Chương 120: Chapter 119- The Rearguard

"... look, we already tried that." Elias winced at the growing frustration in Astra's voice, they had been at it for hours now and nothing was working. He glanced over Sasha, and as she caught him looking she held up four fingers. Only four hours left… The ritual pulsed again in the background, unnoticed amongst the argument, and Eli swallowed hard as he realized that the pulses were coming every thirty seconds now.

The squad was gathered around the core of the formation, once only a little over fifteen feet, it was now well over twenty, the rate of expansion growing with each pulse. At least when it stays steady." Mr Mason, I just do not think it is going to work! Every time we try to erase the runes, the formation just redraws them on the next pass."

Mason grimaced as he looked at the center of the formation for a moment before speaking again, " My Lady, I really think that if I split up the runes in the central seal we can stop the pulses, or at least slow the growth if the gathering array can no longer absorb ambient mana." Astra shook her head, " Fire mana may have been fine because it dispersed before the pulse touched it, do you not remember what happened with raw unaspected mana? The pulses shortened by nearly ten seconds!"

Elias watched as another pulse rippled outwards as Astra continued, " Earth mana lingers in the stone, there is a chance you may be feeding the array, and that is not even considering that your assumption works if the ritual is only reliant on ambient energy to regrow itself." Mason shrugged, " Well that's easy, I'll just rip up the stones wholesale and we can just scatter them across the cavern, or you can melt them down?"

Astra waved to a portion of the ritual, " What about when we cut the feed lines on the southern quadrant? The pulses just etched the channels again on the next pass too!" Cooper spoke softly, "We're running out of ideas, and we're running out of time, my Lady." Astra held up her hands in a placating gesture, " Fine. You are right Mr Cooper, it can not hurt to try."

A series of crackling snaps filled the cavern as a pulse rippled outwards from the core of the ritual once more. The formation that they had tried to append to the ritual to draw off power had failed catastrophically. A massive shunt of raw energy had blasted out, nearly missing Franklin and leaving a line of stalagmites smoking and singed. Astra sighed, " Well, redirecting the capacitors does not work, we do not have a medium strong enough to carry the charge."

Astrid leaned back grimacing as she tried to clean the coagulating blood from her hands as Mason murmured an apology as he crouched next to her, cleaning his hands as well." I'm sorry Astrid, I really thought the blood might work." The ritual pulsed again as Astra sighed, " It was a good idea Mr Mason, although I doubt you did Mr Smith's eyebrows any favors. What is next?" The squad fell silent, staring pensively at the ritual as they brooded over their options, the core pulsing once more.

Elias spoke up, " Well physical and magical shattering didn't work, and your shunting idea is a bust. It sounds like there is too much energy to discharge, which means the ambient energy gathering isn't the problem." He ran a hand over the spear point on his weapon, picking a bit of blood out of one of the pits left behind by running [Veilrend] for too long, giving Astra a meaningful glance as he did so." Three."

Every turned to look at Sasha, it had been over an hour since she had contributed anything to the conversation, and this was the first time she had broken her silence since." There are three hours left." Eli glanced over in concern as the emotions on the other side of the tether roiled in a massive confusing mixture, no single one a heavy enough thread to pick out from the knot.

The bandwidth between them may not have grown, but as they grew closer he was able to resolve the details with greater and greater accuracy, but not this time. He watched patiently as his partner sorted out her thoughts, slowly cleaning his blade, waiting as she slowly took in the state of their party. Sasha's frayed nerves as her eyes darted around the room only to return to staring at the core of the ritual as she fingered the carvings on her bow. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen.

Report the violation. The bags under Astrid's eyes as she cleaned her hands, her expression carefully neutral, but her distaste in using the blood of innocents for an experiment, no matter how necessary, evident in every movement. The limp in Taylor's stride and he slowly carried the empty buckets he had found back to where they had been on the perimeter of the ritual.

The smallest of frowns on Franklin's face as he caressed the front of his shield, the new black streak across the surface of little matter when compared to the great rents and tears around the edges. The nervous energy in Mason's gaze as it shifted from one part of the room to the next, cataloguing all their attempts as he struggled to come up with yet another plan.

The ever stoic Cooper, a massive blood soaked bandage covering one arm, slowly weeping, Astrid was far from able to help anyone else with healing anymore. Astra's finally shifted back to his, and as she made eye contact with Eli he gave her a small nod and sent a ripple of reassurance down the tether, there was simply no reason to even ask. Eli's hand slowed over the face of his poleaxe's blade, only dropping as he felt an undercurrent of resolve well up as she clearly came to a decision.

She turned to Cooper, and before she could speak, he uttered a single word." No." Astra propped her hands on her hips as she arched an eyebrow in his direction, " Mr Cooper, this is not a request." He dropped his hands to the hilts of his cleavers as he shook his head, " I donnae much care, I am not leaving you down here." Cooper chopped a hand through the air, the finality in the movement punctuating his words, " We are all leaving or no one does."

Astra stared at him, her expression growing hard, " And is that what you want Mr Cooper? No one to leave?" He recoiled a bit at the heat in her voice, " Of course not my Lady, but my duty is to keep you safe." Astra's expression softened a bit even if her voice did not, " Aye. How far do you think 3rd and 5th made it so far?" Cooper stiffened as she spoke, " Especially with all those civilians they were escorting? Out of the tunnels, maybe the gardens, do you think they are in the courtyard yet?"

Astra gestured to the cavern ceiling above, " They left before we found this place, this abomination of forgotten magic. Mr Miller is bringing word to the Captain to leave, true, but how long do you think he estimates he has?"" How long does it take to mount the backs, rig the wagons for travel, and coax all those stubborn old men and women to leave their pride behind and ride for safety when the old codgers would rather walk?"

She stepped forward and placed hand on his forearm as she spoke softly, " No one questions your courage or your devotion to duty Mr Cooper." Astra raised her voice as she glanced around at the rest of the squad, " No one would ever question any of you, least of all myself. You have all given more than enough, more than anyone could ever ask for, and it would hardly be a fitting recompense after all you have done to ask for your lives in exchange for a small chance of success."

She pivoted her gaze back to Cooper, " Especially not when the lives of innocents hang in the balance." Cooper gritted his teeth as she stepped back, a heavily conflicted expression on his face." Mr Cooper you will leave. You see everyone delivered to safety, every man, woman, and child."" An ongoing battle, or an enhanced blizzard be damned, you will see my people, our people to safety if you must plow the path yourself, understood?"

The handles of his cleavers squealed as he gripped them, squeezing the leather on the hilt, as he clenched his jaw and slowly nodded." Aye." Astra gave him a bright smile, one of her best, " Do not be so glum Mr Cooper, we may save the day before it all falls in the latrine, we still have a few more things to try. Just the kind that does best without the additional risk of collateral damage." She leaned forward slightly, " You should know by now, I save my riskiest endeavors for when you are not around. Who knows?

One of them may even work!" Cooper gave out a low chuckle as he grimly smiled, the crimson flash of another pulse casting a garish light on his face, " Aye, that you do, young miss." He drew in a short breath, sharp and a little unsteady, " Come on you lot, we have a long road ahead of us." The rest of the squad turned to leave, gathering up their things before turning to trot towards the cavern entrance.

Astra reached out to grab his arm once more before he left, and as he turned back she swept him into an embrace as she spoke softly in a hoarse voice, " Look after them Matthias, just in case I can not anymore."" Every second young miss, don't you worry." As she released him, Cooper gave Eli one last look, before nodding and trotting off to the entrance of the cavern to join the squad as they raced for the surface.

Silence fell in the cavern as the receding steps of the squad went quiet, the cavern was suddenly larger and colder than it was before, the low hum of the next pulse the only sound as it echoed through the chamber. Elias paused, watching them go as Astra tried to subtly rub a hand across her eyes, idly scratching the scales around the ruff on Tia's neck, only turning as he felt her confident resolve buoy up once more, " So you have a plan after all eh, care to share it with me?"

Astra snorted and punched him hard in the shoulder as she rolled her eyes, " Of course not, I have no fucking idea what to do, but I can hardly tell them that can I?" She turned back towards the center of the formation, " Come on you oaf, let us see if we can figure something out, it is time to try the dangerous stuff now that they are gone." Elias grinned as he felt Tia grow excited as well, " Oh good! The dangerous stuff. Coincidentally …" He leaned over to look Tia directly in the eyes, "...

that's my favorite part!" He broke out into outright laughter as Tia chittered and the sound of a quiet feminine cackling filled his head. A heartbeat later, a single snort escaped Astra before she covered it with a cough, shaking her head.