by Kal Aaron
That was the annoying part of dealing with new creations. It turned what should have been routine battles into challenges. She had only basic locomotion intel so far, with no real information on the number and disposition of the creatures. A handful of monsters would be the best-case scenario, but she harbored doubts about that being the reality.
The monster crept forward and moved past her. It stepped over her boot prints without slowing or giving any indication it could sense her presence. That suggested it couldn’t sense sorcery, but then, it was rare for a monster to possess that ability.
“It’s like someone crossed a snake and cockroach,” Lyssa whispered. “Snake-roach. I’m suddenly missing fighting cartel guys and smugglers. They don’t smell or look this bad.”
“You don’t have effective antivenin sorcery,” Jofi said. “Please exercise caution in dealing with possible poisoning incidents.”
“I’ve got Tricia’s herbs,” she replied. “But point taken.”
The snake-roach jumped and faced Lyssa. It hesitated for a couple of seconds before charging her location. Good hearing. That was useful to know.
“Here’s your caution,” she said.
Lyssa fired into the monster’s mouth. Her muzzle flashes lit the tunnel, and her shadowy form solidified.
The bullet ripped through the creature and out its back. Green blood splattered all over the area. The creature collapsed, twitching and spewing blood from its wound for several seconds before dying.
Lyssa counted to ten to avoid any unpleasant surprises. No one wanted to be close to a monster when it exploded into a shower of goo. Nothing happened.
“Ha!” Lyssa chuckled. “That wasn’t so hard. It might be ugly, but it wasn’t tough. I bet one of Serafina’s little dolls could have taken that thing out without much trouble. That poor bastard might have survived if they’d brought a gun.”
Scratching noises echoed from around the corner, and a scuttling mass of the snake-roaches erupted from that direction, blocking Lyssa’s way forward. They surged toward her with their mouths open.
Their appearance didn’t surprise her. She had known that the second she fired her weapon, she invited trouble. She’d also verified they could see her as long as she was a shadow.
She didn’t sense external sorcery. Any rogue who might be in the mine wasn’t nearby, though she had her doubts about anyone staying in the mine. If a rogue was involved, it was more that they had visited the mine just long enough to drop off their creations.
Lyssa grinned. “Fine. Let’s play. It’s time for my daily target practice, you freaks.”
She pointed her guns at different targets and opened fire. Her shots didn’t go down their throats, but they blasted through the creatures with ease, dropping them. Their allies didn’t react to their deaths and continued toward her. Confirmed intel was piling up with the monster corpses.
“No armor.” Lyssa fired again. “You’re not going to win against me that way.”
“These creatures are unlikely to be able to understand you,” Jofi said. “Your taunts are a waste of time.”
“Sometimes a woman wants to hear herself talk trash,” Lyssa shouted over her gunshots. “Is that a crime?”
“Very well. Carry on.”
With quick, precise motions, Lyssa lined up new targets in the front of the enemy pack and fired. Her loud shots echoed through the tunnel. She backed up slowly to avoid tripping over rocks. Despite the unimpressive showing of the monsters so far, she wasn’t ready to test their fangs’ abilities to pierce her regalia and armor. Sometimes a creature was designed for maximum offense and minimum defense.
One of her shots nailed the back of a snake-roach. The monster thrashed its tail, but it continued rushing Lyssa until she ripped it in half with her next shot.
Not one of the creatures demonstrated fear or concern. That might prove annoying later, but for now, it meant they weren’t being careful. That made it easy for her to pick them off.
More monsters rushed to reinforce their fallen brethren from farther down the passage, but what had been a scuttling mass of nightmarish doom was now a scattered group of desperate monsters facing a far superior foe. She might be able to find pity for a human, no matter how corrupt, but not a mishappen soulless mass of flesh. The world would be a better place without these creatures in it.
Lyssa continued downing monsters with ease. This was better than the range. They were moving mindless targets, and she didn’t even have to pay for the special session. She also was earning a little revenge for a dead man and ending a threat to the regular people living in the area. It was almost enough to make a woman feel warm and fuzzy despite being in a disgusting-smelling hole in the ground, knee-deep in monster gore.
Two final gunshots boomed before Lyssa lifted her pistols. She surveyed the area, satisfied with the destruction of her enemies. Silence replaced the scratching noises from earlier. Dying monsters twitched in front of her, but they didn’t squeal or chitter in their final moments.
“You never had a chance,” she said. “But there were a lot more of you than I expected. This job might end up being more annoying than I thought.”
Lyssa reloaded her pistols before walking over to nudge a body with the tip of her boot. She stared at her leather, looking for any sign of acid burns from the slime, but there was nothing. At least it couldn’t possibly smell worse.
She tried her boot with the blood. Again, there was no problem. It didn’t hurt to check, but the opposite wasn’t always true, as she’d found out earlier in her career. Being damage-resistant wasn’t the same thing as being immune to injury. Tricia’s herbs would help, but they couldn’t help her if she was dead.
Lyssa let out a sigh of relief. The monsters lacked acid blood and burning slime, but their stench was so overwhelming as to almost be a weapon itself. She was grateful for what small protection from the odor her mask provided.
“I need a gas mask,” Lyssa said, wrinkling her nose. “I should have one as standard equipment. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deal with something this rank. Someone might drop gas on me.”
“You don’t seem to be suffering any harmful effects,” Jofi said. “More unnecessary equipment leads to inefficiency in travel and conducting your duties.”
“You’re saying that because you don’t have lungs or a nose.” Lyssa snickered. “It smells really, really bad.”
“My physical nature is irrelevant to your situation.”
“My stomach disagrees with you.” Lyssa shoved a snake-roach corpse out of the way with her boot. “I can see how those things could have messed up college kids with Go Pros, but they aren’t much of a threat otherwise.” She gave a nod. “Nice to know. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell Samuel he’d need major PR to explain away a nest of super-monsters. You know how he can get. It’s a sad day when I’m the one telling someone they need to be more of an optimist.”
“We have no confirmation we’ve eliminated all threats,” Jofi replied. “Significantly more dangerous creatures might still be present, or there might be more of those creatures. A few aren’t a challenge, but a larger number might pose a risk to nearby towns.”
“Not going to let me have my moment, huh?” Lyssa chuckled. “But you’re right; I’m sure we’ve got a couple more hiding somewhere. My primary contract is for recon, and that’s not done yet. We know they can kind of see in the dark, but not all the way, and we also know they have good hearing. I hope we don’t have some sort of new sorcery-enhanced invasive underground burrowing species. It’s hard to make self-sustaining monsters, but it’s not like it’s impossible.”
Lyssa kicked a body onto its back. There was nothing noticeably different on the bottom of the creature’s body. She’d expected evidence of segmentation or a seam but reminded herself that monsters could be created to look like almost anything. Without an active sorcery infusion, physics provided limits, but normal Earth biology principles didn’t always apply, and Sorcerers usually didn’
t mind if a monster had a short lifespan.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m going to be spending the next two weeks checking every nook and cranny of this place?” Lyssa asked, shuddering and considering nose plugs.
“You could offer support for the National Guard plan,” Jofi suggested.
Lyssa shook her head. “Samuel would kill me if I said Shadows should clean up a monster nest. Besides, the more tedious and annoying this is, the more favorably the Society will look at it when I finish the job.” She peered at the fallen monsters for any signs of movement. “We’ll finish up here and see what we can find. We can’t ignore the possibility of other monsters. We’ll go from there. I hate it when things are underground.”
Lyssa spent a couple of minutes inspecting the rest of the bodies and confirming no regeneration. Most monsters wouldn’t be able to pull that off without emitting obvious active sorcerous energy, but making assumptions about mutant snake-roaches while she was alone in a hole in the ground might lead to an unpleasant surprise later that could end with her dead and supplying nutrients to a new generation of snake-roaches. She’d deserve it if she were that sloppy.
She walked past the bodies and found slime trails interspersed with the shallow holes she now understood were monster prints. There was no hint of blood or human footprints.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure our guy didn’t survive. Damn.” Lyssa clucked her tongue. “File another case under ‘brave but stupid.’ You’d think people would get that there really are monsters hiding in the shadows, and they should be more careful. Sorry, Jake. There’s nothing I can do for you, but I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
Back in wraith form, Lyssa delved deeper into the mine and found another intersection. She’d not bothered with the map, more interested in following the slime trails back to their source. They went off in different directions, but there were greater numbers of trails converging one way.
“It looks like we’re getting closer to their nest.”
“What’s your plan when you arrive?” Jofi asked.
“I was going with ‘Shoot them all, then shoot them all again if they move.’ These things are nasty but easy to kill. How does that sound?”
“Simple but effective. I applaud your audacity.”
“Yeah. This doesn’t call for overly complicated schemes. Yet. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
Lyssa kept her guns in hand as she walked, the minutes passing in near-silence except for the crunch of her boots. On occasion, she heard distant scratching but didn’t know if that marked monsters or more conventional vermin. There were no new enemies, but one fact grew more obvious with each step deeper into the mine.
Lyssa holstered one of her pistols and ran her hand along a wall. “It gets a lot smoother and rounder the farther in we go.” She motioned around her current passage. “It looks wider, too. I think we’ve left the main mine tunnels and entered new tunnels. I don’t know if I like that.”
“Do you have a theory about where they came from?” Jofi asked.
“Yeah.” Lyssa nodded. “I think our snake-roaches have been expanding the tunnel system, and they might have had help.” She frowned and surveyed the area. “I haven’t seen any metal or wood in a while, but I can’t be sure. Wood braces could have decayed over the years. Seeing all this makes me wonder if the deputy was right about these monsters being an older threat.”
“You think they did encounter an ancient nest?” Jofi asked.
“That’s the part I’m tripping on. The victims barely stepped into the place.” Lyssa shook her head. “I’m not saying it’s thousands of years old, but if these creatures can dig tunnels, they might not have originally been in this mine. They could have been somewhere else and spent years digging until they connected to it. That also could mean there’s no rogue to find at the end of it, or the one who did this was involved twenty years ago and forgot about it.” She frowned. “There’s no way that group I fought could have managed to dig out that much material. It’d take centuries.”
“There are many more enemies,” Jofi said. “That’s your conclusion.”
“Yeah. A lot more. A hell of a lot more. I’m doing recon, and they were too, in their way.” Lyssa ejected her magazine and loaded explosive rounds. She tucked the pistol away before retrieving her other magazine, still loaded with normal bullets. “Their digging means we can’t end this by collapsing the tunnels. It’ll just mean these things emerge from the ground somewhere random years from now like a bad Tremors sequel.”
“You don’t believe light troubles them?” Jofi asked.
Lyssa continued following the slime trails. “Evidence points that way, but I can’t be sure. I’m not going to bet people’s lives on it. I haven’t sensed any sorcery, so no spells are containing them. They had plenty of hours in the night to come out in, and they didn’t.” She frowned. “It might be they only haven’t come out of the mine because they didn’t sense any prey. If they dig under a city, they could wait for nighttime or make themselves at home in buildings and have thousands of people to munch on.”
“That scenario relies on many different assumptions that might not all be accurate,” Jofi replied.
“It’ll help a lot if they couldn’t handle light. At least we can cut down on the possible emergence points.” Lyssa’s stomach churned. “I’ll bring a body back to the surface on our way out. I can confirm if sunlight harms them, and that’ll help us know when we hit them for a chance of safe retreat. For now, time to go back to wraith form and see where the trail leads us.”
Lyssa didn’t need any sort of special Torch technique or Sorceress spell to know she was closing in on a lot more trouble. The awful gut-churning smell from before grew stronger with each step deeper into the tunnels. She silently cursed whatever idiot Sorcerer had purposely made something that stank so badly.
Familiarity and constant exposure protected her stomach a little, but she suspected this latest sensory experience would haunt her nose for weeks. She’d need to go to Tricia’s place and roll around in the flowers until she forgot all about the snake-roach stench.
Ah, the glamourous life of an Illuminated Torch.
Lyssa didn’t fail to notice the near-constant scratching and skittering noises echoing from the tunnel ahead of her. Nor was it easy to ignore the increased number of tunnels going off in different directions. Many of them were far rounder than the tunnels and passages near the front of the mine.
Slime trails marked almost all of them, but she tromped along her original path, following the largest group of trails and tracks, which happened to line up with the biggest tunnel. That one could accommodate three or four people standing side by side.
Picking off monsters one by one would be tedious, and she’d die of old age before it was done. She needed to find their central nest or hive and take that out in one extreme and brutal burst of overkill.
The number of monsters pointed to possible reproduction. That meant she needed to find a queenlike creature to kill or destroy enough of the snake-roach pairs so the population couldn’t replenish itself. She couldn’t be sure they were reproducing, but she was far from ready to assume the opposite.
One observation continued to bother and distract her: the tunnels were far larger than any of the creatures she’d fought. The implications hung heavy in her mind.
Fighting monsters presented unique challenges. Shadow or Illuminated, people were people, and she understood where and how she needed to wound them to kill them.
That wasn’t always the case with monsters. Every new monster hunt turned into an impromptu anatomy lesson on the most extreme things possible with flesh and bone. Once a Sorceress learned their weaknesses, they were easier to beat than a rogue or a well-equipped Shadow, but that initial learning curve could be steep.
The noise from ahead grew louder as Lyssa advanced until it’d become a constant din of scratching and squelching. A shiver of anticipation wracked her body. Almost there.
She followed the current curving tunnel until it widened. It opened into a huge, sprawling chamber, warm and humid, filled with fetid mounds covered with slime and thick white-green fungus. Snake-roaches crawled all over the mounds, some surrounding opaque and moist spherical eggs. Her educated guess had become an awful reality.
The smaller type of monster Lyssa had fought near the entrance of the mine dominated the room, crawling over one another and streaming in and out of the hatchery from different tunnels. Larger snake-roaches, some nearly the size of a horse, scuttled amongst their smaller family members. Like her first test subject, they didn’t pay her shadowy form any attention.
Lyssa blurted, “Okay, that’s about the most awful thing I’ve seen this year.”
Half the horde pivoted in her direction. All the legs moving at once made her skin crawl.
“Okay, that was dumb.”
“Perhaps a temporary retreat is in order,” Jofi said.
Lyssa stepped into the chamber, her boots sinking into something soft and squishy. When she took a step, there was a loud pop. Packs of small monsters skittered off the mounds and spread out in a wide arc surrounding her. Monsters came from the tunnels.
“No, Jofi.” Lyssa drew her other gun and dropped the wraith form. “It’s time to clean up the mess.”
Chapter Ten
Lyssa swept the pistol loaded with normal rounds in front of her, taking down the small charging snake-roaches as quickly as she could pull the trigger. Their larger cousins remained farther back, clustering near eggs but still facing her.
Male drones? Monster hatchery guards? It didn’t matter. None of them would be leaving this chamber alive.
Green blood splashed everywhere as her bullets found their marks. More than one shot penetrated a snake-roach only to continue through and nail another. The sheer density of the enemy was making it easy to take them down. She could have closed her eyes and shot without missing.