Riftside 3 - Chapter 26

“…and then the Emmets chased us for a long time. By the time we closed on the Ironclad Ravine, we had finally outrun them.”

I didn’t mention how Roq had carried Knut and I, while the girls all held onto him, running alongside. It had given us enough distance that by the time I ran out of mana and he turned back into a warhammer, Eryn helped me store him, and he used Blood Forge to cure me of the toxin. Then I carried Knut until he could move, while the girls killed ants while we ran. Eryn had even hit level twelve on the way, while Lan tipped over to twenty-four.

The air in Harold Markwell’s office was so thick it felt like we could have carved it into blocks and sold it to the masons working on the new keep. The room was far too small for this many egos. Vos sat stiffly in Harold’s chair, a thundercloud of disapproval, with Rone by his side. Mara stood in the corner, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable. Edwin was beside me, while Harold stood leaned against the door.

“What about the scouts?” he asked, his voice a weary rasp. “Any sign?”

I shook my head, the motion heavy. “We found what was left of them. Or, at least I think it was. No bodies, but enough gear for two scouts, chewed up spit out. My guess is the Emmets poisoned them and dragged them back for…food.”

A grim silence settled over the room.

“The toxin,” I continued, my voice low. “It paralyzes you completely. We experienced it firsthand. With the bugs attacking from below, the scouts wouldn’t have stood a chance. They would have been conscious but unable to move as they were dragged into that hellhole.”

“So despite seeing how dangerous they were, you decided to take your party into the hive to kill the Queen,” Vos said. It wasn’t a question.

“It was not a planned engagement,” I said, meeting his accusatory gaze. “As I said, I fell through the ground and then we fought our way up. Even though we collapsed their tunnels with a Glowcap, she dug her way up.”

Harold rubbed a temple. “Why would the Hive Mind let us kill not one, but two variants? The Steel Scrambler and now this Queen. It doesn’t make sense. It’s as if it’s testing us, but sacrificing its strongest pieces to do so.”

“Let us?” I scoffed, unable to keep the anger from my voice. “The Emmets nearly killed us all. We got lucky.”

“Preposterously lucky,” Vos stated flatly.

“And the Scrambler raid was a near-perfect execution of a solid plan. The Hive Mind thought us the prey,” I said, feeling my blood start to boil. “But we were the hunters.”

“I just mean—” Harold started saying, but I interrupted him.

“This is why we have to go on the offensive,” I said, clenching my fist. “It is not letting us do anything. It is underestimating our power.”

“This is exactly why I believe these high-risk excursions are a catastrophic failure of judgment!” Vos said. “It is nothing but sticking you head in the Hive Mind’s trap, just to see it snap shut and then try to fight your way out. It will end in disaster.”

“And if we hadn’t gone, that colony would still be growing!” I countered, leaning forward and tapping the desk with a finger, making it creak. “That Queen was laying thousands of eggs. Thousands. The Scrambler had a clutch of its own. A hundred, at least. What do you think would have happened if she’d been allowed to hatch her brood and attacked Sentinel Station together with the Scrambler? Would they even need a normal attack wave? Our walls wouldn’t have mattered. They dig, Vos. The Emmets, especially. Sentinel Station couldn’t have stopped them. First Steel likely would. But the gate house?” I looked at Edwin. “And what if they came through the Rift and immediately buried into the moat and underneath First Steel? I know the foundation is set deep, but the colony we saw? I think it might have gone deeper.”

“We need to prepare for a major attack, Vos,” I said, my voice dropping. “And not just that, but we have to head out and cut them down. The Hive Mind is massing its army for attack. I feel it. They’re not just probing anymore.”

At that, Vos went silent, and I looked around to meet their eyes. 

Edwin gave me a nod. Mara shook her head, barely noticable. Official Rone just looked down into his lap. And Harold, he looked as if I’d just told him his dog had died.

“Would you please come take a look at this thing?” I asked. “See what you would pit our walls against.”

*

I blinked at the dust billowing up after I swiped the Emmet Queen’s carcass from my newly expanded spatial storage. It was even more terrifying in the fading light. The type of monster children, and adult, had nightmares about. Crimson plating, plumes, legs for days, and not in the good way, and mandibles to cut a Steelhusk tree. With the magic of the Rift having restored it, not a trace of the brutal battle remained. Not even a sign of the gaping wound Roq had torn in its chest.

It looked pristine, and nearly alive.

Edwin let out a long, low whistle. Harold’s face went pale. Rone adjusted his spectacles and swallowed. Whether in greed, fear, or logistics, I didn’t know.

Vos simply sighed.

“By my father’s beard…” Pa murmured, hobbling a slow, reverent circle around the beast. Seems his knee was acting up.

“This is a masterwork of death,” Mara said.

“She sure is a beaut, ain’t she?” I joked, the words tasting like ash. “Pa. Would you please find the tube in her mouth and follow back. Carefully. I want you to find the venom sac.”

Pa nodded and set to work with the precision of a surgeon. A while later he had cut his way in and located a large sac nestled deep in the Queen’s throat.

“Give it a squeeze,” I said, holding a steelhusk bowl beneath the tube. “Gently, mind you. I have no need to experience its effects again.”

“Got it,” Pa said.

A slow drip of milky fluid welled up, and I caught it all in the bowl.

I turned, holding it up. “Mara. Vos. Who’s the strongest among you?”

“Mara,” Vos said. “What of it?”

“Would you mind if I splashed a bit of this on your legs?” I asked, looking at her.

Mara didn’t even blink. “Do it.”

“Don’t be daft,” Vos said, looking horrified. “We at least need a proper healer here! Someone send for Doctor Ridley.” 

Ignoring him, I tossed the toxin onto Mara’s thighs, making sure to get it high enough so some would drip through her armor.

Mara’s eyes widened in surprise as her legs simply gave out from under her, and she collapsed to the ground. She caught herself on her powerful arms, but her legs were completely unresponsive.

“Sweet, suffering bells,” she cursed, her voice laced with genuine fear. “I can’t… I can’t feel my legs!”

Vos stared, his mouth agape.

“You’ll be fine in a few minutes, tops,” I said, giving her a nod. “And this proves my point. This thing,” I pointed at the Queen, “Was either made to kill humans, or picked because it could do so, perfectly. Liquid bypasses armor. Maybe we could make a liquid proof undercoat, but how many? And at what cost? All this toxin needs do is touch you and your body is useless. Imagine a hundred of them spitting this stuff over the walls of Sentinel Station. A thousand. What if they came bursting forth deep inside, right by the rift? Think we could stop them? No.” I looked around at those gathered, and proposed my plan.

“We have to prepare a new raid on the Twisted Titan,” I said. “And this time go all the way, killing it before it kills us.”

“Spoken true,” Edwin said, nodding.

“Hear, hear,” Pa said, and Ma nodded, through I saw the fear on her face. She knew who’d be at the forefront, as did I.

Vos and Mara exchanged a look, a silent conversation passing between them that I couldn’t read, and I frowned.

“Torsten,” Harald said, “This is a good time for you to go see your family.”

He understood, and left at once. 

Seemed they figured Ma and Pa already knew anything I knew. 

They weren’t wrong.

“We can’t do it, Ash,” Mara said once the apprentice had left. She was still struggling to sit, propping herself up with her arms.

“Why not?” I demanded. “We have the strength. We have the momentum!”

“Because the Guild isn’t ready for what will come after,” Vos said, his voice grim. “An attack on a local Hive Mind, a successful one, might trigger a broader assault across all of Noros. We can’t win a single battle only to lose the war. What we need now is to buy time. Time to use our recent discoveries, ones you had a huge hand in,” he nodded to me, “so we can level up more adventurers. That is the only way we can get the upper hand we need to actually win this war.”

“So what in the cracked bells do you want us to do!?” I asked, my voice rising.

“Defend,” Mara said. She had given up sitting, and now just lay reclined back as if resting. “We’ve seen it happen many times before. A local Hive Mind grows in power, and when they do, they will attack, with great force. Once we defeat its attack, culling its forces, that is when we expand Riftside, leaving the local Hive Mind to lick its wounds.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“That is how we take territory,” Official Rone said, adjusting his spectacles. “We’ll spend the time wisely. Opening a mining operation where you defeated Quarris, and harvest the roots from the glowing cave. I’ve also got my eye on that rather unique tree which used to be surrounded by Steel Scuttlers. The metallic one.”

“Those resources will be used to strengthen Dawnwatch and Sentinel Station,” Vos said. “Setting you up to let it break itself on your walls again and again, with us conquering territory with each of its many defeats.”

“That’s not conquering,” I said, incredulous. “Thats…thats…vulturism! How can we grow strong enough to oppose an empire by consuming what scraps they leave behind when attacking?”

“We are in a struggle for our very existence,” Vos said, his voice filled with authority. “This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

“But we need to hunt,” I insisted. “Every monster we slay is one less we have to face on the walls. Just…look at this one!” I walked over and kicked the Queen’s carcass, breathing heavy. “She’d decimate our defences, and now she’s dead! Sure, we got lucky, but we bloody need luck to win this war at all!”

Harold stepped forward then, placing a placating hand on my arm. “Ash, son, they have a point. And you have to see it from our side, too. When your party is out Riftside, our defenses here are significantly weaker.”

I scoffed. “Really, Harold? You trying to play to my pride?”

“Not at all,” the man said. “I’m appealing to your intelligence, of which you should have inherited at least some from your Ma.”

She chuckled.

“Stay here, just for a few days,” Harold continued. “Let us get the new ballista mounted on First Steel. Let the reinforced doors for Sentinel Station be fitted. The new guards who just arrived need a few standard wave defences under their belts. Let us see them bloody their weapons. Then you can go out again. Spend your time wisely and you’ll be both heading out stronger, and defending a stronger town.”

I looked from Harold’s annoyingly sincere face to Vos’s stubborn one, and finally to Mara, who was slowly beginning to regain feeling in her legs.

Ma and Pa just smiled at me, standing with their arms around one another. Would I forgive myself if the Hive Mind attacked while we were out hunting and the town fell?

I hated it, but Harold wasn’t wrong.

A few days could make a difference.

I let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Fine. A few days.”

Official Rone clapped his hands “Good. That settled, let’s talk monsters. A magnificent specimen,” he said, nodding at the Queen. “Central Command would be very interested in acquiring a piece of it.”

“Half the monster,” Harold said before I could even think of a reply, smoothly stepping between Rone and the carcass. “For… let’s say forty-five Mind Gems. On account of the potent, armor-ignoring poison. A strategic asset, you understand.”

I kept my face a perfect mask of calm, just smiling faintly.

Rone looked at Harold, then at me. “Why are you bargaining on Adventurer Aldrich’s behalf, Guildmaster?”

“It’s a fair price,” Harold said with a shrug. “More than fair, really.”

“It is a fair price,” I agreed, nodding slowly.

Rone seemed to consider it, then gave a curt nod. “Fine.” He produced a pouch and counted out forty-five Mind Gems, dropping them in.”

Pa’s eyebrows shot up. “Since when do you carry that kind of wealth on you, Official?”

“Since the caravan arrived and Dawnwatch’s adventurers started bringing back Rift-blessed variants,” Rone said, and tossed me the pouch.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I turned lobbed the entire pouch of gems to Harold. “I figure the part bought is from your share,” I said.

Rone’s eyes went wide. “Your share? Guildmaster, what right do you have to this monster?”

Harold snapped the pouch out of the air with a serene smile. “Oh, I bought a part of it from Ash already. But I am more than happy to graciously sell part of it on to Central Command.”

“Part? For how much?” Rone demanded, his face flushing.

Harold’s smile widened into a full-blown grin. “Two-thirds of the carcass,” he said, hefting the pouch of gems. “For thirty Mind Gems.”

A choked, strangled sound escaped Rone, while Vos let out a short, sharp bark of laughter.

“This,” Harold said, looking immensely pleased with himself, “has been the fastest and highest return on investment I’ve ever made. A fifty percent profit in under a day. Thank you for your business, Official Rone, Ash.”