Chương 13

Fritz tore his eyes away from the 'problems' and took in the details of the chamber. It was a large circular room, around sixty feet across and its dirt roof was suspended eight feet overhead, supported by many rough wooden columns. There was easily enough floor space to hold them all, the only issue was the six monsters gathered in the centre, clicking and scuttling about mindlessly.

They look like s kulg, Fritz thought uncharitably about the creatures, then amended his observation, these things were cute in comparison to the wretched skulg. They had the rumpled and bumpy chitinous shell of a skulg but that's where the comparison could be ended. The beetle-esque metallic shells gave off the impression of golden stones sunk in a sea of rippled copper. Their short six legs, like segmented copper spikes, stabbed into the dirt as they milled about the centre of the chamber.

Their chitinous shell covered their underside as well, they had rounded heads like a brass watermelon with vicious-looking mandibles that clicked and whirred seemingly at random. The thing about them that really made Fritz worry was their size, their shells crested at four or five feet tall, about as tall as the shortest among them, Naomi. Fritz returned to his group and began to whisper the situation to them, "The room will suit our needs well, but there are six big beetle things.

Shell looks hard, weak points are likely joints and any seams in the shell. They have nasty-looking mandibles and their legs look like they could slash you up bad."

"Any ideas on tactics?" Bert asked the group quietly.

"They have short legs, maybe we can tip them onto their backs," Fritz suggested.

"Let's try the three groups of three tactics two front-line squads and one ranged support squad. Bert, Toby and Me then Greg, Veronica and Lynn as front-liners. Sid, Jane and Naomi as long-ranged support."

"Yes, yes, we know the formations," Veronica chided stiffly, rechecking her shield's straps and readying her salvaged goblin spear.

"It bears repeating. After the rib volley, each group target one of the beetles and finishes or tips it as quickly as possible then looks to support one of the other groups. The goal is survival with as few injuries as possible, remember that," Fritz reminded the team. He looked them over one last time noting their equipment. Bert was wearing one of the scale shirts and had tucked his fin short-sword into his belt, seemingly preparing to fight the beetles with only his scale-armoured hands.

He was softly humming one of his favourite songs, one with a beat to march to or in this case to fight to. Toby had his throwing daggers in each of his hands and was wearing one of the leather vests over his dark shirt, his black cloak thrown over his shoulders. Fritz had to begrudgingly admit that Toby looked fairly fearsome. He almost looked like one of the Black Eye's assassins, or maybe a shoddy copper triad version.

Jane was wearing her vest and had a pouch full of the potions, she would need them as the Sew Wounds ability would cost her stamina. She still carried one of the last unbroken fish rib spears, most of them had been spent on goblins or lost in the rush to the door on the first floor. Veronica and Naomi were equipped with leather vests, small wooden shields, goblin spears and fin daggers tucked into their belts. Veronica also had Sid's sling hanging next to her fin dagger, it having been passed off some time prior.

They looked nervous and tired, but underneath the wear and tear, the dirt and grime there was a determination in their eyes. Lynn carried nothing save her bags and the spare leather vest, she looked worried but eager to test her Stone Fists against the shells of these monstrous beetles. Greg wore the brutish black iron helmet and was still wielding the fish skull-flail, though he had been complaining that the fibres that held the spine together were starting to come apart.

His body glittered with the other scale shirt. Fritz himself looked down to check his own leather vest and shield was in place, he gave his fish blade cloth hilt one more re-tighten. He looked ahead, nodded to the rest and advanced with fish blade and shield raised. The beetles only noticed them once the rib spears fell upon them in a shower of silver needles. The spears glanced off their metallic shells harmlessly, clinking like steel wind chimes and boun cing onto the floor.

The creatures looked around slowly, the amber orbs set in their heads swivelling to find their attackers. T hey eventually spotted the team, but the battle plan was already in action, the two front-line teams charged their respective targets. The copper beetles made meandering turns to face them, but not before Greg had already swung his skull-flail in a glittering upwards arc. The skull and spine blurred and exploded with crackling black lines as it struck the underside of the beetles shell.

The strike cratered the beasts shining chitin and thr ew it onto its back from the prodigious strength of the blow. Greg guffawed darkly as its short sharp legs flurried uselessly at the air and the cracks in its carapace began to leak orange goo. Fritz r an behind Bert as t he y charged the beetle their team had chosen. Bert slammed into the creature rocking it slightly, but stopping Bert dead in his tracks. It spun ponderously to face the sudden force, slashing and biting with its hooked golden mandibles.

As its head approached Bert he suddenly ducked under the swinging mandible and rose in a powerful uppercut. His hand seemed to be vibrating with an invisible energy, his fist look ed like it was covered in a rapidly pulsing heat haze. The punch landed with a dull thump and the beetle's legs fell out from under it and its head wobbled and wavered as it attempted to stand again. Toby sprinted forward stabbing his throwing dagger into the space between the creature's head and shelled body.

The blade lit up with a subtle red-black glow, the light of which stabbed out like a serrated edge. The blade met the seam and plunged in deep, Toby slipped it smoothly free of the beetle's neck. A torrent of blood spurted from the perforation, spraying Toby straight in his smirking face, he staggered back spitting the sticky orange fluid out of his mouth. Fritz yelled out a warning as he saw the centremost beetle orient on Toby and charge startlingly fast and just as unstoppable as a bull.

A big metallic beetle bull. Toby wiped the blood out of his eyes, and only just managed to tumble out of the way of the charging beetle, he threw one of his daggers with that same red-black light stabbing out of it. It skittered and ground against the creature's glittering shell leaving a jagged furrow where it struck but leaving the beetle otherwise unharmed.

The beetle rushed past Fritz as it kept pushing forward, as its copper spike legs pistoned past him he chopped his fish blade downwards catching it right on its segmented joint and shearing it clean off. I guess silver fish beats copper beetle, Fritz concluded as he pursued the lumbering bug hacking away its other two shining, skittering legs with one well placed slash. With no legs left on its side, the beetle slid to a shuddering stop crushing its remaining l imbs beneath its considerable bulk.

Fritz pulled his attention away from the beast, looking for the other, still active, beetles. Another had been flipped by Greg leaving just two more preparing to charge the teams. One sped towards a distracted Bert, he was looking towards Fritz worriedly when the beetle's mandibles connected. Its prongs speared through his scaled shirt, clamping down and pinning him in place.

Bert let out a shout of pain as he was pierced and lifted from his feet, he managed to pull one arm free of the mandible's trap and struck down with his fist in a hammer blow. The fist roiled in that heat haze again and slammed down on top of the beetle's eye, popping it and causing the creature to fall on its belly while letting out a whirring screech. Its mandibles stayed cinched tight around Bert's chest and arm though and he rained his fist onto its solid head again and again seemingly with no effect.

Fritz lurched to Bert's aid, sprinting forward and leaving the collapsed, legless beetle behind for Toby to finish off with Laceration. He lifted his fish blade before him and with a long lunging stab found the shell's seam with the tip of his blade, he thrust forward putting his entire weight behind the strike. The sword slid in with a light resistance with a subtle grating at its edges, Fritz twisted his blade prying its shell apart like he was trying to shuck a clam.

The monster tried to stumble away from the prying blade but Fritz just followed its retreat dragging the blade along the inside of its shell. He was sawing at its insides and its gooey orange blood glug ged out and splatter ed to the floor with every thrust and pull of the blade's serrated edge. The beetle whirred and screeched; the noise rang in Fritz's pained ears. Fritz kept carving the beetle for what seemed like minutes until he realised someone was shouting his name.

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"Fritz! It's dead! You've killed it! It's dead!" Bert yelled out in grunts as he tried to pry himself free of the mandible's crushing grip, it seemed the creature didn't let go even in death.

"Help me get free." Fritz pulled his blade free of the monster's shell and put it to one of the blood-slick mandibles that was holding his best friend pinned. He began to saw away at it and within a couple of moments Bert was free and lying, wounded, on the ground. Jane rushed to his side and cast her Sew Wounds spell the pale green light pouring forth and stitching Bert's worst wounds.

Bert let out a groan of pain then a sigh of relief as Veronica started to apply some of the healer's grease to his other, less serious, bruises and cuts. Fritz looked around the former battlefield to see five beetles lying still with only one still flailing uselessly on its back. Lynn strode up to the helpless creature, the dark skin of her fists coloured like granite, and punched into the beetle's head, denting it with a dull clang.

She continued with a combination of straight short strikes that eventually broke apart the creature's head pulping it open like a brass watermelon filled with sticky, orange jelly. One of the beetles had a hole straight through its head and an arrow lodged in its shell behind it, while the rest seemed to have been either bled out by Lacerate or had their head caved in by flail strikes or Lynn's fists. Fritz couldn't tell which.

"Anyone else wounded?" Jane called out professionally as she tended to the last of Bert's wounds with Veronica. There was a chorus of 'nopes' "none here' and "I'm fines' from the respective teams. Jane sighed a breath of relief as did Fritz as he sank to the ground and sat heavily. He dropped his fish blade to his side and picked up the mandible he cut free, inspecting it.

"I like the copper beetles less than the goblins," Bert said wincing as he sat up, pushed his sweat-slick hair out of his face and looked to Fritz.

"I disagree; at least these beetle's blood smells better, almost like pickled honey mixed with licorice," Fritz espoused thoughtfully.

"I hate licorice," Bert argued wrinkling his nose then wincing, "Plus, look how many holes this beetle poked into me." Bert removed his armoured shirt and showed off the m ultitude of holes and tears around his waist where he was grabbed, pinned and shaken.

"Whoa, look at your chest muscles, and look, your abs are much more pronounced. I can barely see your ribs, that monster meat is really filling you out quickly," Fritz declared, goggling enviously. He found he wasn't the only one doing so, all the ladies and even Sid had joined in staring at the changes the fish and Power had wrought. Fritz quickly looked over his own physique, pinching and grabbing his arms and chest then decried "Woe is me, I have none of the same g rowth.

Would you really leave me behind, muscle-less, bag-brother!?" Bert had the good grace to look embarrassed at all the staring and hastily pulled his scale shirt back over his cut and scarred skin.

"Don't be stupid Fritz, you're filling out too, we all are haven't you noticed it? I thought you put all your Attribute points into perception. Though knowing you, you were offered the Advanced Attribute Insanity and put them all in that." He commented playfully, smiling around at the ladies red-faced. Fritz glanced at the others in the team, noting that Bert was right, everyone was looking much haler even through their fatigue.

Greg and Bert had filled out noticeably while Toby, Fritz and Sid had remained largely the same, skinny except with more solidity to their frames. The women were another story as they had been among the best-fed of the street rats, but they definitely looked lean instead of just skinny. Fritz tried not to stare at their more pronounced assets, he was a gentleman after all. Sid caught him looking them over and scowled at him, saying "Stop staring so hard, keep that enhanced Perception to yourself fishwit."

Fritz tried to act innocent but he suspected he just came off looking more guilty. He thought on the other part of Bert's statement, then spoke up, "Must be those points in strength helping out, building your muscles out easier. That aside I'm glad that I'll have Toby and Sid to keep me company in the no-muscles-crew." Toby and Sid glowered at him, then after finding Fritz smiling and unrepentant, turned to the beetles, "What are we gonna do with them?" Toby asked pointing at the copper corpses.

"Salvage their shells for armour? Their mandibles look like gold, maybe they're valuable on the outside?" Bert looked over them, but before he could speak Sid interjected, "How about we use their corpses to barricade the entrance? There doesn't seem to be another way in and we need to rest. Maybe we can train some of those techniques if this place is defensible. It has to have been more than a day and we're all run ragged."

No one put up any arguments and they got to work trying to move the bulky heavy beetles, mostly they relied on Greg, Lynn and Bert's increased strength to get it done. They lined them up clogging up the only way in as Fritz searched the rest of the chamber, checking for traps and other hidden surprises. Luckily he found none. Veronica said she'd take the first watch as she had the Second Wind Ability, and sat by the beetle barricade.

Naomi and Lynn joined her laying out their oilcloth to sleep on while she looked out for stealthy goblins. Fritz could barely keep his eyes open and lay next to Bert and Greg who were setting up in the centre. Jane and Toby set up by the wall to have a little bit of privacy not that they needed it as Jane fell asleep in Toby's arms instantly and he joined her in sleep barely moments later. Sid decided to place his oilcloth down between the ladies and the other men, like a barrier.

Fritz may have been annoyed at this at any other time but right now he was just too tired. Even in the heavy hot air and Greg's relentless snoring he fell asleep easily and slept beside his friends. Some time later Fritz awoke his whole body aching from overuse, however, his mind was no longer as sluggish and muddy as it was before. He hadn't realised just how tired he must have been. Fritz sat up to see only Sid awake as well, he waved at him to grab his attention. Sid nodded and motioned him over.

Fritz stood gingerly, trying not to push his strained muscles too much, and softly walked over to Sid's sitting place attempting to not wake those still sleeping.

"Hi Sid, how are you feeling this fine.. whatever time it is?" Fritz whispered smiling.

"Not a Goddess this time?" Sid mocked returning the smile.

"Ah, sorry about that, near death experiences seem to bring out the insanity in me," Fritz apologised then pulled out his Technique book, opening the small journal to the first page.

"Want to get to reading this thing?"

"Sure," Sid said awkwardly shuffling his shoulders as Fritz sat next to him and placed the book between them.

"Just say when you're finished with the page, no need to rush or anything, I think we'll train down here until we have this stuff learnt or run out of food, whichever comes first," Fritz explained quietly.

"I think we should all learn both Techniques if we can," Sid whispered back, surprising Fritz.

"Why?" He asked curiously.

"Because we won't always have weapons or ammunition, sometimes things break or get taken. I'd also like to see the girls be able to defend themselves when push comes to shove," Sid said a light melancholy in his tone.

"Huh, you really do care for them. I agree, we'll learn as much as we can to be prepared for what comes next," Fritz replied nodding his head and rubbing his hand through his short hair.

"Speaking of what comes next, are you leaving after the third floor with the ladies? Because we're all going to climb the whole way and you've really proven yourself to be beyond just capable."

"Are you inviting me to climb with you guys, again? Well, I might consider it if you asked nicely, again," Sid smirked slyly.

"I am asking, and this is nicely. Though if you insist on something nicer I could write up a speech, or a poem if you're into that sort of thing," Fritz teased, meeting Sid's smirk with his own.

"Didn't know you were a poet, you would write a poem just for me? I' d really like to hear that," Sid said me e t ing his eyes then giggled, quite girlishly, at Fritz's surprised look. Sid covered his mouth and broke the eye contact, he stared instead at the book between them, leaving them in an awkward silence.

Fritz decided not to comment on the odd reaction or Sid's reddening face, he seemed quite embarrassed about that giggle and Fritz didn't want to aggravate him too much if they were going to keep climbing together. Fritz shrugged and began to read trying to commit as much of the book to memory as he could. Still, the silence lay between them, punctuated only with the faint sound of turning pages and Sid softly saying, "Done."