Earthchild
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Chapter 38: Okay, That Was Easy
🕑 Added 2025-08-04 12:03:01 +0000 UTCPainful tingles swept over Caen's body as he entered the Odaton-plane Plane.
Ancestors, I hate that name.
There were no lanterns or light sources in here, and the low lighting wasn't enough for him to make out anything. The other members of his Attacker team didn't seem too bothered, however. The passive augmentations from a Gleam affinity granted varying degrees of night vision.
Caen put on his crafting goggles, which had been hanging around his neck. Wearing it over his helmet brought him a few strange looks. The goggles appeared slightly opaque from the outside, though they barely hindered vision when worn. Once he secured the strap, he closed his eyes and let his speculon take over, and could immediately see.
Glancing back, he saw that none of the light from outside made it through the Aperture. Curious.
The sky was the deep blue of night, with not a star in sight. A tiny, frail moon pulsed softly overhead, barely providing light.
They were on a large, round wooden platform erected in the ground. They stepped off it, onto the compact soil of the ground, which was a light green, though running a hand over it revealed it to be just dry sand. A wide circumference of land stretching nearly a hundred yards across had been deforested. Tree stumps surrounded the clearing, which was bordered by girthy trees. Caen could see the faintest glimmers of light in the distance where the trees stood.
Armored and unarmored combatants loitered around. A few people in uniform sat on benches or stood with other individuals, chatting.
This jarringly contrasted with the alien sounds of chittering as Attacker teams engaged ants in the distance. Cutter teams shouted indistinct commands amongst themselves. And the various sounds of whirring, cutting artifacts, and metal hitting wood made for an even more chaotic cacophony.
Lerim led their group of seven towards the edge of the clearing.
Wide holes covered the ground, each one several yards apart. Though some were clustered loosely around the tree stumps. Wooden beams lay firmly across the openings.
Two of them in their group were pure ranged combatants, while two other people were pure melee. Everyone else was capable of dabbling in either. Lerim had explained that they would pelt the ants with ranged spells and attacks, and that once the creatures came too close, they'd switch to melee, ranged fighters falling back into the middle of their formation.
“What happens if we run low on mana?” asked a man with wide collars and a transparent monocle on his left eye. He had a basket strapped to his back. That and his badge marked him as an Earth practician.
“Then, son, your last thoughts would be asking yourself why you joined an Attacker team of all things,” replied a grizzly man holding an oversized crossbow.
The others in the group chuckled at this. Lerim chuckled as well but didn't say anything.
He noticed that the stumps and trees up ahead weren't all green. A great deal of them were merely brown. But it was the green ones that had more holes around them, as well as more active teams working to bring them down.
A group of Protectors covered their Cutter teammates, rebuffing an assault from Planar creatures. Caen was watching with his speculon, vision mostly unhindered, and so he had no trouble picking out the ants. They were about five feet tall with jagged carapaces and limbs and were white in color with streaks of black. They seemed recognizable enough from the nightmare.
Once Caen's party passed their last stump, Lerim retrieved a lantern from his bag and activated it. The placid reshent within combined and shone faintly. “You can use your own light sources if you have to, though this one should be enough. Keep the brightness low, if you please.”
The Earth practician took out a glass jar of his own and ignited it before placing it on the ground beside him. A woman with spiked gauntlets did the same.
Chittering noises caused several of his party members to whirl around in panicked caution. There were no holes on the ground nearby, but farther down, Caen could see two ants approaching.
They made high-pitched chittering sounds as they covered the distance, and without even needing to point them out, some of those in his party began straining their eyes in the right direction.
Caen conjured tiny balls of flame. While he'd been waiting for his remaining party members by the Aperture with Lerim, Caen had tested out his newly Mimicked affinity. A few iterations of precasting assured him that his limited repertoire of Fire spells was available to him.
A third ant, closer than the other two, scuttled towards his group from another direction. The creatures moved nearly as fast as a dog might. The closest was only a few yards off. He couldn't tell whether it was black with white stripes or white with black stripes. Thin rings of green encircled the thorax. There were spikes all over its limbs, of which there were six. And the pincers looked jagged and deadly.
Lerim pelted it with fist-sized fireballs. His attacks spread out over portions of the carapace with whooshing force, leaving no scorch marks. Caen aimed for the eyes. His attacks were far smaller, but by stacking modifiers, he could propel them much faster. The creature screeched loudly.
At the same time, clumps of brown stone, each one as large as a man's head, hurtled at the ant. The grizzly man fired two large arrow bolts. One skidded off the carapace, while the second sank a few inches deep. The creature staggered.
Lerim took out a machete by his side, blade gleaming hot, and jumped forward to hack at the creature with a muted sound. Caen alone followed immediately. Since he was Mimicking Lerim's affinity, he couldn't lose sight of the man. The other party members began hurling their projectiles at the pair of approaching ants closing in from another direction.
Caen held his glaive in one hand while his fingers on the other hand flitted through gestures as he muttered an incantation to propel pellets of tiny fireballs at the creature's face. Its carapace was resistant to fire, but it shielded its face with its fast-moving front legs. Its head seemed particularly sensitive.
Lerim went low, hacking at one of the spiked legs with his heated blade. The man cleaved partway through a leg, missing the joint, but had to retreat when the surrounding legs tried to stab him in turn.
The creature spat out a green glob at Caen. He cut off his spell and ducked out of the way. He swept his glaive at the creature’s legs as it charged by, chopping partway into a joint.
Lerim chopped off the leg that he'd already mangled before.
Caen, fingers flitting quickly, stacked modifiers to a cluster of small fireballs and hurled them at the leg he'd just maimed.
The ant whirled on him, spitting out more of that green glob. The briefing had warned them to avoid getting hit by those, as it was acidic.
Caen moved out of the way. He swung his glaive at the side of the ant's face. The blade sliced through the softer carapace, an inch deep, only narrowly missing its eye. At the same time, Lerim hacked off another leg, destabilizing the ant.
Caen reoriented himself quickly and stabbed into the eye this time. The creature's screech was deafening, but only for an instant. He felt the blade of his weapon sink only a few inches deep. He yanked it out and backed away, preparing a spell. The ant slumped to the ground, dead.
Caen turned to the other ants. One was already dead.
The woman in fur armor plunged her spear into the side of the remaining ant, piercing its carapace. At the same time, the grizzly man who'd been using the crossbow brought down a hefty axe on the ant's head.
“Okay, that was easy,” said the Earth practician, as he scooped up his light source from the ground.
It was much brighter here, and Caen's speculon could see a little more clearly. He was keenly aware of the fact that his eyes were still tightly shut, even though the goggles would hide that. But he would much rather risk the curiosity of others than turn off his speculon and miss something dangerous.
How did I ever survive without this before now? Being able to see so easily in the dark was incredibly convenient. He took out a rag to clean his glaive.
Lerim walked over to his lantern and picked it up. Curiously, the ants hadn't gone for the light sources once they had engaged the Attacker team. “This only felt easy because there were few of them. Wait till you're surrounded by a dozen of those things first.” Lerim raised his voice, “Leave your light sources on. We'll be circling around to draw more ants and…” he paused, squinting at Caen. “Are you able to see through that?”
Everyone in their party turned to look at him.
“It’s an artifact,” Caen responded evenly.
“I… saw you fight, so you probably know what you're doing,” Lerim said, not seeming entirely convinced.
“Mine’s enchanted too,” the Earth practician said, tapping his monocle. “I don't believe I'm familiar with that model though.”
“Come on, enough chatter,” Lerim said. “Let's move.”
