Malachi Armstrong

Grins were shared all around. Malachi wasn’t sure what mood the others came into the tunnel, but he came in determined for a victory. He believed that this win was necessary for the Sixty’s morale. From here, they could keep their progress rolling. He walked through the quietly celebrating Sixty to check for any missed injuries. Or any other concerns. The healers had done a good job at seeing everyone refreshed. The sword acolyte only felt the need to remind everyone to drink their water. Monster slaying was sweaty and thirsty work.

The frontline took a rest while the skirmishers acted as guards. Reuben had done a quick search and had found the tunnel empty. They had apparently claimed the attention of every rat thing within this stretch. Still, it was best to have someone ready in case of Ratsins from further in. Their scout also reported the way clear to where the cavernous route tilted upwards. An open space awaited them. Malachi couldn’t wait to take a look for himself, but unfortunately, there was work to be done first. There would always be work for a leader.

The first thing to check was the core collection. Clarissa had at the time seemed the perfect person to take the lead in that endeavor. She had the most experience with how and when they formed. Watching the redhead hurl a core through the air towards the entrance made him want to reconsider the decision. The core flew and landed with a thud short of the illusionary barrier.

“These suckers are solid, but they ain’t that heavy,” growled Clarissa. “Where’s the bloody bounce? Even with the mud, there should be a bounce or some rollin’. Weird little things.” Around her, others were following suit with the cores. A few gave Malachi side looks that were tinted with guilt. That didn’t seem to stop the rain of cores as another group supplied the throwers.

“What exactly are you doing with our cores?” asked the bearded man drily.

Grinning, and without shame, Clarissa answered, “Transporting them in the most efficient manner I could think of.”

“Efficient, huh?” pursued Malachi neutrally.

“O’ yeah, efficient as hell my dude guy,” assured Clarissa as if it was obvious. Seeing that he wasn’t convinced, she explained. “Alright, so, eventually it’s gonna be raining ugly rat babies. The most important aspect of the cores is we get them out, but, BUT! Taking them all through the barrier into the Hall would take a lot of time. No guarantee we can get them all before the ugly downpour. So, instead, we get them all to at least the entrance. That way if we flee back through, the cores are still in reach! Get it now leader schmeader?”

“I, I can’t really argue with that,” admitted the bearded man. “Ok... have you at least been keeping count?”

“Yo, blondie! How many so far?” bellowed Clarissa.

From behind him came a squeak of a response. “So far um one hundred and uh thirty-seven. The gathers said all corpses are powdering now. Also, do you think you could call me Anastasia?”

“I could,” agreed Clarissa seriously.

“Will you?” asked the blonde woman.

All smiles again, “When it’s no longer funnier to annoy you this way. Anyway, there you go, Malachi. A most efficient method of core transport!”

“Yeah… it’s not enough cores, though,” said Malachi distractedly. He looked inwards the rising leader did calculations. “Even excluding everyone who isn’t with us… that’s not enough to really outfit us with much of anything.”

“What do you mean?” asked Clarissa as she went back to tossing cores.

“So, say we double the current numbers,” began their chosen leader. “That means for all of the Sixty, two or three cores. That isn’t really that great beyond keeping up with rations per day. I was hoping for more progress than that. Even if we come every day, it would take a long time to get more equipment. I was hoping for more. Expecting more really.”

“We could go it video game style,” suggested Clarissa. “Back off and clear it a couple of times a day instead.”

“As a backup plan that isn’t too bad,” smiled Malachi. “Let me try something else first. Maybe we can push up further into the tunnel.”

“What about the respawns?” asked Clarissa. “Grossness aside, and it is super gross, that puts monsters behind and ahead of us.”

“Like I said, let me try something,” answered Malachi as he stared up at the ceiling.

He was looking at the strange sphincter looking flesh spots hidden in the rough rock. Picking out one a little away from everyone, he called out to Leon Machi. An Asian man with brown hair walked over to Malachi. In a solemn posture, Leon was a man with features best described as blocky. The barrier acolyte raised an eyebrow in question.

“Could you form a barrier like a forge?” asked Malachi. “Dome over an area with an opening... like a spout or a chimney?”

“I think I could probably pull that off,” said Leon after he thought about it. “Whatcha want it for?”

Pointing at the chosen sphincter, the sword acolyte explained, “We’re going to do a little experiment.”

The barrier acolyte closed his eyes in concentration. They breathed in and out. Raising a hand at the target location, Leon chanted his spell.

“To the Light I Pray,

Divide this Space,

Conform to My Need,

Sculpted Wall”

A wave of energy like heated air flowed from Leon as the words echoed through the tunnel. It flew to the cave sphincter and began to solidify in a dome shape over it. Like a branch budding from the trunk, a tube of translucences grew towards Malachi’s general direction. The Sixty’s rising leader thought it looked vaguely like the top of a Slurpee or an Icee.

With the barrier in place, focused on his own spell. Laying out in his mind what was needed for the experiment. I don’t need Fire Blast at full power, decided Malachi. Less kinetic power, but more heat. Better for it to explode once it reaches the center of the dome.

“Flare,

Scorch,

Fire Blast”

A ball of fire, smaller than normal, zipped down the tunnel to the empty space. An eruption of red flame filled the magical container. Immediately everything rumbled and shook. Screaming like a rusty trumpet roared through the tunnel causing everyone to clunch their ears in pain. As the fire died, the silence returned. A deeper one. The Sixty all looked around them in wary expectation.

Malachi worried he had set something off. He stared into the darkness worrying over what would come out of it. Moments passed without even the sound of breathing. The only result seemed to be a deepening silence. What little could be heard from further in had gone quiet too. Seconds pass. Minutes more passed. Heartbeats slowed down, and finally, everyone breathed easily again.

Still unnerved, Malachi looked upwards to see the results of his experiment. The ceiling was scorched black, and where the sphincter had been there was now an indention. The strange flesh had receded upward. Only ash and flakes of char drifted down from the hole now. Staring out into the dark, the sword acolyte considered the risk.

The eyes of every one were now laying heavy upon him. It wasn’t hard to deduce that the sudden blaze of light was related to the monstrous roar. His uneasiness locked behind a stiffen face, Malachi skimmed across those faces. Tallying up the emotional responses. Fear was a strong contender, but mostly an underlying feature. The majority were simply waiting on him. A testament of their faith in him. Is one successful battle all one needs to capture hearts? thought Malachi. My council, I could understand. The rest... perhaps is just a fragile thing? Expectation of “will he do it again” or “There might be a good reason for that.” Either way, I want to do right by them…

His musings were cut short when Leon spoke up, “Ok then, what did I just help you to do? What the hell was the scream?”

Speaking so everyone could hear his response, Malachi said, “You just helped me destroy... for lack of a better phrase, a spawn point. Clarissa and Rueben have seen new Ratsins deposited from those things. Since that experiment was successful, I say we take care of the rest. Make ourselves a free path to get further in.”

“What about the screams, though?” pressed Leon. “That sounded big.”

“I’d say we did hurt something big, but it doesn't seem able to come at us,” announced Malachi. “Also, not having Ratsins at our back is worth the risk.” He scanned the crowd again to see their reactions. There were nods and shrugs as their attention returned to other things. A few gave him long worried looks before staring down the darkness ahead of them. “Hey, Allen, get your flames over here.”

“What’s up doc?” asked an average-sized man with dark hair. His beard was flecked with red that flickered like coals when he talked.

“I don’t want to tire myself out too much with my one flame spell nor Leon with making barriers,” explained the rising leader. “Was wondering if you got something in your arsenal that could replicate what I did without a barrier.”

“Ayuh, I gots me a Flamin’ spell to drill this freaky flesh,” replied Allen. “Never thought I’d see anuses on the ceiling… Can’t say I like it now that I have.” The fire acolyte let the thought shudder through everyone in earshot and then with a grin added, “Let’s ash ‘em.”

“Well show me what you got man,” smiled Malachi.

Allen nodded back as he stepped over to another sphincter. It had the look of a farmer sizing up a task before starting. There was a gesture towards their chest pocket as if reaching for a cigarette. The hand stopped short with a growl. Taking a deep breath, the fire acolyte chanted.

“Sun’s Shining Ray,

Blazing Spear Rage,

Clear Path Scorched,

Strike of the Flame Lance.”

From the dark-haired man’s finger, a line of golden light launched forward. As it traveled, the light grew. It burst into a fire that raged into the shape of a lance. It pierced through the sphincter like butter. The roaring scream rumbled the tunnel as the flame poured out of the opening in the ceiling. A couple of heartbeats and the silence returned. Another spawn point was destroyed.

Malachi and Leon went next. Picking out one of the remaining flesh nodules took only a couple of steps. The spawn points were clustered together. The three of them decided on the leapfrog method, so they could switch off resting. No one wanted to get worn out in the tunnel. That disconnected feeling one got from overusing Mana wasn’t a pleasant experience. In the dark, it was worse.

The rising leader also didn’t want to tempt fate by taking two sphincters out at once. For all he knew, that would trigger a bigger response. Better to stick to one by one, decided Malachi. With every destroyed sphincter there was the same reaction, but no retaliation. Only roars and tremors with sudden silence from the monsters ahead. It was eerie, but the work got done.

Feeling much better about securing their backfield, Malachi gathered up people to go with Rueben to take a look ahead. A party of five followed twenty feet behind their forward man who was stealthed. There would be time for the scout to give a sign. That way they didn’t run into monsters without warning. Malachi maintained that distance by watching where the scout left fresh footprints. A slow, but a steady way forward.

In the wet gloom, the tunnel began to tilt upwards. Slip, sliding upwards, they made it to where muddy filth was replaced by solid rock. Then they came to the end. The tunnel brought them to a huge cavernous opening. It spanned an area larger than a football field with four other entrances. The glowing moss and fungus cast light further and brighter. Formations of stones littered the area to create a maze of difficult terrain. Ominous shadows pooled deeply throughout it.

Three of the entrances were similar to the one they had come up from. Dimly lit and angled downwards. Occasionally while they watched pony-sized Ratsins passed through into the new area. Their tunnel, and those three, were clustered together on one side. The distant entrance was half brightly lit by phosphorus and angled upwards. It was the next path to take. Between them in the cavernous space were worse rat things than before.

The tunnel Ratsins had been uniform in their disturbing appearance, but the forms ahead were distorting in three different directions. Like before, there were strong-looking rat things claiming patches of the glowing food. These had changed from bulbous bodies to muscular horrors. Territorial disputes could be heard coming from every direction. The group watched more than one loser’s corpse tossed in the gloom. The winner turned to feast on moss or mushroom. They had to eat what they could before the next challenger.

The next evolution was from the corpse eaters. Awful jiggling bodies would rush to claim a corpse before another of its kind. Across the bodies of the cannibals were open sores and leaking pustules. The eyes were lost in the folds of fat as their noses became the main sense. The prime Ratsin gave the plagued Ratsins wide berth even if a territorial claim was invaded. Malachi saw one cannibal rat thing get attacked. The fight resulted in the attacker dying by what looked like poison. Foam boiled from the mouth.

The worst form was now staring them down as it lumbered creakily towards them. It had ghosted in close to them from the shadows. Lifeless eyes with a burning red glow. The flesh had departed to leave skin stretched over bones. The only sign of life was a hissing breath between ragged teeth already jabbering for a bite. Their paws had morphed into skeletal claws.

When it came within five feet of invisible Rueben, the starving Ratsin exploded with speed. It dove past the scout. Reacting instantly, Reuben scored a hit. A wound was cut along the body as it passed. The rat thing didn’t react and blood pooled slowly like sap. It was, however, enough to throw off the leap. It landed poorly in a bundle of limbs. It rose in a flurry of slashing attacks, but it bought time. When the Ratsin was charging again, the rest were ready.

Soren was the next to react. His crystal gun was unholstered and fired from the hip. A red bolt impacted the right eye of the skeletal Ratsin. Red flames blazed to leave behind a charred ruin. The rat thing didn’t flinch. It lashed out with a lunging claw sweep. Julia stepped in to take the blow on her shield. She held. Her sword rose to deflect the other claw. Unfortunately, this left her open. The Ratsin bit down on her shoulder. It whipped her back and forth like a dog before the wound tore. The shieldmaiden slammed into the tunnel wall. Falling to her knees, Julia’s eyes blazed angrily.

A red light flashed as Soren continued to fire. Scouring char marks across the monster to little effect. Malachi took Julia’s place. Sword whirling to deflect as those behind him prepared. Cuts splattered shallowly across him as the attacks got through. He never halted chanting his spell.

“Wall Unseen,

Force Shaped,

Quick Reprieve,

Barrier: Impale”

The sword acolyte angled the spell under and along the length of the Ratsin. He leaped away as four translucent spears sprung upwards. The monster was impaled in several places. At the neck, twice in the torso, and between the hind legs. This got a reaction as the horrid thing flailed and hissed sharply. Goopy blood slid down along the barrier spears. Malachi stood in the back now. Focusing only on holding the spell in place.

Now ready to take a swing, Nicole Jorgensen and Molly stepped up. First, the cool-eyed woman sneered as she unleashed her spell with the final line, “Specimen’s Shackles!” Dark purple threads lashed across the Ratsin, holding it in a spread eagle. Bones cracked and skin tore under increasing strain.

Nicole followed up with her spell’s name, “Tempest’s Scour.” From her hands came a torrent of electrified air swirling into a twister. The Mana-made storm enlarged and engulfed the Ratsin. The monster hissed in pain as the raging winds became dyed slightly pink. When the spell ended there was a splatter of flesh that had been sheared off the rat thing. Skinless it screamed. The monster flailed hard enough at them to tear the flesh around the impalement. Malachi groaned in concentration, but the spears held.

Soren had given up on the small attacks and charged the crystal gun. The orb glowed dangerously red and radiant. Grimly, he walked up just short of the reach of the claws. Staring into the last eye of the monster, the gunman aimed down the gullet. A thick searing line of red burned through Ratsin flesh, from one end to the other. It flinched before all the limbs dropped. The smell of burnt flesh filled the tunnel.

Everyone began to let a breath out when the broken thing howled. It’s one good eye scanned them all as it lashed out futilely. The howl pierced their ears and shook their legs. The spears dissipated. The broken monster slammed into the ground without a reaction. Everyone in front of it tried to shuffle away, out of its reach. The rat thing dragged itself forward with one claw at a time. Reuben came in to stab it repeatedly in the side, but the howl never faltered.

It was cut off when Julia hacked off the head at the neck. The Ratsin went completely still again, but that didn’t stop the shieldmaiden. She raised her sword several more times on it. Before anyone recovered, her stomping had shattered the head. “Fuck!” spat Julia. “That thing sucked!”

Malachi weakly walked over to her. He placed a grateful hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for the save there, Julia.” The dark-haired woman blushed and waved away the thanks. “We’ll need to get a healer to look at that shoulder.”

Reuben looked out into the cavernous space. “I can confirm that my stealth works pretty damn well,” the scout said as they all gathered up. “Sucker didn’t even notice me. Not sure how it saw ya’ll, though. Barely over the lip. Creepy fucker.” The last added with a glance at the powdering form.

“How it saw us is a concern, but I’m more worried about how hard it was to kill,” interjected Nicole. At this, they all gave the shadows in the open area wary looks.

“From what I saw, and likely saw the same, those other kinds die a lot easier,” theorized Rueben. “Y’all bring word down the mountain and I’ll do some snooping.”

“I don’t recommend that you go in there alone just yet,” said a concerned Malachi.

“Nah, I ain’t that dumb,” grinned Rueben. “I’ll be unseen at the doorway. At least this time I don’t need to cover up to take a long look.”

Malachi laughed and while Molly grimaced. Nicole asked what was funny. Julia replied with a giggle and a groan, “poop camouflage. Poop-a-flage! Ugh, ok time for a healer.”

“Sorry to delay ya Julia, but guys take a look at this,” Soren brought the core over to them. It was the same size as the young Ratsins, but this one had a reddish tint swirled among the star flecks. “What do you think the change means?”

“The most likely answer is that this is a higher quality core,” suggested Molly. “That fight was easily hard enough to be said to be on a higher tier. The first rat things were a threat mostly as a swarm. That tactic is no longer needed for the ones up here.”

“We’ll test that theory later,” said Malachi. “Let’s debate this after we get Julia seen too. Reuben stay safe! Run if you have to.”

“Like my pants are on fire,” assured Rueben. The rest of them headed back to the waiting members of the Sixty.