A Survivor's Guide to Planetary Apotheosis [Postapocalyptic Survival, LitRPG, and Dungeon]

Another day disappeared in a flash. Alexander was a raft bobbing on high seas, rough seas. War. Death. New love? Friendship. All glommed together and set to drift on the front-line of the Eximius invasion. He was alone in Grace's tent. She'd taken one look at the inside of his and stated flatly, "No, thanks, you might be fun sized, but this isn't going to work for me.". Fair enough. At her insistence, he'd moved his gear into her admittedly cavernous in comparison shelter.

"Day Sixty-nine. Nice." He remarked to no one, shaping a replacement shaft for the four red fletched arrows he'd ruined in the Puppeteer camp.

Two broken in the throes of giga-oxen piloted by Eximius experiencing Mind Flayer Tears. Two melted, all but the Ultimet spear tips by the hyper acid of the Witch kiss that he'd employed to destroy the Slayer Eximius guarding the camp. The four bulbs resulting from that were safely stowed, two in the clasped pouch on his belt for deployment in desperate need, two in glass jars full of mineral oil, those jars locked in a metal box welded shut. He wasn't taking chances and he could chaos the welds apart if he really needed to, or hack a little with Talon.

Alexander sighted down the hickory shaft he'd just finished carving, thumb thick, the grains of wood fibers nice and straight. He was starting to consider metal for the shafts. Those wouldn't be replaceable in the field, but they might hold up better than wood and mean less time spent fletching. There was no real way to make that process fast, you did it right or you got arrows that didn't fly straight.

Some part of him did very much enjoy the fresh carved wood smell, though, the wood powder dust from sanding, and the sappy resin that turned spear tip arrowhead, shaft, and eagle feathers into an aerodynamic precision instrument. It was part of the Venator's craft. You just didn't get that satisfaction from Golem High Steel, as marvelous as that metal was to play with in armouring.

Grace had departed an hour ago, a food run, of course. She probably should have been back by now though. Today was the last day of being off duty, they would be back in the Green tomorrow. Which was why the young hunter was servicing his equipment, making certain his kit was top notch before they left the comforts of the fortress.

A burble from his stomach. Again. Damn it, he was getting tired of this. Tier strain was a thorn in his side. The extra mana was nice, but reductions to his stamina and drastically increased calorie requirements, or else, was an inefficiency that grated on his nerves. Time was, the patriarch of Clan Gerifalte could have gone two days without eating, a couple of hours of sleep a night, and been unbothered by the lack. Not so now, lots of food, more sleep than he was accustomed to, both helped to give his struggling biology the resources to stave off the over burdened core.

"Nothing for it." Alexander decided, laying aside the fourth shaft, putting out the wax candle he used to heat the resin stick to attach feathers and head, not concerned about the thin rawhide wrap that was soaking in water, as it wouldn't shrink until it started to dry.

He rose, wearing a fresh dark grey wool shirt, laces done up neatly, and the new field pants still stiff from needing broken in. These pants were an experiment from the support classes, weavers had tried something new, a blended weave of superflax and wool. Tough, absorbent, warm, relatively flexible, with a thin treatment of the Peacekeeper water and blade repellent. So far, he was liking them, but he hadn't properly put them through their paces.

Mottled dark grey and forest green, green the undyed color of the flax fibers, dark grey the chosen color to dye the wool to help break up your outline in the Green. It wasn't quite the complex camouflages of Pre-Pulse textiles, but it was getting there. Alexander had tripped across a monster core that, ground up, produced an optical shimmer that made it hard to track the wearer, and had impressed it into his poor Eximius slain cloak. The critter whose core you needed, as might be imagined, was hard to find in the wild, and native to the far north Appalachians of his home town, but he'd be finding some post haste when he got back for even better ninja suits.

A brief pass of his fingers through his feathered scalp shook most of the remaining whittling chips from them, and he departed the tent, to join the bustle of Fort Fifty-One Crossing. Scouting reports indicated that the Hive had attempted a simultaneous breech of three of the river crossings, each thrown back. There had been significant casualties, several losses in those other battles, the large number of dangerous varieties of dungeon spawn being employed by the Puppeteers had made some of the holds near things. It was good to know he'd made a difference here, when he caught those snippets of briefings. Briefings he listened in on in passing, between regular forays to the mess tents, and escaping the clutches of Grace Miller, who was seemingly experiencing an awakening of appetites.

He had dug too greedily, and too deep. Damn you, Brig! He cursed, but with joy in his heart. Alexander could see the smug smirk on her face now, as she'd leaned over to impart her lore, "There's right ways and wrong ways to do it. Me, I'm a fan of the right way, and you're gonna thank me later. So will Annita, so shut up and do it like this."

Alexander liked to do things correctly. It was a personality flaw, sometimes, he could be obsessive. Normally that worked out for him. Getting his bones jumped every couple of hours was interesting but sometimes he needed to do other things. It didn't help that Grace had convinced herself that sex and fighting were linked, somehow. Then again, he couldn't cut rocks with a stick, so who was he to say?

"Speak of the Blue Eyed, plus sized Devil." He muttered, unable to help the appreciative smile that encroached on his face when he laid eyes on her form across the hub-bub of the fort's daily managed chaos.

Captain Miller was slouched over a rail to the sparring stalls, and lo' and behold! There was Captain Marv, his beard trimmed, his corn rows freshly done up, and wearing his casual uniform over the bandages that likely still covered his body. The Peacekeeper cryomancer had taken a thrashing, but he'd held like a stone in a river.

What a man, praised Alexander.

He crossed the fort, homing in on his target, using the cover of Guildies and Adventurers to slide from shadow to shadow, a game he frequently played to simulate a stalk on some dungeon spawn or Contract breaker. Using his fellows as training opportunities annoyed them to no ends, but it paid such dividends that he didn't mind owing them brewskis, as the Midwesterners called their beer. They didn't complain as much after he disappeared some nasty boggart or another, though, he'd noticed.

One of the tricks to a proper stalk was to not appear to be stalking. Prey animals were often alerted by the too intentional efforts of the hunter. Calm, casual, almost disinterested, that was one of the tricks to blending without alerting the target, plus it gave him time to spy on the documents being sifted and scanned by the operations center overseen by Captains Mason and Siddiqua. So it was that he sidled up behind Grace to stand in her blind spot without her notice, her attention being on her sponsor in the ranks, and friend, in Marvin Pruitt.

Marvin started slightly when he noticed Alexander's presence, but he took great joy, not that he showed it so obviously, in seeing his junior officer spooked out of her skin, as happened semi-regularly since teaming up with the Ranger from Falcon's Rest. He didn't give up the game, rubbed his eye vigorously. What a man, Alexander praised again, moving into his lover's space, silent, smooth, so that there was nothing to disturb the air that might even subconsciously indicate his presence.

"What's the matter Marv? Wounds aching?" Grace asked, noting the slight jump.

"Nothing, sawdust. Always manages to land right in the eyeball. Anyhow, you were busting my balls bragging, if my poor, senile mind hasn't gone." Marvin replied, suppressing an evil grin as he handed her plenty of rope.

"Oh, yeah! Like I says, that crazy bastard fucks like its professional sports, Marv. Fucks like a fighter jet. Treats boning like he treats everything else, there's this unsettling concentration on every little thing. I dunno man, but it works, you know what I'm saying? I've got a wild streak, but this is some next level shit. I think I'm dying sometimes." She gloated, grinning proudly at her conquest, lording it over her friend in vengeance for having to sit through his repeated jubilations back in New Chicago during her dry spell.

"Uh huh, go ahead, Grace, you just keep pouring salt, see what it gets you. Say, you ever told him any of this, by any chance?" Marvin asked drily, with ironclad discipline, fist tightening on his thigh with the effort.

The Marid man's wife had been assigned in the lottery to a different river crossing. Now it was her turn to rub it in!

A feminine snort, and sarcastic "Hah!" at that suggestion.

"That's the worst part," Grace lamented, shaking her head to send the golden ponytail wagging in front of Alexander's nose, "He knows he's good at it, cocky fucker. This Brig he goes on about, she's a freak Marv! Super freak, and she got him trained right the fuck up. I don't have names for some of the heinous shit we're doing, but when I'm getting played like a harp, I'm not stopping to ask questions."

Alexander nodded along in the safety of the Oread's shadow. He bore no pride for his skill in this, always he would be second to his pagan Goddess, she who taught him with her body to worship her, and by extension, all of his mates.

Marvin Pruitt interjected, summoning his class's reserve of enforced calm to hold, "I'm loving that for you Grace, really, but is standing here yucking it up over getting some while I gotta sleep cold really how you want to spend your last day of R&R? Didn't you say something about having to pick up lunch? If life's so good, why you hiding out over here giving me shit?"

"Oh, Alexander's fletching replacement arrows, you know how he gets. Alien fucker was completely locked in when I left, probably doesn't even know what time it is."

Dark brown eyes closed tight for a moment, and Marvin summoned all his composure when the man in question gave him a double thumbs up.

"You don't say?" He deadpanned.

"Yeah, anyhow, like I says, I didn't just come to give you shit. I advanced yesterday, Wicked Slice to Greater, it's like I learned how to swing a sword all over again. Bypasses slash resistance and everything. That engagement took me right to the edge of it, and I got so worked up watching the Grabowski evaporate the asteroid I-" Grace paused, taking in the flaring nostrils, her long-time confidante's labored breathing, the slight tremor in a fist, the rigid facial features beneath caramel skin, either Marvin Pruitt was having a stroke, or…

"Goddamnit, he's behind me, isn't he." She declared mortified.

Silent tears escaped, ran down her superior officer's face while he nodded, his jaw locked with the effort.

"You're a cold-blooded sonofabitch Marvin Pruitt." She accused, before turning, a welcoming smile painted onto her beauty queen face, like a contestant about to face the guillotine.

"Hey, you! Pretty sure we talked about this whole assassin behind me thing!" She said, holding out hope that he hadn't been there long.

Alexander smiled, and nodded. They had discussed it, but he'd made no promises.

"How long you been there, just, you know, out of curiosity?" She asked, praying silently.

He wondered if he should show mercy, or if execution was the order of the day. After all, she'd left to complete a mission of necessity, and here he found her overdue, AWOL, and using this time to harass her senior officer.

Alexander looked to the older man, their traded gazes acknowledging without words that the decision had been passed to the hands of the Marid cryomancer. It was Marvin, laughing so hard he didn't make sound, who held his protégé's fate now. He held out a hand, thumb sideways. Remorseless, he turned the thumb down.

"Since fighter jet." Alexander revealed immediately.

"Ooohh God, I'm gonna kill both of you, then myself." Grace moaned in despair.

"You can pretend I just got here and I'll never mention this ever again, if you want." Alexander offered, feeling like fair was fair.

He'd had his fun, no need to twist the knife. Merciful kills were best, the hunt was the thing, not inflicting pain needlessly.

"Really?" She asked, opening her eyes, to stare down at him, not certain she had deserved this benison.

"Ayuh, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know, and we really are good in bed together, there's no shame in that. It's as good for me as it is for you, scout's honor. Also, I'm really hungry." Alexander offered his lover that consolation, and a reminder that she had been on duty.

He shifted his stance, as if having just walked up and said with enthusiasm he didn't have to pretend, "Hey! There you are! Captain Marv too, good to see you out from under Brenda's thumb. You guys want to snag some lunch?"

Grace seized him by the shoulders and gave him a collar bone smooshing squeeze, "Done with those arrows already? Sure thing, I just caught Marv here sneaking out from his hospital bed. Let's vamoose before Brenda sends her goons after him."

Marvin managed a nod past the silent, full body laughter that had not ceased, and raised himself up tenderly, using the cane to take some weight off his injured leg and hip.

"Sounds good." the Marid wheezed, and the trio took off before a searching Healer Alexander spotted could find the escaped convalescent.

Limited to the pace of a stoic hobble, they collected their lunch to go and exited the fortress before pursuit could close in. Once they'd made the now incrementally lower elevation of the asteroid, they felt safe enough to find seats on stumps left behind by the loggers. Marvin's brow showed a sheen of pain sweat, the flight having come at some cost.

"You okay there?" Grace asked, genuine in her concern for the Marid man's condition.

An upraised hand to forestall her fussing, "No worries, getting some fresh air beats sitting inside that damned tent. Tomorrow morning's the healing light, I can suck it up a little longer."

"You say so." She relented.

"Anybody let slip anything regarding where that Eximius Queen might be holed up?" Grace asked her companions, mostly directing that toward the other Peacekeeper officer, since she knew where the Outsider had been most of the last couple of days.

Marvin answered while dipping bread in the stew bowl, "Not a word. My guess? Three Loremasters in a coma trying means the monster has some kind of block on being scried from afar. Closest we came was when the Blood Reader made a connection through its brood. He never got another hit after that, either."

If it was anything like when he'd tried to analyze the Dracul dungeon overlord, getting a deep dive from the Loremasters rejected would fuck you up hard. Probably worse than if they accidentally pried inside his Outsider mind.

"Captain Samantha and her gang of deep Green colleagues went out to Denver to see if they could back track it, that was weeks ago. Reports I saw just now getting delivered to Mason and Siddiqua said the Queen had covered its tracks, dug a hole and pulled the ground over itself, as far as they could tell." Alexander told his lunchmates, before he took another big bite of a turkey sandwich.

Marvin scrubbed his beard one time and said, "You telling me you read our correspondences on one look from across the fort?"

Alexander nodded, "Ayuh. My eyes are pretty good and they hold stuff up to the light sometimes to read the scouts' hand writing."

An understatement to end all understatements.

"Gonna have to use ciphers." Captain Pruitt muttered, before taking a pull of black tea.

Given that the Ranger wasn't exactly official personnel, even if, to the majority of the troopers he was now one of the boys, it was prudent to have some assurance of security. If not Alexander, what about the other Adventurers running around the place?

"If they don't hide the keys, I'll have your codes too. You should probably keep all your communications in colored envelopes, those are harder to see through, and a system for changing up which color matches which cypher with which key. Also, stop leaving stuff out on tables or pinned to bulletin boards, you don't have to read the message if you can read the responses to them." Alexander advised, and he drank down his own tea, enjoying the bitter brew.

How to deal with people using hawks and other exceptionally sighted beasts to obtain intelligence had come up in discussions at Falcon's Rest, on multiple occasions. Julia Bonny Richards could scope your messages with her hawk familiars from a half mile up. Her little dragon saw almost as well, and was learning to communicate telepathically, so there wasn't even a time lag between the reading and the familiar returning to communicate with the young lady the findings in person. Paranoia after Safe Harbor's assassinations had forced them into a more cynical mindset, with Ben's ex special forces experiences leading the way to stop enemy spies.

"This is why I'm glad I'm not one of the counter-intelligence guys." Grace injected into the silence that had fallen, "It'd drive me nuts keeping up with the spooks."

He nodded in agreement. Alexander much preferred being the spook as opposed to being in the position to stop someone like himself. Exhibit A: the Infiltrator Eximius had been a nightmare to pin down.

"With all the rivers up from the spring rains, I think we're pretty safe from any big attacks anytime soon, unless the Eximius Hive has already chosen a target for a single, huge break. They take time to cross deep running water. It's if we haven't managed to kill the Queen before summer that makes me nervous. They'll be able to move damned fast then." Alexander spoke his dread.

Thirty or forty miles a day easily could the Infiltrator he'd tracked cover, and no reason to think any of the others would be that much slower, just easier to follow. With the three-pronged attack failed, the next tactic was a concentrated thrust on a single fortification. With that kind of speed, the scouts wouldn't have much time to communicate who was getting hit, which left even less time to reinforce, and not at all from the southern most fort to the northernmost, or vice versa, that was a trip of three weeks, even in good conditions.

"Somebody's going to get socked in the mouth." Marvin predicted, paralleling Alexander's suspicions, "Let's hope they didn't have a specific place in mind in case the blitz didn't work. Might get dicey if there's a big force already on the way to hammer one of the crossings."

"That Queen's going to be a trick." Grace murmured, leery at the prospect of taking on a tier five.

"The problem is, we won't be able to analyze it. Not with Greater Analyze, anyway. The tier four Dracul bitch-slapped my brains for trying it. Whatever tricks the dungeon spawn has, it's going to get to play them. Unless somebody gets the inside scoop." Alexander added.

His one encounter with a tier four had been very close to fatal. With a team of the best fighters he knew, four of them with builds that were almost direct counters to the Vampire lord, a fire wielding anchor tank, a sunlight bearing scout, a time manipulating tank, and then Alexander, who could defeat its Soak and magics, and cripple its regeneration. They'd almost team wiped. Against a tier five, the only saving grace would be that they weren't constrained to the six permitted within the confines of the dungeon. Depending on how things played out, that might very well end up going heavily in their favor. The combined powers of a few dozen classed was nothing to sneeze at. It all came down to whether they could get through the thing's Soak, to harm it through whatever regeneration it possessed or not just die instantly if it had wide coverage lethality. Alexander could solve the Soak problem. The other, however, well...not as much.

"Ahh, hell with it!" Marvin Pruitt cried, dispelling the gloom setting in over the three at the scope of the task.

"Tomorrow's tomorrow, we're off duty today and Brenda hasn't found me yet. Let's go see if we can't get a card game running. I wanna find out how much more of Ranger Alexander's money I can take." The Marid said, smiling a knowing smile at the younger warrior.

"How is anybody supposed to call a guy who has zero, I mean nothing, tells?!" The Patriarch of Clan Gerifalte demanded, aggravated at the results of the last game.

"Told you not to play poker with him. Nobody plays with real money with Marv anymore." Grace reminded him.

"Maybe you'll get lucky today, Padawan. Or maybe not." Dared the older warrior.

It was a dirty trick. Suggesting luck might be the difference.

Alexander knew better, now. Behind that even demeanor, those smiling brown eyes, there was a cobra. Marvin Pruitt played poker like Alexander hunted: to win, as flawlessly as possible. But it was a challenge he had to take up, he'd gotten baited into a promise to make Marvin a new battle axe in their last wager, a long slow jack with a Casino Royal style false tell to snooker him. It was a masterful trap, one the overeager young man had happily walked into, thinking victory assured. He'd wanted the works the Peacekeeper did, an Ultimet tip for the pick, jacketed over Golem Mithril blade. Handle made of Golem High steel and a full rune scribing to amplify his ice magic. It would take Alexander two weeks in the shop to deliver.

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"Gonna get you old man." He swore vengeance, "And I want the same stakes, Horace spends two months in Falcon's Rest so Saki can pick his wrinkly, probably sick brain."

Marvin smiled, and winked at his junior officer and friend, "What do you say Grace, want a new sword off this sucker?"

She perked up at that and betrayed her new lover over a better claymore.

"Take this loser to the cleaners, Marv. I don't want him back until you have the gym shoes off his feet." She beseeched her comrade, before turning to Alexander to add, "Sorry, Sidepiece, my sword is my first love, and Peacekeepers stick together."

"Sidepiece!" Alexander objected, faking hurt, "I'll be damned if I play second fiddle to a sword! You're gonna regret this insult! Right after I nick your best Alchemist out from under your noses. You don't know that man's worth, he's wasted on you."

With that gauntlet thrown down, the three of them snuck back into the expanding infrastructure of the fortress to gather four more players from amongst the adventurer mercenaries, who knew no better, for a "friendly" poker match. The sun rode high, then down to just above the walls of the keep, bathing its interior on the lee side in gold, while the other sat shaded. It was a victorious cry, and an agonized low of shop time lost that finally drew the hunting Healers to their quarry, hidden in a pocket room adjoining the foundation of the fortress behind a false wall built by stacked crates of supplies between two horse stables. Too late to save Alexander Gerifalte from his folly.

Swagger in his weightless steps, the cryomancer waved as he departed, two healers on either arm hauling him away, a shouted reminder, "Remember! All the fixins! Axe and Claymore! And let that be a lesson to you, Yankee Pup!"

Grace took the vanquished hunter away, glad to see him put in his place at last, and covetous of the promised blade. But she did remember the mercy granted her earlier that day, and that was worth something.

"C'mon Alexander, it's not so bad. You took a loss to the best, there's no shame in that. I will want the whomp-whomp leather though, it's got a fine grab to the palm of my gauntlets. Now, let's head back to the tent." She gently teased.

"Okay." Rued the defeated young man, and he let himself be led, trying to understand how he could have fallen prey to the wiles of the old snake twice.

"You can watch me undress." The Oread lady sweetened the pot.

He perked up a little, that was fun. Maybe not a month in the shop toiling and who knew how long to get the materials assembled fun though.

A hand guided his over the fantastic rump of the Valkyrie, "How about I let you do the undressing, huh? And I just decided, you can be main action, I'll bump you up from sidepiece."

Now he looked up at her, and noticed the play of muscle and softness under his hand, and the hungry glint in crystal blue eyes.

"You're too good me." He told her, meaning it.

A gentle smile now down at the weird hunter, "I know. Tell you what, let's try that tantric thing you were talking about. We're on duty tomorrow though, so make sure we finish in time to grab a few hours shut-eye."

"Now you're talking!" He replied, the sting of defeat leaving his heart, permitting a bouncing on his toes once more, "You want to be on top, or me?"

"Why spoil the surprise?" She asked, playful, "We'll flip a coin."

So soon on the heels of a bad outcome with games of chance, however skewed they were by the skillful player, a game you couldn't lose no matter the outcome sounded like a fine idea.

"Damn, you really are too good to me!" He proclaimed.

A saunter through the fort, the couple made direct way to the shared tent. Tomorrow would come, it always did. But it would wait its turn.

Seventeen days of almost constant battle made the time pass as if on wings.

It started on the second Phoenix sunrise after the disastrous push that cost the Missouri branch of the Hive almost all of its forces. The stragglers limping away to carry the knowledge of the fleshy resistance, with the exception of the central most brood, from which none had returned, triggered a concentration of the Eximius Horde.

The Queen was on the move. From behind, a terrible enemy with two curved swords was decimating everything it encountered, lesser minions ensuring nothing escaped, not broodlings, not fodder, not its exquisite hunting children. The Eximius Queen loathed challengers, but did not dare face the foe that followed the rough course of her advance from the high-altitude corrupted zone of its birth. The only path was forward, to cross the wide river, to enter the hunting grounds that had proven so fruitful for its attempt to spawn, to spread its Realm Shards. Instinct drove the Queen to attack the center, to drive its horde forward and break the fleshling prey, to harvest their rich cores for its own use. It would smash this fortress. It had to, the predator behind it was coming.

Alexander's bola shot took another Slayer across three of the four supporting legs, bringing it up short of its charge on a trio of defending Adventurers. They pounced on the arachnid as its destructive limbs were buried in the field outside the Fortress and its precious bridge, a bridge now rigged to drop. Stabbing with pikes, two of the three focused on the Slayer's head and put holes in the carapace as it struggled to rise. A massive six foot long handled war axe splattered the monster's brains where the armored shell was weakened. They shouted their battle cry and met the next fodder monster, a huge ogre in crude plate armor and fought like wolves bringing down a stag, flanking, stabbing, before the finish.

Similar scenes played out all around the Lithium, MO valley, Alexander, on overwatch in the rear of the human defense forces surveyed the scene, identified another potential problem. Three Slayers, in tight, trying to spearhead the center of the Peacekeeper formation. It wouldn't work, but his job was to put his thumb on the scale where ever he could, without burning too much of his mana.

He was out of bola, and had three red fletched arrows, with a handful of the less useful black fletched broadheads, those couldn't reliably penetrate the resistance of the Eximius armored carapace.

At sixty feet, a barrage of darts made up of his mana pelted the front Slayer in this charge, Entropic Fusillade shredded carapace and flesh, chewing a basketball sized hole in the monster's thorax, where its left-hand cleaver appendage joined, and that fell away as the body continued to suffer from his magic's effects.

Absent its Soak, reeling from the agony of dissolving flesh, a descending crimson limned Claymore took the Slayers head from its narrow neck in a fell blow. Streamers of its life fueled its killer, who took the legs from the rightmost Slayer, bringing the demon spider low to receive an empowered axe down between its twelve eyes. Three more chopping blows, each raising hoarfrost along the monster's upper body before it stilled. The third monster took a red fletched arrow in its abdomen, freezing a moment from the poison laced agony, and the berserker with her blood tinted great sword slaughtered it before it could recover.

Fueled by wrath and the dying dungeon spawn, the claymore wielder shrieked her rage and nearby fodder monsters and Eximius alike pivoted to meet her challenge. The funneling tactic worked, thirty feet ahead of the Wrath Vanguard, runes of ice magic carved at day break erupted beneath the feet of five, shrouding them in frigid energies that turned limbs to glass and froze blood in veins. Most fell apart and shattered under their own momentum. For some others, flame took them, columns of spiraling fire that left smoldering pyres behind. Still others fell to clouds of superheated steam, steam that boiled flesh, filled lungs, scorching them to uselessness. Those that survived the aetheric culling had to face the Wrathful giant, and they fell soon after their brethren, cloven in shearing blows that fed the raging warrior even as she burned her own life to slay even more.

Alexander was in reserve. His was the role to identify strongest elements of the enemy pushes and to stagger their charges. He'd done so, but his ranged options were shrinking away by now. Not for three days had his Talon left his side. The Eximius were guarding well their puppet masters this time, at a cost. Fifty borrowed bodies were being used exclusively to surround the dungeon spawn dominating monsters back within the ruins of Lithium, leaving only another fifty to employ their monstrous legions against the defenders. Fifty lethal monsters was still dangerous, to say nothing of the twenty more Slayers and Infiltrators that supported them, staying behind the fodder to web, stab, and slash.

The defenders bowed, finally, retreating backward in spite of the destructive display against the center charge. Rasatala didn't do its homework, Alexander smiled beneath his helmet.

The center of the defense gave way rapidly, but without panic or openings in the line of warriors. Simultaneously, the flanking Peacekeeper troopers advanced just as rapidly, and those dove towards each other to cut the horde in half. The reserves flooded forward, fresh Adventurers forming a new battle line to hold the rear half of the monsters while the leading half was left completely surrounded by tier three veteran soldiers, who shredded the captured monsters with efficiency, Peacekeepers deep in their classes doing what they trained to do.

With half the attack destroyed within a minute of vicious fighting, the other half turned to flee, to regroup. That was Alexander's cue, what he'd waited three days for, and why he'd held his powers in check today. Three days fighting to train the Eximius to push the center, and now he'd punished them for turning their backs on him.

Alexander flew forward to the front, and summoned the remembered vector field of entropic slivers, overlaying that field onto the fleeing mass of dungeon spawn that had been herded into a tight group.

Ten-thousand needles of black-grey entropy shimmered into existence and sleeted into the pack of monsters, burying them beneath a deluge of unraveling strikes. The pack dissolved under the assault, just before the explosive fireball of reorganized matter detonated, finishing the survivors.

The inverse of an alpha strike, Alexander's strength had been saved for a coup de grace, a finishing blow to the force that had massed this day. When Siddiqua and Mason had been briefed on the new Arcana of the honorary Peacekeeper, they'd directed sinister smiles at the map on their tactical planning chalkboard. Lithium MO had proven to be an ideal place to meet the enemy, to bait them. It sat within a narrow valley between two low ridges that paralleled the river, a natural two hundred or so foot high ground and a death trap to ascend, as Alexander and his crew had proven to the monsters for an entire week, as Mason and Siddiqua on their respective sectors had demonstrated across the low rolling hills surrounding the bridge fortress. Instead, the Eximius tried to come up through the valley a rapid push.

Probably they'd intended on hitting the open plain fast enough to enfilade the fortress, to judge by the number of cyclops on both wings of the attack.

All for nought, the Peacekeepers had caught the attack, held it, and with the Adventurer complement to their forces, turned it into a slug fest, while the center repeatedly buckled and bowed. Thus the trap was baited, Mason's plot to entice a center thrust worked, and Alexander's powers were spent to destroy thirty percent of the horde in a single swoop, while the Fort's warriors smashed the other seventy percent that had gotten suckered into in the trap. Alexander had begun to realize that it was one of their favored tactics, the old Kansas-city shuffle. Show them one thing, while you're winding up to hit them where it hurt.

Forward went the four Peacekeeper red cloaks, spearheading the counter charge toward the Puppeteer camp with their minion reserve. Together with the reserves, while the main force continued obliterating the trapped monsters, they buried the fifty guarding monsters and slaughtered the Puppeteers.

Flawless Victory, Alexander breathed, from his place on the entrance to the valley leading to Lithium.

He was spent. Not quite mana exhaustion, but just by the skin of his teeth. He was out of bolas, had to salvage six red fletch arrows, remake the ten he'd seen break, and would have to respool and repair each of the three bolas. Singer's string was getting loose too, from being under tension constantly all these days of fighting. Also, his Mind Flayer Tears reserve was nearly dry, and he couldn't replace that toxin. Same for the hemorrhagic poison, he preferred. On the other hand, he had plenty of Eximius venom to work with now. Perhaps a day trip to play with Horace was in order? Between the two of them, surely they could produce something that was malignant enough to penetrate the Eximius poison resistance.

Don't call me Shirley, echoed Mary's jest, a touch of sadness souring the victory of this mid-May afternoon.

"We're killing the shit out of them Mary. They're paying for you, for all of you. Before the gods above, below, and in between, I swear it." Alexander promised.

It wouldn't be enough. Not until every last one of the things was dead. That meant taking the queen. The pawns were one thing, nobody had seen the tier five yet. He was worried about that. A report came in from a previously catatonic Loremaster that the total number of the Hive was something like seven hundred. That meant that, after the triple attack, which cost them fifty of their brood, loads of their stolen puppets, and this central push, which had probably cost another two hundred at the final bell, the Hive was downsized by about a third. Not so bad. The Queen wouldn't take this lying down, she had to act.

Something told the Venator retreat wasn't an option. At any point, the monster could have withdrawn, could have headed west. It hadn't. Some force kept it east of the Rockies, some motivation prevented it from heading to the south, toward the desert, or the northern Canadian forests. A feeling in his guts said, it didn't go those ways because something worse was already there. He trusted instincts like that, they were rarely wrong. But. Whatever was out there wasn't bothering the humans in the Midwest, wasn't sending its murderous little agents around the settlements near his home, so it got to live. For now.

Horns sounded, three long blasts, from the scouts along the ridges, on both sides of the small Missouri valley. Retreat. Horns again a short high note, and Alexander's blood ran cold, three long soundings again. Run. That was the full evacuation signal, the sign to get the hell across the river. Alexander refused the order, concentrating instead on the valley, in which he could not find the reason for the panic button. And he needed to find Grace.

Drawn between the low ridges he ran, searching. Peacekeepers in their white cloaks pelted back toward the river, grim faced, confused, but not afraid. They'd won. They didn't know why they were fleeing, but the order was given and they obeyed. Adventurer's answering the all call likewise sprinted, they didn't have the formal training or discipline of the Peacekeeper guild, but when every single white cloaked man or woman turns and runs in the same direction, anybody with sense does the same. Most of the Adventurers alive today were men and women of good sense.

Alexander ran against the tide, searching. The center of the puppet master camp had been just over…there! His eyes locked onto a gaggle of red cloaks he saw flitting between wrecked out buildings, what few there were, of Lithium.

Then he saw the reason for the horns, what had the forward scouts immediately calling the flight. Come around a bend in the hills, an arachnophobe's nightmares given form: six stories of crawling, eight-legged death. A tier five Eximius Queen, built along the gargantuan model of a black widow, huge abdomen, thin limbs that didn't look like they should have supported the dungeon spawn's mass, yet propelled it with unnatural ease. Beneath the Queen, darting, dodging the indifferent steel beams of her earth stabbing feet ran her children in the hundreds. Along the sides and back of the massive dungeon spawn glittered scales that Alexander's eyes resolved as crystalline shards of Rasatala waiting to be born. There were hundreds of them refracting the light of the overhead sun.

Toward the site of the oh, so brief, human victory the Eximius Queen methodically plodded, not seeming to move swiftly, but by virtue of size, covering ground at a deceitful, terrible clip. Red cloaks responded to the oncoming horde, and the horn soundings that had too briefly preceded it, scrambling away from the town with their attached squads. Alexander had spent enough time as a predator to see that they might make it, had just enough space to escape. Until broodlings, tier one, but in the hundreds began to fall from the sky, parachuting as they had been on sails of gossamer silk stronger than steel.

"Fuck!" Alexander screamed, that was the kicker, he cursed again, drawing Talon.

Three landed in front of him and he stepped through a series of darting cuts that left dead German shepherd sized spiders in their light brown shells opened along most of their lengths behind him.

Similar scenes unfolded, the fleeing human forms suddenly inundated by paraspiders. Individually the creatures were weak, tier ones, barely a challenge for even a decently experienced Adventurer. But there were hundreds and quantity is a quality all its own, especially in battle, and more especially when it comes hurtling from the sky without warning.

The retreat bogged down, white cloaks having to stop to carve up biting stabbing little spiders that leapt without regard for their lives at the humans. Adventurer parties tightened up rapidly, across the valley. Almost spontaneously, veteran warriors used to relying on their familiarity with each other in the hazards of the Green, formed dozens of pockets of resistance, sweeping aside the low tier spiders with might and mana.

He heard shouts from the Adventurers calling the Guildies to run on. These "mercenaries" were holding the ambush so their comrades could reach the fortress, to establish a position to defend while the crossing occurred. Alexander was proud of his fellow humans then.

Zigzagging, sprinting around pockets of attacking spiders, coming by the dozens to flail futilely at teams of Classed who'd faced the dungeons together, Alexander killed whatever came within reach, but didn't stop, his target was a red cloak fluttering behind a giant form that left green demon spider bits behind her.

A football field sized cloud of steam rose up behind the retreating Officers, Siddiqua buying time. Broodlings entering the superheated cloud died instantly, broiled. A handful of Slayers and Infiltrators running ahead of their matriarch tried Siddiqua's Arcana and made it a dozen steps before being cooked through their Soak. An errant breeze carried the smell of lobster to Alexander's nose, delicious, and he was reminded again that life on Gaia was passing strange.

Who'd have thought to eat the fuckers? He wondered the inane intrusive thoughts drifting to the surface through the bedlam. Two motions at the corners of his vision and he juked forward to intercept. Webs ribboned the ground behind him and he was slashing apart another pair of broodlings in mid jump toward his head, a spinning cut, a weaponized pirouette to preserve his momentum, and then onward he ran.

Siddiqua's steam slowed the horde until it was swept aside with a titanic ground paralleling slice of the Eximius Queen. Mana cutting properties, Alexander diagnosed the shimmering green attack along the monster's leg, from which lingering streamers of steam trailed, but that showed no damage at having passed through superheated clouds capable of killing her children in moments.

Fire bloomed next, a dozen pillars roaring into spiraling towers of blue-white flame that licked at the Queen's three story undersides, incinerating scores of the lesser Eximius crowding beneath their mother's bulk. Mason expended all his mana in that pyroclasm. The tier five waded through the fires unslowed, did not even acknowledge the potent flames that scorched her carapace except to pulse green where she nullified its effect. She was, however, motivated to offer rebuttle. A crackling ball of lightning formed between her fangs, Jacob's ladders arcing between the horizontally pincing spears of chitin. Lances of chain lighting the size of maple trees blasted the field outside Lithium, arcing along the ground for three hundred yards. Mason died instantly under that scintillating light, along with the ten troopers in his squad.

Captain Mirzaei screamed, loud enough to reach Alexander's ears from half a mile away, and she turned from her flight, charging back toward the Queen. Her whipping cloak was snatched in the armored glove of Captain Pruitt, clotheslining her, and he dragged her up into a fireman's carry, hauling her away from the murderer of her friend, her soulmate. She screamed again and flung thin spinning disks of steam toward the calamity, one of which struck a car sized eye and boiled the sight from it, eliciting the first sign of pain from the monster, a tornadic shriek that broke glass in the fortress ahead.

More lightning formed at the jaws of the monstrous demon spider. Alexander shouted, uselessly, in warning. The Eximius Queen didn't have to stop to charge its Ceraunic cannon and it was closing the distance.

Softly blue glowing Arrows rose up from the ridges on either side of the Queen, a shimmering flight by the hundreds, plunging into her armored hide to stand proud like insignificant stakes on a field. Against her Soak, against her sheer size, they did nothing. The coursing lightnings that reached out from the ridges, racing from arrow to arrow using them to ground the energies into the creature caused it to flinch, to turn aside its murderous spell and blast the ridge in return.

Alexander reached Grace, whose wrath fueled fury ebbed slightly when she looked at him. She hadn't seen her friend die. He wouldn't tell her, not yet.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! Get across the goddamned river!" She ordered, shaking her helmeted head at the young man.

"I am! What do you think I'm doing here? I forgot something important." He returned, and matched her pace, rapidly alternating between looking behind, at the awful majesty of the tier five, the way forward, and stops between to see if Grace was unharmed.

They ran, the broodling delaying action mostly handled by the Adventurer parties that were now crossing the river under the watch of the Peacekeepers manning the walls of the fortress. No thought to be holding those walls, nobody had thought to Godzilla proof the bridge encampment. Too late, Alexander realized, they weren't going to make it. Not if that monster kept coming.

He hadn't got around to praying yet, but his prayer was answered.

Whatever had attacked the Queen wasn't finished, more arrows, with javelins in on the act this time pelted from the wood line, hitting her undersides, with as little obvious effect. She turned though, and her horde turned with her, charging into the trees. Clouds of smoking acid from the bolts that had pin-cushioned her underbelly, made the Eximius issue another ear rending screech, and the demigod spider began stroking her undersides with delicate spears of her legs, using her powers to neutralize the stuff etching her armor, tearing at her Soak to reach flesh beneath.

Lesser Eximius exited the forest in flight the way they'd come, on their heels a thousand strong phalanx of gnome pikes backed by windlassed cross bows. The half sized folk slaughtered like a machine, stab, fire, advance ranks, spent crossbows back to reload, and repeat, to a quarter beat metronome, pummeling the horde away from the wood line, while the Spider Queen twisted in circles trying to kill the sources of the volleys that continued to rain on her, volleys often accompanied by anchored lightnings that scarred her armored hide, wore away at her Soak. Still other lofts of arrows carried braided rope and did not strike the queen but arced over her girth in synchrony, a net of rope anchored to hundreds of trees in the forest to bind her. He saw flashes of distant forms, long ears briefly spotted, moving as well in the bush as he himself did.

Alexander suddenly understood the arrows: Elves. Elves had saved the Peacekeeper officers, had ambushed the Queen from the ridges held by Alexander and his companions just a few days ago. How the fuck had they gotten out here without anyone seeing them?

And a thousand goddamned Gnomes?

Ripping legs tore up the anchors by their roots, ropes snapped under massive tensions, still, over a hundred others held, the tier five straining against the number of ties meshed over her. She was held, but only for a few moments. Slashing limbs managed to cut swathes of lines.

The answer to his question as to the source of salvation came in the form of tunnels opening up and Dwarven cast steel cannons firing from stone murder holes along the hillsides, a salvo from the high ground midway up the ridges into the horde that formed a half mile long kill box. Those could do nothing lasting against the Queen, but they minced her offspring. Detonating shells slung shrapnel, high explosives blasted pockets of Eximius from existence, and balls furrowed the valley. The tunnel trapdoors closed, their cannon withdrawn to cover as more sheets of lightning crawled across the forests from the enraged demon matriarch who was shredding the hillsides with claw and magic, mindless rage at the attempts to capture her, the hundreds of her brood dead around her feet in the valley.

Gnomish pikes withdrew in order despite a lashing from several lightning ribbons and disappeared into the combined tunnels dug a week ago, their job done.

Suddenly as they'd come, the Otherkin vanished, Elves scattering across the low-lands forests to egress, barely visible to his eyes, they darted and flitted like starlings, provided no target to focus on for the matriarch's destruction.

Together, he and Grace pounded across the moated drawbridge, a laughable defense against the monster behind them, and they only stopped long enough to grab their large packs before heading to the docks. On the way they met Horace, who was clucking over a gaggle of junior alchemists to transport the alchemical lab equipment and supplies in their boats. The last of those had to grab the man and hold him down in their vessel, ignoring his deranged cries of "Treachery! I'll have your stipends!"

Alexander shared a Viking style longship with the surviving Captains and their squads, Marvin still holding a weeping Siddiqua, Grace wearing her rage openly, having just discovered Mason's fate. Many of the helmeted troopers were openly shocked at the rapidity of the turn. From victory to defeat, in minutes. If not for the intervention of the Otherkin, who'd coordinated a masterful kick in the spider queen's balls before fucking off as mysteriously as they come, the Humans would have been caught, slaughtered before the walls of their fortress. He didn't know of anything that could withstand that lightning attack. Alexander's powers would have permitted him to hurt the creature, probably disrupt that massive Arcana, but he'd been spent, his mana critical to annihilate the regrouping monsters. How had something that large managed to sneak up on them? Questions. Questions for later, for now, grieving, and anger.

Together, they watched the highway fifty-one bridge drop, its foundations turned into a Jenga set of blocks, from which the key blocks were dissolved. Waves of the collapsing bridge washed under the small, shallow drafted boat, rocking its occupants as they rowed across the Mississippi, the last great barrier between humanity and the Eximius Queen. He didn't belong, not truly, but he was going to be found where the Nordic Jotunkin was, and that was that. A searching hand for his, and he took the gauntleted hand of the woman into his own, staring at the source of their suffering and promised, "We'll get them. Every single one. And I think we probably owe the Otherkin a few hundred favors."

Blue eyes reddened by sudden grief held his, and she nodded, "They'll have them, Peacekeepers don't leave debts unpaid. So will those motherfucking spiders. Every last one. That bitch is going to pay for this."