Arcane Apocalypse [LitRPG]

Brent stomped his way back inside the circle of shoddy earth walls, wanting to sigh and smash his face into the nearest tree. The first battle had gone well enough, no injuries or arguments beyond the Archer kid trying to get his hands on the loot.

That might have raised Brent's expectations a bit too high. The damned moles attacking right as the wolves were starting their ambush could have been attributed to bad luck, but Brent knew better. The moles and wolves might have looked vaguely familiar, but they were as alien as the goblins.

There was intelligence behind those malicious, bestial eyes that no mole or wolf of old Earth shared. The two seemingly different species of monsters worked together to ambush them. It was obvious when he looked at it objectively, even if his rational brain, wired by his experiences, wanted to say that it was dumb.

Worse than the monsters themselves and the injuries they inflicted on the fighters was the division, the doubt and the suspicion.

He knew something like this was bound to happen, but he'd been hoping it'd be a bit further into the Raid. The raid group was a fractured mess of squads, most of whom met each other for the first time today.

Trust was nil, and teamwork was nonexistent.

And now I have to somehow salvage this mess. Brent thought, scowling at the unionist man — Callum, if his memory served him right, from Lori's team — currently screaming into the face of the cowering Kevin.

Brent frowned, trying to get a feel for what might have brought about this argument. It wasn't hard to guess.

"Because of you useless sack of shit my sister is on the doors of death!" Callum shouted, practically vibrating in livid fury.

"I - I couldn't," Kevin muttered while taking a step back. "There was no time. They were too fast."

Brent wanted to sigh, or glare at Konstantin, Aiden and Jeff standing around and collectively doing nothing. All three just watched the argument that could tear their expedition apart with detached interest and nothing more.

Did those idiots not see how doubt could cripple their efforts so easily? If nobody could trust that in the heat of battle any other member of the Raid would do their job and fight for them, the cohesive group would devolve into the constituent groups making it up.

Everyone would wonder whether the person next to them would block the spell flying at them, or jump out of the way and allow it to hit their comrades. Those moments of hesitation, those doubts, could be fatal to their efforts.

"Silence," Brent barked, his voice a near growl as it reverberated through the camp. Callum and Kevin stiffened, the latter turning deathly pale — likely expecting a rebuke from Brent too — while the prior just turned his glare on the Raid leader. "We all knew what coming through that portal meant, not all of us understood it, but we all were made aware. So let me say it again, for those who didn't grasp it: some of us will die."

It was not the best way to raise morale; it was doing the exact opposite, but Brent had to say it.

"Sometimes injuries and death will happen because of your own incompetence, sometimes it will be your teammates' incompetence and sometimes … it will be nobody's fault but the monster's who took that final bite out of you," Brent continued, his hard stare landing on Callum. The younger man gulped, and his mouth snapped shut. "Why did you go through that portal, Callum?"

"To save the city … Sir," Callum said, his eyes swivelling about as he avoided Brent's eyes. "My wife and kid … I had to … "

"That's very noble of you." Brent clasped his hand on the younger man's shoulder. "We are all in here because we have someone, or something out there in Graz, we wish to save. We all share that goal, so let's not allow each other's initial stumbling steps cripple our efforts. Mistakes can be made in a fight, but we will learn from them. Nobody died yet, and we will make sure the next time we will be better prepared to face the monsters that injured your sister."

Before Callum could say anything else, Brent took one of the System-made healing Elixirs off his potion-belt and pressed it into his hand.

"Give that to your sister," Brent said, staring long and hard into the man's eyes. "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Your sister will be stronger for this. As will all of us."

Callum gave a nod, jerkily at first, then again in a much more serious manner. Respect and gratitude shone in his eyes as his fingers closed around the precious elixir. Then he ran off to his sister's unconscious form, where a healer took the elixir from his hands and gently fed it to the injured woman.

"Mia, can you come over here, please?" Brent asked after a moment of staring at the woman's flesh slowly starting to writhe and grow over her wounds.

The pink-haired not-elf stiffened, then stepped away from the wall with a conflicted expression on her face. Brent knew she loathed being the centre of attention, but she would unfortunately have to get used to it.

He didn't name her his second in command for no reason; he might have been elected to represent their team and lead them in combat because of his experience in such matters, but the girl was the heart of the group. She was the glue that held them together.

If Mia ever decided to stop fighting, Brent had little doubt Helene, Mark and Carmilla would be quick to follow. Lina would remain, but she would likely ditch Brent and Clive for someone more aligned with her goals.

If I somehow die, she's the only one who can keep the team together and has the highest chance of getting them out of this mess alive.

"Yes?" Mia asked, studiously keeping her eyes on Brent as she came over.

"What happened here?" Brent asked, gesturing at the dead moles inside the camp, he thought reasonably safe. "Do you think we can prevent it from happening again?"

Mia frowned, likely cursing him out in her head at putting her on the spot like this. Now dozens of people were staring at her with interest.

"The mole-things were too fast, there was just a second or two between Kevin shouting his initial warning and the first one surfacing right under his feet," Mia said. "They are too damned fast underground. Though it's probably because they came in a straight line? Maybe if everyone dodged a few metres to the side the moment Kevin screamed, we could have avoided any injuries."

Her tone was thoughtful, not accusatory or critical, but Brent still saw the looks on the injured fighters' teammates' faces darkening rapidly. They probably had their hands full fighting off the wolves when Kevin screamed. If they jumped to the side, they were likely to end up as dog food instead of mole food. Not much better.

"The hardened earth didn't even slow them?" Brent asked, tapping his foot on the ground.

"Didn't seem like it," Mia said haltingly. "I'm reasonably sure one of them came up through a hole made by a previous mole."

"We shouldn't have expected monsters that swim in stones and earth to be halted by a sheet of hardened earth," Mark injected from the side. "It was worth a try, but we'll need something harder to stop them. Do we have any Metal mages?"

Brent waited for an answer, then growled as only silence answered Mark's question. "Do we?"

When nobody answered, Brent guessed that meant the answer was 'No'.

"I could put Wards on the … squishier people?" Mia suggested.

"You'll run out of mana and exhaust yourself," Brent retorted instantly. "I know maintaining six Wards is already pushing it. Especially if we want you to be combat capable."

There were at least a dozen people Brent would consider 'squishy' and in need of protection. He knew Mia could maybe maintain that many Wards for a few hours, but she'd fall over on her face afterwards and would be useless for the rest of the delve.

He'd seen what mana deprivation and spiritual exhaustion did to mages; there was no potion or elixir that could help them recover from that. Prevention was the only method that worked, or a long rest. Not that the second was viable with the strict time limit they had on finishing the Raid.

"I believe I might be able to help," Maven stepped forward a few seconds into the pensive silence, appearing reluctant. "My Wards work in a slightly different way than the spell version."

"How so?" Brent asked and watched the reluctance intensify on the strangely smooth blue face of the man.

"My Skill creates a network between those I place Wards on," Maven said, speaking like each word tasted sour on his tongue. "They have no duration or much mana cost on my part, but every bit of prevented damage is taken from the energy stores of those I have my Ward on."

"How come you didn't put that Ward on all of us then?" Konstantin challenged.

"Because I can only place it on a maximum of fifteen people," Maven said, glaring at the towering Lion-kin without a shred of fear. "If I use it to protect the healers and our back-line, my own team will be left without Wards to protect them."

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"And you could maintain 15 Wards indefinitely?" Brent asked, while inwardly trying to come up with a way to compensate Maven.

If any one of his teammates gets injured, he'll put his Wards back on them in a heartbeat and ignore the others. That was Brent's assessment of Maven at least, so he knew he had to minimise the chances of that happening. Luckily, Maven's team was made up of mostly mages with only a pair of melee fighters, so cycling them into the back-line as ranged fire support shouldn't be too frowned upon by the rest of the raid.

"Indefinitely? No." Maven shook his head. "I can do 16 hours, though, then another 16 after 8 hours of rest. I've tested it before."

"Well Maven, would you be amenable to doing just that?" Brent asked. "Your team could be assigned as ranged fire support and as the primary guards of our supporters. That should minimise the risk of them fighting monsters up close and personal while left without your Wards."

"I suppose that'll have to do," Maven said, nodding reluctantly. "I will need five minutes to remove all the Wards and reapply them. I take it your mage doesn't have it in her to maintain another six Wards on my team?"

"I'm afraid not," Brent said. "Her spells are much more taxing on her spirit and mana pool than yours seem to be."

"Thought as much," Maven said sourly. "Well, was that all?"

"Yes, thank you," Brent said, nodding gratefully. Dour as Maven might look, he did step forward and put the success of the Raid above the glory — and safety — of his team. "While Maven's busy with that, we will have to decide how to proceed with our mission. First, we finish this camp, but afterwards we'll need to consider how to go about finding the Guardian and killing it."

It seemed like this initial hiccup had been solved, for now, but Brent just had a feeling that making sure this Raid succeeded would be ripe with issues of the same nature. How he wished he could have just led an entire fifty-man platoon of trained soldiers, not a bunch of civilians suddenly wielding power beyond their imagination.

Alas, he had to work with what he's got. Soldiers might have been more dependable, but he hoped the greater power of the gathered teams would outweigh the obvious disadvantages.

I'll have a head full of grey hair if this is what the whole raid is going to be like.

*****

An hour into their scouting mission deeper into the forest, and after handling sporadic ambushes by a few starving Iron Woves, Mia was starting to get used to operating in the alien forest. The Rift's dense ambient miasma made her Spirit Sense a bit more unreliable than usual, but in its stead, her hearing was much more useful.

Unlike in a real forest, the entire ecosystem inside the Rift was made up of only a few monsters, all of which wanted to kill her and her team. Anything she heard approaching, she knew for certain was coming to take a bite out of them. There was no confusion or extra decisions needed to weed out unthreatening critters and herbivores, making distracting noises since there were none.

"Moles," Mia said, her voice calm despite feeling the monsters approaching from underground. "Two this time."

That was all she had to say. Mia hopped up, grabbing a low-hanging branch and heaved herself up while she prepared a piercing Bolt to fire. Lina followed suit, kicking off of a hardened panel of air to settle on another branch. Camie remained unmoved, knowing her reflexes would allow her to dodge whatever the moles tried to do while the others jumped over to the nearest trees, practically hugging them for safety.

In retrospect, they should have realised it sooner. They'd been looking for ways to put something tougher than earth under their feet to obstruct the moles from surfacing right under them, when the solution was right before their eyes. The trees were made of metal, the same way every plant was in this forest, and not just their leaves, but their trunks and roots too.

Roots. Those were the most important, the most crucial to their safety. Near trunks, they were so densely spread underground that the moles couldn't surface, so all anyone had to do to avoid them was to stand near one.

Like during every previous ambush, the moles converged on Carmilla's location, heading towards her like underground torpedoes.

"Now!" Mia said, knowing she didn't have to shout for her girlfriend to hear.

The vampiress grinned and moved, appearing three metres to the side just as the earth buckled and moles burst through with their jaws opened wide for a bite. Before any of them knew what hit them, they fell under a barrage of magical fire.

Mia's piercing Bolt brained one of them, while another had its stomach pierced and intestines scrambled by a nasty working of Air magic from Lina. The last one died from a seemingly tiny zap of lightning that barely made a sound, and yet the monster died in a heartbeat without any visible wounds. Frying the monster's brains with a smaller lightning bolt was apparently much more mana efficient, if straining on the Mind, than obliterating them with a bolt as thick as a human torso.

"Impressive as always," Sebastian, the leader of the team they'd been sent on this mission with, said in a cheery tone. "I'm starting to feel redundant here."

His two teammates, an elven archer with forest green hair — Jasmine — seemed to agree. Nodding with a slight frown as she loosened her nocked arrow and placed it back into the quiver hanging from her belt. Her leather-clad rogue counterpart — Rachel — just shrugged with an easygoing smile, the shroud of shadows that'd surrounded her fading away as she sheathed her pair of daggers.

"That's a sign of things going well," Clive said, shrugging easily.

"That it is, my friend," Sebastian agreed with a good-natured nod. "Onwards?"

Clive glanced back at Mia, raising an eyebrow, and the others stayed silent too. The young halvyr just sighed, trying to keep her shoulders from slumping. That bastard Brent stayed behind to establish the camp and to command the reserves in case one of the three groups heading out further to scout needed reinforcements. Which meant Mia, as his second-in-command, was charged with leading the team, no matter how inadequate she felt. The worst thing was that everyone just went along with it.

Didn't it bother Mark that she was to give him orders? Didn't it bother her mother that her daughter was leading the group she was part of? No? Why not?!

"Yeah," Mia said, lips pulled into a thin line. They had gone pretty far from the camp already, but her Spirit Sense was telling her the miasma was starting to feel different the further they went. Not denser, but … more uniform. It wasn't just swirling around like a storm, but flowing from one direction to another, the same way miasma started acting in the outside world, the closer one got to a Rift. "But we'll be continuing on with as much care and stealth as we can manage. I think something's up ahead, something different, and that's never good in a Rift."

"I thought I was going crazy, you can feel it too?" Jasmine asked, and Mia could see her button nose scrunching up as the elf looked at her. There was that same intuitive dislike in her eyes that Tristan and Christine had, though she was visibly trying not to show it.

Mia nodded like she didn't notice, sending an admonishing glance at the glowering vampire next to her. From what Mia understood of it, the girl couldn't do anything about what her instincts were telling her, but she could try fighting them and pushing them down, which she was actively doing instead of just letting her instinctive dislike take the wheel. Mia appreciated that.

"The mana is weird here," Jasmine continued, her emerald green eyes going distant. "You know what's causing it?"

"I have a guess," Mia said, then paused and tilted her head. "Could you describe what it feels like to you?"

"I- uhm, I think it's … wrong," Jasmine said, wincing a little. "Sorry, I can't really describe it. But it's also flowing here, not just swirling around aimlessly. Just like it was on the outside of the gate."

"That's what I noticed too," Mia said, tapping her lips in thought. "I'm guessing something up ahead is disgorging this broken mana … or maybe drawing it in? Could be we are getting close to the Core … but I doubt it. It's a bit too close to the entrance for a Rank 1 Rift, we had to walk for hours in the last Rift, and it was only what? Level 13?"

Mia tried to get a feel for the direction of the mana flow, but couldn't quite grasp it. It was like she was watching a thousand threads of mana, each of which reversed their flow every time she took her eyes off of them.

Maybe its current is alternating like with electricity? Mia thought, but she knew she was just throwing stones in the dark and trying to put familiar shapes onto something distinctly alien to her previous understanding of the world. Mana had absolutely no need to behave like any other type of energy she'd learned of in physics class.

"Let's rethink this," Mia said, shaking away her thoughts. "We have a lead, and possibly found the Raid's Core, which will be defended by the Guardian at the very least. The monster is likely to have a small army of monsters surrounding it, too. I say we head back to camp and report it. There has to be someone stealthy enough in the raid who could go in and out without calling a wild hunt down on our heads."

"I could go, maybe?" Rachel said, putting on a grin as Mia turned her way. "I'm pretty good at stealth, especially in this shadowy forest."

"The Wolves have senses beyond just sight," Jasmine retorted seriously. "My skill covers me in a film of air, preventing both sound and scent from leaving it if I want it to. I should go."

"How about we do the sensible thing and report back to camp?" Sebastian asked, putting on a disarming smile as his two female teammates aimed matching glares at him. "It isn't just the … eight of us in this Rift, no need to take risks like that. Right?"

He sent a pleading glance at Mia with the final word, to which she raised an eyebrow. Technically, the two of them should be of equal rank, both of them leading their own teams, but the man was deferring to her. Though that was probably because her own team had agreed with all of her decisions so far without fighting her on it, not that she thought it would last if she didn't agree with Sebastian here.

The motherly glare on Helene's face, she'd long learned meant to dissuade her from doing something stupid, told her as much.

"There is something in that direction," Carmilla spoke up before Mia could answer, her nostrils flaring as she squinted while facing the dense forest. "A settlement, or a nest. I can taste the scent of at least twenty different monsters on the wind, and I'm hearing some very faint chatter in the distance."

"Well, that's it then," Mia said, relieved. She'd have hated to hike back an hour, report back, then hike back over here with a larger group to show the way to scouts, only for them to find nothing. That would have been … mildly embarrassing. "We're heading and reporting. We know we found something now, so there is no need to risk ourselves needlessly."

"Agreed," Sebastian said happily, and his two teammates also nodded, though a bit begrudgingly. Mia's own team seemed glad to be heading back, though Lina was throwing wistful glances over her shoulder as they turned to leave.

"What's happening?" Nikki asked in Imperial Common, jogging up and falling into step at Mia's shoulder. "I've been getting better at understanding your language, but I still only caught about a third of what you've been saying."

"Ahh!" Mia blinked, then winced guiltily. "Sorry, I … totally forgot about that. I'll catch you up quickly. It was … "

Nikki listened attentively, nodding as Mia gave a short summary of the event, but her eyebrows climbed up her forehead when Mia attempted to describe the strange movement she'd felt in the ambient miasma.

"I think I know what's going on, but I can only be sure once someone scouts out the possible monster settlement," Nikki said. "Or if other teams found something similar."

"What does it mean for us if you're right?" Mia asked.

"Well, the implications will be twofold," Nikki said, her frown deepening. "It could make our delve a walk in the park, or it could doom it entirely. In essence, Rifts can house more than one guardian once they reach Rank 2, and these secondary Sub-Guardians will act as the Lieutenants of the true Guardian. I think there will be one Sub-Guardian in that settlement, and I suspect there will be at least one other settlement like it somewhere in the Rift."

"How could that be anything but horrible news to us?" Mia asked, a sinking dread settling in her stomach at the thought of having to find and kill not one guardian, but possibly three or more. "And how would that even be possible? This rift is Rank 1."

"This is a very strange Rank 1 Rift, especially with the System turning it into a temporary Raid," Nikki said, shrugging lightly. "And it's good news for us because killing the Lieutenants usually gives you some way to weaken the primary guardian. Ah, and the Lieutenants are always weaker than the primary Guardian, so with fifty delvers on hand, killing them one by one should be reasonably easy. The only problem is that we'll have to find them in the limited time we have available, or in the worst case scenario, they'll come to the primary Guardian's aid."