Chương 381: Scuttlers in the Dark

Curiosity got the better of Milo, and he waited to see what emerged. He should have been able to see what it was, darkness didn't affect his sight. But something was keeping the outlines of the creatures hazy and indistinct. The scratching of metal on stone and the squealing screams as metal was ripped in half made him imagine nightmarish creatures. When he could finally see them, he decided his imagination hadn't been trying hard enough to scare him. These things were worse.

But while curiosity had made him stick around, it didn't make him stupid. He had taken the time to combine runes and charge a powerful blast of pure force. The first creatures out of the tunnel were foot-long beetles with rusty brown shells, spotted with verdigris. Milo's mind was cataloguing their different forms even as another part panicked and his logical mind focused on aiming the Runic formation. Each had between six and twelve uneven legs with extra joints that were long and 'wrong-looking'.

Some hopped over the ones in front of them, like berserk fleas. Sharp mandibles tore into the rubble in front of them, cutting through the rocks and ore scattered by the girls' entrance. Corrupted Scavenger Scarab (Swarming, hungry, tough-shelled.) They were halfway across when he sent the blast of force their way, scraping along the ground. The bugs were slammed back, most of them disappearing into the tunnel they'd emerged from.

A few impacted the wall and fell to the floor, rising on broken legs or flailing on their backs. Only a few were destroyed, which gave Milo information on how tough these things were. More immediately poured from the tunnel, two dozen of them scuttling toward him, then turning aside to attack the injured beetles, killing and eating them. He saw that some were also pursuing loose bits of ore. After a few seconds, when the injured were gone, the horde turned back toward him.

This time, when Milo created his Runic formation, he prepared to double-cast. The first force blast knocked the beetles back into the tunnel, and a second later, the second blast pushed them back further. Having bought some time, he retreated down the tunnel as fast as he could. Brutus was standing across from the tunnel, his shield out and prepared. The girls were on either side, hopping from foot to foot, and anxious to fight, Georgie growling behind them with his hackles up.

"Are you fighting monsters? It's not fair if you don't share!"

"That's one of Mama Gendy's rules: always share."

"We wanted to come fight, Daddy wouldn't let us." Milo bounded to Brutus's side, "Dad is right. Never go running into a fight if you don't know what you're fighting."

"Isn't that what you did?"

"You didn't know what was there! What is it? Tell us!" Thinking that he was poorly equipped to argue with the girls, he did his best.

"I was scouting! Remember? That's my job. When you get to be the Master of Scouts, you can rush into all the dangerous fights you can find. We're fighting bugs. Nasty, metal-eating bugs with sharp pincers. They can jump, so don't let them get on you. Stay out of the path between me and the tunnel. I'll knock most of them back, and you can stomp and tear apart the rest. If that doesn't work, we move to the rear quickly and regroup."

"Stomping? I love stomping."

"Larry told us that! He said ' Heroes never run, they just retreat and regroup.' Heroes do neat stuff! Larry taught us Stealth, that's a Hero skill he learned from the fairies. Buttercup is too noisy to learn Unseen."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Bugs!!" The bugs started coming out of the tunnel. They turned to the girls standing on either side of the tunnel as the closest targets. Buttercup stomped the first one and drew back, then stomped more as she saw it was still moving. It took a lot of stomping to make them stop moving, and by then, more were coming out. Milo slowed them up by sending another force blast into the tunnel.

They were effective in slowing down the flow of bugs, but only damaged a few of them that were hit by the full force of the blast. Brutus had out his mace, pounding on one bug when another leaped and landed on his shield. Milo knocked it to the ground and brought his pick down on it. The bug let out a grinding noise and quit working as his pick punctured its casing. Brutus yelled to his girls, "Buttercup! Rosie! Use your picks to hit some and stomp others."

The rate of destruction began matching the flow of beetles coming out of the tunnel, a good thing, as it wasn't only the bugs taking damage. Rosie and Buttercup had a half-dozen nasty bites on their feet and legs where the beetles bit off small chunks of flesh with ease leaving painful wounds. Milo had taken two wounds. Brutus wasn't bleeding yet, but his armor and shield were deteriorating as they took hits.

The group backed away a few feet from the opening, and the next wave of bugs spent some time eating the damaged ones, but...

"They're getting bigger! Daddy, the new bugs are getting bigger as they eat the old ones!" Buttercup had put her pick through the next beetle, but it wasn't dying, legs flailing as it struggled to get off her pick. She slammed it against the hard wall of iron ore until it stopped, but the process took long enough that two were heading to her. Rosie was in the same predicament. Milo yelled out, "Once they are dead, toss them behind you far enough away that others don't eat them."

Milo handed his pick to Brutus and brought out his Spikey Stick.

"Use my pick, it will hit harder." Rosie grew frustrated that her bug wasn't dying. It had managed to turn and eat a chunk out of her pick. She grabbed it with both hands, her hard claws in the wound on its back, and ripped it in half through sheer strength. Buttercup clapped and did the same. This caused another change in battle strategy. Milo and Brutus would spear bugs, and if they didn't die, one of the girls would pull them from the pickhead and rip them apart.

This game was more fun, along with hamster hopping on other bugs until all their legs broke off. Slowly, the group got the flow of bugs under control. And then other things began showing up. The first was a mutated mechanical badger with a drilling head where its face should be. It exited the tunnel and headed for Rosie's legs. Brutus hit it hard with his pick, leaving a dent in the armor of its back, but not puncturing it. Rosie squealed and kicked it hard, taking a minor wound on her foot.

The badger sailed through the air toward Milo, who hit it dead center with Shadowblight. He stuck both prongs into the heavy beast and slammed it down on the floor. Brutus hit it again, doing little damage to its thick armor. Milo triggered the Sundering effect from Shadowblight to reduce the thing's armor, with surprising results. Instead of tweaking the creature's armor, the badger's head blew off, scattering small bits of metal over the area. Brutus gave him a thumbs up, "Great job.

I'll leave the big ones to you." As soon as he said that, a mechanical squirrel with buzzsaws for its head leaped for him from the tunnel. The guard blocked with his shield, but the squirrel-thing clung to it and began sawing through his shield. Milo speared it with Shadowblight, and it exploded when he triggered Sundering. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Brutus went back to using his pick on bugs, but yelled out a question, "Since when does your stick explode stuff?"

"They aren't alive! The spell is hitting them differently."

"Not sure if that makes me happy! Good, you can take them down, but bad that we're fighting undead stuff. Do we have a necromancer to deal with it? Always tricky!"

"Maybe, but I think these are more like machines, maybe made from real creatures." As the last scarab was destroyed, the light in the tunnels grew dim, even for Milo's sight. They heard the scuttling sound of hundreds of legs, and the scream came again. The girls ran to stand next to Brutus, and Milo prepared his strongest force blast. They fell back away from the opening. The moles had moved hundreds of feet further. They didn't move fast and liked to have a good head start.

Georgie's part in the battle had been limited to carefully moving dead bugs further away from live ones. Emerging from the tunnel was a creature that moved along on a hundred mechanical legs like a centipede, but it resembled a scorpion with two pincers and a larger body. The tail extended far behind it, with multiple jointed body parts, each with legs of its own, ending in a tail with a whirling saw blade. It came to less than two feet off the ground but was over twelve feet long.

It oozed darkness that suppressed their perception and its four red eyes moved over everything, analyzing and deciding what was the biggest threat. Milo volunteered for that position, unleashing his most complicated Runic Formation yet. Three runes of force were channeled into a tight beam only two feet across, contained by Engineering runes with a Void Rune to eat the counter-force. Holding this many runes in his mind at once hadn't been possible before he trained to take on Icarus.

Even now, it was painful, and it was a relief when the monstrosity finally showed itself and he could release the power. Corrupted Scavenger Brood Beast Level 20 (Elite, very tough, regeneration, hungry, nesting, independent scout.) The blast hit the creature dead center, forcing its front legs to lose hold of the rocky floor, but the back half held firm and the beast bent, rearing up like a striking cobra. One of its red eyes shattered from the force and seven legs were blown away or broken.

The rocky wall behind it shattered into several large chunks. It immediately charged at Milo who leaped away from it as the tail whipped forward and the buzzsaw embedded a foot into the rocky wall. A slight tug pulled it loose. Brutus was charging and the tail flipped toward him. Brutus went to deflect the strike with his heavy metal shield, but the buzzsaw sliced the top half of the shield off. Brutus saw his trusty shield destroyed, one piece clattering to the floor.

He backed away quickly, and the Beast focused on Milo, who was now forty feet away and beginning another spell.

"Careful, girls, this thing could take off an arm just as easily. The next force blast was much weaker; he didn't have the time to fully form and charge the formation as the creature raced toward him, but neither was the creature rooted to the floor. It took the blast and rolled backward, forming a tight ball like a pillbug. Both girls brought their picks down on it with all their strength, causing small dents and knocking the ball away.

They giggled and chased it, hitting it twice more, but eventually, it had time to unroll and glared at them as they charged. The buzzsaw slashed horizontally as they struck again, slicing both picks in half, leaving the girls holding handles. The pinchers grabbed hold of Buttercup's legs, cutting deep and immobilizing her, as the tail moved back for a strike. Brutus ran to save his daughter, rage giving him speed as he triggered Heroic Dash, For the Hollow!, and This is why you don't mess with the Guards!

He brought down Milo's pick on one of its eyes, the crystalline pickhead penetrated the eye, shattering it, and continued through, pinning the front of the creature to the floor, but not killing it. Milo was racing to hit it with Shadowblight and put himself between Buttercup and the strike from the tail. His weapon also scored a hit on an eye, and the sound of shattering metal echoed from the carapace. But it was Rosie who saved someone from being bisected by the buzzsaw.

She dove at the tail, grabbing it with one hand halfway up and one hand just below the tail. A thin stream of blood running down her fist showed she'd come a fraction of an inch too close.

"Let go of my sister, you doody-head." This was the strongest language Gendifur allowed in her house and a vile insult as far as the girls were concerned. Fiendish strength vied against mechanized muscle and it was Rosie who proved stronger. With sudden inspiration she allowed the tail to flex forward but forced it down, bringing the lethal instrument in contact with the carapace. Metal screamed as the buzzsaw cut through armor and moved deeper, propelled by an angry little girl.

Brutus and Milo held the creature down, and Buttercup had hold of the arms, forcing them off of her. With a last surge of strength, the saw bit far enough to kill the creature, and it quit moving. Buttercup fell back with horrible wounds on both legs. Milo could tell that her bones were only chipped, but anyone else would have lost their legs. Rosie was applying first aid to stop the bleeding as Gendifu had taught her. Milo poured healing potions directly onto the wounds.

Brutus pulled a golden vial from a pouch and ordered her to drink.

"Open up, you need this." She was clenching her fists and jaws from the pain, something she rarely felt. She relaxed as the Elixer rolled down her throat. Milo handed Brutus his last two healing potions from his ring and helped Rosie with bandaging. By the time they had three layers of tight bandages on her legs, the bleeding had stopped, and her Fiendish Regeneration and the Elixer were beginning to heal her wounds. Once she was stable, Brutus picked her up and held her tight.

"It's ok, you did great. We beat the bad guy, and now it's time for stories and some rest."

"And some cheese? Mama says cheese is good for healing, and it saved Uncle Justin and Larry." Brutus nodded, "Your Mama is a wise and wonderful woman, and I agree with her. Let's go get some cheese." Milo looked at the creature on the floor, "I'll be along in a bit. I want to make sure this is dead for sure, and nothing else is coming along." He heard nothing from the other cavern, past the small cave-in of rubble he'd caused, but he was feeling uneasy.

He felt marginally better when he received the message from the system. Ack! These things? But they don't look or feel right? I mean... Congratulations, Brave Heroes, on your Victory over a Corrupted Scavenger-Scarab Swarm and a Brood Beast. Cleaning out a lair of these creatures is good for everyone in the DeepDown. Enjoy your reward of 25 Enhancement Points and 5000 Hero Experience.

He decided that another ten hits from Shadowblight on the Brood Beast was simply logical thinking, and then he walked around the cavern, making sure everything else was dead as well.