Serenity threw his axe at the extra-large wasp’s other wing and charged one of the two person-sized wasps attacking Russ. Lancaster was in armor and Russ wasn’t; hopefully it was the right choice.

As he charged, Serenity fed Plasma Affinity into his weapon as an Essence Strike. He slashed cleanly into the thorax, his Plasma Affinity making it as much a burn as a cut. Before the strike finished, Serenity released the Essence Strike as a Far Strike; it was inefficient and didn’t actually go anywhere, but it charred the inside of the wasp. He pulled his naginata out and panted for a moment. He’d put a lot of his Stamina into the two effects on the strike to take out the wasp in one hit.

Fortunately, it worked.

“Serenity! Help!” Rissa’s shout pulled Serenity back into the fight and he was running towards her before he took in the situation. Rissa had dropped her crossbow and was attempting to fend off the wasp next to her with her spear. She kept barely evading it with fractions of an inch to spare, and Serenity blessed the Quickness spell she’d had him cast at the beginning of combat. As he ran, Quickness and her own Time effects saved her three times.

She wasn’t strong enough to punch through the wasp’s exoskeleton, at least not without getting a clean hit; her blows kept hitting at an angle and skidding off. She was only on her second Path, and she was a healer/mage on top of it; he really couldn’t expect that much out of her physically.

His previous strike had worked so well that when Serenity arrived, he already had a Plasma Essence Strike on his weapon. He struck for the thorax, but hit a little lower than he wanted, at the ‘waist’ between the thorax and the abdomen. He saw his miss soon enough to avoid the cost of using Far Strike, and his blade still severed the connection.

Unfortunately, the cut wasn’t immediately fatal and the wasp could still move. It could even still fly, though it was more awkward than ever. Fortunately, removing the abdomen removed the stinger. Even if the wasp was still alive, it was less of a threat.

These wasps weren’t attacking with their mandibles, only their stingers; the stingers were the nastier weapon, but it made them predictable. Serenity had seen dungeon wasps attack with both in the past, and they were more difficult to handle.

Serenity took a step back to look over the rest of the combat, and when he did the wasp dove at him as though it was going to sting him. Rissa somehow twisted her spear to strike the wasp at the base of its thorax, where Serenity’s plasma had damaged the exoskeleton. Her spear slid in an inch, then another inch. She couldn’t get it in deep enough to kill the wasp with her own strength, but she had it far enough in that the wasp’s struggles weren’t getting it off.

Serenity came around behind her, grasped the spear just below where her hands were, and helped her shove it into the wasp. This time, it penetrated well into the wasp’s thorax and hit something important. The wasp fell to the ground.

Serenity pulled Rissa away from the two halves of the wasp. Just because it was dead didn’t mean it was harmless; he’d learned that about all sorts of creatures over the years, and insects were definitely among them. “Did you get stung, even by some of the small ones?”

“Yeah. I brought Benadryl, I heard it was useful here if you don’t have someone who can handle poisons or the right potion. Do you need some?” Rissa stuck her hand in her pack and came up with a pink-and-white pill bottle.

Rissa was more prepared than he was. Serenity wasn’t sure if he should feel bad about that or not; Rissa was always better at thinking ahead and being prepared. Some of it might be her foresight, but he thought most of it was simply who she was. It was one of the things he appreciated, even loved, about her.

Serenity ran the pad of his thumb over the spot he thought the wasp had hit. It didn’t hurt and there wasn’t any swelling. “I don’t think it actually got me. Maybe pass them out to Raz and Nat? We can get the rest after the fight’s over.”

Rissa nodded and opened the pill bottle while Serenity hurried back towards the remaining humongous wasps. The largest one was clearly battered but still fighting. As he ran, he saw the last remaining person-sized wasp slam into Made. It didn’t sting her, but it shoved her into the path of the giant wasp’s stinger. It took her in the shoulder; not a fatal injury, but definitely painful. She immediately dropped the sword she held in the other hand and screamed.

There wasn’t any way he could move faster. He was sure Rissa was right behind him to try to get to Made to heal her as quickly as possible. All he could do was continue the plan. He was prepared to kill another person-sized wasp, so that was what he’d do.

Serenity arrived right as Made collapsed to her knees. The smaller wasp was coming awkwardly around to stab her, since she wasn’t evading anymore, but Serenity got there first. He was hurrying, but he still took the time to aim his strike. He needed to hit at least as well as he had against the one facing Rissa, and a straight kill would be better.

The shock as his naginata hit was worse than either of the previous hits. Serenity knew he’d struck cleanly as the blade penetrated the insect’s thorax, but it didn’t penetrate well. Once the fight was over, Serenity would need to check his blade.

For now, the important thing was that it had penetrated. Serenity released the plasma into a Far Strike, and it fried the insect the same way as the first one. The wasp kept twitching, so he smashed it against the ground with his naginata. That seemed to do the trick, and he turned to help with the big one.

Serenity pulled his axe out just in time to see the gigantic wasp sting the unmoving Made again, right before Russ cut off its head. The wasp collapsed on top of Made. Serenity dropped his axe back into his Quick Belt and helped Russ and Lancaster pull it off the reporter.

The small wasps retreated when the enormous wasp fell. Rissa was at Made’s side, so that was handled. Serenity searched for Raz and Nat, to find that Raz was picking his way over to them, while Nat was filming Rissa as she tried to heal Made.

Had she filmed the entire fight? Serenity didn’t remember her putting the camera away, so it was possible. It hadn’t been important at the time. If she had filmed it all, he wanted to see it; a second viewpoint that wasn’t fighting would be very helpful in figuring out what the people he was working with were actually capable of.

Serenity didn’t expect to work with Nat or Made in the future, but all of the others were likely. He wouldn’t mind working with Nat again, but he was going to turn down anything that involved Made. It wasn’t worth it.

Serenity turned to look at Made when he heard a moan. It wasn’t the sort of sound he expected from someone being healed; it sounded like pain. “How is she?”

Nothing else seemed to be coming, so Serenity walked over next to Rissa.

“It’s not an allergic reaction to the sting.” Lancaster was already standing over Made’s form. “I’ve seen that, even from the big ones. I gave her a wasp antivenom potion and we dosed her with an epi pen just in case, but neither seems to have mattered. I’ve never seen a sting do that.”

Made was closer to whining than moaning, now.

Serenity knelt down and looked at the first sting, since Rissa had her hands over the second as she tried to heal the damage. The injury looked like it started as a puncture, but there was a series of tears radiating from it, and there was some sort of movement. Serenity’s first thought was that she was bleeding, but the “blood” didn’t look right; it wasn’t following gravity, and while a rivulet of blood could arch up a little due to surface tension, this seemed taller. It simply didn’t look right.

As Serenity watched, the tears grew longer and he saw something worm its way out of one of them. It wasn’t until he saw a second wiggling shape emerged from another of the rips that Serenity realized he was seeing something coming out of the injury. Some wasps did lay their young in people, though it wasn’t with their stinger. Still, dungeon creatures sometimes did odd things.

Serenity turned Basic Analyze on the wasp’s corpse.

Giant Goldenjacket Wasp Warrior Corpse

This gigantic variant of a yellowjacket wasp is golden in color, the rarest color for the Giant Wasp Dungeon’s first floor. A Goldenjacket has increased protection and is harder to damage, but once the protection is bypassed, it is no hardier than any other wasp of its size. It has no special attacks. This was a warrior, limited to the area it protected.

Dungeon Monster produced by the Giant Wasp Dungeon

Serenity ignored the tag at the end; he hadn’t seen it before, but it was something he knew about the creature, and sometimes the Voice would add things that were known even when Analyze didn’t directly reveal them. That didn’t look like a queen, even a fake one. Serenity did what he probably should have first and Analyzed the things crawling out of Made’s shoulder.

Hegemon Worm

A parasitic colony-creature, the Hegemon Worm is only sapient if enough individual worms are present. Hegemon Worms form two levels of colony: a colony that lives in an individual host and a colony of hosts that work together to achieve the overall desires of the “individual” colonies. Individual worms are frequently traded between “individual” colonies within a particular “settlement” colony, but “settlements” tend to be insular.

The Hegemon Worm is feared for its ability to take control of other creatures, making them act as it desires. This is a necessary part of the Hegemon Worm lifecycle, as they are unable to survive for extended periods of time outside a host. Most Hegemon Worms have entered a contract to only colonize nonsapient creatures; however, rumor says that there are some settlement colonies that live secretly among other populations, taking them over and controlling them.

Well, shit. That sounded like it was something Made had brought into the dungeon; it certainly wasn’t a result of the sting, though the fact that they were crawling out of-

Parasitic.

Can live in human hosts.

Crawling out of Made’s body. While Rissa was healing Made by touching her near an injury.

Serenity reached for Rissa and picked her up off the floor with simple strength. As her hands left Made’s body, Serenity saw the tail of one of the worms pulled upwards out of Made’s side as he moved Rissa away. It wrapped its tail around Rissa’s hand. The worm’s head was already buried in Rissa’s wrist.

More worms emerged from Made’s probably-still-living body as Serenity stared in shock.