Chapter 37

Long Beach

When the five humans and six dwarves came to Long Beach, the children were stronger and more scared. Their physical exercise brought their strength to three and endurance to forty-five, but they saw the four adults kill three grizzlies, six cottols, and two rocs along the way. The kids knew how to quickly set up and take down their tents, hunt, track, find and filter water, cook meat, set up night watches and actually stay awake, and best of all were the lessons with Quickly. They all knew how to properly hold a shield and short sword, and keep their footing balanced.

To rub salt into his wounded ego, each night Quickly would have them spar against Arden. Neither had forgotten how poor of a student Arden had been more than a year earlier, and Baybil was amused to watch. By the time they arrived at Long Beach, all four children, and Arden too, had reached level four with one handed swords.

When they got close, they saw four tents set up in the area. As they cautiously approached, Quickly cussed. “I will not train here! We’ve been tricked. Let’s go home.”

Antic walked out of the camp to greet them. “Hi guys! We just arrived yesterday. Come meet your new classmates.”

Baybil was angry but kept his cool. “Antic, why did you bring elf children here to train? You know dwarves and elves don’t get along.”

Antic was expecting that response, but was still uncomfortable. “Torger sent me to bring them here. He thinks if elf and dwarf children train together, their generation might end the hatred.”

“I doubt it. And what is she doing here?”

Baybil was speaking of Edina, who was there obviously to train the four elf children. “Hello Baybil. This is news to me too. Antic never told me you would be coming, or I never would have agreed.”

They stared at each other until Brun said “Let’s at least try it. See how it works then talk about it again next week.”

Tension was thick but Baybil ignored Edina and the humans. “We dwarves will set up camp over there.” He pointed to a flat area a few hundred yards away.

Antic said “Aw Baybil, don’t be like that.”

But they walked off at a brisk pace and didn’t look back. Edina came up to Jex. “Torger sent some potions with Antic to buy these. Make them last.” She handed her six arrows with maple shafts and silver arrowheads. “One shot will kill a simmet, but that’s all you have. And remember, most elves and all dwarves don’t know you have the Bow. Let’s try to keep it that way.”

Jex thanked her and accepted them. The humans set up their tents and all three groups set up their own night watches and cooked their own dinners, no group intermingling with the others. It seemed like southern segregation at its finest to all of them.

In the morning Arden took on his suppressed leadership role. He walked away from his friends and headed to Baybil. “I know you don’t like this, but Torger might be on to something. Train with the elves today.”

“No. Quickly and I will train our own.”

“What if I get Edina to agree?”

“Ha! She would never agree.”

“If she does, come join us.”

“I don’t know Arden.”

“Promise me Baybil. We’ve never wronged you.”

“OK. One day of training. If she agrees.”

Arden walked to Edina. “Hey, Baybil says he’ll train with the elves if it’s OK with you.”

She looked at him with suspicion. “That doesn’t sound like something he would say. Baybil’s not as bad as most dwarves, but even he wouldn’t cross that line.”

“Just train with him. He’s willing for one day. Use this one day opportunity. How long has it been since an elf and a dwarf fought side by side?”

“A couple hundred years as far as I know. Mmm, I guess. One day. That’s it.”

“Great. I’ll get everyone.”

Twenty minutes later Arden was facing six angry dwarves, five angry elves, and five nervous humans. “Good morning everyone. This is the spot where we gained a lot of ability points. To you eight children, you may each kill twenty-five black simmets for experience. That will give each one of you exactly six ability points.”

None of them had ever earned one ability point, and they all tried to keep the smiles off their faces and not be happy while in the presence of their antagonizers. But the seed of joy had been planted, and Arden knew it’s hard to hate someone you’re having fun with and growing up with.

“Our first lesson is in finding them. Follow me.”

As usual, it was Antic who spotted a half hidden simmet. Everyone was quiet as instructed, and Arden pointed it out to the children. As they were looking at it and getting close to the bank, they children crowded close together forgetting to keep their distance from those not of their kind. Brun and Jex were safely in the back and gave happily guilty looks at the dwarf and elf adults. They returned the smirks with scowls.

Once ready, Arden cast Shield 2, surrounding the simmet. As expected, three others rushed out of the water at the group. Graul and Antic ran forward, easily killing two of them with a single swing of Inferno and thrust of Power Cord. The third one was hit with Slow 1 from Rome, and Ice 2 from Brun, and he cast it three times before it reached the bank. An arrow from Edina ended its life. Antic then walked to the one in the sphere shield that was thrashing about wildly, getting shocked over and over. He told the kids “Watch how I do this.” In slow motion he thrust the spear into the snake mouth, through the alligator body, and out the snake tail.

They dragged all four dead creatures to the shore and back to camp. It took them ten minutes to calm the kids down who were excitedly talking about getting experience and how cool it was they had 58/1000 exp for doing nothing. The walls were coming down, and all the adults could see it happening.

Next Antic gave each one the same lesson Torger had given him. They had to use his spear to stab into the face, and lean a little forward without getting off balance. Quickly said “Spears are not a weapon many dwarves use,” but Baybil immediately shushed him. He saw the point of Antic teaching the use of spears. Neither dwarves nor elves had the advantage using this unfamiliar weapon. The humans were bending over backwards to keep things fair and he thought it was genius.

They all ate separately again that night, but the adults caught a few kids glancing at the other two camps.

The next day was the same thing, with Antic teaching spear skills, except he found a copper coin in the stomach of one. The third day was time for a change. All the adults and kids were on the top of a bank. Jex borrowed Edina’s bow, but by prior arrangement Jex had to leave her Bow back at camp, so it wouldn’t become tainted and weakened by being in the presence of the inferior Bow of the Eagle that Edina used.

Antic pointed at a half hidden simmet, and Jex shot it in the tail, intentionally not killing it. The other three rushed out and she shot and killed those in rapid succession. But Graul ran forward and used his shield to block bite attempt after bite attempt from the wounded simmet. After nearly a minute of him standing in the mud doing nothing but block, Jex shot it in the side and it died. They dragged the four bodies back to camp.

Arden, still the leader of the human camp, addressed everyone. “Alright kids, you saw what Jex and Graul did to that one simmet. You are going to practice the same thing on these four. I need one dwarf at the mouth of each simmet, pretending to block its bites. I need one elf to shoot the simmet with three arrows, without hitting the dwarf. Elves, move to the sides if you have to, or ask the dwarves to try to move to the side.”

This was the moment of truth. Would dwarves and elves work together? Or would they end up attacking each other? The dwarf children stood in front of the simmets, and bashed their shields into the reptile faces over and over again. The elves began shooting arrows, but yelled and ordered the dwarves to get out of their way. Arden and Jex put a stop to it right away.

They instead focused on one dwarf and one elf at a time, making the others watch. Arden helped the dwarves stay focused on the faces, but still listening for the elf requests. Jex helped the elves know not to shoot unless there was a clear shot, and to walk to the side left or right while keeping their arrows knocked. Occasionally if the dwarf was directly in the line of fire, she would say “Step left” or “Duck” or “Fall Back.”

The next day Brun cast Poison 2 and Arden encircled one with a Shield 2 spell. Graul cut off all their legs, then he and Antic made two trips, dragging the nearly dead simmets to camp, sharp teeth latched on to their steel bracers. Arden and Jex sent the dwarves to block the still squirming beasts, and the elves to kill them completely. The children had a much more somber attitude about actually killing a level five monster, when they were each only level one. But the dwarves used their shields, and the elves shot their arrows, and only the simmets died.

That night Antic said “Jex, Arden, we’ve got another mission to accomplish. The other adults can help you injure and capture the simmets. I think they’ll get along fine now.”

“What where are you going?”

“Torger wants us to investigate that rabbit hole again. See what’s down there.”

Arden said “We know what’s down there. The dwarves said it’s crude oil and natural gas. Well, they described that although they don’t know what it is. What’s the truth Antic?”

He looked at the other three who were going to go with him. He looked at Arden again. “I can’t shake the demons. I really wanted to kill a level eighteen, six foot tall rabbit, and I couldn’t even get close. I begged Torger to let me try it again. He said that was completely my choice. If it didn’t work out, I would respawn in Home anyway. He made me promise to make sure the kids would be safe before I left. The others think this training is boring, and want to go with me. Actually I asked them to come along. But you and Jex have this. You’re doing great, and we’re not learning anything. You don’t need us anymore.”

Arden looked at Jex. “Yeah, we do make a great team. Based on how well the kids got along today, I don’t think they’re in danger.”

“Cool. I recommend cutting open every stomach, just in case there’s another small ruby one day that could contain fire three.”

They looked and saw elves in the elf camp openly staring at the dwarves in the dwarf camp, who were staring back. If not for the adults, they knew the kids would go talk to each other.

The next morning they headed for Kellogg Hill, and made it just before sunset. Rome looked at Antic. “Let’s hope it goes better than it did last time.”

Brun said “It should. Yesterday, after casting ice two all week, I finally learned ice three, and I’m almost at lighting three. I’m going to need a lot more mana to use those spells effectively. Ice and fire three cost forty-five each, and I have eighty max. Ten more mana points and I can cast either one twice. Until then I’ll use lighting two and poison two. I’ve still got a ways to go to get to poison three.”

They camped away from the cave mouth that night and entered the next morning. Antic still did not have Analyze 1, and he was walking in total darkness. Graul took the lead, and they came to the first intersection. They waited for the first Giant Mole to appear, but it never came. After five minutes, they chose to go straight ahead.

The first mole ran at them. Graul shouted to Antic, and Graul blocked the sharp teeth with his steel shield. Rome cast Shield 1, and the mole was blocked, but it rammed its head into the shield twice before shattering it. But that gave enough light for Antic to see. He thrust Power Cord into its mouth, while Inferno cut off its front right leg. Lightning 2 hit it, and another thrust from Antic killed it.

But two more came running down the tunnel. Antic couldn’t see them, but he cast Slow 1, and in the narrow tunnel he couldn’t miss. Graul took the brunt of the attack, and another Shield 1 from Rome and Lightning 2 from Brun slowed it down enough. Brun cast Lightning 2 at the other mole, and Rome cast a shield in front of it. That bought Graul and Antic enough time to finish off the first one, then turn their attention to the next one. They killed that easily too, and heard more coming at them.

Brun said “We need to leave. I’ve used too much mana.”

As they carefully retreated, they killed three more giant moles. When they made it outside, the moles didn’t come into the sunlight. After an hour, Brun’s mana was fully restored. Rome commented that killing those six moles gave them each fourteen hundred experience points. If they killed ten more, Antic could buy Analyze 1 and the clearing of the cave would go much faster.

When they reentered, they saw two moles dragging away the corpses. Both stopped what they were doing and attacked. Shields, Lightning 2, Inferno, and Power Cord worked in tandem to take the rodents down. They retreated outside for twenty minutes until Brun’s mana was full, and entered to find two more moles dragging away dead vermin.

This went on for most of the day until Antic bought Analyze 1. Rome asked “Do we keep going or call it a day? There’s still a couple hours of sunlight left.”

Antic was eager to try out his new spell, but he was outvoted. They went in search of water, but found none. They gathered wild strawberries and oranges and returned to camp. That night during his watch, Rome saw two distant giant rabbits staring at him. It seemed absurd, but they seemed to be sizing him up. They never came close.

The next day, with all four of them accepting the option to conquer the level 18 cave, Antic could finally see the grey outlines the others had been able to see. That allowed him to be much more aggressive in the tunnels, and they made a lot of progress. Many tunnels led to dead ends, and there were a handful of times that one of them got bit during the battles, but they all had Cure 1.

After the seventh battle, as they cast cures on Rome who was bleeding from a clawed leg, Graul realized they were lost. Brun said “We need to get back out. We’re all low on mana.”

The trouble was, there were so many turns and side tunnels they didn’t know which way to go. Rome pulled up his Maps icon, but it only showed where they were when they entered the tunnel. Maps seemed to not work underground.

They followed the trail of bodies, and had to fight a couple more moles before making it back outside. They had all completely exhausted their mana fighting the last pair of four foot tall moles. They set up a watch, and woke up with the sun.

Graul said “I’ve got enough water to get in one more good drink around lunch time. How are you guys?”

They said the same. He continued “It’s a full day walk back to Long Beach and the LA River. Do we need to leave?”

Antic shouted “No! We’re so close guys. Let’s not give up. Rome, what’s our count?”

“We’ve killed thirty-seven. We have sixty-three left. Sorry Antic, we’re not going to make it. We didn’t have enough man power to get through the fights quickly. And we still have the rabbits to contend with. Maybe.”

Antic dropped his head. He knew they couldn’t get through all the moles without dehydrating. They would have to go back… wait, go back to a river where there were friends and allies. “Guys. We can do this. We need to get Jex, Arden, Edina, Quickly, and Baybil. They’ve been training on how to work together. This is real life practice!”

Chapter 38

Teamwork

They left early the next morning and made it back with plenty of sunlight. They arrived in time to see young dwarves blocking with shields and swinging their axes at four full grown simmets, while the elves moved left and right looking for clean shots. All the adults stood by, with weapons at the ready, but were giving no instructions.

A few minutes later the last simmet died, with three arrows in its side and several slashes to its face. The final blow had come from the youngest dwarf, at sixteen years old who looked like an eight year old. He swung his axe in a high overhead swing bringing it down on the snake head. Quickly ran over to him and started berating him for not keeping his weapon close to his body with a strong grip. Rome started to protest but Graul whispered that the dwarf sword master was right. Even though it worked that time, a quick head movement from the simmet could have sent the axe flying out of his hand.

Baybil gave a slight nod of approval to the elf children, but Edina did not return it to the dwarves, and Quickly scowled at everybody. They broke off to go to separate camps, but Rome rushed forward.

“Wait! We have a mission. The tunnels are more difficult than we expected, and we ran out of water. Let’s join up and go kill bigger monsters!”

Two dwarf children and one elfa smiled at the idea, but all the adults began shouting it down. To Rome’s surprise, Arden was the loudest. “No. They’re not ready for that, and they can’t be left alone while we go into the tunnels. Not gonna happen guys. Sorry.”

Antic deflated like a Brady football. He still hadn’t seen one of the rabbits up close. The humans went to the river to begin filtering the muddy water. They strained it through a wool rag, then another wool rag, then brought it to camp to boil it. It still tasted just as bad as the first time they were there. Brun volunteered to cook the deer, and Rome headed to the beach to look at Catalina in the sunset. Since there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, it wasn’t a postcard worthy scene. He returned to camp.

“Remember making the raft? It took a week, and we didn’t make it a mile out to sea before getting attacked. How strong do you think those sanglers are now?”

“I don’t know. I would guess level eighteen, if they came at level one and gain a level a month. But the one that attacked us was strong. Maybe they grow faster.”

Rome responded “That’s a scary thought Graul. Do you think we could make it now?”

“Maybe. But you’ve been there already. We have nothing to gain. What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing specific. Maybe I could repair the device and get it to send us home.”

Antic perked up. “That would be great. Let’s try it again guys!”

Arden said “If you could get it to work, great. But what did you see when you were there? You told us it was a standard shield, and a mostly empty room.”

“Yeah. There were glass tubes where I think the tyters enter at. The only other thing was a place to put my hand, well, a tyter hand, to get teleported away. And the screen said it was broken.”

“If it’s broken, maybe the tyters won’t be able to get here.”

Graul said “That would be nice, but if they can figure out how to travel to a different planet in a few seconds, they can figure out how to reboot the computer.”

Rome said “That’s it! Maybe it just needs a reboot! Maybe there’s a panel hiding a reset button!”

Brun looked at him with disdain. “Rome, you’re a pretty smart guy. That has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve heard you say.”

Rome was embarrassed, so he hid it with anger. “I’ll show you! I’ll go and have a better look around. It was dark and rainy when I was there.”

Before anyone could respond, for the first time Rome went to Spells then selected Teleport 2. A list of ally villages appeared: Calico (abandoned), Small Hammer (abandoned), Indio (dwarf), Home (Antic), Home (Arden and Jex), Parker (abandoned), Blythe (dwarf), Carson City (abandoned), Reno (Elf), Sequoia (Elf), Yosemite Valley (Elf), Catalina (Tyter), Yuma (Tyter), Home (Torger- respawn point).

What? He couldn’t believe it. He could teleport to Catalina. Which meant that with thirty more mana points, he could teleport his friends there using Teleport 3. He was too excited and forgot to tell his friends what he was cheering about. Finally Brun got him to calm down enough to say what he was all giddy about.

Once they understood, they all desperately wanted to get Teleport 2 for themselves. But without thinking what he was doing, Rome said “Catch ya on the flip side losers!” He teleported to Catalina and found himself in the same entry room. He looked around for a hidden panel covering a red reset button. After several minutes, he gave up hope. Then he realized his predicament that there were no teleport points close to Long Beach. Sighing with the knowledge that he once again failed, he teleported to Home.

Those near the beach were stunned for a few seconds. Arden finally said “I hope he can fix it.”

But the possibilities had been established. If they could learn Teleport 2, that would save them days of walking. Rome, Antic, Graul and Brun had each earned over 8000 exp points from killing the thirty-six Giant Moles. Antic had bought Analyze 1, and still had four ability points left, and the others had all of their points. The discussion got Arden and Jex excited to go get ability points for themselves, and specifically to buy Teleport 1 for six ability points, and Teleport 2 for another ten points.

As they were discussing these things, all the dwarves and elves walked up. Baybil started. “We saw Rome disappear in a green flash. I was told he had that spell, but why did he go back to Home?”

Antic said “He didn’t go to Home, he went to Catallluuhh somewhere else.”

“Somewhere else? Does he have that spell too? It can’t be.”

Edina said “I’ve never used analyze three on him. Is it true? Can any of you teleport?”

Arden said “We all have the option to buy teleport one. None of us have, so I don’t know if we could buy teleport two or not.”

The kids looked confused, and an elf asked “What’s teleport?”

Edina answered “It is a rare spell among elves, and it seems to be rare among dwarves too. It allows you to travel from any place to your home village in seconds, without having to walk. What Rome just did, no one has seen that among elves in a few decades.”

Baybil admitted “It’s been over a hundred years since I talked to a dwarf that could teleport to an ally village. Why didn’t you guys buy that spell and use it, instead of walking all over the land? You could have saved yourselves months of travelling. You could become rich travelling merchants.”

Arden responded with an edge to his voice, looking at Edina and Baybil, “Up until a few months ago, we didn’t have allies.” They looked away from his accusatory stare.

Jex tried to smooth things over. “We’re going to a tunnel to get experience to buy teleport one. You should come with us.”

All three adults declined, saying they had to keep training the children. But they all looked envious of the chance to go get easy experience.

The next morning the humans left to go to Kellogg Hill. When they got there Brun reminded them “Remember, the Giant Moles respawn here seven days after they were killed. It is now four days since we killed the first group of sixteen. Let’s kill another sixteen before bed tonight, and we’ll have fifty-one left for tomorrow.”

They all cast Analyze 1, and accepted Yes to conquering the level 18 cave. Jex had kept the Bow of Artemis the Huntress hidden for the weeks they had been with the dwarves, but when she held it while entering the cave, it felt great in her hand. She said “I only have six arrows that can withstand this Bow, and they will each break on impact. So, six shots in total.”

That was bad news for everyone. Chances of dying were high for everyone, so Brun and Graul bought Teleport 1, leaving each of them with two ability points. The plan was for Arden to cast Shield 2 on the first mole, and he would have enough mana left to cast it twice more if things got bad. Jex would keep Haste 1 on everyone, Brun would cast Lightning 1 as many times as he could, Graul would block a mole with his shield, and Antic would keep shoving Power Cord at any other moles in the area.

The plan worked great. The first mole slammed into the shield surrounding it twice to shatter it, but that delay allowed Antic to position himself closer and shove the steel spear through its heart. Graul blocked the next one with his steel shield, and Brun hit it twice with Lightning 1. Graul finished it while it was stunned from electric shock by stabbing through its eye. They got a little break before more came. Brun cast Lighting 1 at one, and Arden slowed down another with Shield 2.

Arden wished he could make his shields stronger like the elves could. Edina had taught the elf kids they could spend ability points to make shield one, two and three stronger with more resistance before breaking, or add elemental spells to their shields. She had demonstrated by surrounding a simmet with Shield 2, and when it rammed the shield it was hit with Lightning 1, Fire 1, and Ice 1, just like an improved village shield. But humans didn’t have that option with their magic shields, and based on Quickly’s rude reaction, neither did dwarves.

They exited the tunnel, and Brun proudly announced that with his next Lightning 2 spell, he would learn Lightning 3. The sun was setting when they re-entered. When they came to the first intersection, they saw the bodies began piling up, and other moles were not removing them quickly enough. They chose to go to the right. At the next intersection, three Giant Moles attacked them at the same time. Arden trapped two with Shield 2, but that only held them for a few seconds before they broke free.

Antic easily killed the third, but took a nasty claw swipe to the back of his leg from the first mole to break out of the shield. Brun kept casting Lightning 2, hitting one three times, but it was still alive enough to crawl toward Jex. She shot one of the arrows, killing it, while Graul finished the one Brun had damaged. They each had to cast Cure 1 once to bring Antic back up to nearly full health, then left the cave. Even though Antic had a max health of 500 instead of the initial 100, Cure 1 still only recovered 15 health with the aid of a silver staff, 17 from Rome and Brun who got the ten percent bonus from the mage’s tunic. It took a lot more Cure 1’s to cure Antic, but without the higher health he would nearly die in every battle with the moles.

They set up camp and went to bed tired and hungry. In the morning, Arden addressed them. “We need to save Jex’s arrows. Everyone is doing a good job, and Brun, now that you have lightning three, focus on casting poison two. What does it cost you?”

“It’s twenty-four mana, so I can cast it three times and still have eight left over. It will take sixteen minutes after I cast the first one, before I could cast it a fourth time, then we would need to exit for eighty minutes.”

“Eighty minutes is a long break, and we need to kill a lot more of these things. Who has ideas?”

No one had answers, so they had to settle for four groups of moles then retreat. Fortunately for them, the dead moles had been cleared out during the night. Another bonus was that the moles seemed to attack in groups of three, and Brun’s Poison 2 spell affected three moles. He cast it the first time, and Arden trapped one in Shield 2, while Graul and Antic took on the weak other two. The mole’s strength was still around 14, plenty strong to do a lot of damage, but their lower max health meant that the sword and spear penetrated more easily and did more damage. The three moles fell quickly, as did the next three groups of them. When they turned around to exit, they were further into the tunnels than they ever had been. They got lost a few times, and had to follow the trail of dead bodies.

After more than an hour break, they re-entered. As they walked through, no moles were seen anywhere. They marked the floors and walls with scratches, to show them where they had been, and walked through many turns and intersections, but found nothing. Nearly an hour later, they saw a distant light. As they came closer, they saw that it was sunlight. They exited, and saw they were a mile away from the entrance closest to the beach.

They walked back into the tunnels, looking at every possible intersection for an idea of where to go next. Antic lowered his spear as he walked, but Brun told him to get it back in a fighting position. There were supposed to be thirty-nine moles left, along with a big rabbit.

After a half hour of aimless wandering, Arden saw drag marks in the dirt floor. He told them to follow it. After a couple more turns, more drag marks showed up. It looked like the living moles had dragged the dead bodies that way. They followed it for another ten minutes, then had to stoop down into a four foot tunnel, exactly the size of a Giant Mole. They walked in a half-squat sort of way for twenty feet before it opened up again. When they emerged, they were standing on a dirt shelf looking down into a huge cavern. It was just like the cavern the queen goblin had been in; an eighty foot sphere. At the center in the bottom were five four foot tall jackrabbits. Several feet behind them were two adult six foot tall jackrabbits. Surrounding the bunny family were the missing thirty-nine living moles, but the truly disturbing part was watching all the rabbits devouring the flesh of dead moles. Most had been picked clean, but sixteen were left untouched- the sixteen infected with Poison 2. The jackrabbits looked at them and bore their wickedly sharp teeth.

Along the edges of the bottom of the cavern were tar pits, with a few dead moles decaying in them. It would take another two days for the bodies to disappear then respawn in the tunnels. As they watched, two of the skeletons disappeared without warning. Those must have been killed exactly one week earlier. From the fighting in the tunnels that day, Antic made it to eight ability points. He bought Analyze 2 and cast it at a rabbit parent.

Giant Jackrabbit. Level 18. Health 400/400. Mana 0/0 Strength 8 Stamina 100/100. Elemental weakness: None

Note: Beware of Giant Jackrabbits. They can jump 50 feet, and have fangs!

Antic called out the stats as he read them. When he read the note, Arden yelled “Run!”

Brun cast Fire 1 at the mole nearest to the tar. Its fur caught on fire and it lit the tar on fire. Thick black smoke filled the cavern as the fire spread, but they didn’t stay to watch. They ran back into the small tunnel made for Giant Moles, and all the vermin ran at them, climbing up the steep dirt walls. The young rabbits jumped up almost to the dirt shelf in a single bound, and began quickly tunneling their way into the dirt.

As the Regulators ran through the tunnels, the moles ran after them, but going in all different tunnels along the way. Antic was leading the retreat, but turning down different tunnels at random. Then they came across a Giant Mole that ran into the next intersection in front of them. Antic slowed to spear it, and his momentum allowed him to kill it in the single thrust, but it slowed them all down for his attack, and brought them to a complete stop while he extracted his spear. Then they had to all climb over the beast, but before Arden (who was bringing up the rear) could climb over, more moles ran at them from the sides of the intersection.

Graul and Antic fought and killed the first two, but more came from every direction. Jex used her remaining five arrows, each shot killing a mole, while Brun used the last of his mana on Poison 1 and Arden used the last of his on Shield 2. Arden yelled “We’re going to die! Spend your ability points!”

As he was yelling that, the young rabbits tunneled into the intersection they were standing in. Two dropped out of the dirt ceiling, and three came up through the floor. The moles backed away, and the five rabbits each jumped at a different human. Graul blocked with his shield and countered with Inferno, stabbing deep into its side. Antic thrust his spear and impaled the one jumping at him. It died instantly. Arden and Jex each had four ability points, and Brun had six. They all bought the first thing they could as quickly as they could: Mana. Each one of them got bit in the neck and futilely pushed and punched at the rabbits.

Antic got knocked down from the back by a Giant Mole who began biting him. Antic was much stronger and pushed it off, but two more each bit a thigh and Antic died a slow and painful death as his blood pumped out of his femoral arteries. Graul swung Inferno again, slicing off a leg of the rabbit, but he too was attacked by three moles at once. He valiantly swung his sword and blocked with his shield as he laid on the dirt floor dying.