It was the first time Thomas cast the spell. On the second floor he couldn’t do it, not with the massive mana requirements. But now that he distributed his stats to get 69 mana points after his 50% mana topping off an already minmaxxed intelligence score that thanks to his class and hat, Thomas could now cast it. Once. Barely. Assuming he was almost full, which is why he stopped bombarding our rear for cover and left the flying insects mostly to Elise.

But he managed, and now 65 mana points worth of energy was coiling and shaping into existence like a miniature sun illuminating the entire hive. When the spell said Firestorm, it wasn’t being coy or dramatic. It was a literal miniature cloud made out of fire.

I didn’t stop to gawk at the spectacle, and just kept running. I’d make it to the entrance before Thomas would, but that estimate could change the moment the Krutnik managed to block my path.

Gatherers appeared before me, and I vaulted over the smallest one instead of engaging them. It seemed like all available Reavers had converged on the Chinese party at the time, meaning that they were now behind us and our front mostly empty.

The run turned into an uphill climb, and I was glad that my stamina was pretty dauntless when Ben stopped running circles around me breaking a sweat.

Something crashed in front of me, still sizzling. It looked like a sheep-sized lightly armoured mosquito without legs and hind body, everything that wasn’t absolutely vital stripped away from the combat drone. I bet they kept their acid spit, though.

Krutnik Kamikaze Drone

Level 6

What do you want from me? There’s only so many –eavers in your language to work with here. Ask the slit-eye, I’ve got like a dozen more in her language. Why don’t you speak Mandarin?

Because no army is complete without an air force. The Krutnik Kamikazes are a simple, expendable and mostly annoying Krutnik, usually non-existent until they are mass-produced weeks before a zerg rush into densely populated territory! Their eyesight isn’t too great so they aren’t good scouts, and they lack the Krutnik staple heavy armour. But they make up for it in numbers and their ability to fly into enemies like a cavalry charge! If they succeed, they spit acid straight through their nozzle into your fragile little innards! This kills them as well, of course, but that’s a sacrifice that everyone’s willing to make!

I grabbed the corpse as I kept running up the winding slope that was suspiciously human-accessible for a Krutnik lair construct, putting it in my inventory after four seconds. More dead Drones fell around me as we were now almost directly below Elise and Thomas who were climbing down fast.

Elise: Good thing these guys are easy. Probably a lot harder when they spit acid, but I can dodge them easily enough and even a glancing hit is enough to shock them to death.

Thomas: I’ll be down in about a minute.

Elise: No rush, the Krutnik are way behind Darryl and I can do this all day. But don’t dawdle. ;)

I had a terrible premonition that somewhere out there, Tolley just remarked that surely we were doing fine, because I almost felt the AI’s last and most vicious twist before it hit us.

Boss battle!

You pissed off a Borough Boss! Not very smart, but certainly entertaining! Put your game faces on ladies and gentlemen! Aaaand Here. We. Go!

Yeah, I wasn’t going to stop running to gawk at whatever that was supposed to mean. I trusted the two girls hanging onto me to look behind me and tell me if I should turn around or run faster.

And so, when the world froze and the music was suspiciously absent for once, I was still running up the hill.

It’s a Krutnik Excavator!

Level 28 Borough Boss!

All Krutnik without wings can burrow, but the tunnel tends to collapse behind them. A good thing, lest their hive turns into Swiss cheese just one minor tremor away from a massive collapse! No, the only Krutnik that can be considered a tunneler, is the Excavator! And the Excavator Light, but let’s not kid ourselves. That doesn’t sound like Borough Boss material, now does it?

These creatures are more worm-like than the others, and they would be devastating monsters more terrifying than any other Krutnik if they could dig straight up. Fortunately for you, they can’t! So no need to worry that a pit of rotating teeth and acid breath will suddenly open up underneath you. Excavators ‘merely’ tunnel underneath buildings to collapse entire city blocks and slither over the surface with their gaping maw biting through barricades, tanks and other Krutnik like an unstoppable battering ram! Be sure to make this nothing personnel, kid, and stab their butt rather than their face! Or don’t, I’d be most interested to see you trying to take this thing down head on!

The world unfroze and I kept running towards the exit.

Thomas: I’m going to run, catch me if I fall!

Elise: Do we fight it?

Darryl: No force field, we can leave.

Elise: I mean, it’s heavily armoured in front but weak from the sides. If it follows us into that tunnel, we might be done for.

Thomas: And out here we’ll be swarmed from all sides by Krutnik while trying to fight it. It’s not as fast as us, assuming it’s moving at top speed now.

Ben: we run!!!

Elise: Alright! Thomas, drop on three!

I quickly sprinted the last stretch as I saw Thomas fall down, Elise grabbing his hind and trying to slow his descent as much as she could. But his large armoured frame was clearly heavier than Ben, despite Elise’s best efforts they were still falling and accelerating their drop.

I caught Thomas in my arms before he hit the ground, and quickly put him down. “Run now, everything else later!”

Nobody argued as we ran into the tunnel, leaving the hive and the Princess behind us.

“What the fuck happened just now?” I asked after half a minute of running.

“The range of my Firestorm wasn’t enough to reach the Princess, but it lasts for 10 minutes and I can move it for the duration. So I cast it as far away as I could and sent it in her direction. It will hit her in a minute!” Thomas answered. “I didn’t account for the areas that it would pass over while that happened though, it must’ve gone over this Excavator and triggered the Boss Battle when it damaged the thing!”

“So our egg-burning plan is still going to work out?” I asked.

“Maybe?” Thomas said.

“I know it would’ve taken longer, but this wouldn’t have happened with your Frosty Mortar!” I said.

“I would have to go up a lot higher before I could’ve even reached her with that spell, Elise and I probably wouldn’t have lasted that long!” Thomas said.

“Yes we would have!” Elise boasted.

“We both know that they have more of those Krutnik Jaegers, and you had trouble taking down even one of them under the constant barrage of Kamikazes.” Thomas said. “Knowing this place, they would’ve sent five rather than two next!”

“Fair point!” Elise conceded. “But still-”

There was a loud roar and the sound of collapse behind us, rapidly getting closer.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” Ben said. “It’s the Excavator! Run faster!”

“If it already reached the tunnel entrance, there’s no way we can outrun it!” Thomas panicked. “It’s not supposed to reach it for another 43 seconds!”

“Keep running!” I said.

Nobody argued as we kept running faster, with the sounds of hydraulic drills and massive bestial roars behind us getting ever louder.

“It’s catching up fast!” Miho said, looking over my shoulder at the wall of teeth getting ever closer.

“Maybe we should stand and fight before it catches us!” Elise shouted.

“I don’t know if I’ll make it, but with Stalwart I might be able to buy you guys some time at least!” I said. “Who knows, I might even survive!”

“Keep running!” Alexa shouted.

“You’re not sacrificing yourself, Darryl!” Elise shouted.

“If we don’t do anything, everyone will die!” I said.

“No we won’t!” Ben said. “Dungeon fuckery! They’re probably catching up because it’s more exciting if they’re right on our heels! They’ll probably slow down just before reaching us!”

“I hope you’re right, Ben!” I shouted over the ever-louder roaring behind us.

The Excavator came so close that I could smell its sulphuric breath in the air around me, and then it lolled its tongues out of its mouth.

“Incoming!” Miho shouted. “Go left!”

I dodged to the side when one of the tongues, a large pillar-like appendage with three fast-spinning broad drills on the tip and three larger cogs spinning fast, moved to drill the air where I stood not a moment ago. It bent slowly to the side, rigidly moving as it tried to grind me up with those cogs.

Miho made what looked like a regular kitchen knife appear in her tails and threw it at the large black veins spread over the tongue. The knife was aimed perfectly and hit a vein right-on, but bounced off harmlessly. Alexa jumped off and flew onto the tongue, stabbing it with her rapier. She needed to stab with both hands and put her back behind it, but she managed to pierce the skin and cause black ichor to spray out viciously. The Excavator roared and the tongue thrashed as Alexa quickly flew back to me.

“Ben, can you take care of them?” I shouted. “You’re the only one who can move fast enough to fight and stay ahead of the instant death maw!”

“If I can hit the slow-moving targets with obvious weak spots!?” Ben shouted back gleefully. “I’m surprised that they’re not glowing orange!”

Ben fell back and I looked at Thomas and Elise who were struggling to keep up.

I took my spear out of my inventory and held back my arms. “Grab on, I’ll speed this up!”

Elise grabbed my hand, while Thomas grabbed the spear haft. I kept Naruto running, speeding up a little bit. I quickly felt the other two hold me back a bit, their lower dexterity scores reaching their maximum jogging speed without going into a sprint. Good. I ran a bit faster, until I felt like we reached the pace they could maintain with my help before they would start stumbling and tripping.

The grinding behind me grew a bit fainter, until it roared in pain again. One of the tongues thrashed into the wall sending rock shards everywhere, but other than a slight dip in his health Ben seemed to be fine.

“Is there any way we can help?” I shouted.

“This thing is clearly blind, I can’t dazzle it!” Alexa shouted.

“The Mandibran are almost exclusively specialised in charm magic, I doubt that’s going to do any good here!” Miho said.

“I need all my mana to keep the Firestorm going for as long as I can!” Thomas shouted.

“Nope!” Elise just shouted.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got this!” Ben said, followed by another roar.

“How long?” I asked Thomas.

“The Firestorm already reached the Princess, I’m getting minor experience notifications for destroying the eggs!” Thomas said.

“I mean until we’re outside!” I said.

“We’re going about 1km per 4min30 and the tunnel was about 2.4km, so… 9min10 give or take 5 seconds!” Thomas said.

Damn it, we’re not even halfway. Not even close.

I can keep going at this pace for a while longer and so can the others, I think, but still. That’s a long time for this creature to chase us and possibly pull out some new tricks.

Well, nothing we can do about it. Nothing but keep going.