[RUN!] I shout at my two pets as they watch from a distance. [Let’s go, go, go, go, goooooo!]
The moment my legs are under me, I’m Dashing, holding nothing back in my desperation to get away. Morrelia is way ahead of me, not pausing in the slightest when she realised I hadn’t moved as quickly as she had. That’s cold. Sensible, but cold!
[What the heck is that giant lizard?] I wail at her.
[It’s a Ka’armodo! They are not monsters. They’re a sapient surface race, like humans.]
[How in the heck is a giant lizard like a human?]
[Listen,] she growls. [They’re one of the elder races that existed on Pangera before the Dungeon opened. They are powerful mages and live for a very long time. Those robed figures we saw are its Setsulah, bonded servants.]
[And why is it helping a giant crocodile monster slaughter a heap of humans?]
[I have no idea! Would you please focus on running for your life?]
Good advice!
HUUUAAAARRRRRRR!
The sound of thousands of monsters bellowing in rage at once rattles against my ears, and the ground beneath my feet begins to beat like a snare drum. Monsters flood out of the gates and over the wall in a tide of death.
[Move those Fancy Feet, Tiny! Do NOT stop to fight. Do NOT turn and do battle. This is NOT the time to fire up! We are a Jamaican Bobsled team, keep cool and run!] I bellow at my most wilful pet, and with me keeping up the flow of constant orders and reprimands, for once, he isn’t able to turn and fight against impossible odds as he so wishes.
[Where are we running to?] I gasp at Morrelia, the strain of constant Dashing already starting to catch up with me. I am taking care of this problem when I evolve, no doubt about that!
[I don’t know,] she rasps. The usually unflappable warrior looks a fair bit flapped as she runs. [Any bright ideas?]
[I think so. This way!]
As if the demon hordes of Hades were on our tail, which they sort of are, we run with all our strength, feet growing leaden and weighed down the farther we get. Across fields, around fences and down roads, we run with the constant rumble of monsters shaking the ground behind us.
I don’t even want to look, but my stupid eyes with their near three-sixty-degree vision grant me tantalising glimpses of a monster horde greater than any I’ve ever seen by far. No way am I going to turn and fight this. Even ten Gravity Bombs wouldn’t be enough to swallow the entire horde. We have to get to safety.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take too long before it comes into sight.
On a hill ahead is a small church building, still somehow standing when so much of the buildings around here have been flattened. The church is a centre point of a modest town that I’ve visited before, and I happen to know that a path into the Dungeon can be found in that building.
[Let’s go to church!] I bellow at my companions.
70. The Escape
As if demons are on our tail, or perhaps the crocodiles of the damned, we flee until my poor ant legs ache with the strain and my antennae droop low from exhaustion. Into the village, up into the church and then down into the still-open Dungeon entrance the colony had opened what seems like a lifetime ago.
Due to the ongoing wave, the tunnel was packed full of monsters, and we’re forced to pummel and slice our way through them in order to penetrate into the Dungeon below. The battle is endless, and we’re careful not to finish off the monsters we fight, knocking them out of the way, slowing them with Gravity Magic. Even Tiny just bops them on the head until we get past. Anything to create more of a roadblock for the zombie monster horde gaining on us.
Down we fight, charging through the escape tunnel the colony had painstakingly dug until we reached the point where it narrowly connects to another Dungeon. I’d dug that connection myself in order to go hunting for the colony during our escape. Hopefully, it will serve us now! Tiny, Crinis, Morrelia and I pile through the narrow connection, widening it in some places to get Tiny through, before collapsing and filling it in behind us.
A simple ruse, but possibly enough to divert the mindless horde of monsters. Damn, I wish I knew how the crocs are able to mind control monsters the way they do. Is it a form of magic? A Skill? An aura mutation? I haven’t seen anything like it in the menu so far, but that could just mean I haven’t unlocked it through whatever esoteric means the System uses to conceal options until it’s happy you’ve jumped through the right hoop.
Could it be something to do with core strength even? Perhaps once I upgrade my core to rare, I’ll be able to influence monsters in a similar way. I just don’t know, and it’s frustrating the heck out of me.
Not content to wait so close to the escape tunnel, we battle farther into the side path before I tell the others to cover me whilst I dig out a new chamber, blessedly free from the influence of the Mana veins and therefore clear of constant Mana spawns. At least until the veins extend into here, we’ll have a little chance to rest.
Exhausted, we all collapse. Tiny is asleep before he even hits the ground, Crinis not far behind. Though she preserves her dignity by lowering herself to the ground with her tentacles before retracting them and growing still.
Morrelia leans back against the dirt wall and slides down, uncaring how the soil trickles down into her hair, until she’s sitting with her arms resting on her knees. I’m desperate for a bit of torpor in order to recuperate, but first I have to know more about what we saw.
My minds move wearily to reconstruct the Mind Bridge. Sheesh, I’m getting a lot of practice with this construct these days. How the heck did I ever get by without it?
[Any chance you can explain to me a little about what we saw up there? The big lizard thing? The fancy spell work? Who are they and why would they want to keep Garralosh alive?]
Morrelia bows her head for a time, and I resist the urge to pester her with questions. I can tell she’s still a tad angry, to put it mildly, and I don’t want to be the one to set off a berserker explosion.
[I don’t know why they’d keep that beast alive. I’ve no idea. To think they would have to have been supporting her for decades in order to prevent her from weakening. Why? It makes no damn sense.]
[Who is ‘they’? You said something about a Koomodo?]
[Ka’armodo,] she corrects. [The giant lizard you saw is a Ka’armodo. They’re an ancient race, older even than humans. They live for hundreds of years and are always accompanied by their Setsulah servants. I don’t know too much about it, but from what I understand, the Setsulah were a race conquered thousands of years ago and pressed into slavery by the Ka’armodo. They’re bound in some fashion. Tied by bonds of magic to their masters.]
Magically bonded slave race? That got real dark, real quick.
[I take it these Ka’armodo aren’t considered friendly? Evil race of salamanders?]
Morrelia waves her hand in frustration. [Not really. The Ka’armodo are just another sapient race on the surface. We even trade with them here in Liria. Their empire is in the mountains to the northeast. We share a narrow border with them. I just don’t see why they would support Garralosh. Why would they use that creature to attack Liria? They have everything they could possibly want! What’s here for them?]