Antelligent Design

106. Tempting Fate

Isaac and his squad pack their stuff and we mosey our way to the back of the horde. It takes an hour of careful movement, creeping where we can and generally doing everything possible to prevent the monsters from seeing us. The entire time, I keep an eye on the sky, worrying that at any second, a dark cloud might form, and I’ll be forced to start dancing the dance of life.

Thankfully, it doesn’t happen. Whatever the Ka’armodo is doing, it doesn’t appear to be scrying for my location. At least it isn’t actively throwing spells at me. I understand I volunteered to draw the Wizard Lizard’s attention in order to relieve the burden from the rest of the colony, but I don’t want to take that heat before I’ve even started to engage the horde in combat!

So, we creep, crawl and sashay to the rear of the horde, and once we’re there, we group up to hatch a plan.

[You want to draw the attention, and lightning, of the Ka’armodo onto your head?] Isaac asks.

[That’s right,] I confirm.

[I love it. I won’t stand next to you, but I love it. What do you want from me and my team?]

[We’ll split up into two teams and engage separately. I’m assuming that once the Ka’armodo notices me, the fireworks might begin, so I’ll try and be cautious. It makes sense that you stay a reasonable distance from me. When the lightning slash fire slash doom begins to rain on me, I want you guys to keep an eye out for the mage slaves.]

Isaac nods as he rubs his chin.

[You want us to try and find a chance to jump ’em,] he observes.

[Nothing fancy,] I warn. [Try and take a few pot shots. Chances are you won’t be able to actually take one of them down, but if you can distract them, that’ll help me a ton. Just remember, if you actually manage to take one of them down, you’ll need to hightail it out of here lickety-split.]

The former town guard doesn’t hesitate to nod with vigour.

[I don’t plan on letting me or my crew get cooked.] He laughs. [We’ll tag along with you on this one. Give me a chance to talk with my people and we’ll be in position soon.]

As Isaac gathers his team, who are still keeping a respectful distance from me, Tiny, Crinis and I make our way toward the horde.

It’s stressful creeping up on the business end of the mass of monsters, half expecting magical death at any moment, but surprisingly, we continue to evade notice. It isn’t long until we manage to sneak close enough for the back end of the monsters marching away to come into view.

Yes, even Tiny sneaked up to this point. That’s how little attention they’re paying us.

It’s almost a letdown. Here we are, hugging the ground, shoving our faces into the dirt, even Crinis is off my back and crawling tentacle by tentacle in order to lower our profile. Tiny is crawling! His massive shoulders dig troughs into the dirt as he pushes forward with his butt waving in the air. We’re really trying here, but it feels as if the horde isn’t giving us the proper respect.

We’ll show them!

I grit my mandibles to contain my indignation and we crawl even closer, until the vast field of monsters is only twenty metres away. We’re so close, I can smell them and sense the heat rising from the densely packed beasts.

Then I start weaving a spell.

Not the Gravity Bomb. I’m concerned the Ka’armodo might sense the potent Mana build up before I’m ready to release.

No, this time I’m aiming for the condensed Water Cannon. At this range, I’ll be able to slice through the closest ranks of monsters like a hot knife through a soft and meltable spread of some sort.

[Tiny, prepare to charge lightning,] I instruct my battle hungry ape friend and get a devilish bat-grin in return.

[What about me, Master?] Crinis asks, eager for direction.

[You know what to do, Crinis. Make them afraid,] I tell my pet horror ball.

[Understood,] she purrs.

As she continues to creep forward on her short, permanent tentacles, the shadow beneath her body darkens to an impossible black and she begins to extend tentacles into it. It won’t be long before she’s ready to bring them up directly underneath the monsters.

As I direct my sub-brains to do the heavy lifting on the spell I’m working on, I activate my Mana Sense. This Skill has been coming in handy lately and I honestly don’t know why I don’t have it on all the time. It does make more material things harder to perceive, but when my number one threat is death by Wizard Lizard, keeping an eye on the flow of Mana around me makes a lot of sense.

As my vision transforms, becoming coloured with the density and flow of Mana, shock overcomes me at what I see. A vast confluence of Mana is forming in the middle of the horde. It rotates slowly, like a tornado gathering speed, and is pulling the Mana from the surrounding air into the centre.

Even the Mana around me, on the outside of the horde, is starting to move, to flow toward that grand working. Energy is continuously extending farther into the sky, rotating faster and faster as it goes.

What the heck is going on?

“GOOOOAAAAARRRRRR,” a voice growls, so deep, the ground beneath my feet trembles and the air itself batters into my brains.

Garralosh. It has to be!

My heart speeds up as the cyclone of Mana grows stronger each second. Are they working a grand spell that’ll annihilate the colony from here? No way, right? We’re still two days’ travel out! What could they possibly need all this energy for?

Garralosh stands tall in the centre of the horde, raising her massive body onto her rear legs. She’s huge. It isn’t easy to see at this distance, but some things I don’t need the details for. Even from this far away, the giant momma croc glows to my Mana Sense, a testament to the Mana packed into her body and core.

I switch off Mana Sense so I can better see her physical body, and can only swallow my shock. How the heck is she so massive? Over ten metres tall, Tiny standing up wouldn’t come up to her waist. Even more intimidating than her size is her bulk. Garralosh ripples with barely contained strength, each of her arms thicker than Tiny’s legs, and the ape never skips leg day. Heck, her arms might be thicker than my freakin’ body! The torso those arms attach to is equally huge. Her entire body seems to exude its own gravity, so densely packed is the muscle mass on that creature.

Holy smokes!

When she evolved, she must have pumped points into muscle density rather than size at a crazy ratio to end up like that! It’s less efficient than getting larger in terms of raw stats, but it does allow her to pack an incredible amount of power into a smaller frame. Not that her frame is small!

The gigantic monster throws her head back and opens her jaws wide, exposing the absurdly long croc teeth held within. In order to blur my sight of those teeth, I flick my Mana Sense back on and am treated to the sight of the Mana cyclone inverting itself.

Instead of rising into the sky, the conflux turns and begins to shrink, still pulling in the Mana from the air toward the centre. All of that Mana continues to sink toward the hulking croc looming in the middle.

They’re feeding Mana to Garralosh! Trying to keep her core topped off!

In which case, now might be the perfect time to attack…