Vol. 2, Ch. 111: Bow Before the Pyro Snake!
Everyone had their positions and their role. Kasfew began casting a stream of fire at the forge, weakening the thermal insulation on one of the struts keeping the entire structure stable. Of the three of them, he was the most fire-resistant, though she worried about what would happen if he took a molten-metal bath. He wouldn’t be roast chicken; he’d be burned to cinders.
Neska used her [Spring Scales] to leap to the second, then the third floor of the multi-level foundry, speeding across rusty catwalks creaking ominously under her weight. She nocked one of her arrows converted to carry Brienne’s genesis seeds and fired it at the rock near the ice-encrusted opening, driving the seed in. At the same time, she used her [Verdant Weave] to start the propagation, slowly growing the roots outward.
She needed a bottleneck on the entryway, one that would endure longer than Noricatu’s icy barrier, which was cracked and dripping water as it melted. The roots would hold longer, and she could fix them in place and reinforce them with the weave of materials.
More ice shattered and tumbled to the ground. One of the ranged barbed wasps popped out, immediately shrilling after spotting Neska. She responded by blasting it with a [Venom Bolt], having figured that the venom variants were highly effective against them.
The shot split the wasp in half, clearing the way for Noricatu to flutter up to the third floor, and she shot a stream of icy hail shards at the entryway, bottling it up again.
“That’ll hold them for a while, but that ability takes a lot of mana,” Noricatu panted, rime frost forming on her arms. “Might want to warn everyone about what we’re going to do!”
Neska clicked her relay. “To anyone who can hear this, this is Cassia. I'm somewhere in the middle of the hive layers. We're inside part of an old foundry the goblins repurposed, and they're working on metal forging and possible mana crystal processing. I’ve regrouped with Noricatu and Kasfew; they’re alive and fighting alongside me. We’re about to break apart a massive smelter, and the liquefied contents will burn a hole through the hive. Everyone, heads up, and watch your feet!”
She was answered by a crackle of static, then a refreshingly familiar voice. “Sergeant Corvin here. Glad to hear you’re in one piece. I had intermittent contact with Corporal Feywind. She let me know you were solo but alive. Can you hold off burning the place down?”
Neska glanced around and really didn't want to chance more goblins or wasps showing up. “How far away are you? I can’t pinpoint exactly where we are, but we’re in one of the outer annular discs somewhere in the middle of the hive layers. Possibly the southern side, if my memory is correct.”
A loud droning buzz began to emanate from the first floor, near where Kasfew was attempting to send a stream of flame to melt one of three support structures that kept the smelter upright. One wasp emerged from the tunnel, and Neska cast out a long-range [Venom Bolt] to snipe it.
It fell without issue, but was soon replaced by more.
Neska was impressed to see Syrona dive at a second wasp, wrapping around its body and drilling her fangs through the carapace into its head. She avoided the stinger and used her tail to fire [Mana Bolts] into its body at point-blank range.
The third wasp directed its ire against Syrona, but its barbed stinger shot outward and missed the coatyl by inches. She sprang from the dying wasp and bit down on the wings of the third, leaving it floundering on the ground as Syrona breezed by. Neska finished off the prone wasp with a single [Venom Bolt].
She clicked the relay. “Sergeant, we’re about to be flanked from multiple angles and lose our opportunity to take out a massive chunk of the hive. We have a chance to clear a path to the Instance core! We have to do this now.”
A burst of static followed, then Corvin answered. “Understood. Stay alive, you three, you hear me? All teams, it's about to get hot in here!"
“Kasfew, keep lighting it up! I’ll keep them off your back!” Neska went through her [Dimensional Stomach] and highlighted one of the boom sticks. She grimaced, reaching to the back of her mouth as she opened wide. She'd done this before with the hobgoblins, but this would never leave her not-nervous about their possible volatility.
The heft of a goblin boom stick appeared in her claws, the wick dry. She gently pulled it out and used her [Ember Hex] to ignite the wick in a blaze of magnesium-white sparkles, prickling against her scales with pinpoints of heat. “Syrona, get clear!”
Neska hefted the lit explosive where more wasps streamed in from the first-floor corridor. The blast pulverized the nearby insects and collapsed the entryway in a clatter of shattering rock and billowing dust.
You’re insane, you know that?
New Title Gained: Pyromaniac - You have frequently used improvised devices and alchemical munitions to defeat multiple foes in a single attack. + 10% to the potency of all fire-based effects and alchemical munitions. Improves accuracy when using fire-based weapons, alchemical solutions, or abilities.
Bow before the pyro snake, heathen bugs!
And you call me crazy? Neska was getting an earful from Syrona, feathers ruffled as she rejoined Neska on the third floor and squawked in agitation.
Sorry, I was caught up in the moment. You know your actions do tend to feed into discovered abilities and possibly evolutions, right?
Becoming a fire-based snake wouldn’t be the worst evolution I could pick, for the record. Kasfew would despise that. Neska smirked at that idea. The firebird would lose his mind if he lost the one advantage he had over her.
Neska shot one surviving wasp, killing it before it could close on the firebird. Kasfew let out a startled response, briefly interrupting his fire stream. “You are an arsonist, you know, Cassia?!” he screamed.
“Pot, meet cauldron! It just so happens to be remarkably effective against bugs!” She turned her focus toward the support, glowing cherry red, and she heard metal groaning as the weight began to sag on the compromised support structure. The smelter contents were beginning to list to one side, more dribbling through the crack in the side.
Noricatu had stopped the tide of wasps coming in, but a new threat emerged: the goblins had found another way in, charging at the bird and firing off slingshots filled with more boom sticks. They missed, and Noricatu sprang airborne, using the large room to bank around and fire off another icy ray, freezing two of the goblins’ legs mid-stride.
The creatures stumbled as their limbs locked up, and then one of their legs shattered as they stumbled to the ground. It screamed in pain before Neska silenced it with an arrow aimed for the neck. Her second arrow caught a goblin in the chest, sending it collapsing to the floor.
More goblins arrived, armed with boom sticks. She couldn’t believe the goblins could be this crazy as to use explosives at dangerously close ranges.
Then again, so was she. One effective burst from her [Ember hex] blew the charge early, shredding the goblin and his nearby friends.
Maybe this was why all explosives she’d seen in the Academy munitions storage were hard-cased with a thick shell. It was to prevent exploits like this. The goblin’s explosives lacked a hard shell to dissipate heat or protect the detonator, and their manufacture appeared all mismatched, as if each stick were a custom job. Hopefully the damn goblins would never correct this vulnerability.
In contrast, her alchemical munitions would follow a strict formula with a protective outer case. The last thing she needed was for a monster to blow up a grenade in her hand. She looked forward to venom-enhanced explosives filled with all sorts of nasty secondary effects.
Noricatu shot more ice shards at the stray wasps, plugging up more entryways with the icy sheets. Goblins pounded on the far side, screaming in frustration. “You know, Kasfew said you were crazy. And I think in this circumstance, he was right!”
Neska looked at her skeptically, checking on her dwindling arrow supply. She still had enough for a sizable engagement, but once they were out, that would limit her ranged options. “I improvise. Go down and blast the strut that Kasfew is heating with a cold shock.”
"What? Why?!"
"It's just like smithing and trying to quench and temper too fast! It's called a thermal shock!" Neska grabbed more of her genesis seeds, jumping down to the second floor where she had a better vantage point on the foundry. She flung them at the rock face across from the listing smelter pot, growing roots and wrapping them around the exposed piping, and created a weave of roots. Each strand became a reinforcing member with the others, forming a tri-strand web of thick, dark roots. She drove them into the rock as far as she could, burrowing and locking into each nook and cranny.
“More monsters coming!” Noricatu called out.
“Hit the smelter with a freezing blast; I'll use the roots to put as much tension as I can muster into tearing it loose! Kasfew, get clear!”
For once, the firebird acknowledged her warning and took off in a flight of blazing feathers, the metal sagging and groaning ominously. Noricatu fluttered onto the landing on the second floor, well out of the range of where the devastation would spill out, and hit the support strut with a blast of ice.
It sounded like a small explosion had gone off, leaving Neska’s ears ringing. Steam billowed off the offending surface, followed by several sharp metallic cracks, though somewhat muted by the steam-induced blast.
She reached out to her [Woven Root Hex], twisting and flexing the roots into tension, pulling the sagging assembly of metal and the giant reservoir of molten metal toward the damaged strut. The roots withered where they contacted the superheated metal cladding, and she forced more root ends to split and twine around them, reinforcing the weave.
Another blast sounded off, and the ice shattered by the chamber entrance above their heads. What descended from the entry was some new, fresh hell.
She didn’t know the wasps came in variants that were on fire. She also hadn't seen any that measured about the same length as her own body, and looked very irritated. It spotted all three of them, then shot out fiery stingers from its abdomen as if it were an automated ballista.
Wasps should not have ballistas for stingers. It sounded like an absolutely absurd, slightly broken evolution, and this one might kill her if she didn't deal with it fast.
She dove to the side while Norikatu and Kasfew took flight, intending to take on this new threat. Kasfew threw a fiery blast at it, but it only further enraged the insect, shooting its stingers and making an attempt to grab him midair with deadly, sharp talons that glowed with a cherry red intensity.
Neska shot multiple [Venom Bolts] into its torso, but they weren’t effective, only temporarily stunning it in mid-air. It zoomed around, coming at her with a hail of stingers and otherwise ignoring Kasfew and Noricatu. Syrona tried to pelt it with mana bolts, but the projectiles were too puny to do any meaningful damage.
Neska’s heart swelled. Her familiar really had a rare determination, and she sent a mental directive for the coatyl to stay safe and let the others handle it.
She did have a few ideas on how to combat this thing. The biggest weapon in the room was the unstable smelter, slowly leaking more material onto the floor. “Nori! Hit it with a blast of ice! The steam explosion should shift its position!”
The frost bird let out a warble of acknowledgment. “Where do you want it?!”
“Right by the smelter, in the destruction path!" Neska kept firing off mana bolts, feeling the increasing tingle of mana exhaustion setting in. She grabbed a mana potion and tipped it back; she only had one in reserve, having gone through them far quicker than she liked.
Neska jumped to the side as fiery blasts rained down far too close to her, scalding her scales and leaving her reeling from the intense heat. She might like it warm, but she was no dragon. This would burn her to a crisp.
Noricatu shot out a stream of ice from her beak, creating a billowing blast of steam that staggered the blazing wasp mid-air. It lurched to the right, barely missing Neska, springing to the side with a well-placed [Coiled strike], allowing her to dodge out of the way seamlessly.
At the same time, she’d already grabbed another boom stick and lit it with her [Ember Hex], tossing it to airburst directly over the creature’s head. In hindsight, it might be easier to heat the explosives with her hex, without igniting the wick first.
The creature’s wings sputtered, but regained their flames in a few seconds. She blasted more [Mana bolts] in that brief moment it lost the protective fire shield. “Hit it again!” Neska shouted out.
Kasfew’s flames were ineffective, but Noricatu’s ice blasted it off trajectory again, just as it cast out a gout of flame from its mandibles. Why was this thing targeting her, of all people?!
The liquified spittle ignited the rock itself, burning with an intensity that seared Neska’s scales, even from a distance. It was casting out mana-infused flames that even she wouldn’t attempt to get near. She bounced to the side, taking one more explosive and casting it directly at the creature.
The flames of the creature’s wings set off the explosive, flinging it down onto the ground in front of the smelter. “Noricatu, hold it in place!” she screamed out. “Kasfew, blast it with everything you’ve got!”
Each of them gave sharp replies affirming their commitment. Neska reached out with spare roots as the pyro wasp tried to slash with one of its legs, missing her as she coiled her torso backward, dodging left and right. Each swiping blow would be enough to cut her in half, were it to land. Even with the near misses, the searing heat was enough to burn her scales from the proximity.
She lashed out with her roots at the same time as Noricatu and Kasfew bombarded the fire wasp with a full spread of abilities, icy shards melting to steam and concussive blasts from his wings buffeting the air violently.
The roots burned, but they still held firm around the creature’s torso. She reached out with her other arm, tensioning the roots attached to the foundering smelter. Metal buckled as she increased the strain from the amount of force she applied through the roots, letting out a frustrated hiss, then a scream of fervor. Almost...there!
Metal wiring snapped and plated supports creaked, then built in volume. The structure began to buckle under the tension, and the entire smelter assembly began to topple past the point of no return. The machinery and its molten contents collapsed forward, spilling a wave of molten metal and ore down onto the struggling wasp. Neska used her [Spring Scales] to leap to safety, just as a taloned leg grazed her serpentine body.
She landed in a coiled heap, screaming at the smoldering cut and blackened scales along her lower body. She clutched at her injured body and turned to see the wasp get washed away with a wave of molten metal.
It shrilled with an inhuman pitch, flailing as the molten material simultaneously crushed and burned it alive. The liquified material cascaded down the low pitch of the cavern, draining into the adjoining tunnels like an eerie river of five. Neska heard distant shrills of the wasps and the goblins shrieking and, presumably, running for their lives.
Noricatu landed by her, kneeling and gasping at Neska’s injury. “Hold on, stay still! This might hurt, but it’ll lessen the severity of the burn!” she insisted. Neska grimaced but rapidly nodded her head, pulling her hand away from the foot-long cut over blackened scales. The frost bird let out a trickle of hoar frost that formed spikes and little hexagonal patterns before tracing across Neska’s damaged scales.
It hurt. But it also took the worst of the burn away. She clenched her snout and let out a suppressed groan, clutching Noricatu’s free hand.
In the distance, she heard more wasps being incinerated by the wave of smelter contents. Vivi’s voice wavered as she fought through the pain, shouting at her to hold on. Noricatu also reached out for an injection device and drove it between Neska’s scales, targeting the injury.
She felt the burn fade, and her vision flickered for a brief moment.
Level Increased
Witch 14 → Witch 15
Ability Proficiency Increase
Ember Hex 10 > 11
Coiled Strike 9 > 10
Venom Bolt 18 > 19
2 Essence Points Gained
3 Attribute Points Gained
…You crazy, crazy lamia, Neska…