The harrowing roar that from the cave's darkness was a physical force. There was a blast of wind and malice that sent the vines at the entrance whipping.
Two shapes emerged from the blackness.
The first creature was lean, fast, and horrifying.
It stood just over three meters tall, a nightmarish fusion of black, glistening chitin and pale, pulsating fungal flesh. Its body was skeletal, like a starved greyhound, but its head was a horror. It was a split-open mandible with no eyes with just a deep, dark pit lined with rows of needle-like teeth.
It walked on four, insectoid legs, its movements sharp and intelligent.
'A Grave-Maw Mauler,' Kaitri's mind supplied, his blood running cold. 'Warden Rank. Abyssal type that hunts by sound.'
His mind flashed to the VPL artefact, still humming at his belt. 'The VPL didn't shield us enough... or maybe it just masks our presence but not our voice. Varik's shouting... we led them right to us.'
The second creature that was lumbering behind it, was its species' Fragment.
A lopsided, shambling mountain of the same fungal flesh, standing an easy five meters tall, its body bloated and covered in weeping sores.
Paul, his hand on his dagger, was the first to speak. "Why are they called fragments," he muttered, his voice flat, "when they are bigger than the freaking Wardens?"
"The little one is the threat," Kaitri said, his voice low, his Tantos already in a reverse grip. "It's the brain. The big one is just... the muscle."
The Warden-Mauler hissed, its split-jaw clicking. It spat.
A glob of black, tar-like slime shot out and hit the stone floor between Kaitri and Hunter. The stone sizzled, melting like hot wax, a plume of acrid smoke rising from the new hole.
"Frack!" Varik yelped, jumping back.
"Hunter, Sibil, with me! Kanut connect with me." Kaitri ordered, his mind racing. "We take the fast one! Varik, Kanut, Paul… you handle the big one! Don't let it box us in! We take them both, or we're dead!"
He whispered something to Kanut then the teams split in an instant.
Varik, Paul, and Kanut, with a collective "Oh, crap," drew the Brute's attention, luring it away. Their shouts and the Brute's thundering footsteps faded, leaving Kaitri in the main, larger chamber.
He was facing the Queen. The real threat.
It was a terrifyingly still battlefield. The Mauler, no longer hearing the Brute, stood perfectly motionless, its eyeless head twitching, listening.
Kaitri, Hunter, and Sibil were frozen, their breath held.
'It hunts by sound,' Kaitri thought, his heart hammering. 'So, we be silent.'
He locked eyes with Hunter and tapped his own ear, then pointed at the monster. Hunter nodded with his face pale, but his eyes hardening with focus. He understood.
"Hunter!" Kaitri whispered, his voice barely a breath, carried only by the cave's faint echo. "I need a trap! Something to hold it!"
Hunter's gravelly, accented voice was just as quiet. "On it. But I need time. Thirty seconds. It... it will hear me carving."
"Sibil," Kaitri whispered, "buy him his time. Quietly."
Sibil didn't hesitate. She unslung her waterskins using her skill, "Mernian-Tide Attunement", to make it come alive.
She didn't fire a high-pressure jet like earlier which would be a death sentence. Instead, she knelt, placing her palm on the cave floor. She uncorked the skin, letting the water flow over her hand.
The water moved.
It didn't flow and pool. It slithered, silent as oil, across the stone floor, spreading in a wide, thin sheet directly in front of the Mauler. It was a silent trap.
The Mauler upon hearing Hunter's faint scritch-scritch of a tool on stone, took a step.
Its insectoid leg hit the slick patch. It slipped.
The creature's balance was broken. It hissed, its claws scraping uselessly, and crashed onto its side.
'Smart, works every time,' Kaitri thought.
He didn't waste the opening. He moved in a blur with the enhanced speed kicking in. He didn't attack. He ran and evaded the awkward swings of her Majesty.
He ran a wide circle around the hissing Mauler, making himself the most annoying, most visible target.
"Over here, you ugly frack!" he shouted, abandoning silence. He noticed the trap had been placed since a gourd of Resonance was being imbued into the Runes.
The Mauler upon recovery, found purchase in its multi jointed legs and whipped its head toward him.
It spat. Kaitri was already moving, sliding behind a pillar of stone. The acid glob hit where he'd been, eating a fist-sized chunk out of the rock.
"Hunter, how's that trap?" Sibil called out, her hands now empty, her waterskins dry.
"Almost! Keep it... distracted!"
Kaitri darted out again. The Mauler was smart. It wasn't just chasing him. It was herding him, cutting off his escape routes with blasts of acid and trying to corner him.
'It's got two to three-star intelligence since it hasn't spoken yet,' Kaitri analysed, leaping over a sizzling puddle. 'It's tactical.'
He ducked, a chitinous leg swiping the air above his head. He was running out of room.
"Kaitri, I'm about to scream, you ready?" a whisper came to his ears directly. It was Kanut. Great timing.
"Yes, Frack! Now!" he shouted.
A muffled sound wave hit, like an aftershock of an earthquake. The Mauler froze for a second and turned, facing it's lower-ranked counterpart.
That was it. An Arrow pierced its side. Sibil had taken a moment to deal some damage. Kaitri smiled then the signal came.
"Now, Kaitri!" Hunter roared.
Kaitri saw it. A faint, glowing-blue series of five runes etched in the dirt, forming a wide pentagram. He sprinted, his boots pounding the stone, a loud and deliberate come-and-get-me sound.
The Mauler took the bait and charged, its needle-teeth gnashing.
Kaitri leaped with a full, desperate dive, right at the first rune.
The Mauler, in its blind pursuit, lunged to follow.
The second Kaitri's boot hit the first rune, it flashed.
WHUM!
It wasn't a trap. It was a propulsion rune.
It launched him fifteen feet into the air, over the Mauler's head. The creature skidded to a halt, confused, as Kaitri landed precisely on the second rune, which WHUMPHED and launched him again, a parkour-like-ricochet toward the third.
He was a blur of motion, using Hunter's prep to move in an unpredictable, 3D assault.
The Mauler was smart. It stopped chasing. It listened. It heard the pattern.
Kaitri landed on the third rune, launching toward the fourth. The Mauler was already spitting. Not at Kaitri, but at the rune he was about to land on.
The glob of black acid hit the glowing stone. SZZZT!
The rune fizzles, its energy neutralized by the Abyssal corrosion. Kaitri landed, expecting a boost, and got... nothing. He hit the stone floor hard, stumbling, his ankle twisting.
He was now trapped.
Their plan had failed. The Mauler screeched with a mocking sound of triumph and cornered him against the wall.
"Nyet!" Hunter cursed. "The acid! It's a solvent for my runes! It's immune!"
The Mauler, its eyeless pit of a mouth fixed on Kaitri, lunged at the now-defenceless boy.
"Kaitri, move!" Sibil screamed. She threw her last, empty waterskin at the monster's head. It was a pathetic, useless gesture, but it was enough.
The Mauler, distracted by the thwack of the skin hitting its chitin, paused for a split second.
It was enough time for Kaitri. 'Plan B. Jenny's gift.'
He was in the middle of the chaos. The Mauler was hissing, Hunter was scrambling for a new artefact, Sibil was defenceless.
This was the perfect cover.
Kaitri slammed his fist onto the VPL on his belt. "Activate overload!" he yelled.
There was a sound like a camera flash and a silent-movie projector powering up, a whump-click. The noise was lost in the hissing of the Mauler.
Kaitri vanished.
The Mauler, having shaken off Sibil's distraction, froze. It knew he was still there.
Its split-jaw clicked, clicked, clicked, a form of echolocation, tasting the air, sensing the vibrations. It was a terrifying moment of pure and predatory silence.
'It can hear my heartbeat. It can hear me breathing.'
Kaitri was moving, but he was moving silent. He was on the balls of his feet, holding his breath. He had ten seconds.
He got behind it. He saw the weakness. Not the thick, black chitin of its back. It was where the insectoid legs met the torso. A patch of pale, pulsating, unarmoured fungal flesh. The real creature was living inside its armour.
He had his target.
His invisibility flickered. Nine. Ten.
He reappeared, balanced on the cave's rocky wall, right above the monster. He dropped.
He landed on the monster's back, his Tantos held in a reverse grip.
"Now, you bastard!"
He drove both blades, hilt-deep right into the largest, softest fungal-sac on its back.
The Mauler let out a sound. It was not a roar. It was a scream. A wet, gurgling, impossibly high-pitched sound of agony. It wasn't supposed to be hit there.
Plan B was a partial success.
And a partial failure.
The Mauler went berserk. It threw itself backward, slamming its own back against the cave wall with the force of a battering ram, trying to crush the parasite on its back.
Kaitri was crushed between the monster and the stone.
"Gah!"
The air shot from his lungs. Pain, bright and blinding, exploded in his chest. He felt his ribs, which had just healed from the Cassian duel, crack again.
He slid to the floor, his vision swimming, his Tantos ripped from his numb hands. The VPL artefact on his belt, hit by the impact, sparked and died.
The Mauler was wounded. It was bleeding a thick, black, tarry ooze. It thrashed, its legs pistoning, and then it stalked toward the fallen Kaitri.
Hunter's last runic shield shattered under a spray of acid. Sibil was out of water. This was the end.
"Kaitri! We handled our... whoa."
A massive, wet SPLAT echoed from the side tunnel. A second later, Varik, Paul, and Kanut ran into the main chamber, covered from head to toe in grey-white monster guts. They all froze, seeing the real fight.
The Mauler, hearing new voices and new heartbeats, paused. It was now facing six opponents. It was wounded, but it was still a Warden.
Kaitri was clutching his chest when he saw his chance. He saw all the pieces on the board.
'It's wounded. It's slow. But that acid...'
He saw Varik and the others drenched in goo. He saw Sibil with her hands on her empty waterskins. He saw Hunter, his face grim and his artefacts spent.
"Everyone," Kaitri wheezed, his voice a low rasp, carried by Kanut's ability and Paul. "Listen up."
They all tensed.
"Hunter," Kaitri gasped. "That acid... it's a solvent, right? Abyssal-rank corrosion."
"Da," Hunter said, nodding. "It will eat through anything."
"Sibil," Kaitri said, his eyes locking on her. "Your 'Attunement'. You made the floor slick. Can you... purify? Can you purify that?"
Sibil's eyes widened. "I... I don't know. It's Abyssal. I've only ever purified natural water. But... maybe. If I'm close."
"Good enough," Kaitri rasped. "Paul! I need you to be the loudest, most annoying thing in this cave. Get its attention. Get it to spit."
"On your mark, leader?" Paul sneered. "Frack that."
Paul, seeing the Mauler was distracted, just ran up the cave wall, his Corvian agility on full display. He clung to the ceiling like a gargoyle and screeched. It was a piercing, horrible, bird-like sound that echoed off every surface.
The Mauler instantly reacted. It whipped its head up and spat a massive glob of black acid at Paul.
"Now, Sibil!" Kaitri roared.
Sibil didn't run from the acid. She ran toward it.
She leaped into the air, her Mernian-Attunement flaring, a bright, azure-blue aura. She held out her hands and a shield of pure, flowing water-magic appeared before her.
The black, sizzling acid hit her magical field.
It steamed.
The sound of a thousand frying pans filled the cave. The black acid fought, but Sibil's blue magic fought back.
The acid thinned, turned from black to grey, and then... it was just harmless, murky water, splashing at her feet.
Sibil cried out, the effort draining her. She fell to one knee, her aura sputtering, but she'd done it.
The Mauler was stunned. It was "reloading," its jaw clicking, but its primary weapon was just... gone.
"Kanut! Varik! Pin its legs!" Kaitri yelled.
In that two-second window, they acted. They weren't fighting to kill. They were fighting to hold.
Varik, with a wild yell, threw his Tachi like a javelin, pinning one of the creature's back legs to the stone floor. Kanut, with a roar, slammed his shield into the other back leg, shattering the chitinous joint.
The Mauler was unbalanced. Its wound was bleeding. Its acid was neutralized. Its prey was fighting back. It reared up, confused, its front legs swiping wildly.
Kaitri was already there.
He had pushed through the fire in his ribs. He had scooped up one of his fallen Tantos. He used Kanut's shield, which was still wedged against the creature's leg, as a springboard. He launched himself onto the monster's back.
He ran up the chitinous spine, his one blade held high. He aimed for the first wound he'd made. The deep, black, bleeding hole.
He plunged his Tanto into the same wound, to the hilt, his entire body weight behind the blow.
"Die!"
He twisted.
The Mauler stiffened. A final, shuddering tremor ran through its body. Its split-jaw clicked, once, and then it was still.
It collapsed, its legs folding, and crashed to the cave floor. It was over.
Silence.
The only sound in the cave was the harsh, ragged breathing of six students, all of whom were now covered in two different kinds of monster guts.
Kaitri slid off the corpse. The second his feet hit the ground, his legs gave out. The adrenaline vanished, and the pain from his ribs hit him like a transport. He collapsed against the cave wall, gasping and his vision flickering.
Varik was the first to speak, his voice shaky. "Okay... so... that one was definitely worse than ours."
"No shit," Kaitri said between heavy breaths.
Sibil, her aura gone, was sitting on the floor, her chest heaving. She looked at the dead Mauler, then at her own empty waterskins, then at the pools of purified... stuff.
"This... is so exhausting," she panted, a tired, airy whisper. She looked at the giant, dead monster. "I'm hungry."
A beat of silence.
"Part of the Warden's flesh can be purified, right?"
Everyone, too tired to move, just turned their heads to look at Hunter.