Chương 30: Communication is Critical

Trevor was getting a bad feeling. It was approaching half an hour since he'd entered the town. He'd been fighting in almost every house he'd encountered, except the ones designed to collapse around his head. More Scale dead than he could count. If he went back, he could probably stack them all taller than any building in this town. But still no sign of any other members of his group. Trevor hadn't wanted to split up.

He should have ordered the others to keep grouped up, but what little authority he had over the group had been challenged when Rebecca punched him. The appearance of Scales and the constant fighting since then had kept him from reasserting. Who knows where she had gone, flickering out of sight as soon as they'd made the dash into the town. Lewis was back there somewhere, still finding his own way in, although from the crackles of lightning he had heard, with Lisa's help.

He'd tried a message to them both, to no avail. Why was there a jammer here, of all places? A Scale ambush to attack them, maybe to buy some time. Or maybe this was just a raid into the Heartlands to panic the Aetherean populace, but a jammer? That kind of arcane device was hard to make. Whatever they were here for, it was no raid. A building near him exploded outwards, rubble spraying in between the streets. He was already in the air, legs reflexively kicking him up into the air. He tried not to go too high.

He'd already caught a burst from one of the AA cannons keeping Lisa busy. It had failed to scratch his armor but had sent him flying almost all the way back out of town. Stones clipped the bottom of his feet, but he landed feet-first back on the rubble of the house. As soon as he landed, he felt something shift under it. Trevor barely had a second before he was airborne, hurtling up into the sky and crashing into a different house.

Cursing, he lifted himself up to find a pair of Scales in there, moving their rifles from the windows towards him. His spear cut forward, the point slipping in between the ribs. Heartseeker. He had to admit that randomized talents on the spear could be nifty. You have inflicted the Heartseeker Critical on Corporal Yasha Devarrow with 900 damage. She has failed her fortitude save vs Instant Death. The other scale was futilely pumping bullets into him, rounds ricocheting off as he pulled back the spear.

"He's in here, grenades rig-" His spear sliced through half of the Scale's throat, severing vocal cords, windpipe, and carotid. He nimbly danced back to avoid the spray of blood from the latter's severed jugular. It wouldn't do to be blinded by it. You have inflicted the Slit Throat Critical on Private Ulern Kresh. He has suffered 720 damage. He has failed his fortitude save vs Instant Death and Bleed (50) Footsteps from downstairs. He spotted the stairs and started moving towards them.

The first Scale reached the top with a grenade drawn just in time for Trevor's Spear to meet it. More were festooned on its chest, probably a suicide effort. Scales tried it sometimes, usually to no success. He went for the bladed edge of the spear this time, cutting through the thigh. Bone and flesh parted effortlessly under the edge. Soon, he'd sliced the bottom half of their leg off. The Scale screamed, but the pin on the grenades was pulled. He punched the Scale's hand.

His gauntlet smashed the hand, and the Scale instinctively let go. The grenade tumbled down towards another pair of Scales at the bottom of the stairs. They saw the tumbling grenade and began to run. Too slow. He was already moving back, bouncing off walls to get out of the way. Shrapnel sprayed, blasting up the stairs. Glass shattered while down below, dual screams marked the end of two more Scales. The grenadier was trying to reach for the rifle hanging off his sling.

A pitiful sight, its back filled with shrapnel, one leg missing, trying to keep itself steady on the remnants of the stair railing. Even with those excuses, the Scale failed to point the rifle at him. A poor effort, it'd already fumbled it twice by the time Trevor was charging back towards him. Sloppy. The spear's point jabbed through an eyehole and went deep. The Scale screamed, one hand reaching for the spear's haft. He just pushed deeper.

The point of the spear pushed all the way through the skull, stabbing through the back. You have killed Private Ormell Desko, inflicting 500 damage because of Weak Point (Head) More Scales down the stairs, opening fire. Bullets pinged off his armor, some passing through the corpse of Private Desko with a sound like slicing meat. He grabbed the corpse, reached for as many pins on the grenades as he could, and pulled them. He threw the legless Scale corpse, sending it downstairs.

Two steps to the right the floor below filled with explosions and screams. Shrapnel blew up the stairs once again, but he was already leaping through a window to the street once more. More bullets ricocheted off his armor from another house. Another of their shaped charge weapons as well, which he pierced with a lunging jab. The weapon still detonated, but the minute amounts of shrapnel were much less dangerous than being hit by it directly. They'd originally been designed to take on armor.

Trevor knew because he'd used a few himself, leftovers from back when the Scales sold weapons to Aetheria. Given the lack of armored vehicles in use by Aetheria, they were more often used to try to take out Travelers instead. Thank god I attuned this armor. Trevor thought idly as the Scales inside the building began to fall back. He grabbed a pistol from his belt and shot a pair of them as they ran. The enchanted pistol rounds burst into shrapnel as they buried into the Scales.

The exit wounds resembled shotgun blasts as tiny shards blew out of them. Most other Travelers he knew eschewed firearms. They usually claimed it was because of fewer talents that complemented them and fewer skill benefits. He thought it was because everyone wanted to LARP like they were in a medieval fantasy of a fighting game. To be fair, they could, and the System accommodated them most of the time. On the street corner, more incoming fire.

The Scales manned up a machine gun across from him, and now hundreds of rounds were being blasted down range at him. They couldn't hurt him, but they could certainly make life difficult. The inside of his helmet was nothing but the sounds of bullets ricocheting off his armor, and even as they failed to penetrate, the sheer force of dozens of bullets striking him threw him off balance. Another shaped charge. Another jab pierced it early. More shrapnel. Honestly, this was pretty relaxing.

Trost and the area around it had been a nightmare, this was more just a cakewalk, an exercise. A building blew up next to him, and he leaped again. A collapsing wall clipped him, interrupting his leap and slamming him into the ground. He cursed, kipping up to his feet. Jake would be laughing if he was here to see this. Thanks to this armor, he might share the other Traveler's near-immunity to physical damage. He didn't have immunity to knockback or even high resistance to it. Another worrying note.

Trevor couldn't imagine Jake being stealthy enough that Trevor couldn't hear him rampaging through the Scales infesting this place. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Lewis crept through the streets of Halice, nervously eyeing the empty buildings around him. He wasn't as good at hiding as the others, but he'd invested an entire level just so the average Scale would have to work to find him. Most of the time, their perception abilities would fail. Still, it is best to keep away from them. Something boomed next to Lewis, a steady beating rhythm as shells flew skyward.

Up above, Lisa darted in and out of the clouds, sometimes tosing a boulder down with the winds down at the ground below. He'd been confused until he saw what she had aimed for. He'd wrenched down a few of those metal poles, but not too many. He couldn't begin to guess how many Scales were dead, but too many were still alive. There was almost no time when an individual street would be empty. And the tops of the buildings had three to four rods each. He'd seen a few tunnels as well, and those he avoided.

Lewis wasn't going down there, not unless he needed to. It was too easy to be tracked down there, although it was good to note where the tunnels were, like the one ahead, uncovered. The building hiding it had been knocked over, whether by Jake or Scale explosives, was unclear. The half-dozen Scale bodies scattered around the basement entrance were as good a clue as any.

"Lewis?" A piece of rubble next to him whispered. He paused, turning. Rebecca had spoken, but no one was in sight.

"Rebecca? Are you cloaked?"

"No," was the pained reply.

"Over here. Hurry. Scales might be behind me." He followed the voice to the wrecked house, the building having collapsed inwards. Rebecca called out a few more times to guide him till he found her clinging to the basement staircase. She didn't look like anything more than bones and skin, thinned-out limbs clinging onto the steps. Sunken, hollow eyes stared up at him, unfocused. Lewis shuddered, looking over exposed bone and skin paper-thin.

"Oh, gods. What happened to you?" Rebecca shuddered, tried to pull herself up another step, and failed. Lewis hurried down, hesitant to grab her. She looked so thin that trying to lift her might break something. He settled for touching her back and channeling a healing spell.

"Thank you," Rebecca muttered while her HP total began to go up. The missing mass, a Greater Restoration might fix that, but it would mean waiting till morning.

"Where were you? I lost track of you and Trevor once you made it into the town."

"Wanted to find the townspeople. Went underground. It is a mess. Tunnels everywhere. They have mages, and they have some way of hiding them from systemsight."

"How many do you think they have?" He asked, forcing down a little jolt of panic. It should be alright. There shouldn't be many Scales of a high enough level to challenge them directly, and they wouldn't be here. They couldn't be here.

"Can't be too many. Or this would be even worse than it is. Lewis, Jake is dead." What…no.

"Jake can't be dead. You can't kill him," Lewis said, more to himself than Rebecca. She shook her head, grim expression looking more severe with her sunken-in face.

"He's dead, Lewis. I saw his body strung up in the town square, cut up. Then I went into the tunnels, and they've got traps down there ready for us. I was nearly blown up, and then they stuck me between a pair of mining drills. I barely got out, but my limbs got shredded, then they stripped my magic, and my Morph tried to make me into this, and then I had to crawl here. I've been hiding ever since." She shuddered, clinging onto his arm with stubby ruins of flesh and skin.

He hesitantly reached out, then patted her on the back.

"It'll be alright," he muttered, aware of the chattering of some Scale AA weapon firing into the air a street over. Probably still trying to keep Lisa from interfering. And their escape route.

"Can you get up in the air?" Despite the AA, it was probably the best way for Rebecca to get out safely. Rebecca eyed the sky, wincing as just moving her head caused her entire body to shift. Stumps pushed against various pieces of rubble inside the ruined building.

"Maybe? Levitating is all I can do, and I'm out of mana. Can you refill my mana? Just enough so I can keep invisible and float. It's already going to be difficult trying to fly up with all the flak still happening." Less of that now, although he could still see shells bursting in the air on occasion. He tapped his communication artifact again. Still nothing.

"You didn't find the jammer down there?" Rebecca shook her head.

"The Earth Mage probably has it buried underground with no way to reach it."

"Then I don't think we have a choice. I'll fill you up. You want a shield?"

"No. Doing this is going to drain you pretty badly already. I'll need enough for five minutes, at minimum." She gestured across the open expanse of sky.

"Besides, maintaining the link that far out would probably drain too much Mana out of you. Especially if we want to try resurrecting Jake." Lewis had his doubts about that last part. Even if he killed every Scale here his next level was a ways off, and the ability to resurrect the dead with it. But the rest were all fair points. Lewis could recharge others' mana, but since it wasn't healing, it wasn't in his goddess's domain, so the exchange rate was nowhere near favorable.

And Lisa was high up in the sky, probably to reduce the effects of flak. But Rebecca not having a shield was not something he wanted to risk. Not with shattered bones sticking out of his friend's body right in front of him to remind him of the state she was in.

"You sure no shield?"

"Even if I get hit by flak, you topped off my health. The flak guns won't do enough damage to obliterate a body part. Probably. I'm not a complete glass cannon like Lisa. Either all the heavier guns were destroyed earlier, or they aren't firing. It's all lighter calibers."

"They might be waiting for the right opportunity. If they open fire, and you are in between them and Lisa…" Rebecca shook her head.

"Jake is dead. I know you can practically out-heal any damage, but one of us is dead. I die, there's still a chance you can break us back. You die, none of us are coming back. Not anytime soon." Yeah. That is a fair point. While there were Travelers capable of resurrecting even people who'd been dead more than a week, it was costly. It ate levels. The list of people to be brought back was already long, and getting the levels back to regain that kind of resurrection was costly.

They wouldn't be high on that list, except maybe Lewis himself.

"Okay. No shield. I'll see if I can make a distraction, maybe draw their attention away. How long do you want to be in the air?" He'd prefer to be precise with how much mana he gave out. Considering she'd only be getting a tenth of what he put in.

"Give me enough mana for ten minutes, I go up to her level a few hundred meters out, then move laterally to her." She pointed towards where the train station and forest were. Well, had been for both their cases.

"I doubt they have too many guns stationed that way. Minimal risk."

"Probably not," he agreed.

"Have you seen Trevor?"

"No. You seen him since entering the town?"

"No."

Trevor had come to realize there was no end to the Scales. He'd easily stabbed and cut his way through a hundred already. Yet, another house had just opened up, gunfire coming in from the windows. Was there anything keeping him from legging it? He looked to either side, ignoring the bullets as they pinged off. No shaped charges so far, which meant they might be running low. It would be minimal damage.

Sprinting down the street, he made it about fifty meters before the earth collapsed under his feet, sending him down into the dark. He rolled, gripping his spear as tightly as he could. Being de-equipped would be worse than any fall they could inflict on him. One second, two, a painful thud as he landed on solid ground once again. It was not a long fall. It made sense; the underground could only be hollowed out so much. Lesson learned. They weren't unwilling to try burying him if he left.

This raised the question of why not just bury him to begin with? Maybe they needed to confirm he was dead. Travelers had burrowed their way out of Scale tunnels before on many an occasion. Maybe the Scales had finally learned. He got to his feet, looking for a way up. Something landed right in front of him, a cloth-covered container smashing into the ground. Trevor sighed. Satchel charge has detonated! It deals 0 damage after damage reduction. Concussion is automatically saved against.

The force of the explosion sent Trevor hurtling back, head hitting the bottom of the tunnel they'd opened up. He sat back up, staring in irritation at the open slit in the earth above him. As if on cue, another satchel flew in through it. This one blew him further into the tunnel, head ringing. Concussion has been automatically saved against. It certainly didn't feel like it. Were the others close by? Probably not. And even if they were, Trevor could blame what he was about to do on a Scale weapon or device.

But he was done playing around. If any of the town's residents were close by, well, war always had some casualties. Gripping both hands onto his spear, he focused. Spear of Thunder secondary ability is being charged. Please wait one hundred seconds to fully utilize the effects. Being near untouchable inside the armor suited him quite well. One hundred seconds of charging for the full effect without it would be a death sentence for others.

A sphere of swirling air began to emerge from the end of the spear, swirling winds greyer than the rest as the spear drew air into the sphere. The sphere of air continued to grow, more air rushing in from outside as it was pulled in from the crack. A Scale flew in, shrieking as the air carried them in. Trevor kicked forward, metal boot caving in mask and skull.

They flew inside, the force of the winds ripping limbs from the torso within seconds as the edges of the spheres pressed against the underside of the street. Perfect. Full effects available. Utilize? The sphere released, air bursting out much more violently than it had been drawn in, and around Trevor the crevice burst apart as the winds blew the surface of the street apart. The rest of the street collapsed on him as the unleashed winds rushed outwards, tearing at every building across the street.