The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family

The raid hit the Crystal Grotto entrance just as the afternoon sun lit the valley up gold.

Reidar threw his fist up, and the column stopped. The raid spread out across the flat ground while their leaders checked things over.

The opening yawned in the cliff face. It was as wide as a two-lane road.

"We are here," Aldric said, moving up beside Reidar. "According to the system, the Boulderbacks live deep inside."

Reidar examined the cave entrance. Deep grooves cut into the stone around the opening. He wasn't sure what made them, but only the two giants could have left such marks.

The gouges ran parallel to each other and were spaced evenly, like claw marks from something massive. Except these weren't claw marks but were scrapes left by stone plates grinding against the cave walls.

"They're definitely here," Kara said. "These look fresh too."

"How fresh?" Reidar asked.

"Hours. Maybe less."

The raid moved forward. They entered the grotto, noticing the temperature dropped as they moved deeper.

Natural light from the entrance illuminated the first hundred feet, revealing walls studded with crystalline formations that caught and reflected the sunlight.

The passage widened into a vast chamber.

The floor was littered with deep craters that marked where something impossibly heavy had walked.

Each footprint was six feet across, sunk deep into the stone floor. The prints wound between glittering mineral formations, but without toes, it was impossible to tell which way the creatures had gone. They could've been moving deeper or circling back toward the exit. The trail offered no clear answers.

"God," someone said. "How big are these things?"

"Bigger than the system suggested," Aldric said. "These tracks belong to creatures that could crush a house."

The raid followed the tracks deeper.

The cavern yawned before them, a cathedral of stone and shadow stretching farther than the eye could trace. Moonlight from some unseen fissure high above bled through the ceiling, painting silver streaks across a central pool so clear Reidar could see the bedrock twenty feet below its surface.

The water trembled slightly, concentric ripples spreading outward from an unseen source deep within the spring.

Fresh marks marred the stone surface around the pool, with gouges partially filled with gravel, and the rock's surface still gleamed where heavy, concealed stones had scraped it.

With its jagged peaks, the chamber's far wall, shimmering with aquamarine crystal veins, reflected across the water in long, broken patterns that resembled spears of ice.

Overhead, the air was moist, and each breath tasted of wet stone and a deeper, ancient essence. Here, the raid's footsteps sounded odd, the immense area absorbing the noise but then sending it back as soft whispers from hidden spaces.

But the chamber was empty otherwise.

Reidar walked to the pool's edge and knelt. "They should be here."

"Maybe they went deeper," Helga said. The warrior raised her warhammer, scanning the shadowed passages leading from the chamber. "These grottoes can run for miles."

"No." Kara moved around the pool's perimeter, studying the ground. "The tracks circle this area, but they don't go deeper. They loop back toward the entrance."

Aldric frowned. "They left?"

"Maybe." Kara stopped at the far end of the pool. She studied it and then the tracks that seemed to lead outside. "No, I confirm it. They left."

"Damn…" This was going to make him lose a lot of time.

"That doesn't make sense." Helga said. "These creatures are territorial. The system said they had never left the grotto. They don't just leave."

"Unless something changed," Reidar said, studying the chamber.

"Maybe it's our fault."

Kara nodded. "Yeah… That was what I was thinking. It looks like the Crimson Briar Patch and its monsters were keeping the two monsters trapped here, and now that we burned down the forest, those things took their chance to escape."

"So they went hunting," Helga said. "Looking for new territory."

Kara nodded. "Looking for new territory now that there is nothing stopping them."

Reidar stood and followed the tracks back toward the entrance. The others fell in behind him. As they walked, he studied the marks more carefully. The spacing suggested urgency. As if they wanted to leave the grotto as soon as possible.

<I wonder why.>

"Kara," Reidar said as they emerged back into sunlight. "Can you track them from here?"

The scout moved past the entrance and began searching the surrounding area. Her eyes scanned the ground, then she noticed the giant prints among the vegetation.

"Yes," She said. She stood fifty yards from the entrance, pointing toward the valley. "There are two sets of tracks, both massive. They headed toward the plains."

"Toward the burned forest…" Aldric noted. The Crimson Briar Patch's remains were still smoking in the distance.

Reidar considered the situation and watched the smoke rise in the distance; the flames were still consuming what remained of the Crimson Briar Patch. The twin behemoths had chosen their path well. The open plains offered advantages no cramped grotto ever could.

"Better here than inside," Reidar said.

Aldric joined him, following his gaze. "You're right. In the grotto, those things could crush us against the walls. Outside, we have space to move."

The plains had no tight tunnels to funnel them into killing zones. No ceilings to collapse. No narrow passages where a single wrong move meant being crushed between rock bodies and walls of stone.

Reidar nodded. The behemoths' massive size made them powerful, but in open terrain, that same bulk was not as much of an advantage since the raid could always escape.

In the grotto, they wouldn't have been able to dodge. Outside, the raid could spread out, find cover, and strike from multiple angles.

"How do we kill them now?" Helga asked. "You said you can't share the Spectral Knights and the Rift-Sprites anymore."

Reidar nodded. "Yes. But I can share something else." He pointed at his mount.

The open ground meant he could deploy them without worrying about cramped spaces, and that wasn't all; they would act as mounts for everyone. There were going to be fewer creatures, but they would be stronger, tankier, and faster.

"This is better," Reidar said. "Much better." He sighed.

"Let's go find them," Reidar said. "Kara, take point and track them."

The raid reformed and began marching. Behind them, the Crystal Grotto stood empty. Ahead, somewhere in the valley, two creatures of living stone hunted prey that had no chance of survival.

"We are going to have fun."