Incursion Empire Ch. 22

Twenty-Two

Heat Resistance 

F-2 

Heat Resistance 

F-3 

The alerts chimed in his interface as Dane felt as the boiling mud slowly cooked him. The thin pipe he had built of long grass strands was poor for the situation, but was allowing him to breathe enough as he crawled through the channel. It was the closest of the recent blasts where Gabe had burned down the monsters. 

“It’s a lot deeper than I thought it’d be.” The mud was deep enough he could sink into it above his head. It was long and hard to climb up the hill through the thick sludge as he got closer to the crest of the hill. 

He was waiting for a distraction. The second wave of the monsters would be reaching range in seconds. The first wave of them had been pulverized by the Aleg-Kinuun, Gabe had simply leapt at them and hit them with a scaled palm. It had blown apart in a spray of stones that had decorated the hillside. 

It had stopped the other warlock from spraying hellfire for a few minutes though. Which had been enough time for Dane to hatch this plan. Tolic should be finding whoever was summoning the monsters and sending them up the hill. If he could posses the creature, then they’d have a wave of expendable monsters to send up to the hill. If Tolic could make the creature continue to create the golems.

It would be a boon, but not exactly required. Dane could finish off this mission by himself if he needed to. He kept crawling through the mud, ignoring the burn as he crawled up further and further.

Heat Resistance 

F-4

It was slowly being boiled where his innate resistance was in a race to see if it could level fast enough to keep him from cooking. The mud got in his teeth, his mouth, eyes, ears, caked his hair and slid like hot slime down his clothes. Dane just gritted his teeth and kept climbing, working his way further up the hill as blasts of power raged down.

Anytime the opposing warlock fired a bolt of hillfire too close, he could feel the heat ratchet up higher. Higher and higher he went till he reached the edge of the hill, where the ground leveled off. Dane peeked his eyes out of the mud, but couldn’t see anything. He scraped at his eyes, the thick casing of mud sliding free as he struggled to look over the battlefield. 

“This was a terrible idea.” The top of the hill had been transformed in the hour or so since he’d departed. Ash and mud mixed in a slurry as the ragged looking warlock ran around the edges of the small hill, firing blast after blast of power down it. 

Even with his draconic power he was ragged, his skin charred, cracked, and bleeding. Gabe didn’t stop firing though, no matter how painful the wounds on his arm were, the dragonkin kept up the intense barrage. 

Dane waited patiently until the Aleg-Kinuun warlock had his back turned to him. The warlock had sent a streamer of power down the opposite side of the hill. From across the field he could tell it was weaker. The blast of power not having the previous strength of the others. 

Schlurp the mud sucked at him as he rose, clinging to his body and resisting his rise. Dane got out of the stream and onto more solid ground, but even here on the top of the hill the ground was soft and sucked at his boots. Flicking his wrists to send thick wads of dark mud to the ground, he reached inside his tattered clothes to pull out the sacrificial dagger. 

Dane ran, close to the ground, each of his steps followed by a loud plop as the mud fell back into place. Each time he stepped it was another warning sound to the other warlock, but the dragonkin had fallen to a knee and was looking down the far side of the hill, seemingly oblivious of Dane’s approach.

“There’s no way he can’t hear me.”  Still, the dragonkin didn’t turn. It was cradling its casting arm as it slumped on the ground. The dagger glittered in his hand as Dane got closer, steps away from the dragonkin. His heart hammered, beating like a drum, adrenaline and fear mingled together in a mixture primed for war. He cocked his arm back, ready to stab the Aleg-Kinuun in the back where its heart should be.

Dane stabbed, piercing through the robes and into flesh. His blade passed by with nothing stopping it. The cloaked figure had disappeared the moment he had touched it, fading away like a mirage. 

“Shit.” Dane threw himself down the slope of the hill, sliding across the slick surface as a bolt of hellfire roasted the spot he had just been in.

Heat Resistance 

F-5

“Not the time,” Dane spat as he swiped away the notification, spinning and twirling as he fell further down hill. The ground he had taken minutes to slowly work his way up took only moments to slide back down. As he spun he caught a glimpse of the warlock on top of the hill, his arm still just as charred as it had been. Gabe lifted his arm, pointing down on Dane with a finality of movement that preceded death. 

Gabe went flying, a rock arm swatting the warlock like he was a pesky fly. Dane spun again in his uncontrollable descent, leveling off at the last moment to slide between a pair of trees and come to a gentle stop inside the wreckage of the outer forest. 

“I got him!” Tolic crowed as he appeared out of the shadows. He was in the flesh suit of a thin, green, root creature. It looked like a stereotypical magic using creature, lacking in strength and build as Tolic piloted the creature up to him.

“He die?” Dane asked, out of breath as he struggled to get the world to stop spinning for a moment. 

“No. I didn’t get an alert that he died. But he’s off the hill!” 

“What are you in?” Dane asked, getting to his feet slowly. 

“Some type of nature spirit casting thing. I don’t know. Didn’t have much in the way of resistance honestly. But, I can’t summon more of those rock creatures, only control the ones this thing already summoned. Only have one left.”

“Gabe can cast some type of illusion spell. Not summoning.” Tolic stilled for a second and then looked up, almost sheepishly. It was a strange look to say the least, especially on a root creature that didn’t have a traditional fleshy face.

“Oh, well, I guess he didn’t have to have summoning as his class skill. Maybe that’s why he can throw around so much hellfire?” Dane glared at his summon before shaking his head and starting to trot in the direction that Gabe had been thrown. The countdown timer was still going on the challenge and Gabe was firmly planted in the top spot. The list of contestants had been whittled down by a large number, the top fifty list no longer able to be fully filled out. 

“Probably took heat resistance or some other body fortifying skills to partner with his natural resistances. He still looks terrible, but we can’t be certain it isn’t a facade. The lizard is dangerous,” Dane said to his summon. Tolic kept up with ease, the long rangy legs of the mob he had inhabited allowed him to run casually through the forest. The body bent and twisted easily, roots shifting to twist the body out of the way of obstacles.

“How many more of those summoners are there?” Dane asked. He kept an alert eye on the surrounding hillside, looking through the forest to see if there were more generated monsters or combatives in the area. The forest was growing quiet, purged of the numerous and noisy beasts that had filled the area. Mana was still thick enough that the air felt heavy. The challenge was nowhere close to being over.

“Only a few. They’re pretty fragile and a squad of the natives were going through and clearing them out. Psionic missiles suck. Also there’s more goblins massing on the far side, where they were earlier. They killed a few of the rock monsters and are getting ready to assault the hill. Without Gabe up there, I think they’ll have a clear shot.” 

“Great. Keep an eye out, he should be close by,” Dane ordered as they turned to where Gabe’s trajectory should have sent him. That he wasn’t dead was a minor miracle, but Aleg-Kinuun were infamous for how sturdy they were. 

It was anticlimactic. Gabe was pressed against the trunk of a tree, bent backwards around it. His limbs were twisted in unnatural angles, his entire body strangely limp. 

“Think his spine is broken?” Tolic asked conversationally as they stalked up to him.

“Can you see through illusions?” Dane asked, freezing at the sight of the wounded Aleg-Kinuun. 

“No. Shit.” Tolic spun his body around while Dane threw himself to the side. A cloaked form hit Tolic and shattered the body into pieces. The injured illusion faded away as Dane spun, dagger close to his side as he looked at Gabe face to face for the first time. 

Gabe was tall, nearly seven feet, even hunched over. The tattered remnants of his cloak hardly concealed the powerful body of the dragonkin as he stared at Dane with his cat slit golden eyes. Red scales glittered like a thousand jewels, the contrast to his blackened casting arm severe. There the scales were charred, cracked, ugly things. A forked tongue flickered on the air as retractable claws slowly slid out of his thick fingers. 

“You are who I am to hunt? Beneath me,” Gabe said. His voice was deep and raspy. Dane kept his face blank but internally he prickled at that. He had spent his entire life being called unworthy or lesser. He wasn’t going to take it from a lizard. 

Tolic was off to the side, floating a few feet away from their stare off. His destroyed flesh suit was nothing more than a collection of fallen twigs on the ground. Dane gave the other warlock a smile as twirled the dagger between his fingers, settling into a crouch. Neither of them were in any condition to use their hellfire and Tolic was out of the fight unless he could quickly find a new body to posses. 

It was to be a fight of claws vs. steel.