Unexpected Healer Book 2 -- Chapter 18

Chapter 18

To say there wasn’t anyone left within the city was technically untrue, as at the far reaches of his vision he could see City Guards up on the walls staring inside the city, standing as still as statues and lit up by the myriad of magical lights in the pre-dawn light.  And if he was also being truthful, saying that nothing was alive was also false, because the Magma Worms were certainly still living, crushing the last of the spectacular buildings that used to make up the livable sections of the city; they looked like angry toddlers running through an enormous sandcastle, kicking it all apart with their hands and feet just because they could. 

But as far as any people living, other than the City Guards, he couldn’t see a single soul.  At least, not in the city, as when he gazed out beyond the walls, he thought he could see thousands of little dots that he could only assume were people, escaping the absolute destruction that the Magma Worms had caused.

Why?  Why didn’t the Guards step in?

The horror of the scene before him was replaced by anger, both at himself and at the Charee City Guards that did nothing to stop all of this from happening.  When he looked at the spot where he thought the Coalition building had been, it had been reduced to rubble just like everything else, so he had no idea what had happened to the high-Level Vice-Leader there, along with the other important leadership from the other Coalition branches within Forgestone.  Whatever had happened to the buildings, it was clear that those powerful people hadn’t participated in the defense, either, as from what he could see of the Worms destroying the last of the buildings near the eastern part of the city, there was still 30 of them rampaging around – just like the Quest said there would be.

He didn’t know why none of them stepped up to protect their own city, but he was going to find out.  Thaden started running toward the western gate, which was on the opposite side of where the monstrous Worms were located, with his sights on the Guards standing on the walls watching impassively as everything fell apart around them.  He ran into a problem almost immediately, however, as the streets that once existed had disappeared, so filled with rubble from the demolished stone buildings that it was nearly impossible to locate them.  The area between himself and the walls was a sea of shattered and crushed stone all strewn together with visible pieces of colorful interior décor sticking out here and there like the innards of a creature bleeding out everywhere. 

Crossing the city was going to take a while, as there was no clear pathway across it.   

Fifteen minutes into his trek toward the walls, the Lifewarden suddenly froze as he crawled over another large slab of broken stone, because the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly prickled.  He slowed his breathing as he tried to figure out what had caused his danger senses to go off, which wasn’t something he’d experienced very often, but he knew he should probably listen to it.

It took him about 30 seconds of listening to it before he realized he wasn’t hearing anything else; more accurately, he couldn’t hear the faraway sounds of the Magma Worms destroying the last part of the city.  Cautiously standing on top of the slap he was crawling over, his vantage point allow him to see over a good portion of the city, and as he looked east he expected to see the Worms there…

…but they were gone. 

He looked at the large dungeon tunnel to see if they had retreated down inside the mountain once they had finished their destructive impulses, be he didn’t see any sign of them.  Uh, oh…

The slight rumble under his feet was the only warning he had as the stone slab he was standing on suddenly rocketed upward under his feet, as a giant, teeth-filled maw attempted to swallow him whole.  Thaden managed to hold onto the side of the slab as it ascended at least 300 feet into the air at an angle, as he was tossed away like discarded trash toward another part of the city.  The slab flipped over while it was in the air, causing him to be under it as it fell back to the ground, but there was nothing he could do; he was pressed against the underside of the slab as it plummeted into a field of broken rubble, and he wasn’t looking forward to the impact, even if he was fairly certain his Fields would save him from instant death.  Just in case, he made sure his Major Death Ward was still active, ensuring that he wouldn’t die upon impact.

It didn’t get that far, however, because as soon as he was within 20 feet of slamming into the deadly rubble of the city, he could only watch in shocked horror as another Worm emerged from below, it mouth opened wide to swallow him up.  He couldn’t move as his body essentially bounced off one of its teeth, and its momentum as it came out of the ground was great enough that it pushed the stone slab back up into the air.

  The act of which inevitably sent him flying once again, and it was all he could do to hold on once again as the slab was sent spinning, until he couldn’t see anything clearly anymore as he spun around.  His grip was nearly not enough as he clutched at a crevice in the stone underneath him and he was almost flung away as the rotational force attempted to eject him outwards, but he clung with every scrap to what he was seeing as his only lifeline; without it, he was fairly certain he might slip right into the open maw of one of the Worms as he descended again.  It might not kill him right away, but he couldn’t imagine what might happen if he was in the belly of one of those monsters even if he had his Fields active.

Thaden was pushed up again, and then again as more of the Worms emerged from below to try and swallow him up, but the sheer impact of their attempted swallowing started to break apart his protective slab.  As he was tossed around like an object in a game of keepaway, it finally broke apart under his hands and he was flung away from the disintegrating stone shield, with his arc at a different trajectory than before.  Finally able to orient himself, he found himself heading toward what appeared to be the center of the city, in a large square that didn’t seem to have as much rubble present – because this central area was dedicated to being an open space where a large garden had been trampled and the trees there snapped like toothpicks. 

He braced himself as he slammed into a remarkably clear space of ground, and the sudden arresting of his momentum made him a bit queasy as he bounced high into the air, before ricocheting off of splintery tree trunk and then rolling along the ground until he came to a complete stop.

“Ugh,” he grunted, his body abused from the drastic changes of acceleration he’d undergone and his hands were bloody from holding onto the slab.  “That was, without a doubt, the worst game of catch I’ve ever participated in.  At least I’m alive and not swallowed up by a Worm—” he started to mutter as struggled to his feet, but a rumbling of the stone underneath him froze him in place.  “No, no, no—this isn’t fair!” he said as he flung himself to the side, but nothing emerged from below to swallow him up. 

As he looked down at the ground, confused, a glimpse out of the corner of his eye caused him to whip his head up to see a Worm heading straight toward him, quickly flowing over the rubble as if it was level ground.  He stood up and started to run the other way, but he didn’t take more than a step before he spotted the second Worm coming up behind him.  As he looked for a means of escape, his head swiveled around him as he saw more of the monsters completely surrounding him on all sides, just waiting to converge on him simultaneously.

“…shit.”

He might be invulnerable thanks to his Fields, but again the thought of being swallowed up by one of the Worms made him shiver in fear.  While he might eventually escape from such a situation, especially if trying to digest him counted as an attack and was reflected back upon the Worm as a result, he didn’t know if he would survive that long.  Would there be any air to breathe?  If he died due to lack of oxygen, that wasn’t necessarily an attack he could protect against; it would be the same as if he was dragged into a lake by a monster and drowned.

 Evaluating his options, Thaden realized that there weren’t many at this point.  Even if the Guards on the walls could hear him from where he was, he doubted they would help him; if they didn’t help the rest of the city avoid being destroyed, then it was unlikely they would move now.  As he stood there waiting for the Worms to arrive, he quickly checked the SPECIAL Quest related to this whole horrendous fiasco, hoping that there was someone still alive nearby that might be able to distract the monsters temporarily while he kept them alive, but his hopes sank when he looked at the bottom of the Quest.

Current available nearby Adventurer Coalition Members Assigned: 1/1

Just me left, huh?  He was fairly certain that all 43 thousand Contenders that had been assigned to the Quest originally hadn’t all died, as it was more likely that many of them fled; he couldn’t really blame them, of course, because there was nothing that they could do.  Perhaps if they had warning and were prepared for the Worms to emerge, forming the “Raid Parties” with 200 people, they might have been strong enough with their combined abilities to fight back, but that didn’t happen.  Just how many of them died, along with the Charee in the city that couldn’t escape in time, he had no idea, but he had to guess that it was likely a significant number of people.

With his options dwindling, he took out of his inventory the only thing he could think of that just might work: the Failed Chilling Aura Necklace of Extreme Cold.  Looking up as the nearest Worm was only 20 feet away, he started feeding Mana into the melted snowflake medallion, hoping that it would still function, as he hadn’t tried it again after the Magma Colossus Boss had fallen.  He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the extreme cold that marked its activation, just as the closest Worm lunged at him, its lower tooth banging against Thaden’s Field, pushing its mouth to the side.  That just gave the monster behind him the opportunity to rear upward like he’d seen an inchworm do one time and then descend upon him from above, while the rest of the Worms crowded close, as if to want to be present to witness their final victory over the Contenders in Forgestone.

As the toothy maw slipped over his body, the Worm bit down on his feet once he was inside, which only ended up squeezing him down its throat.  With no control over his fate at this point, as he felt the chilling cold begin to freeze portions of his body as it was exposed to the Necklace’s full effect, Thaden slid into the Worm’s throat and down to its stomach, the walls of magma-like esophagus heating the area around him to uncomfortable levels.  His innate Heat Resistance of 40% granted to him from his recent Achievement and the single Minor Heat Resistance Ring he was wearing for an additional 15% was the only thing that prevented him from burning alive from the sheer heat inside the Worm.

He had expected it to be dark inside the stomach, but it instead glowed red thanks to the liquid magma inside that he assumed acted like stomach acid.  He was glad not to see any trace of any meals it might have had earlier, because that might’ve snapped the last thread of sanity that was the only thing keeping him from falling into a full-blown panic attack after being swallowed by the powerful monster. 

It almost snapped anyway as he splashed into the magma acid and he felt his skin burning and freezing at the same time, as two warring extreme temperatures fought for control, and he began spamming Major Cure Physical Affliction again and again to get rid of the Frozen and Burning afflictions that were quickly killing him, even with his Major Regeneration and Afterglow active.

He kept hoping that the glowing walls around him would suddenly explode similar to the Magma Salamanders had, but nothing seemed to happen.  He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, only to cough as what little polluted air there was seeped into his lungs.  The panic attack threatened to break free from the restraining mental hand he had on it when he began to see spots in his vision from the lack of oxygen.  Stumbling to his knees, the heat from the magma acid ramped up as the blistering and burning of his skin increased past the point where he could handle it.  He was barely conscious as he watched his Health drop precipitously…

…and he died.

Or he would have, if it wasn’t for Major Death Ward.  The spell activated for the first time, and he felt an immediate influx of Health and vigor that crashed into his body with such intensity it felt like he had injected 100 energy drinks into his bloodstream while being shocked by a defibrillator at the same time.  He jumped out of the stomach magma and did his best to avoid falling fully into it again, as the spots in his vision receded slightly from the Death Ward’s effect. 

Unfortunately, the sudden influx of Health and energy was short-lived, as he immediately felt his body being tortured by the extreme temperatures again.  As he involuntarily screamed out in pain which released what little oxygen he still had in his lungs, the vision spots returned as he became light-headed.  He looked down at his hand clutching the snowflake medallion portion of his Necklace, and it glowed with an inner light that melted even more of its structure. 

Come on.  Work, damn it!

He was on the verge of passing out when the snowflake suddenly crumbled in his hand, followed by the misshapen chain that had been attached to it.  He stared at the destroyed accessory as a dark powder filtered through his fingers to sprinkle onto the stomach magma below.  As the powder disappeared into the molten stone, so too did his hopes of survival. 

Swaying in place and ready to give up, an ear-splitting crack suddenly reverberated through the stomach, and before he could react, he found himself being washed out of the organ in a tide of escaping magma acid that escaped out of a hole in its lower side, swapping out his Access Slots and using every healing spell he could, regardless if it would also heal the Worm or not, he was barely able to keep his Health above zero as he was basically inundated by the heat of the magma covering him.

It felt as if he had been cooking alive for days by the time he came to a stop, and he saw the magma flowing away from around him, revealing a sight that made him tear up in joy.

Sunlight broke over the horizon, signaling the start of a new day.

He wasted no time in taking a deep breath, coughing as much of the polluted air out of his lungs as possible while he stood up and out of the cooling pool of stomach magma around him.  When he was able to finally acknowledge to himself that he was somehow alive, he looked around to see why.

The Magma Worms were dead, frozen into complete immobility as their bodies were cooled to the point where their internal magma couldn’t save them.  The only thing that had stayed insulated enough were their stomachs, which appeared to be hot enough to crack open the frozen stone bodies surrounding them, releasing the liquid stone inside like an egg being cracked open to make breakfast.  How long they had been dead before that happened, he had no way of knowing, because he had been trying to stay alive and not checking his notifications. 

He chuckled at the sheer ridiculousness of his survival, which gradually turned into full-blown manic laughter as he reveled in somehow still being alive.  The guilt behind the deaths of so many people slammed into him in mid-laugh and it turned into a sob, and before long he was unabashedly bawling as the adrenaline that had been keeping him going drained away.  He somehow stumbled to the cooled remains of a cracked Worm and sat down on what looked to him like a good place to rest, as he put his head in his hands and shook from the tears that refused to stop.

Even the crunch of a foot stepping on a piece of rubble nearby couldn’t get him to break out of his much-deserved breakdown, but the voice that accompanied it certainly did.

“Congratulations.”

Thaden’s sobs stopped immediately as it was replaced by a towering anger.  He looked up to see someone he thought had died, considering that the city had been destroyed.

“Veronia.  Where the fuck were you?”