Vol. 2, Ch. 112: Echoes
Neska felt the world swirling back into focus, and she gasped as a pair of tiny needle-like pinpoints on her wrist stung, delivering a dose of liquid fire into her veins.
She gasped and raised her body upright. “How long,” she heaved, “was I out?”
Noricatu put a reassuring wing claw on her shoulder. She didn't have a 'hand' in the normal sense, as it wasn't analogous to most other humanoid limbs. It was like half a hand, with the remaining fingers forming the other half of her wing.
“Easy there. You were spinning on the edge of consciousness for a good thirty seconds. Your little fluffy nightmare bit you and gave you an injection of venom, too.”
She heard a muffled trill from Syrona, and turned to see her familiar's fangs latched onto the top of her hand. That explained the light needling pain, but was followed by soothing relief spreading through her body. It felt like a welcome reprieve from the liquid fire that had been injected into her blood. “So I didn’t pass out?”
“No. You did not.” Kasfew knelt next to her, wings folded tightly against his back. In his hands, he had a bandage pack, which he placed over her damaged scales. She let out a hiss of pain, but managed to keep her reaction muted otherwise. “That was insane, Cassia. You are certifiably crazy–ow, stop doing that!”
Noricatu balled up her wing claw and punched Kasfew in the shoulder again for good measure. This time, a flash of frost traced from the impact point, and he rubbed his shoulder gingerly.
“Don’t badmouth the woman who just collectively saved our asses! Oh, by the way, you toasted that giant fire wasp, and I resealed the entry points. We’re safe, for the time being.” Once again, Noricatu turned cheery when talking to Neska. "Can you slither?"
"I would say walk, but...yeah, the lack of legs kind of makes that phrase a joke," she chuckled.
A distant explosion ran contrary to that assertion they were still safe. Neska winced, reaching for Noricatu’s wing claw. In a way, it was like she had a ‘hand’ on the knuckle of her wing joint, unlike Kasfew and his fully formed wings on his back. “Thank you, by the way. And thank you, Syrona,” she said, rubbing her hand where the coatyl had bitten into her hand.
Then the thought clicked. “Wait. Syrona, you have the [Love Bites] evolution, too?”
The coatyl chirped, coiling around her arm and shoulder, while Kasfew shuddered at the familiar, as if seeing it made him physically ill. Neska ignored his discomfort and rubbed Syrona’s head. “Good job, dear. Well, it appears I have found a workaround to being immune to my own venom types. Sort of.”
“Your ability is named [Love Bites]?” Kasfew stared at her, his voice dripping with disbelief. “I thought you were joking before, that cannot possibly be an ability name.”
“It is. Okay, I’m done resting; we’ve got bugs to crush.” Neska dusted herself off, wincing when the scales shifted on her side. That would take time to heal fully, and she wondered if she should use up one of her healing potions. The pain was already more tolerable thanks to Syrona’s curative venom; she’d have to remember to experiment with what else the clever little coatyl could do. “Are you two good to go?”
“I am,” Noricatu affirmed. “Uh, that was a little intense. You want to keep going?”
“We cannot allow this hive to survive. Most of the hatchery chambers I came across were filled with larvae, but I’ve yet to see the swarm's full might. They should have tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of assault drones. Also, don’t crush the grubs or worker drones. The work drones do not attack unless provoked, and will completely ignore you if left alone."
“That’s…odd behavior. They don't all attack?" Kasfew rose and dusted himself off, looking sootier than before.
"No. Not every Varadur wants us dead by instinct. It's a choice," Neska said darkly. "We've got a path to follow, now: the giant hole we just burned through the hive, down to the bottom floor. From there, we kill the Instance core. Capturing it is not probable, not without immense risk on our parts.” Neska clicked her relay. “Cassia here. Anyone on this frequency, respond.”
Corvin clicked in a few seconds later, coughing. “Well, that was damn close. Thanks for the warning on the nest filled with red-hot metal flowing at insane speeds through the tunnels. I will never forget the scent of roast bugs, so long as I live.”
A new voice crackled onto the relay. “Cassia? You in one piece?” Jurik called out.
Her heart swelled at hearing the veteran’s voice again. “I'm alright. I’m assuming the bugs didn’t carry you off, did they?” she asked calmly.
“Never. They’re badly mismatched against our team. Between Juni, Syra, and the others, we’ve been cutting through them. The only issue was when the goblins tried suicide bomb tactics. Messy.” Jurik sounded rather annoyed by that last one. “Communication has been rather spotty. These Instances hinder group coordination. We’ll have to plan accordingly next time."
“This is a new feature, Lieutenant. Instances didn’t always present this kind of challenge in damping signals on the relays. That might be a new evolution,” Corvin warned. “All teams, converge on the source of the smoke and the burning bugs. I think our lamia gave a rather…uh…distinct waypoint to navigate toward.”
“A few thousand tons of smelted metal and crystal have that effect,” Neska muttered. She glanced at the tunnel and the still-burning ground. “Uh, Noricatu, I might need a favor. I don’t think I’ll be able to cross that ground that we just burned a path through.”
The frostbird smiled proudly, forming a small clump of ice in her hand and tossing it like a child's toy ball. “You heard the lady, Kasfew. We'd better hotfoot it.”
Kasfew clucked in irritation. “See? See?! The snake is a bad influence! The puns!"
“Well, if you don’t feel like coming along,” Neska said, a smirk crossing her snout, “Guess who will get the credit for taking on the dangerous horde of bugs, by themselves?”
He clenched his hand, and fire simmered in his eyes. “Alright, fine. But I get the prestige of killing the core. I need to prove that I can be among the strongest of the Awakened and surpass everyone.”
With a little help from Noricatu carving a path with her powers to cool the surface, they maneuvered down the passage where the molten metal had oozed a path of destruction. To say it was immense was an understatement.
Burnt bug was the only scent she would ever know for a long, long time.
Even with the icy blasts Noricatu fired off to cool the ground, Neska felt her scales growing uncomfortably warm. Honeycomb and papery nest material burned along the hollowed-out passageways, filling the air with smoke that slowly drifted upward into small vent holes.
All around her, the bugs roasted and screeched. Syrona tucked herself into Neska's satchel, trembling.
“This…this was too much.” Kasfew’s words were little more than a whisper, and he had a thousand-yard stare as he surveilled the destruction.
Neska shook her head, bow ready. “No, it isn’t. These would have all hatched into full-grown parasitic wasps, planted inside friends, fellow students. The wasps would have used them as biological hatcheries and to control their actions. That’s a grim fate that no one deserves,” she reminded him. Everywhere, the larvae and the papery material burned, and by the sound of it, the fire was slowly spreading through the nest, filling it with smoke.
“Divines. I smell burnt bug everywhere,” Jurik said, stifling a cough in the background. “Cassia, you really kicked the hornet's nest this time, didn’t you?”
“Of course, this was Cassia’s plan,” Juni said cheerfully over the relay. “Would you expect her not to leverage every opportunity to battle these horrific things?”
"This feels like Bregin all over again. Effective, but messy," Jurik concurred, laughing even with the smoke causing him to break into a coughing fit.
Noricatu kept to the ground, as did Kasfew; there was too much smoke rising from the burning material. “At least the smoke is keeping the bugs at bay,” the firebird muttered, taking a bandanna and soaking it in a canteen before wrapping it around his beak and nostrils. Neska wasn’t bothered by the smoke, but this basking warmth was too much, even for her.
She’d felt a trickle of power for every wasp and larva they’d killed. She hadn't even bothered with assigning her two free Essence Points. “Who else got levels from that?” she asked quietly.
“Me. Not that I revel in the idea of death for power. Never have,” the frostbird replied, an aura of icy particles wrapping around her body to keep her cool from the flames. “I see a hole up ahead where it burned clear through the hive material."
Neska felt the entire hive vibrate beneath her belly. Rock crumbled and shifted, and the ground no longer felt level. She was fine, given her large contact area with the ground, but Kasfew and Noricatu fluttered their wings in response, the former going alert and creating a ball of flame in his hand.
“What the hell was that?” he uttered, squinting to see past the smoke. A distant screech of bugs burning echoed through the tunnels, and the crackle of burning hive material was ever-present. The larvae couldn’t take the heat and cooked, letting out wailing gasps as they boiled.
Neska could feel something she hadn’t before. A presence. It almost felt like that blanket of weight pressing down on her psyche when Felix, or the Voice, had been trying to corrupt her. Yet, this was not quite the same.
She heard the flutter of thousands of wings in the walls, a droning hum only interrupted by the crackling fire.
Then, she heard it as the room spun and her vision went fuzzy.
We see you, heiress of the Great Serpent…you bring death to our collective…so much death…
…Why are we warranted destruction, again and again?
She felt a small spike of pain in her head that faded. She winced and pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to shake away the feeling.
“You alright?” Noricatu asked, one wing claw resting on Neska’s shoulder.
“I’m fine. The fumes, they’re a little much.” She tried to ignore how her heart was racing. An itching, gnawing sensation of a hundred thousand bugs crawling between her scales only intensified after that outburst.
I’m right here, whoever you are. We’re connected, aren’t we? The Collective of the Varadur. One of you clued me in.
The presence remained, lurking, speaking in a thousand buzzing wings and clicking mandibles. The sound was orchestrated with such immense complexity that it shouldn't be possible. Yet the voice answered.
We are the Varadur. We are a swarm of many, slaves of the Beasts. You come to poison and destroy our hive, death bringer, Daughter of the Serpent. As you have before.
We remember…
She didn’t feel herself lose traction, but Noricatu gripped her shoulder like a vice, looking Neska in the eyes. “Shit, we need to get you away from the smoke; you look completely out of it.”
“I’m…fine,” Neska coughed. She grabbed a scrap of towel from her bag and used her canteen to create a crude filter. It helped somewhat when she wrapped her snout with it. Her alchemical gas mask would be an ideal choice. That was getting packed next time. “Let’s keep going. We don’t know how long before these fires go out, and we have the whole swarm over our heads.”
“I see it, looks like it’s a bit of a drop,” Kasfew pointed out, wincing from the intense heat. Even this was proving a bit much for him, as the rising heat rippled across his feathers, blasting Neska as if a small furnace door had opened in front of her, the air bending under the heat.
The opening was melted and burning hive material, and the floor had collapsed completely. The distance between passageways must have been very short, or the resin had grown over another passage and sealed it, cutting it off from below. Smoke emanated from the opening, and Neska peered down to gauge how far it was to the bottom.
The drop must have been at least fifty feet. Her [Spring Scales] should do the trick here. She’d fallen from higher heights than this and come out unharmed. However, the metal had pooled at the bottom, radiating heat and light. She pointed at it for Nori to take note of.
“I’ll cool it enough for you to land safely,” Noricatu assured her, taking flight and gliding down to another vantage point, using her powerful talons to grip the rock and unburnt hive material. She continued this careful descent, casting out blasts of ice that slowly cooled the raging inferno.
Neska peered down, noting the path, and used her [Spring Scales] to vault over to another safety spot, a crumbling ledge further down, and repeated the process until she was all the way at the bottom. The pooled melted resin had all descended to this point, as had the metal, slowly dripping down to another side passage with a slight slope. “All teams, be advised. You’ll need rope or enhanced mobility powers to get to the bottom. The giant burning hole is as clear as day; we’re near the bottom of the hive.”
“Don’t go in there without us,” Corvin cautioned.
“Seconded. Cassia, you should wait for the team,” Hadley affirmed. “Brent and the others are alright; they’re with me. Brent complained you were going to hog all the action.”
“You two getting along?” Neska asked casually.
The response took longer than she expected as she clawed some resin material for sampling into one of her containment vials. “Brent is…he’s good. He thought he detected your scent even through this mess, but the smoke was too much. We had to detour through another tunnel set. Did you have to set the whole place on fire?”
“Would you have, if given an opportunity?”
“No comment,” Hadley replied, chuckling softly. “Okay, everyone, time to get serious. There is no telling what we'll find at the bottom, and it’s probably too much to hope we wiped out the Instance core. Everyone keep Neska’s antivenom samples on hand. Support members, cast defense powers where applicable. We’re expecting a real fight. The Instance core will be well guarded, possibly magic-shielded. It's advisable to damage its shell or the monsters guarding it first."
"Hang on. Is the Instance core invulnerable if its guardian is alive?” Neska asked.
"Not quite invulnerable; just much harder to kill," Jurik corrected. "If the connected monster is killed, it becomes weaker."
“Good to know, let’s talk strategy. I have an idea.”
She laid out the plan, as simple as it was. They weren’t interested in having a knock-out, drag-out fight. They wanted to end this swiftly and decisively.
That meant destroying the core with overwhelming damage. Neska raised the idea of using the goblin boomsticks to destabilize the hive. That might lead to a team wipe, so she emphasized it was a plan of last resort.
She wasn’t interested in parlaying with that insidious voice of either the Instance core or the monsters guarding it. If Felix was any indication, this vile nest of abominations needed to be destroyed in its entirety, no exceptions. She didn’t want any more tendrils reaching into her mind, trying to turn her against her friends and humanity as a whole.
We don’t want to be enemies. We have no choice. The Beasts, they sing a song from the heavens. Our minds cloud, our souls are nourished with an ambrosia from the Divines themselves. It compels us. Blood for power. Death for life.
We only wish to survive. To exist.
Your existence threatens everyone I know. Do you know how many of the hive I just killed? Hundreds. Possibly more. Why do you think I will spare you, when the rest of your kind have chosen violence and cruelty at every turn?
…Because we can tell you who you are, serpent. We can give you the power to destroy your true foes…
…Those who hold our chains and demand we die for their visions of grandeur.
Neska came to a halt so suddenly that Kasfew and Noricatu noticed, just as they reached the threshold of another connecting tunnel, covered in the hive material. All the larvae were missing, and some of the pockets in the walls were several times larger than the grubs milling around.
Neska's chest grew tight. Her breathing shallowed out. A chill broke out along her body despite the heat of the burning hive. A chilling realization came to her as she considered all the evidence. All the dying Varadur, trying to warn her of an uncomfortable truth. Even Zhuren had warned her, so long ago.
You aren't monsters. You're slaves.
…Free us...and we can help you.
We can help you stop the Radiant King...and end the purgatory of souls...