The outpost was a grand undertaking, complete with a shipyard, living quarters, refineries, and storage facilities. It could operate as its own separate station from Deq’ual if it needed to.
It was the most advanced station yet and it was being built in record speed.
However, their rate of progress couldn’t be compared to that of the Emerilians. The sensor controller was bored from looking at the same rocks all the time and had taken an interest in running through every scan possible and looking for any anomalies.
“Doubt I could pick up an Emerilian ship if I tried.” Sighing to himself, he continued to go through the different sensor pickups.
Chapter 20: Stealing From the Gods
After more discussion, the rest of Party Zero was convinced by Steve’s seemingly insane idea to steal divine wells from the members of the Pantheon.
Which was how they found themselves walking through Terra wearing their full armor.
People parted around them, talking excitedly to one another as they passed.
It didn’t take them long to reach the teleport pads.
“Location?” the teleport pad’s controller asked.
“The orcish swamps in Gudalo,” Deia said.
The controller frowned in thought even as he input the different commands to make the teleport pad move and change.
Malsour looked back to Terra. It had rapidly expanded with the efforts of the Terra Alliance as well as the resources that were being funneled in by the Stone Raiders given to them through a sponsorship deal with Austin Zane.
Malsour looked back to the teleport pad that stopped moving and lit up with power. The event horizon appeared as Deia led them forward.
They left Terra behind, entering a land filled with smoke and marshlands. Around them, there was a crude-looking town. However, prowling the streets next to the orcs and gnomes were massive wolf-looking creatures.
These were blood reevers. This was the tribe that had been helped to subdue the blood reevers when they had exited the spawn point not too far from their village.
There were even some smaller blood reever pups who were following their parents and masters, playing with one another.
The blood reevers and their orc and gnome masters had kept their promise and supported the Terra Alliance. Most of them were part of the drop forces from the flying citadels.
They looked to Party Zero, who smiled to them and walked through their town.
As they left, Induca and Malsour expanded into their dragon forms. The rest of Party Zero jumped or flew onto their backs.
With a flap of their wings, the fog of the swamp was pushed back as they rose up and into the sky.
“Why does it feel like I’m now the equivalent to a taxi with wings?” Induca asked.
“A very cute taxi with wings,” Suzy said.
Malsour snorted as Dave cast a spell over Induca and Malsour. Their speed increased by nearly three times what it had been. They shot across the sky in a sonic boom, a black and red streak, aiming toward the way point Dave had selected.
***
Lox woke with a start. “Whoa, whoa, whoawhoawhoa!” He windmilled his arms with growing panic as he felt himself dropping, thinking he was falling off Induca. He looked as if he were trying to climb through the air before he slammed into something.
Lox paused his arms and feet mid-motion, hearing the rest of Party Zero laughing at him as he realized he had fallen off Induca and onto the ground. However, she hadn’t been flying but already landed.
“Thought I would go deaf from all that snoring,” Induca complained.
“Well, I need new bloody underwear!” Lox complained, only adding to the others’ laughter as he picked himself up and started to study his armor, looking to make sure that it was in perfect condition.
“Now that we’re all awake, I’ll let you know what I’ve found.” Dave’s voice started to turn serious on the party chat.
Party Zero moved together. Malsour and Induca changed into their human form.
“All around the hall, there are complicated runes—they’re all for detection. However, I think Steve will be able to come up with something to allow us to sneak through...”
“Error code 404, page not working,” Steve said in a robotic voice.
A metal hammer came out of the ground and smacked Steve’s helmeted head with a loud bang.
“That should fix it,” Malsour said.
“Refreshing,” Steve continued in his robot voice.
A smile crept on Dave’s face as he tried to keep down his laughter, looking to the sky as if trying to find the strength to keep serious instead of burst out laughing. He cleared his throat. However, the serious atmosphere from earlier had been somewhat reduced as he started talking again.
“The hall looks like it’s deserted and isn’t linked to anyone. However, if the Earth Lord was alive, then I think that he would have multiple alarms that would alert him of anyone who entered his hall. The thing is that these alarms only work when there is actually someone in the hall. That is his sanctuary. The hall is actually rather large. There is the main hall and entrance that is some five hundred meters long. Then there are private areas underneath the hall. There are meditation chambers, treasuries of different materials and items, a garden of ingredients as well as a room filled with seer spells that will allow someone to use the different feeds of the Jukal to look down upon Emerilia. Then there is a room with the divine wells. The divine wells are the most heavily protected area and as such, they’re in the middle of the underground section. So, to get there we’re going to need to dig down under the hall, come up underneath it and blast a hole through it,” Dave said.
“Well, that might be an issue.” Steve opened his eyes, his lips pressed together and an unsure look in his eyes. “I can indeed make a type of medallion that will allow us to bypass all of the traps and detection methods around the hall. However, we will need another medallion to suppress the Mana around us. If we use any magic, any spells or even regenerate Mana then the different traps will pick it up and we’ll be in a world of shit.”
“So, we’ve got to break into this place without any magic? That’s impossible,” Gurren said.
“Reminds me of a movie I watched.” Steve tapped his chin.
“What about magical machines?” Dave asked.
“Should work—no power coming out from them and as long as they aren’t using a system to charge up, then, yeah, perfect,” Steve said.
Dave waved his hand. An ono dropped from his hand.
“Do you just casually keep those in there?” Lox asked.
“Just a few of them.” Dave shrugged. “I can get us an automated miner that should be able to deal with the digging part.”
“Okay, so we are going to need to break some spell formations here and there as well. Simple stuff, just lots of juice behind it—so you know, one wrong step and boom. Kind of like bomb disposal. Hey! You think I could get one of those big padded suits that they wear?” Steve asked.
“Can get you a bloody padded room,” Lox said under his breath, covering it over with a cough.
“Also, there are some creatures in the Earth Lord’s hall; however, they’re in a hibernating state. Maybe because Earth is dead. However, if alarms are going off, they’re probably tied into the alarm system and they’d be the reason the alarms would be going off,” Dave said.
“Okay, so,” Suzy held up her hand and raised her forefinger, “we’re going to have to disable some really powerful spell formations and hopefully not get killed at the same time. Let’s not forget that we can’t use Mana so we’re going to be following an automated miner down. Unable to do anything in case this all goes wrong. Then, the hall we’re going to enter will detect us as soon as we get within a certain distance, which will activate traps as well as some beasts that the Earth Lord picked out to protect his home—so they’re probably terrifying. We’ve got to break into the most secure location within all of the hall before those creatures arrive,
making sure to not set off the traps inside. And does anyone know what we do when we get to the divine wells?” Suzy asked.
“Nope, but I can ask my mom,” Deia said.
“That might be a good idea instead of us getting in there and just staring at it like it has seven heads and we have no idea what to do with it,” Suzy said.
“So, you like the plan?” Steve said with a knowing smile.
Suzy made to open her mouth; she waved her hand and let it drop, shrugging. “Fuck it, let’s steal from the gods.” Her severe expression transformed into a wide smile.
Lox chuckled at how fast Suzy’s expression changed.
“Seems that another has been lost to the dark side,” Jung Lee said.
Lu Lu let out a whining screech, disapproving of Jung Lee’s words.
He raised his eyebrow toward the bird, his lips showing a gentle and entertained smile.
“Yes, that’s a good girl, defending Mommy like that.” Suzy’s voice changed to baby talk as she scratched underneath Lu Lu’s neck. The lightning phoenix made happy noises, a flicker of lightning coming from her mouth.
Suzy and Malsour shared a look before they looked back at the party.
“All right, order up, come and get your runes!” Steve pulled out a soul gem construct from his internal space of holding.
The construct grew, creating ten necklaces of soul gem crystal covered in runic lines that joined together and formed a rectangular medallion. Once they were completed, they separated from the soul gem construct that grew dimmer after each one.
Steve tossed them out to everyone, giving Suzy two, one for her and one for Lu Lu.
The ono started to glow; the event horizon appeared and through it, an automated miner five meters wide and tall came through.
“Sweet ride.” Steve put one of the three largest medallions around his neck. The other two, Lox and Gurren wore over their armor.
“Thanks, you’ll be carrying it,” Dave said.
“What?” Steve said in a complaining tone.
“We can’t use magic, right? So, the automated miner moves the fastest when flying. When it’s just using its wheels, it’s barely faster than walking pace,” Dave said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Steve let out a groan.
“Don’t worry, you’re going to need some more help anyway.” Dave looked to Gurren and Lox.
“He’s a dwarf, too, but he seems to have a great time letting us do the boring jobs!” Gurren complained to Lox.
“Need to talk to the union about these worker conditions,” Lox agreed as they moved toward the automated miner that left the ono. The event horizon faded away as the power going through the runes of the ono faded.
Dave waved his hand. The ono disappeared into his wrist holding space and a large hole appeared where it had been.
Steve grumbled, picking up his helmet and smacking it over his head. Now all three of them seemed to be wearing identical Devastator armor.
It took a few minutes of them ambling about and complaining to one another before Malsour created a harness from metal that allowed Steve to carry from the front with Lox and Gurren on either side.
As they were doing that, the rest of them looked at a shared interface screen that showed all of the hall, discussing their tactics, down to the spells of what they would do.
“Well, you coming, nerds?” Lox said, once they were ready.
“Right! Like, come on, do you need to figure out what you’re going to do down to the spell?” Steve said.
“Let’s move out,” Deia said with a smile as they headed toward the Earth Lord’s hall.
Their pace was rather quick. With their physical abilities, they quickly covered the ground between them and their way point.
“We’re passing through the alarm spells. Don’t use your magic,” Steve said.
They didn’t slow as they passed through the forest filled with alarm spells. They weaved through the trees and over creeks, blurs in the dark night. There weren’t any powerful creatures in the area. The aura of the ones that Earth commanded were many more times powerful than those around, making none of them settle in the area. They reached the way point that looked no different than the rest of the forest. They stopped at the base of a rather long hill.
Steve, Gurren, and Lox lowered the drill and pulled apart the harness, putting it to the side.
Dave pressed a few commands into the automated miner. He’d already programmed it on the run over, so all he had to do was start it up.
The miner powered up and moved forward. Its bits moved and whirled; it quickly started to dig into the hill, angling downward and eating through everything in front of it. It moved forward at a slight jogging pace, easily eating through the dirt and heading deeper. As it moved, it fused some of the ground around it so that it wouldn’t collapse.
The dirt rained down from the tunnel’s roof, falling on Party Zero as they followed the drill.
None of them talked as they walked forward, all of them with serious expressions as they moved deeper and deeper. The automated miner slowed somewhat as it ate through rocks and debris before making it into the bedrock and slowing once again.
“This would be a lot more fun if there were lasers and air ducts and stuff like that—could rappel from the ceiling. Now that would be a proper heist,” Steve said with approval.
Dave pressed a button on the automated miner, making it pause.
He wasn’t using his spells but he had been looking for the different trap spells that were particularly dangerous. He pushed his finger and then arm through the dirt, touching the edge of a spell formation. He couldn’t exert magical power, but making physical contact with the spell formation he could sense it perfectly and use its own power to disable it through changing the runes that formed it.
In just a few moments, he had disabled it and he started up the automated miner again.
Dave stopped it at different places and disabled different traps. Steve and Malsour helped out as well. It was slow progress but they were getting farther with every minute.
Even though it was daring as hell, Lox was at ease. Sure, there might be a big fight at the end but he trusted in the rest of his party. He laughed to himself. Stealing from a god and all I can think about is what I’m going to have for dinner. I think Steve’s affected me.
***
Their pace slowed the closer they got to the Earth Lord’s hall. The miner had to twist and turn so that it wouldn’t run into the traps that had been laid down and set them off, making their path longer.
Finally, they reached an area that was too thick with traps for the automated miner to continue through.
“Time for the picks.” Dave pulled out picks from his bag. Both Lox and Gurren pulled out their own axes, which must’ve been custom built to fit their size when in Devastator armor.
Dave’s movements paused as he looked at the two.
“What? We’re dwarves—you think we’re going to leave home without a pick?” Gurren said.
“I think your grandfather would chase you around the house with one if he knew you’d left without one,” Lox said.
Gurren tapped the back of his head awkwardly as he and Lox moved to where they were supposed to cut through.
Dave made to move up to help them when Malsour stopped him.
“Have you ever seen a dwarf team mining?” Malsour asked.
“No, why?” Dave said, a perplexed look on his face.
“There’s a reason they haven’t needed automated miners in the past,” Malsour said mysteriously as Lox hit the rock wall in front of him.
Just as his pick was pulled from the wall, Gurren’s hit. Their picks hit rhythmically without pause as they started to speed up. The wall in front of them was broken apart as the two dwarves pushed forward.
“Watch your feet, dears.” Steve had changed outfits and now wore a house apron and what looked like a hair net as he used his axe Alex with an attached broom head to clear up the mess behind them.<
br />
The rest of Party Zero watched with open mouths, not believing what they were seeing.
Lox and Gurren were oblivious of it as they continued to break through the wall, absorbed in their work. They weren’t as fast as the automated drill and unlike the drill, they would get tired after a time.
“Now I’ve seen everything,” Jung Lee said, the first to recover.
“You custom built a broom head for your axe?” Dave said with a note of disbelief.
“Well, you know, I do like to keep a tidy home.” Steve whistled away as he continued to clean.
“Trap rune,” Lox said, absorbed in mining. He had mined for a good portion of his life; after all, the dwarven warbands were made to explore the depths of the mountains they lived in and mine out new tunnels. After a time, they had built up the skill mine sense. A skill that allowed them to feel what was within the rock they were mining, sort of like echolocation but through rocks.
Steve stopped next to where the trap rune was through the wall, crossing his ankles with his right leg cocked out to the side and his right hand on his hip that was jutting out, the axe/broom leaning against the inside of his shoulder. He poked out his finger into the wall, the very motion filled with sass. “Well, you’ve got to have accessories, honey,” Steve said in a rough falsetto as he batted his eyelashes.
Everyone stared at him blankly, as Gurren and Lox cut through the walls of the tunnel.
“Trap rune,” Gurren called out.
Dave finally pulled himself together and stepped forward, his eyes not seeing the world around him, as his mind was still in a state of shock.
“This one’s done. Oh boys, you’re making such a mess!” Steve said in his falsetto, twirling his broom and vigorously getting back to work.
“Maybe you should bond with him again, could clean up around the apartment,” Induca said to Suzy, who nodded before she shook her head.
“Just when you think you’ve figured out his quirks, he goes and turns it on its head,” Suzy muttered.
“You wouldn’t think that we’re on a mission to go against the gods,” Deia added.
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