Monroe

Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy-Six. Something's happening here.

They were within eight feet of the walls when the attack began.

Monsters rushed through the jagged opening in the wall while others poured over the wall itself. There were two different types, one was a quadrupedal creature covered in foot-long quills that promised pain, while the two-foot-long stinger on its tail and the horn on its head offered death. It was twelve feet long and six feet at the shoulders. Moving with an almost feline grace, these were the monsters that flowed over the wall. The second type was another example of insects serving as nightmare fuel. Bipedal with four arms, two of which ended in scythe-like chitin claws, the second set was somehow more disturbing, featuring two pairs of opposed digits on something that could, if you squinted and the lighting was just bad enough, be considered hands.

None of this was unexpected. After almost five years, Bob had become inured to the sight of the System's shenanigans when it came to monsters.

What was unexpected was the invisible wave of power that preceded the monsters.

He could feel some sort of power fill the air around them. It carried a sense of danger, and seemed to feel almost... sharp?

Despite the surprise, his friends responded to the assault with efficiency. Mike and Jack were always running their matrix manipulation as Beacon's and the monsters focused on them. There were enough monsters that some weren't pulled into Jack and Mike's field, but before they could move toward the backlines, Wayna and Elli stepped out, pulling them into combat and keeping them off the blasters.

A massive direwolf, Amanda's summons, crashed into one of the mantis monsters that Wayna had pulled. "Get em' Auruffra!" Amanda cheered.

Eddi echoed her call as Rexxy bit down on one of the quill beasts and lifted the monster off the ground, shaking her head like a dog.

Bob had Jake covering their rear right flank, while Trebor covered the left. He frowned as they each tore into a straggler.

Mike and Jack were each defending themselves from six monsters, which was an impressive feat, while Elli and Wayna were handling four each. Bailli and Dave were focusing their blast spells, and they'd already taken one of the monsters off of Mike, shifting their target to one of the quill beasts on Jack. They were handling the monsters, but it felt like they were both dealing less damage than they should while at the same time taking more.

He'd done the math. At level fifty-two, with tier ten attributes, the monsters should only be doing about ten percent more damage than they'd been dealing at level fifty, tier eight. Everyone joked about it, but normally Erick and Jessica had it pretty easy. They normally stacked effect over time heals on Mike and Jack, then dropped the occasional chained heal to top off Wayna and Elli, which also kept the summons healed.

The two healers were being pressed as they tossed out heal after heal without pause.

Bailli and Dave dropped another one of the mantis monsters that had been attacking Jack, while Bob's Eternal Servant raptor pack took out one of the ones that was tearing at Wayna. Harv had caged one of the quill beasts and was keeping it out of the fight.

The pressure in the air started to lessen, and as Jake and Trebor both finished off their opponents, he could tell that the mantis monster's scythes weren't cutting as deeply. The two huge UtahRaptors moved to pull another opponent from Wayna and Elli respectively, which allowed Eddi and Amanda to direct Rexy and Auruffra to reduce the pressure on Mike and Jack.

Bailli and Dave had done for eight of the monsters in the twelve seconds the battle had raged, and they further proved their power by taking out another pair in the next three seconds.

Wayna and Eli had finished their opponents, and turned their attention to the frontlines, only to find that Jack and Mike were wrapping up the last two, aided by a dozen summoned monsters.

As the last two monsters fell, the group took a step back from the wall.

"That was harder than it should have been," Jessica said, running a hand through her hair. "Mike, I don't think I've ever seen something hit you that hard," she shook her head. "Although it seemed to drop off as the fight went on."

"I think they had some sort of aura or something," Dave said thoughtfully. "There was this feeling they gave off, and as we took them out it lessened."

"I've seen something like that before," Bob said quietly. "Not exactly the same, but the Elloirial of the Eire, Naomeh, she had a sort of presence to her, although it felt different, and she definitely had control over it."

"Maybe it's a tier ten thing?" Jack suggested. "They had that whole thing where under tier ten we were mortals, and over was ascendant, I think."

"It was," Bob nodded. "The King of Greenwold has something like this going on, although not nearly as strong, so I don't know that it's locked by tier, or if it's just a specific skill that we haven't seen before."

"Regardless, it means that the more of them there are, the stronger the aura is," Amanda added. "We can take a few more, but if we run into two groups, we'll need to find a place to bottleneck them."

"One nice thing about urban warfare," Mike said grimly. "There's always a choke point right around the corner."

"I'm getting really sick of these damn quills," Wayna muttered as she winced, pulling another quill from her cheek.

"Babe, why would you try to bite one?" Eddi asked.

"If I hadn't it might have gotten to Bailli," Wayna replied.

Eddi shook his head. Rexxy had already been leaning down to snap it up.

Bob listened to the two as he waited for Mike to come back downstairs. The former Marine turned Detective, turned Beacon, had suggested they clear this building as it was one of the tallest, reaching twenty feet higher than the others around it.

They'd cleared a quarter of the first terrace, but they hadn't encountered nearly as many monsters as they'd expected. Knowing that there were over ten thousand of them, they should have encountered more than four patrols.

Mike climbed down the ladder that had led to the roof, tucking a drone into a pocket. "Footage is on your armbands," he said, "and it's not good."

Bob pulled up his screen and pulled up the feed from the drone. It had soared upward, giving them a much better idea of the city's layout. There were five districts, each one on its own terrace, layered like a wedding cake. There was no getting around the description. There were pyramids anchoring each end of the terraces, although the fifth terrace had less room than the pyramids took up between them.

The pyramids were also crawling with monsters.

He checked the quest.

New Quest!

Meluben has been overrun by monsters! The Urlinad have barricaded themselves in their temples, praying to their gods to save them. Unfortunately, their gods are not real, but the monsters are. It falls on you to save them.

Kill the monsters, 80/10,732

Locate the Temples, 10/10

Protect the Urlinad.

"Shit," he muttered. "Ten thousand monsters, ten temples."

"That's what it looks like to me," Mike agreed. "Figure a thousand on each temple. I had the drone drop down and zoom in for a look." He gestured and Bob checked his display.

The monsters were trying to claw their way into the pyramids, and despite the fact that the buildings were constructed of huge stone blocks, they were slowly carving chunks of it away.

"I figure that even if the System isn't showing one, we're definitely on a timer," Mike explained. "Jack, what do you think?"

"I figure these are twenty-foot cubes," Jack began. "I don't know exactly what they're made of, but it doesn't really matter, because we can see how deep the monsters are cutting into them. Figure that they dropped a block in front of each entrance, and hoping that they had another leading into the inner temple, I figure we've got maybe three hours before they get through."

"And if they didn't have another block to drop," he shook his head with a sigh. "Figure an hour and a half."

"The problem, tactically, is that regardless of which direction we approach from, we're basically vulnerable to being overrun," Mike said. "We know they can climb, and none of the buildings around the pyramids are tall enough to give them any real pause. If we pull too many, they can climb right over and drop down onto us." He shook his head. "What we need is a way to get into the temple so we can pull one of those entrance blocks and funnel them into a kill box."

"I can probably open the door," Harv offered. "I can cast and hold a transmutation ritual, but you'll have to make sure nothing so much as jostles me on the way to the door, or I'll lose it, and no one wants that."

"Where is the door?" Eddi asked.

"There," Jack pointed at the display. "Ground level and the stone is less weathered. It's either a replacement block, or it's the door. And from what I understand, you don't really replace blocks on these things."

"Beacon up the summons and have them run interference while we rush the door," Mike said. "Harv will make it disappear, and we'll turn and hold it. Expect the whole damn world to come crashing down on us," he warned. "Jack and I will hold it while Eddi and Wayna make sure nothing gets past us. You'll have to work your summons outside, there won't be room for them in the entrance."

Bob looked around at his friends, then nodded. "Alright, we have a plan. This is going to be like a miniature tide, so everyone get your camelbaks on," he said, pulling out his own backpack and slinging it over his shoulders.

It was a custom design, with a tube coming up over each shoulder. He'd color-coded them, one red, one blue, for health and mana, respectively.

"Finally," Bailli breathed as a manic smile spread across her beautiful features.

Bob knew what she meant. Her path had a bonus that increased the damage of her Lightning Blast spell the more often she cast it. Normally fights lasted between ten and twenty seconds, which didn't allow her spell to build up to its full potential, which was sixty-four percent.

While she and Dave were definitely the heavy hitters of the group, she'd been waiting for the chance to really cut loose.

"It's your time to shine," Bob agreed.

Lara huddled in the hallway, cradling her daughter, Laura, to her chest. She had been the last one to arrive before they'd sealed the temple, and was the closest to the outside, close enough to hear the scratching sounds as the monsters worked to claw their way in.

She murmured softly to Laura, telling her that everything was going to be alright. Her daughter was in shock, having seen Hoada, her father and Lara's husband, torn apart by the monsters as he stood against the monsters, buying them time to get to the temple.

When the words had appeared in the blue squares, there had been a great deal of confusion. The gods had never communicated so directly, normally working in more subtle ways, showing their pleasure or displeasure in a manner that could often only be interpreted years later. The words could not be denied, nor could the numbers that grew smaller moment by moment. The entire city had been thrown into chaos as fear ran through the people of Meluben.

But people must live, so after a few days, life had continued, although a dark cloud covered their thoughts.

When the final day arrived, and the numbers disappeared, they were told they would be hidden away in a timeless slumber.

Lara had felt some sort of shift from the moment she'd seen the box, and the next when a new one had appeared.

New Quest!

The planet you inhabit suffered an unexpected surge of mana, causing the Dungeons to overflow before the tide dissipated.

Your species does not currently possess the power to survive. Flee to the nearest temple.

She'd heard screaming coming from all around her and had picked up Laura, holding Hauda's hand as they rushed toward the temple.

Now, she was waiting.

She helped Laura say a prayer to the Queen of Storms, begging the goddess to save them, but she was afraid.

It was dark in the temple, with lamps further in, but this close to the entrance, it was expected that sunlight would have illuminated the space.

She clutched Laura more tightly as she heard new sounds, the roars of some terrible beast faint, but powerful. She couldn't help herself, placing her ear to the stone in an effort to understand what horrible monster was adding to their troubles.

She frowned. She heard something. It almost sounded like voices, but they were too high pitched and the sounds were too quick and fluid, almost like birdsong.

Then the block of stone disappeared.

Lara was staring at the block, paying much more attention to her ear than her eyes, so she saw the block disappear. It didn't break, and it wasn't pulled out, or up, it simply vanished.

With a cry, she folded her body around Laura, unable to keep herself from watching the entrance as the monsters poured in.

She blinked. The figures that moved into the temple didn't look like the monsters outside. They looked a little bit like Uldarians, although they were taller and thinner.

There were twelve of them, and she watched as they arranged themselves, two of them not leaving the front of the entrance, moving shields to block the blows of a dozen monsters that crowded around them, having finally found a way to enter the temple and slate their unholy hunger.

Another pair stepped back slightly, clearly ready to reinforce the first two.

Then one of the figures closest to her, only a few feet away, spoke, and she found she could actually understand the words.

"Harv, keep an area of effect repair going around the entrance! Eddi, Amanda, keep Rexxy and Auruffra just outside! Dave, start casting that ritual!"

The figure turned to another, nearly as close.

"Bailli, show them why Erick calls you his Storm Princess."

Lara gasped as the second figure hurled lightning toward the entrance, with more lightning sparking around its form.

The closest figure turned and looked down at her.

Lara was surprised to see that it looked quite a bit like an Uldarian, although it had a shock of pale yellow fur on its head.

"It's going to be alright," the figure said. "We're adventurers, and we're here to help."

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