“That is to say, I’d like to talk to the manager.” I say, the pistol awfully light in my hand. It’s so very tempting just to shoot him and keep going, but I’ll at least wait and see what he has to say.

The lithe elven man doesn’t seem particularly happy to hear from us. He stiffens after looking at us for a little longer but doesn’t move to reply. While I can see some equipment on him glowing bright with mana, none of it looks to be a weapon, though I don’t lower my guard.

“Are you going to leave us waiting?” Nel asks, stepping up to my side. “I would strongly advise that you comply and bring us to your boss.”

“You… you’re the ones she was worried about…” The guy says, glaring down at us. His hands tremble, reaches for something by his side but stops.

“If she was so worried, why did she go to the effort of sending us a challenge?” I ask, “Actually, don’t bother answering. I want to hear it from her directly. She’s through there?”

He’s at the other end of the large room, I walk slowly, cautious of traps hidden beneath the scattered metal that covers the floor. The others follow behind me, and I know I can trust them to know what to do.

“You should leave if you know what’s good for you.” He says, panicking as he turns to flee through the door that he stands beside. A flood of bright lights escapes from the sliding door as he rushes through.

I take a shot at him but the bullet misses, exploding on the tough surface of the door. Whatever mana dense stone used to make these ruins is strong enough that not even a black mark is left behind from where the bullet hit.

“Taking your own advice I see.” I mumble as I carefully cross the room. More doors, larger by a significant measure, line the walls of the room, three on each side.

“Ria see about getting that door open. It might be trapped so be careful.” I say pointing at the door the elvish man ran through. There were no traps that opened up beneath our feet, but I doubt things will go so simply for us.

Ria starts humming as she touches the marker that should open the door, after a quick look she starts to sing quietly under her breath.

“It’ll take some few minutes.” She says between the wordless singing, her shining eyes turned away from the beasts that are slowly revealing themselves before us.

As I nod, the larger doors start rolling open and shadows of motions stir from the darkness beyond. Metallic clunking echoes out as metal scrapes along the ground, kicked about and tread upon by dozens of legs.

A large metallic lump crawls out from the door nearest to us, lit up in the light of our wands. It stands on six segmented legs that are each nearly a metre and half in height, while the large body above is another metre high and two wide. Two large crab-like claws hang low from its front, each big enough to bisect a person cleanly with a good snip.

Every surface of the creature is covered in metal, some panels shiny and new, others dulled and pitted with age. Yet even though there is no flesh in sight, it’s clear to me that this is not another mechanical construct.

It’s impossible to tell what hides under the metal, and how thick those layers are. What I can tell, is that mana within the metal plating is terrifyingly dense. Though I’m still only starting to learn how my mana sense works, the glow within the metal is less hazy and more opaque, which makes me think that the mana is at least in the liquid stage.

Yet, for all these terrifying details, the beast stumbles slowly and awkwardly towards us. The tall legs shift and move with great difficulty as it tries to approach us with the speed of an old man on crutches.

The dense metal must be quite the stress on this creatures legs. Keep this thing chasing us in circles and I’m convinced we could give it knee arthritis in an afternoon.

If it was alone, I’d consider it as a battle plan.

Moving the light wand around I take in the sight of the other beasts that crawl out from the other doors. Three of them come crawling out, but I’m sure if we wait another half a day we’ll be drowning in them.

One of the others is larger again than the first, but the other is about half the size. They snap their metal claws at us as they slowly approach, forming a vague line along the length of the room, though there’s still plenty of space between them.

Vii shoots her pistol at the creature nearest to us. The bullet doesn’t bounce, penetrating through the plate metal before bursting into an explosion. The metal hit buckles from the force of the explosion, coming loose and falling to the ground revealing only another layer of metal beneath it.

Eshya tries her pistol too, but to the same limited effect. This time the plate doesn’t even come off.

With enough bullets, we could cut right through them, but we don’t have the time or the bullets for that to make for a genuine tactic.

“Well, that was disappointing.” Eshya says, reloading and drawing her sword, “At least they’re slow. I’ll kill, or at least delay, the further two, if you can deal with the closest?”

“That works.” I reply, as she sprints on by cutting at the metal legs with her sword. The room is filled with the screaming of stressed metal, but the creatures seem almost unaffected as they try to catch her with their slow pincers.

She grunts as she strikes with a glowing edged sword, bouncing from one metal crab to the next always a step ahead of their snapping attacks.

Vii takes flight, alternating between shots with her pistol and wind magic, as she bounces between the beasts. Unfortunately, none of her attacks seem to leave a real mark on the creatures.

The closest creature to us is slowly approaching, and Nel takes a shot at it with her pistol. The bullet cracks the plating near the eye holes, but the creature only lifts a claw over it’s eyes as it continues it’s crawling charge.

“Thoughts?” I ask, laying down some shots myself, just to try and slow it down.

“Keep it busy until the door is open?” Nel suggests, throwing a knife and hissing in frustration as it’s deflected off of the metal armour.

“I guess…” I say with a frustrated sigh. “I’m not really in the mood to just fuck around though.” I should be slaughtering them. I should be crushing them under my boots as my enemies cower in terror.

I snap back the lock on the pistol and shove another bullet into it, glaring at tin can crabs that slowly crawl at us.

Adler is awkwardly standing beside us, trying to find where she’s meant to be in our formations.

“Aim for the legs and eyes,” I suggest to her. She looks doubtfully at me for a few moments before nodding, her spell swirling together in her hands. It’s interesting to watch the mana flow from her body into her necklace, then out to collect water particles and into the water cutter spell itself.

“You know, I was looking forward to today.” I say to Nel, feeling a cold rage building up inside, “Together again. Finally get some rest, and some privacy. It was meant to be quite a nice day today.”

“It was.” Nel replies, “If we can finish things quickly, we’ll still have some of the night left.”

“Trying to inspire me?” I ask, with a laugh, “Then let’s get these chores out of the way.”

I turn to glare at the puzzle before me. You never can find a can opener when you need one.

A scream from across the room directs my attention over to the pair of grunts that guided us here. They’re stumbling away from a fourth crab, larger than any of the rest and slower too.

“Should we do something?” Adler asks, looking the same way as I am.

“If they want to live, they’ll run.” I say, looking at the slow creature, “Or just walk around it.”

Nel was right, we don’t actually need to kill it, our current goal is simply to keep it away from Ria for long enough that she can open the door. Unfortunately for these beasts, I’m not in a very good mood at the moment and they seem like a great opportunity to let off some steam.

I take a pot shot at the creatures legs, but the bullet misses, blasting the ground to no real effect.

Adler’s water cutter, however, hits true. The water hits with considerable impact, but unlike just about every other beast we’ve fought together, it does no visible damage. If it’s knees are bruised, it’s not showing it.

The metal joints seem to be made from better metal than the rest, and the only gaps are too small and awkwardly positioned to be able to hit. Unless your Eshya of course.

I watch as she cuts deep into the gap in a creatures leg, spreading blue blood over the battlefield.

“Ah, fuck it. Nel, hold up the light for me would you?” I ask, as the tin can crab gets closer to us. I run at the creature with my loaded pistol ready to fire.

The metal scrap clatters loudly under my feet, alarming the monster that lowers it’s claws to look at me. I shoot just the same moment as Nel does, my bullet catching on its claw, while hers hits just inside the eye hole. The bullet bursts spraying me in blue blood.

The creature roars, holding it’s claws up into its face as it makes a horrible keening noise. I can’t restrain a smile, as it stands there trying to recover. I’m not missing this chance.

Pushing a mana surge through my legs, I leap up and over its giant claws, landing on the hard metal of its back. I scramble to stay atop it as the creature roars and meanders onwards. For a moment, I think it’s about to claw at me or shake me off, but it doesn’t even seem to have noticed it’s new passenger.

I don’t know how much damage the bullet was able to do to it, but at least it must still have most of its brains intact. Something that can be corrected.

I run my hands along the metal plating but find no gaps in the armour, it’s as dense and thick as I’d expected. I can’t easily drain the mana from metal and whatever glue holds it together is no easier to drain. Sharpened edges of the metal cut into my skin as easy as a hot knife through butter, while the creature slowly sways under me.

The blood of my cave dwelling ancestors rages inside me, tempting me to just beat at it with my hands, but the civilised creature that I am, I hold back and think.

Vii is still sending waves of wind at the others while flitting about near the roof. Her magic is doing precious little, and the only one to make impact so far is Eshya with her sword.

Even now she’s slowly carving marks into the metal shells of the crabs, spinning past them, hitting one then retreating to hit the other. Still, her progress is too slow for my liking. I don’t like being underestimated, but I hate it more when my enemies accurately think me weak.

This little adventure of ours isn’t about fighting. No, it’s about eliminating a threat, and these beasts are just in the way. Hissing the air out of my lungs through clenched teeth, I look down at my loaded pistol.

It’s a great tool, but it was made in a rush and was not meant to cut through armour plating. It’s a pistol, not anti-tank gun.

I press the end of the barrel against the top of the beast below me as it stumbles over toward Ria and Nel. Their attempts to slow it are failing, and it still hasn’t even noticed me.

“Let’s see what this toy can do.” I say, letting a excited smile rise on my lips. I pull the mana out of my flesh and force it into the little gun. A single vortex into which I’ve momentarily compressed my mana tight. The mana frays in moments, but the enchantments in the gun eat it up before it can fully unravel.

My body feels weak as the mana leaves me and feeds into my weapon. When it shoots there’s no recoil, just a subtle hiss of air.

For a brief moment, the gun blazes with mana. Then comes the explosion. A hot rush of air as the metal beneath my feet disappears. Reality slips from me.

I awaken to a pounding on the inside of my head, a powerful ache that spreads out through my body with every heartbeat. I blink away the specks of black that fill my sight, looking around and putting myself back together.

Either the battlefield has grown quiet, or I’ve grown deaf. Everyone stands frozen as they look upon the sundered flesh and metal of the crab that had, for a few seconds, been my stead.

The underside is torn entirely open, the metal fractured and scattered, much of it pushed up into the upper metal plating where I’d been sitting. A small smoking crater, hardly worth the description, indicates where my bullet struck and exploded against the ground.

It over penetrated and blasted the crab from underneath. A little more powerful than I was expecting, but then again, I did feed a few hundred mana into the shot. I can’t say that I’m disappointed with the results.

I grab a chunk of flesh that has landed near me, devouring it as I stumble over to the bloodied remains. I try to ask everyone if they’re alright, but I can’t hear a thing through the dull ringing in my ears. Sending a wave of mana through them makes them pop, and brings sound back to the world. At least they didn’t burst.

“Is everyone alright?” I ask, shouting over the sound of metal striking metal as Eshya tries to get a kill of her own.

“We’re uninjured!” Nel shouts at me. She doesn’t seem at all surprised, but simply turns to the next threat. “How long before you can do that again?”

“Just give me a second.” I reply. I have enough mana to make another two shots of that same strength, but I’d rather have some mana crunching inside me to fill up the tank I’m about to empty.

“Kyra, are you… what happened to proper process?” Adler asks, her sharp eyes digging into me with a gaze that feels awfully anxious. Nel has a gun ready, and I trust her to deal with Adler if it comes to it so I’m not too concerned, but we’ll certainly have to deal with her before we get back to the surface.

“Didn’t you see me on top of it? It was submitting.” I shout back at her, “If you’ve got nothing good to say, could you get back to fighting?”

She hesitates, lifting her hand back up as she focuses on another of the beasts. Her spell targets the legs of the beast that still slowly chases after the pair of grunts at the other end of the room. She hasn’t shot for the eyes, but she’s avoided those shots so far, likely worried she might kill something accidentally. I leave her to it as I look over my pistol.

As far as I can tell, it wasn’t damaged by my use of it, but I’m not exactly the most skilled when it comes to these matters. My mana senses are well established as dull at the best of times, and right now my mana is focused elsewhere.

I slowly load another bullet as I take in the changed battlefield. The corpse of the large crab rests by my side as I consume its mana, and the rest seem to be unwilling to even look my way anymore.

Unfortunately, it’s a bigger family that I was expecting. From the gates to the side, a wave of smaller crabs come crawling out to join us.

They’re covered in the same metal scrap as the larger ones, but they’re much faster. They’re claws still seem powerful enough to cut off a limb if I’m not careful. They run along the edges of the fight, hesitantly snapping their pincers in the air as they anxiously look between us.

I shoot one, investing double the ‘normal’ power in it. The bullet penetrates the thin metal plate and pops inside the little crab. The metal plates are enough to keep the body held together but I’m quite certain that inside that it’s been mushed up quite nicely.

I load and shoot another, gradually getting a feel for how much power I need to push into each shot to penetrate the front plates without going all the way through.

Eshya finally gets her first kill while I’m killing the babies, sinking her sword into the eye hole of the larger of her crabs. She twists and pulls it out, splaying blue blood out over the metal scrap surrounding. She doesn’t pause before pushing at the other in a renewed assault.

Seeing that things are nearly over and finally having a good feel for my new toy, I turn to the larger one that Adler has failed to stop.

I plant a powerful shot into its side. There’s a large pop, and the creature stumbles for a step but struggles on. One more shot and it’s lying flat on the ground as it quietly screams in pain, no longer finding the strength to stand and walk.

I leave it to bleed out as I kill the babies.

Oh…

I’m doing evil shit again, aren’t I?

Ah, fuck it. If there was ever a time for evil, it’s when chasing vengeance. If these little kid monsters wanted to live, they’d have crawled back into the dark pits they came out of.

I shoot one and charge at another as I feel the mana inside finally becoming my own. Jumping high, I land with a mana surge kick on top of its wide body. Its legs crunch under the force of the blow.

It’s not dead, but with six broken legs it will be soon enough.

The others quickly realize that the battle is over and take to cleaning up the stragglers. All except for Adler, who is watching us with increasing horror.

I’ve completely given up on pretending to play by her rules, but it’s about time she gave up on them the same. As soon as I pull that collar out of her head, we can have a real honest conversation.

“What are you?” Asks Scaly, as furry whimpers by his side. They both watch us with wide eyes, as they get sprayed with blue blood. I think Eshya did that on purpose.

“Ria, have you nearly got the door open?” I ask.

“Just… yeah, got it.” She mutters, stopping herself a moment before she hits the switch. “There might be a trap on the other side…”

“Then we’ll be ready.” I say stepping closer and lifting my loaded pistol at the closed door.

“I want to look at your pistol when we’re done.” She says, “It wasn’t made to be used like that.”

“You made it better than you thought you did then.” I reply, checking just to make sure that the gun is still looking as it should. Yep, barrel is still straight and the grip is still covered in nude ladies.

“Kyra.” Adler’s voice is low and dangerous.

“Can it wait until we’re out of here?” I reply, “I don’t quite know the rules, but your sort aren’t meant to interfere down here, no?”

Her jaw snaps closed, and she trembles, whether in frustration or rage I don’t quite know. What I can tell is that she doesn’t agree with what we’re doing, which is understandable. This sort of violence would have upset me too if this was before my first off-world adventure.

I’d rather not force her to undergo the same experience, but I’m not holding back; not when someone has threatened the lives of those that I care about.

Adler says nothing more and Ria hits the button.

The rooms beyond are still brightly lit and cluttered with all sorts of mana dense furniture and goods.

On the bright side, if she’s not here at least I can smash up her home.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 789 units

~Mana distribution:

Catagory Current Max. Skin 24% 24% Muscle 12% 12% Mind 22% 30% Cardiovascular 11% 11% Misc. 10% 10% Efficiency 79% 79%

~Skills:

~Mana sense

~Mana drain touch

~Mana skin

~Mana shield.

~Mana surge strike

~Mana surge kick

~Grapple

~Flame burst

~Fireball

~Infused delayed casting

~Harsh petting

~Chaos dance

~Multi-mind messenger