A giant spherical grub burst up from the closest pocket, earth blasting in every direction. Its body was an egg-shaped sac of hammered gold six feet in diameter, horns of Coal running along the top and three sets of black limbs extending from either side. The front two sets were legs, while the rearmost pair arched over and around to end in golden spikes as long as Scorio’s arm. Its head was affixed to the golden sphere, arachnoid, and sporting a third spike that burst free of its maw, even longer than the appendages.
Scorio had never seen anything remotely like it.
Everyone around him was Igniting their Hearts, each one a small detonation of power. A dozen more of the golden egg sac creatures burst out of the ground, then another dozen, then a score more.
They were completely surrounded.
“Don’t channel their mana,” warned Evelyn, her hair elongating rapidly.
The first wave sprang at them even as everyone ran, the fiends coming at them with all the violence and speed of nightmare fleas, and everything went mad.
Caramel hair burst forth in countless thick ropes, wrapping around enemies mid-air and tangling their limbs, hauling them out of their trajectories so that they crashed into each other, some of them bursting into great gouts of golden effluvia. Davelos sprang over their heads, his form burnished and gleaming, to collide with another, its spikes sinking into his body but unable to stop him from bursting it apart as they impacted.
Scorio Ignited and shifted into his scaled form. Wide-eyed, he fell back as one of the golden monstrosities fell upon him. The Nightmare Lady intercepted it, her tail punching into its egg sac body a dozen times. Another was falling upon them, a blur of gold, and Scorio grabbed Zala by the arm and leaped aside so that it landed where they had stood, its golden horn sliding deep into the soil.
He bounced up and slashed his talons through its golden hide, severing a leg and causing its bulging body to burst open. Golden ichor flooded out, and Scorio’s whole being lit up.
It was saturated with Gold mana.
“Scorio!”
He glanced up. Something was about to hit him, so he flung up his Shroud. Just for a moment, long enough for the monster to collide and bounce off, then he dropped the Shroud and bounded after it.
More hair was snaking forth, but Evelyn had no structures off of which to work; she could only lash out with braids and seek to ensnare her foes directly. Davelos was singing, his voice a reverberating baritone as he tore his way through their foes, but there were more, always more.
Leonis roared as he smashed one apart with a double-handed swing of Nezzar; Jova stepped forward, hit another two with her fear aura, and they both fell back just before Juniper leaped in to start smashing her glowing fists into one of them. The Nightmare Lady was in her element, leaping and lashing out in every direction, slashing with her tail and disemboweling with her claws.
The air had quickly grown thick with cloying, poisoned Gold mana. Scorio deflected another foe with a quick summons of his Shroud then moved in for the kill, but he already felt fevered, sick with the pulsing, noxious mana that made him feel nauseated.
“Don’t try to channel the mana!” shouted Evelyn from somewhere behind them. “It’s—”
But Zala bent over and started to vomit convulsively.
More of the golden egg sacs were burrowing up from below. The ground was already sodden with their ichor. They were so delicate, absolutely defenseless, as if they wished to be burst apart, as if—
“They’re trying to poison us!” Scorio shouted. “Move! Fresh ground!”
The Nightmare Lady looked at him and nodded. Leonis was gagging, but he lumbered after her as she slashed open a path. Where was Lianshi—there, with Juniper. Scorio raced over, ducked a new foe as it tried to collide with him, and opened his arms to herd them before him. “Go, go!”
Davelos appeared by their side. An egg sac leaped at him, but he misted so that it charged right through him. A second descended upon him, and he ducked, stepped back, crouched, then speared upright to slam his head into its belly, his whole body knifing into its egg sac causing it to burst around him.
“Good idea,” he called as he emerged. “But don’t stop running. This much mana will call predators.”
Scorio’s eyes went wide and he picked up his pace. Where was Jova? Never mind, if there was anybody he didn’t need to worry about it was her.
The sky darkened. Another fell upon the three of them. Lianshi pulled Juniper down and covered her, body shimmering with her invulnerability power. But Scorio raised his Shroud at just the right angle so that the egg sac burst and splattered off to the side.
His Heart guttered out.
“Damn. Run!”
Together they sprinted, ducking and weaving. They left the worst of the miasma behind, but it was cloying and thick and drifted after them.
His gorge rising, Scorio looked back. Davelos was just marching through the foes, not even bothering to do more than mist when attacked and then materialize within the monster’s bodies, bursting them. Evelyn had fashioned a web of sorts that was anchored on the piles of bodies, and had weaponized her hair so that she hurled braided ropes like harpoons at the monsters that still came at her.
But the fight was over. The ground, which was cratered with exit holes, had ceased to boil. No more were emerging. Many, in fact, were digging their way rapidly back into the soil and muck.
Scorio’s eyes widened. How many had they just killed? Fifty? A hundred? The ground was strewn with burst sacks and twitching limbs.
“That was…disgusting,” said Lianshi, head tilted to one side so that golden goop could slide off her hair.
Leonis bent over, Nezzar disappearing, and retched. Zala was barely able to stand with Jova’s help, and even Naomi looked sick.
Evelyn retracted her hair and lowered herself to the ground. Davelos approached her. They spoke, turning to stare south.
“They don’t look happy,” said Scorio, resisting the urge to spit.
Lianshi tentatively straightened, her beslimed hair sliding down her back. “What was that they said about predators?”
Scorio summoned his Heart and looked at the mana. The spilled ichor was venting poisoned Gold into the air. It had the consistency of clotted cream, was curdled and wrong in ways he couldn’t explain, but was drifting rapidly in all directions as if before a powerful wind.
Leonis vomited explosively.
“Let’s get moving,” said Davelos, striding toward them. “Goldyolks are beacons to worse things. But if we move quickly we should be all right.”
Scorio slid under Leonis’s arm. “Just don’t vomit on me, all right?”
His friend’s face was beaded with sweat and waxen. It was all he could do to nod.
Davelos scooped Zala up in his arms and set off at a run.
“Oh, we’re running?” asked Lianshi, and took off after him. Leonis managed a lumber, but his stomach kept spasming as he ran. A moment later Naomi staggered to a halt and gagged.
“It’s hitting the Emberlings harder than us,” Jova called to him, but when she went to help Naomi the other girl recoiled.
“Don’t touch me. I’m fine. I’m—”
“Go!” shouted Jova to Scorio as he started to slow. “I’ll help her!”
Davelos was pounding ahead and had increased his pace to a sprint that showed no signs of slowing. They were no longer running directly south but veering to the east, away from the broad river that glittered in the near distance, thick forest growing along its banks.
Lianshi began to slow, her hands pressing on her stomach.
“Damn,” hissed Scorio. “Evelyn!”
But the Dread Blaze was too far ahead. Scorio angled wide to intercept Lianshi just as she bent over. With a grunt he turned her around and ducked down to lift her over his shoulder just as she hurled all the way down his back.
Grimacing, he hauled Leonis. The man’s eyelids were fluttering, his stride faltering, but Scorio dragged him on, step after step, trying to go faster even as the weight began to tell on him.