Chapter 6

Mary’s concerned look immediately faded after they had declared their intentions. “Let’s go.” She promptly started jogging away. “The area near town is monster free.”

Mike was having none of that. He made a firm gesture and the other two rangers peeled off to watch for surprise attacks. Adrian shook his head, refusing the instruction. With his skills, he did not need to be out flanking. He could keep an accurate watch on one side from the centre of the group just as easily. Mike looked annoyed at Adrian, but he ignored it.

“Can you tell us about Springhurst?” Mike asked.

“Sure. Town was in a mana storm so we all got six levels. A big giant bull appeared in the middle of Hume highway just on the edge of the town. Luckily, it got hit by a semi-truck. Twenty tonnes going at a sixty kilometres per hour, even souped up Alpha creatures can’t shrug that off. It was pretty injured, and we piled on it. Over fifty of us were fighting it by the end, mostly ranged attacks, but some brave people leapt in and attacked in melee with whatever item they could get their hands on. It took half an hour to finish it and everyone involved got another three or four levels. Then the survivors of that battle organised. We set up hunting squads, went door to door clearing the place. The next day a trader appeared, and we sold that bull component for almost forty thousand energy and that set town up with basic weapons, armour and knowledge.”

“Battle Strategist?” Mike asked curiously.

“Yeah, Old Man Parker had that class. He walked around, telling us what to do for the first couple of days, including what to buy. Never saw him actually do any fighting himself, but he certainly helped the rest of us survive.”

“What percentage survived?” Mike asked, and Adrian wanted to hit him.

Mary looked flummoxed for a moment. “Umm, maybe twenty died. Mia…” Mary choked up “And…”

“I am sorry,” Adrian said sympathetically, sending an angry glare at Mike.

“I know ten percent death rate is good, but…” Mary stuttered. “We’ve had refugees trickling in from the farms Chiltern and Wangaratta since, so the town is four or five times larger than it used to be.”

“Why Wangaratta?” Adrian blurted before he could help himself.

“Grass is always greener as far as I can tell, but Old Man Parker told us to accept everyone. Said that we should aim for around a thousand in the community. We’re there now. It gives us the flexibility to adjust to most challenges without making us a target or some such tripe.”

“And have you lost many since?”

“The meerkats have killed a couple of dozen. Old Man Parker spends his whole time working with the eradication teams.”

“What’s that?” Charlotte asked.

“Meerkat’s swarm every three to four days,” Adrian told her. “You want to destroy the branch offs before they get established in fresh territory. You contain them till you have the power to eradicate them.”

“That,” Mary agreed. “Parker won’t let us near anywhere they have burrows.” She was puffing heavily.

“Now,” Mike said, taking over. “Our battle plan is simple. Adrian, Jules and Charlotte are the only ones with the speed to fight them. The rest of us are here to keep them alive if something goes wrong. They go in a group, and we hang back and only move in if everything goes to shit.”

“That’s your battle strategist plan?” Mary asked.

“Simple is sometimes the best,” Mike responded immediately.

Step.

Adrian appeared right next to him so that he was talking right into the other man’s ear. “Is this the plan that gives us the best chance of no one dying?”

Mike jumped and threw him an annoyed look. Adrian smiled flatly. He still remembered the plan to trigger the shintopurs.

“Yes, it is. The three of you together gives you the most chance to stop the suicide missiles. Us backing you up gives the most chance of extracting you if something goes wrong.”

“Great,” Adrian said and moved over once more to his defensive flank. Mary was clearly running towards a big gum. Given the scout on the way in, Adrian was convinced this too would have been turned into a lookout post. Once they got closer, his perception picked up the command centre at the tree’s base and the multiple lookouts in the branches above.

When they reached talking distance, an ancient man hobbled towards them. He still seemed to struggle with his walking, despite the natural boost to healing and recovery that the system granted. Old Man Parker, Adrian confirmed when the title of battle strategist appeared above his head.

The old man grimaced as he took a step. “Mary. What are you doing here?”

She stopped her chest heaving. “I bring allies.” Adrian noticed he wasn’t breathing fast. Sometimes he forgot how much further physically advanced he was compared to other people. Even those like Mary who had specialised in physical skills.

“No need. The next outbreak is tomorrow. We’re just narrowing down the direction.”

“They think they can fight them straight on.”

Suddenly, the old man assessed them for the first time, with his eyes going unfocused. First Mike and then Adrian saw those wild white eyebrows arch in surprise. “I was planning on laughing you off, but I guess I am out-levelled.” He nodded at Mike. “And big shot here knows best.”

Adrian smiled at the jab.

Old Man Parker was level twenty, but that was nothing compared to Mike at level thirty-four.

“Anything I need to know?” Mike asked.

Old Man Parker shook his head and licked his lips. “Nope, nothing special.”

Mike nodded as if that was what he expected. “As per earlier, Charlotte, Adrian and Jules, take front. Take it easy, focus on defence, do not chase them. We’re going to walk in concentric circles, starting well outside their range and then each subsequent loop getting smaller and smaller. Everyone feel free to use ranged magic. But don’t pursue them. As for the rest of us, excluding the rangers,” he waved at Felicity and Galan, “we will not be able to influence the fight. Both Felicity and Galan will have an open licence to attack any meerkat near you guys. Mainly, that will be clearing the suicide meerkats that were dodged. Unfortunately,” he frowned sadly at Charlotte, “I can’t keep the healers in range to heal you, as we can’t afford for us to be targeted.”

Adrian pulled out his necklace. “So, I should get a healing spell.”

Mike nodded and Omala quickly inserted her most powerful touch-based healing spell into his necklace.

Touch Mend

This spell heals a hundred standard units of damage for each ten mana. It also patches over injuries, bringing the recipient to battle readiness faster.

Use of Touch Mend causes recipient significant pain.

Internally Adrian whistles at that healing efficiency. Given that the most basic spell, touch healing, had a one-to-one ratio, this spell coming in at ten to one was amazing.

“Thank you,” he said genuinely.

“We’re a team,” Omala reminded him.

“Let’s go,” Mike insisted. With Mike directing them, they walked towards the meerkat area. Behind them, he saw Mike carefully positioning the others. Praveen and himself being closest as the first range, then the rangers and the rest after that. Adrian noted how far away they were. Mike had not been lying. There was going to be no healing support and the rangers would only finish meerkats, which had already launched at them.

For all intents and purposes, the three of them were on their own. Adrian checked where they had been positioned. The first burrows were over thirty metres away, and the closest meerkats even nearer at twenty.

They were in stealth so had not been noticed. In front of them, the meerkats ran around, going up on two legs, like they did, and continually communicated with each other using high-pitched squeaks. It was exactly like the documentaries he had watched, even down to the colouring on the creatures.

His domain stretched out, and the colony was not just above ground as he could feel them moving in their tunnels below his feet. Lots of them. While the nearest visible burrow exits were thirty metres away, the underground network was more extensive. There were burrows under his feet and beyond. He guessed this was the direction the next outbreak was going to take.

Adrian looked at Mike and got an immediate thumbs up. The animals for their new reality were tiny and had extraordinary low inherent healing. In a wave of death, Flame Sprout went to work frying the small mammals in the tunnels beneath his feet. In less than a second, twenty died without managing a squeak as their brains vaporised before they could respond.

Above ground, the meerkats abruptly let off alarmed sounds. His rush of flames had not gone unnoticed. They were out of time. “I’m killing the close ones.” Ten more died, with fire briefly dancing on top of their tiny skulls.

“Their suicide attacks can travel over sixty metres.” Mike’s voice came over the communicator. He knew that, but the others might not have. Sixty metres didn’t sound like much, but it was. Anyone who had not been trained pre-event would have been unlikely to fire an arrow that far.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jules started, then stopped, her face shifted focus and her club swung. U,sing her impressive speed to intercept a meerkat that shot towards them from forty metres away. There was a sickening thud. “Shit,” she cursed. “That stung.”

Another one went off like a firecracker. Charlotte reacted and intercepted it with one of her axes. The animal almost exploded as she struck it. Blood and guts went flying past them. She grimaced too.

More meerkats were looking towards them.

“Behind me,” Adrian said coldly.

Let’s see how magic goes?

Internal haste activated.

Almost without thinking about it, he shifted to just focusing on magic. Triple blades formed at the tip of his spear, the weaves just needed the tiniest push to finalise and they would shoot off. Eyes closed, he focused on scouting and bent the domain towards where he knew the enemies were coming. He couldn’t see behind him, but he could now sense almost fifty metres in front of him. From where Jules stood, magic was building, and he guessed she was preparing to launch some devastating lightning attack. The hairs on the back of his neck were already standing up in response to the static electricity.

Two streaks of meerkat shot towards him. He split his prepared weave, holding back the wind blade but releasing the other two. Both the fire and ice blades shot off and easily intercepted the fast-moving targets. He had deliberately blunted them slightly to create an impact as opposed to a cutting strike. Adrian was worried if he cut the bodies in half the two separate parts might still be dangerous.

Boom!

Both bodies exploded as their momentum arrested.

A wave of lightning swept past him. Adrian didn’t know what it was, but it was some sort of massive area of rolling lightning cloud. He watched it slam into a small pack of the meerkats, frying them all and then continuing on.

It was an impressive spell.

A group of meerkats suicided simultaneously towards them. There were nine of them, four freshly emerged from the burrows. All of them, Adrian realised had targeted him personally. They were using the simplist of aggro rules, choosing to target the closest enemies. With time slowed by internal haste, he had time to react. Without that four times speed dilation, the attack would have felt almost instant. As it was, there was time to respond. Not much, but some. Two sets of triple blades swept out in order to intercept six of them. Then he stepped slightly to the side, avoiding one that would miss his friends and positioning himself more firmly in the way of the other two. His spear came up, angling it across his body to let it block both of the living projectiles.

Boom!

Five of his blades hit their targets. The sixth meerkat used some sort of ability to slide under the main part of the blade.

Then he needed to worry about the two he was physically blocking. The meerkats hit his spear and despite his strength, his arms buckled. The combined momentum was too much as the spear snapped back into his body.

Blue sparks erupted around him, and he heard the distinct popping sound. His domain sensed the one that had gone under the blade. He shifted his spear, arms protesting to intercept.

Boom!

He was knocked clear off his feet.

He landed with a gasp, multiple ribs broken and his personal shield gone. It stung, but it was nothing that, given his pain tolerance, he couldn’t fight through. Regeneration was already kicking in, which informed him the damage was extensive. His damaged regeneration did not bother with minor wounds only more significant ones.

He pushed himself to his feet.

While it hurt, with his massive vitality he could tank these bloody things if he needed to. Providing, he blunted the attack slightly with his spear. He didn’t want to imagine one of these hitting him full on. Another meerkat suicided towards them. Abruptly, a mass of them launched, they were being bombarded. Why? Why were there so many of them?

Triple blades.

Step.

Four that were targeting him were now going to blow through empty air. His spear generated multiple wind blades.

Battle wraith.

Spear lunge. Right into a meerkat.

Boom.

The power of the attack reduced it to a red smear flying away from him. Sound buffeted him from every direction courtesy of the collision of his magic in front and the earth-shattering crash of Jules and Charlotte using their weapons.

There was a pop behind him. Charlotte staggered having dodged three and blocked two but had been helpless against the sixth.

More meerkats exploded towards them. What was happening? There were too many of them. With the magic helping him, he could stop the three coming towards him. They were tricky monsters when they suicided, and they would actually follow you if you dodged unless you went really late and denied them the time to respond.

In his perception, Charlotte blocked two of the monsters with her axes, but the remains pelted her and knocked her over to land on her bum.

Two more were targeting her, and she couldn’t respond in time.

Step.

Appearing right in front of her, spear outstretched. One meerkat slammed right above his hand the other one below but at a poor angle. He blocked them… Sort of… More of a deflection, really.

They slammed into him instead of Charlotte. He gasped as he felt his shoulder and hip simultaneously get smashed to bits. The shoulder was due to collateral damage from his own spear and his hip because of the meerkat that ricocheted into him. He flipped over backwards, but air magic from the spear was already responding. Touching the uninjured parts of his body to stabilise him and ensure that he ended up on his feet.

God that hurt. They might be little, but they hit possibly harder than anything he had seen yet, excluding Steve.

With his hip broken he could not move.

Touch Mend.

He triggered his necklace, and Omala’s healing magic rushed through him. Mending both sets of broken bones almost instantly, for a moment the agony of the bones switching together almost made him lose focus.

Triple blade.

Another volley of meerkats was en route. Charlotte had still not recovered. She was getting there but there was nothing she could do against the mass of meerkats targeting her.

Step.

His magic countered three and his spear’s wind blade a fourth. Then he blocked two more, one with the spear and the second with a knife that he drew for this purpose. The dagger was knocked flying from his hand, tearing a chunk of flesh out when it did so.

Charlotte blocked one and missed another. Same with Jules.

Damn it.

Step.

Right up close to Charlotte. The meerkat slammed into his spear just inches away from the hip he had just fixed. He tried to brace with both hands but it did little; the full of the impact still threw him. He pinballed off Charlotte and tumbled once more away from the fight with his second hip broken and maybe his femur as well. He landed on the hard ground like it was a pile of down cushions. Air puffed around him courtesy of the spear.

His magic was too low. He did not have the reserves to heal himself. He lay there with his spear somehow held and sticking straight up.

Triple blade.

The power gathered at the top of the spear was ready to go.

Another wave of meerkats came at them. Lines of sight were bad, but he released three blades directly and the spear created another two, manifesting them two metres on the side to get the angle required.

More booms and crashes.

There was a shrill scream.

Charlotte fell awkwardly, with her detached arm flying at right angles to her.

The number of meerkats suiciding was higher than Mike had suggested possible.

Mike had screwed up.

They needed to run.

Why hadn’t Mike already called a retreat?

Wind gust!

Most of his remaining one hundred mana vanished in a chain of them. Jules, Charlotte and him created a wall of wind that lifted them up and threw them. Charlotte’s arm was in there. His spear had grabbed it. With his domain, he could still see blood coming out of the end.

No, she couldn’t lose her arm.

They flew backwards and as the spear asked for more mana and he granted it willingly. Again, it was like landing on an air pillow. The surplus wind rushed past them. He plunged to the ground so softly a small stick caught under him did not even break.

He looked towards where they had just fled. Trying to see if there were any more coming, not that he could do much if there were.

“Shit, shit.” Mike was flustered.

Adrian groaned involuntarily from the pain. “Retreat,” he ordered. “Jules?”

“What?”

“Help.” She cocked her head at him. Adrian pointed. “Broken hips.”

No healing was hitting him since it was all focused on Charlotte. The healers were trying to simultaneously stabilise her while making sure that the arm could still be attached later.

“Retreat,” Adrian bellowed.

Mike was doing nothing. But the rangers moved in to grab Charlotte. Jules pulled him to his feet while she supported him. Praveen gripped his other side. He stumbled away, every step jolted him and was agonising, but they had to escape the meerkat’s attacking range.

A pain gasp escaped his mouth. Jules said nothing, but the amount of weight she was taking increased.

His domain stretched behind him, but as far as he could tell, they were not being pursued.

“Stop, they aren’t following,” Mike yelled. “Quick, attach the arm.”

Jules lowered him to the ground. He felt like screaming.

A mana and health potion floated from his bag, and he swallowed them greedily.

Focusing on his team, he looked towards Charlotte. Despite the desperation in her boyfriend’s voice, she was calm and collected, though slightly pale.

Mike was hovering over her. “Heal her quick?”

Joanne and Omala were on her other side, crouched to give them better access to the girl. Both of them were helping to hold the severed arm to the bloody stump on Charlotte’s shoulder. An immense amount of green energy circled the wounded section, sinking in and doing its job. Joanne was growing the missing muscle, tendon and bone even as Omala used her magic to do the bulk of the healing. The two different styles were apparent. Joanne’s was delicate little canapes while Omala’s equivalent was a full pub meal, a T-Bone steak that covered a plate and a bowl of chips that could feed some families.

Despite the delicacy of Joanne’s work, it was clear she was putting in just as much effort as the other healer. Sweat was dripping down both of their brows and their foreheads crinkled in what Adrian assumed was the start of a mana depletion headache.

“I am sorry. Heal. I am sorry.”

Shut up Mike, Adrian screamed in the safety of his own head. This was your fault.

There was a blur in his senses as one of the shitty meerkats launched like a rocket from outside his range. His spear drew on his energy and intercepted it with a wind blade, depleting the mana that his potion had just restored.

The meerkat’s suicide attack was more powerful than he had realised. A single one of them could break his bones even when he successfully bled most of the power away with his spear. They were deadly.

Boom.

The spear’s wind blade took out the incoming threat. Mike’s head snapped up and Adrian was relieved to see he was assessing the meerkats.

“Galan and Felicity, let us know if over four are within sixty metres.”

There was nothing Adrian could do anyway, so he looked toward Charlotte. He wasn’t an expert, but it seemed like the magical intervention was likely to be successful. Both the healers were almost swaying in exhaustion as they worked. With telekinesis, two mana potions uncorked from his bag and swept towards their mouths. “Drink,” he ordered.

They gulped the potions and some of the tension lines on their faces faded. Adrian sighed to himself and carefully considered his own body. His mana was restoring. Could he afford to heal himself?

There was another blur, and the spear counted it once more and his mana dipped. Whatever Jaracol had done to the spear it was bloody good. Adrian remembered how well it had cushioned his body when he needed it.

That operation had gone to hell. They had clearly gotten too close to the meerkats’ homes and too many had responded. An unrealisticly high number. Mike had screwed up. Adrian didn’t know how, but it was the only plausible conclusion. Adrian glared at the man, but the battle strategist’s attention was split between healing and the meerkat threat.

“Eliminate them,” Mike said suddenly turning and focusing on the meerkats.

Two bow twangs sounded. Mike dropped to clutch his girlfriend’s hand.

“Both hit,” Felicity said.

Mike relaxed further. Adrian lay there, letting his slower healing take root. Two more potions floated over to the healers and then a healing one to himself and Charlotte.

Touch Mend.

The power slammed through him. Bones moved and shifted, and internal bleeding was rectified. Only the tiniest fragment of his discomfort reached his face. Been there and done that.

Joanne slumped over, clutching her head from mana exhaustion.

Omala stood and assessed him where he still sat on the ground. “Don’t move. Give me five minutes and I’ll fix you up. Your bones are riddled with hairline cracks.”

“I’m ok,” Charlotte told Mike gently. “Look.” She wiggled the fingers on the hand that had been torn off her body.

Mike nodded in relief. “Thank god,” he said. Leaning forward so their foreheads were together. Then he stood, and the softness in his eyes vanished. “Jules,” he yelled. “What the hell were you thinking?”

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