“Are you ready?”

Zen silently nodded, as he sat in the back of the carriage, which was full to the brim with repeater crossbow turrets on either side of the cart. Holes had been cut from the sides to allow easy shooting and greater visibility, and the sides had been reinforced with ironwood planks. The front had received a major upgrade, with ironwood paneling blocking the sides and top from being potentially mauled by dive-bombing crosserfangs. The entire roof of the carriage cabin, which had originally been just cloth linen tied down with wood scaffolding and nails, was now a reinforcement of iron sheets, ironwood, and sharpened stakes stuck on with sapglue, a local glue made of tree resin. The entire build looked like it came straight out of an apocalyptic scenario, or as what Devan called it, ‘something straight out of Mad Maximillian’.

With what they were supposedly fighting, they needed some awesome firepower and weaponry, which, mostly Devan, had generously prepared. Within the carriage and attached to the front were many crossbow turrets, loaded with poisoned and barbed auto-loader clips that held twenty bolts each. If a clip ran out, it could simply be detached and refitted with a new one. Not to mention all of the flashbang grenades, torch bombs, tar sealant and clam flamethrowers that was laying around in crates all over the floor of the bunkered prairie stagecoach.

The last three items Zen hadn’t seen yet, so before they set out to the base of the canyon trail, Devan had to explain to him how they functioned. Torch bombs were small fragile canisters that when shot from a simple crossbow or a regular handheld bow, which contained large compact amounts of soft and dry tinder, scrap metal, and a very reactive alloy that sparked with simply anything metallic. On impact, the cans would crack open, lighting the tinder, and engulfing anything flammable into a violent inferno.

Tar sealant was another such item that could be either used as a projectile or a grenade. Since containers are weak to impact, they would shatter almost immediately, and apparently due to the nature of this low grade medieval tar, it was apparently way stickier. Perfect for any spiders skittering towards them. It would be even better when paired with the torch bombs.

The last weapon of mass chaos was the clam flamethrower, which used crushed up clam shells and a small oil light to expel a large cloud of dust-turned fire. It was apparently very good up close, which got Zen thinking, wasn’t this extremely stupid so up close if our carriage is made out of cloth and wood?

But Devan swore things would go fine. Apparently, ironwood does not set on fire that easily, and burns at a much higher temperature than normal birch and oak logs. From Devan’s crusade for knowledge, he had learned that the wood they were using was a variant a scientist had developed long ago, because he wanted a type of wood that stood up for its name.

The suspension was given an upgrade as well, reinforced with iron plating and ironwood panels. Devan said he had wanted to give the carriage ‘real’ track suspensions, but he didn’t have enough sufficient or usable materials to do so. Even the horses got an upgrade, with multiple layers of leather and nylon sheets. Zen was quite curious how Devan had acquired such materials, as he hadn’t seen them in the cart while he was in it. Devan simply pointed to a small sliding trapdoor on the floor paneling, revealing a very tiny sewing kit and multiple sheets of leather and fabrics. When Zen asked how many secrets he had, Devan just winked and patted his horses.

It had taken them a good few hours to make the upgrades, and both of them were quite proud of their handiwork, Zen the most, as he finally got a chance to work on something with his two hands. Even though Devan had guided him throughout the entire building process of hammering and sawing wood as well as stamping and bending metal, Zen appreciated it a lot. But they were finally done, and had maneuvered their carriage back on the road, facing down the huge mesa flatland cliffs and the monstrous canyon trail. The exit. The only exit.

“Weapons check!” Devan commanded.

“Uh… all repeaters and backup weapons accounted for, including swords, spears, mauls, throwables, and extra ammunition!” Zen responded.

“Infrastructure check!”

“All good it seems. The ironwood paneling isn’t budging at all, no matter how much I push on it.”

“Skill check!”

“Uh… yeah. I’m pretty sure you taught me how to shoot both the crossbow and the semi-automatic turret that you’ve entrusted me with. And didn’t you say earlier we needed to hurry? Why didn’t we just go before?”

“Heh,” Devan snorted. “I really thought that with just flash bang grenades we’d be fine, but since we’re dealing with illusioner crosserfangs, we needed to reinforce our vehicle. There was no way we were going through that gulch in our flimsy cardboard box. So we had to make some quick modifications.”

“It seems everything is accounted for.” Devan said with a relaxed sigh. “Are you doing good, Patty and Women?”

“Hold on. Who the heck is ‘Women’?” Zen asked confusedly.

“Oh. I forgot I haven’t told you the names of my horses!” Devan chortled. “The sleek brown horse to the left is Patty. She’s a hardy brute. Rode with her a lot. Doesn’t flinch at anything. And the light tan horse to my right is who I call ‘Women’.”

“But… why?”

“It’s so that whenever people try to comprehend my horse’s name, they stutter and blank, saying things like uhh and umm before they actually say her name. Makes it sound misogynistic, and that’s hilarious.”

“Seems a bit rude and weird, don’t ‘cha think?” Zen asked. “And why talk about horse names right now? If we don’t focus or at least make it through this canyon, we’re gonna be twisted meat splattered on a cliff face!”

“Sorry man, geez! Wanted to make a little funny banter before we went. It’ll be a shame if we died being serious rather than having a funny thought before our passing. Something to lighten the mood. And if we did somehow fail, I’d have to use my advanced stuff, and I really don’t want to. That’d also mean you can’t handle the world by yourself, so take this as a kind of test per say.”

“Alright. Let’s just go forward now.” Zen said grudgingly, staring out the makeshift firing hole in the side of the carriage. He was on guard, and didn’t want to be strayed away with comedy.

“Don’t feel too bad. If you do get incapacitated horribly, you’ll be teleported to back to the fort where we can get proper help.” Devan said cheerfully.

“I don’t want a free handicap.” Zen said. “If this is a challenge from you, which I’m now seeing as a supervisor, I cannot be given free help for failing.”

“Cool. That’s on you. Giddy up!” Devan said, lashing the reins and causing the horses to start moving at a quick and steady pace, similar to that of a jog.

Zen stared out of the flap hole, watching as the outline of the forest edge quickly shifted to that of sandy rocks and that of sedimentary sandstone cliffs. Any flora still living on the layers of hardened rock had been forcefully evolved to bear the strain of lack of resources, growing hard and stiff, as Zen hoped to be one day. Not the lack of resources part though.

There didn’t seem to be any crosserfangs as of yet, where the once dark shapes patrolling behind big boulders beside the canyon trail had seemingly disappeared. But Zen knew better. They were obviously biding their time, waiting and stalking for the perfect moment to strike. Before he knew it, which took about two minutes, they were at the base of the canyon corridor, the massive cliff faces towering over them. A screech of a predatory bird shrieked from above, as the radiant sun beat on their faces.

“Alright, you ready?” Devan asked, turning towards Zen who nodded silently. “There seemed to be a recent skirmish, as I see some dried blood and horse tracks. If you look to the corner outside your window, you can find a pile of dented wooden boxes. Should we go out and looked for clues?”

“Hell no,” Zen said immediately. “It could be a trap. They could be dangling waiting for us to be at our weakest.”

“Ha ha. Well that’s on you. Dang you are quite paranoid.” Devan hit the reins again, and the horses’ pace turned into a steady gallop. The carriage bounced and tumbled slightly on it’s reinforced wheels, but it did not seem like it would flip over anytime soon. A few minutes had gone by, with no sight of outside movement. Just the walls of the sandy canyon flying by his window, dust picking up behind them. Maybe they really did move on. Maybe…

“ABOVE!” Devan yelled out, causing Zen to narrow his sight to a dark arachnid shape on a high cliff face. He could see it now. A dark, harry, round silhouette above them. More began popping up. Two more. Three more. A dozen. They were lining up, almost as if they were going to have the meal of their lives. Then one of them jumped off, and all hell broke loose.

Devan swerved the carriage to the left-hand side of the canyon, barely dodging the spider which had landed short of the carriage roof. It’s buddies began crawling down the canyon walls, scurrying towards their prey, where they were slowly gaining on them.

Zen swiftly wheeled the crossbow turret around, aimed down the wooden sights, before firing bolt after bolt into as many crosserfangs as he could see. They were a little hard to see from all the kicked up dust, but from their dark fur and dark green stripped patterns, they were still very visible. Although they were crosserfangs, they were about a third of the size, with the advantage of heightened flexibility and speed.

“Devan!” There are about two dozen to your left! We have to veer to the right!” Zen yelled towards Devan, who was grappling with the reins, pulling and twisting fervently.

“There are too many to the right!” Devan yelled back. “Use the tar sealants and the torch bombs!” Zen nodded, racking a canister of each to two separate hand held crossbows, and firing the tar sealant at a horde of crawlers to the right of them. They were all harmoniously splattered with a sticky black coat, which was promptly set ablaze by Zen’s second shot. The horde began to screech and scream, bouncing back and were quickly left behind. As if on queue, the carriage screeched to the right side, revealing a river of crawlers skittering down from the left hand canyon walls.

Zen cursed, moving towards the opposite side of the carriage, racking another round of tar and torches before letting them loose on the crowd. Some crosserfangs screeched and cried but the crowd was left mostly unscathed. Zen cursed again.

“Use the flamethrowers!” Devan called towards him, which Zen obliged. Grabbing the iron clam propellent, Zen held the device out the window, pretty much baking whatever that was outside in a thick plume of instantly hot and burning clam powder, the dust aerosol being immediately set ablaze. The crawlers burned, and the carriage managed to streak ahead.

“Heh! We’re gaining ground!” Zen said, with a slight feeling of hope in his voice.

“Don’t get too giddy. From what I know, up ahead there is a canyon within a canyon, with a pretty fat stone bridge to cross it. I 100% bet that the bridge is broken.”

“A canyon within a canyon, with the bridge to be potentially out?” Zen said, his hope turned to worry. “What are we gonna do?”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan, just focus on shooting the spiders.”

Zen scanned the area, taking crossbow potshots and random crawlers attempting to sneak up on them from the sides or behind. It was all going relatively well until the sky turned a tinge of pink and he started feeling woozy.

“Devan, I don’t feel so good. The sky looks funny too… Are we in heaven?” Zen said towards the front.

“Shit. An illusioner. Stay with me Zen. Stay in the cart. Don’t move a muscle. Hold on to reality, and let me take care of it.” Between the flashes of distortion and reality, Zen could glimpse Devan taking a scan of the surrounding nearby cliffs with his binoculars, seeing his lips twist and his eyes narrow.

“Found the fucker.” Devan said with a twisted grin. He opened a crate next to him, revealing a long wooden and metal tube with a large sharp metal point at the end. Even though they were currently being chased, Devan egged the horses to slow down a bit so he could get a clear shot. He lifted the tube up, aimed, and fired a long metal bolt with a string attached to the back, hitting a chunk of rock just below a ledge, where Zen finally saw a dark silhouette below the twisting neon sky.

When the metal dart punctured the rock, a quick and immediate explosion followed suit, where rock and rumble began raining down, the illusioner getting pulled down too. It screeched and screamed, trying to find a nook and cranny to hang on to, but without success. It made a satisfying crunch as it hit the ground, purple liquid oozing from it’s corpse. Zen sighed a sigh of relief, as the visions immediately seized, and all was back to relative normality as their speed picked up again.

“Huh. Purple liquid. Never saw that before. After all, all the other spiders bleed green.” Zen said, staring at the spider corpse, watching it become smaller and smaller in the distance.

“Yeah, that’s what the locals call dream liquid.” Devan said from the front. “Apparently mixing it with water can send you to a dream land with all your happiest memories, like a nostalgic and high LSD trip. Scary addictive, and can send you into a possessive coma-like trance if you consume too much in high concentrations. Don’t do drugs kids. Only take them if your doctor or physician tells you to.”

“And here’s the canyon-ception I was talking about. Halt, Patty and Women, I have to do something slightly drastic.”

Zen looked out from the front to reveal a large and expansive canyon, the remnants of the stone bridge being pretty clearly seen, it’s wooden and stone scaffolding being rendered to pieces. He watched as Devan took out a black staff with a brown crystal from behind a pile of flashbang grenades, and pointed it at the cliff on the side of the inner canyon.

“What are you doing?” Zen asked. “Don’t tell me… you can wield magic?”

“Yea…” Devan said under strain. “However, I’m a scientist, and I don’t wield magic very much, so this is taking a toll on me. I can only wield earth crystals, giving me the ability to move the earth. Like this cliff face.” Devan swung his arms and the staff in a horizontal manner, forcing a portion of the cliff to jut out, revealing a makeshift rock bridge.

“There. That’s all I can do for right now.” Devan said with a panting breath. Let’s go Patty and Women, we need to hurry. Sun down is coming in at least one more hour, and if don’t hurry, we’ll be eating complete dog shit in the dark.”

They hurried across the rock bridge, and Zen watched as it crumbled behind them, their pace now quickened to a full on sprint. Zen yelled towards Devan, as another massive horde of crawlers began moving towards them from both sides of the cliff.

“They’re coming from both sides! Defend the cart! Use the turrets on your side! I’ll use the flame throwers!” Zen said, picking up a double edged seax blade and a clam powder flamethrower. He swung to the right side of the carriage, projecting a massive amount of clam powder at the waves of spiders, torching them into flaming black husks. Some did try to lunge at the window, but Zen sliced their bodies and legs and punched them down before they could get a good grip on the carriage. Things were going well until Zen heard a thick crunch and an extended creak sound from the roof.

“They’re on the roof!” Zen yelled towards Devan, who was blasting the crawlers with as many tar sealant and torch bomb canisters as he could.

“I’m a little busy,” Devan said, “So you’ll need to handle them yourself. The spikes should hold them off for a bit, but eventually they’ll just use their corpses as a landing pad for them to jump to! You’ll need to kick them off! If this goes on the roof could give way and trigger all of our precious munitions!”

Zen cursed, slung two seax blades to his belt and picked up a magazine bolted crossbow. Quickly, he climbed out from the window, and hoisted himself up to the armored roof of the carriage. There lay a body of a crawler, splayed upwards, giving proper cushioning for the next group of jumpers.

Zen quickly pulled the corpse off, grunting, and threw it off the roof, letting it roll over and trip up more spiders. He looked up, with slight shock and horror, in the midst of Devan’s shouts, as a crawler jumped from a cliff face towards him.

His instincts kicked in, forcing him to pull out his crossbow, shoot the spider mid air, and slicing the crawler letting it fly well away from the cart. He could see it, as more and more crawlers began jumping him from above. He grimaced.

Pulling out both seax blades, Zen began weaving in and out between the spikes, stabbing and crouching as more and more spiders began falling, impaling and attempting to slash and bite him as he noodled his way between them. Often times they would still be alive even with part of their abdomen impaled, so Zen had to finish god’s work and peel them off of the roof.

They kept coming, and Zen kept slashing, long beads of sweat dripping down his face and neck, dampening his new clothes. A big crawler jumped at him, but Zen punched it in the belly before it ate a crossbow bolt to the mouth. In an intense few minutes, there were at least ten crawler spiders lying dead around him. He hoisted them off the spikes, sometimes snapping them off, and threw them off the roof, alleviating some of the stress.

“We’re at the home stretch!” Devan called out from below. “And it looks like there is a massive horde waiting for us at the end. I don’t think we have enough power to break through, so I’ll have to pull out my secret reinforcement, that I didn’t tell you about.” A chunk sound was heard, as another pair of wheels fell forward in front of the horses, revealing feet ledges for the horses with large reinforce wheels in the front.

“What the heck is that for Devan.” Zen called down from above. Luckily the canyon began to open up, and the crawlers didn’t have enough air to get to the carriage, so he didn’t have to worry about the spiders anymore. He was more worried about Devan’s hidden plan.

“Oh. I plan to send the carriage over a ramp made of earth in front of the horde, using the left hand cliff face as a push off, so we can vault over the group. The front wheels that I laid down will drive us forward, while the horses lean their legs up so the wheel will be doing the work and the horses won’t trip. You’ll have task of setting the wheels on fire so we can light them up if we don’t have enough air and we can simply crush them.”

“You… you are insane.” Zen said. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why not? It’s our best bet. And you know I’m doing it anyway. Hold on tight!”

Zen cringed as the carriage picked up speed and veered to the left, almost touching the left hand cliff face now. Numerous spiders jumped from above, and Zen did his best in shooting them mid air before slicing them aside. When he was all out of bolts in his magazine, he slung the empty crossbow back through the window and stayed on the roof, dual wielding seax swords.

“Hold onto something!” Devan yelled from below. “I’m gonna create an earth ramp merged with the left hand cliff face so we can get some more air over the crawler blockade. They’re probably gonna figure out what’s gonna happen next, so throw everything at them! The fire, the flashbangs, the tar! Slow them down!”

Zen cursed, climbing and making his way back through the window of the carriage and into the heart of the cart, grabbing a new crossbow and a bag full of torch bombs, tar sealant, and flashbang grenades. He then stepped out through the window again and hoisted himself back up onto the beaten roof.

“I’m creating the ramp!” Devan yelled. “Take out the blockade!”

A curved ramp erupted from the earth, and the horde took notice. They began crawling on the newly formed ramp, and Zen took this as an opportunity to fire round after round of flashbang grenades. Large flash and ear piercing bangs exploded in front of him, stunning and halting the horde, giving Zen the opportunity to fire tar sealant and torch bombs. The sky turned neon green just as he spotted the illusioner in the crowd, but Zen quickly dispatched it with a fresh crossbow bolt to the head.

“Steady yourself Patty and Women,” Devan said, patting the horses. “When you get to the ramp, legs up onto the little hoof ledges. Let the wheels handle the rest.”

Zen swore to himself, as he hung onto the makeshift roof spikes, just as the carriage, which was going incredibly fast, crushed any crawlers in its way, and flew off the ramp, giving Zen plenty of time to reflect on his life choices. They were airborne for a solid few moments, before gravity took hold again and they landed with a crunch back on the ground, flattening many crawlers before breaking free from the end of canyon’s clutches.

“Holy Shit!” Zen gasped. “We’re out, but the crosserfangs could still totally chase us. We should go now.”

“I think we’ll be fine.” Devan said from below. The crawlers know that chasing us in such a large open field with no vantage points is a bad idea, now that here there’s plains and small forests as far as the eye can see. We’ll be fine.”

Zen peered behind the carriage, only to see that Devan was right, and the crosserfangs and the variants had stopped short from the canyon entrance, groveling and raging, which Zen hoped they were thinking.

“I am still never trusting you with pulling stunt after stunt like that again.” Zen said, making his way back through the window and into the carriage body. “What we did to go through was pretty insane.

“Eh. You win some you lose some.” Devan said with a shrug. But look. We escaped, we made it out alive, and to me, you did indeed pass. I’d say you’ll do fine when you go your adventure by yourself someday. And more good news. Even though the sun is starting to dip below the horizon, you can rest easy knowing that Tampatown is only an hour away.”

“Take the reins will you?” Devan said, moving over and letting Zen sit next to him. “I need a nap. I’m tired.”

Zen watched as Devan pulled a long cloth from his coat pocket, wrapped it around his eyes, and laid back. In a matter of seconds, he was snoring. Zen picked up the reins, and watched as the sky turned a brilliant shade of pink, orange, and blue.