. They had horns on their head, hooves for feet and a wicked tail behind them. With knickknacks covering their bodies and small sharp wicked blades on their belts.

I’ll have to check on the Sha again.

The Devil’s war cries grew at the rear then the charges went off. One after another rushing back the direction they had come from, blowing apart the sewers and dropping part of the Under-city ontop of them.

George led them forward through the sewers, leading them to an exit, a crater in a road.

They pushed out of the sewers. The smells that might have offended them weeks ago, now just par for the course.

They fanned out around the entrance, tossing out a few scraps unconsciously as one team member scanned the skys and the other scanned the street and ground.

Erik clicked his tongue to Tully who had become his team member, pointing at what might have been the remains of a cart, just another piece of rubble. But Erik saw the unnatural line leading to it, sign that there was a Jorken pod there.

He smelled through his mask finding the air sickly sweet.

“Must be a flowering Jorken nearby.” Erik said to the team.

“More of the damn things as we get closer,” Tully said on a private chat.

“We’re nearly there, I’m interested in seeing what this place is like.”

“Great views, apparently dragons, all the man eating flowers you could want. Fucking paradise,” Rugrat grumbled.

Erik snorted, agreeing, but they had no choice, Edmond thought he had a way out. He hoped that it was before all of the big boys and girls but he had a sinking feeling as they got closer every day that it wasn’t the case.

“Looks like there is a building a few blocks up on the right, we’ll head there, see if it is clear and set up in there,” Roska said, pointing to the building.

They moved to the building in groups, the first clearing out the first floor and moving up to the second the next checked the bottom floor and placed traps of their own at any entrances.

“Alright get settled in.”

The team filed into the house, finding positions to watch the area. They had houses on either side, a courtyard around back and a road out front with houses crushed together and showing different states of damage.

Formations were set up, gathering all mana.

“Good for spells,” Egbert said to everyone.

People started checking their gear, replacing anything that they had used. People cleaned their guns with a spell and maintained them.

They were well rehearsed as they ate and drank at the same time they worked on their gear.

Erik moved up to the second floor, he pulled out his map, checking it. They’d added some more information as they’d had to skirt around different areas filled with Under-City creatures that wouldn’t take kindly to their presence.

Erik found his heading and moved around the building. He found a window, looking across the courtyard, he stored his map and took out his binoculars. He could see through a broken building and the city beyond, the area had seen more fighting than most places.

He saw it in the distance, the massive metal looking dome that sprouted from the ground. He checked where they had come through a hole in the interior wall.

Just as we thought.

Roska entered the room and Erik passed her the binos and pointed in the direction of the hall.

She  checked it and grimaced, passing them back.

Erik grunted in agreement, he used a sound cancelling field and checked his rifle. Their mana gathering formations on their armor allowed them to shoot their weapons and use formations on their guns without alerting the mana sensitive residents of the Under-City. It meant that their weapons could actually damage what they were fighting.

Silence formations on everything though. They had silence formations on their armor to quieten their movements, on their guns so they wouldn’t make noise and they were using silence spells on their rounds so the targets they shot wouldn’t make a noise.

Erik unloaded, checking his rifle, Roska used a cleaning spell on it and Erik lubed it up, drinking from his water reservoir before reloading the rifle.

It wasn’t long until Kameela and Edmond arrived.

“Rugrat is watching the street that we came from to make sure that there isn’t anything following us,” Roska said and took a drink from her Canteen. Erik passed her jerky and she nodded in thanks.

“Good, we should rest here for a little bit and we can continue on, we should be almost at the Transition point.” Edmond said.

“About this Transition point, I think that it is time for some more answers.” Erik said.

“Still trying to gain leverage?”

“Is it before or after the Dragons and all the nasty ass beasts in our way?” Roska asked.

Edmond closed his mouth, clearing his throat.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Edmond, just tell them, they could have killed us at any time or just not watched our backs and we would have died down here,” Kameela said in a tired voice.

Edmond’s face twisted.

“Here, look, I am guessing that the Transition point is inside that big silver looking dome that’s in the center?” Erik held out his binos and pointed through a break in the wall.

Edmond took them and looked where he had indicated.

“It is called the Treasure Hall by many, it is the heart of the Violet Sky Realm. Everything leads to it. From my information people that use mana can’t get close to it because it will wake up all of the creatures and they’ll launch a vicious counterattack.” Edmond lowered the binos and looked at them.

“We will claim Fifty percent of the spoils within the Hall.”

“Screw the damn spoils, is there really a transition point in there and how the hell are we going to get past all of them?” Erik growled.

“There is a transition point inside, and we just need to do what we have been doing already. Think of what we have been doing to get to this point as training. It should be easier to cross to the Treasure Hall actually.”

“Easier, one Dragon attacked us and we nearly turned into Christmas lights. We only wounded it and sent it running.” Roska said.

“All of the creature around the hall are cultivating. They are nearly unconscious, they’ll wake up to disturbances, of mana but they are so focused on cultivating that they don’t care otherwise. We sneak through, get to the Treasure Hall, use explosives to gain entry, then mana to power up the vault doors to get inside.”

“You just said that mana sets these things off.”

“Yes, but the doors are deeper inside the Treasure Hall and need mana to work. That’s one of the reasons that the creatures are outside the hall instead of inside it.”