Jerik quickly learned that his guess about the Menoran Mountains being even more difficult was all too accurate. It wasn’t so far beyond his expectations that they couldn’t handle it, but the challenge of it hit them quickly, letting them know just what stood before them. They weren’t even an hour along the path to the first raid zone when the encountered their first Rare monster. Well, more like a pack of them.
Walking along the path two at a time, the Smoke Brigade came to an abrupt halt as they felt the earth beneath their feet shaking. They glanced up at the mountain towering over them, doubt and fear fickering across their faces. Was it some kind of avalanche or landslide? But the veteran members of the group recognized what it was after a few seconds. At a quick shooing gesture from Morgan, Jerik jumped off of his horse’s back. He activated the helmet of his suit, and flew away from the mountain, landing on a large pillar of rock perhaps two hundred yards away.
He’d only just managed to land and drop to his stomach, readying the rifle, before the monsters appeared. Through his comms with Morgan, he could hear the sound of the rock of the mountain cracking, then there was a huge explosion of dust. He switched his comms to address the platoon as a whole. “It’s a pack of moles! Front Squad to the carts!”
Two moles appeared out of the first tunnel, screeching as they encountered the platoon. They were blind creatures, but powerful, measuring nearly eight feet across, with hard metal plates across their bodies. Each one was Superior-Class. They came out directly next to the research crew, who all gave shouts of fright and attempted to run further along the path. Too bad for them, the third mole appeared out of the mountain, cutting them off. It scurried out of the tunnel, then turned so its tail was facing them, and slammed it down.
The shockwave was enough to blast them back several feet, slamming them onto their backs on the hard ground. Jerik switched targets from the first two, knowing that Nick would soon be grabbing their attention, and focused his rifle on the third to appear, firing. Before he could even ascertain the effect of that first bullet, he’d yanked back on the bolt, loading and firing again. For good measure, he fired a third time, then took his eye away from the scope to see the overall status.
The one he’d shot at wasn’t dead, but it was very close. The three high-power rounds had slammed into its left foreleg, its neck, and its chest. It screeched in agony with the shots, and immediately chose its nearest route of escape, the same tunnel that it had used to appear. By the time he turned to aim at the other two, one of them was falling to the ground, courtesy of a salvo of bullets from the front squad.
Nicholas leaped over the body of the first mole and slashed his sword at the other. It glanced off the armor of the beast, but the mole still reeled, giving the swordsman time to dart in and cut at its soft underbelly. Jerik could see the blood spray out through his scope. Then a blue disc of energy appeared as Nick blocked its retaliatory swipe. With a yell that even Jerik could hear, Nick slammed into the beast with the shield, slamming its head down. With one more swipe of the sword, it collapsed.
Jerik let out a long sigh of relief as the surprise attack came to an end. By the looks of it, there were only mild injuries on the research crew, who were picking themselves up off the ground, grimacing. There was one major injury among the front squad, but one of the combat medics of the platoon was tending to it. It was a better result than he could have hoped for. He should have known even then that he was wrong to assume that it was over.
Jerik was just beginning to get to his feet when he heard the roar. Then a massive shadow rippled across the ground as something flew overhead, directly for the platoon. It was only when the stream of fire erupted that he recognized the monster. A dragon. Raid-Class. It swooped by the platoon, releasing the fire from its mouth. The entire platoon was struck. Two members of the front squad fell at once, their bodies aflame. The carts were already smoking.
“Barriers!” Jerik screamed. “Block its fire!”
He decided against going prone once more, since the dragon was constantly moving. Instead, he followed its progress with his rifle. It swept away from the platoon, then turned sharply, darting in for another pass. Jerik fired, but missed as it dropped lower. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that it had deliberately dodged his bullet. Then it was breathing fire again in another strafe attack. Half of the barriers carried with the front squad were up, which protected the wagons from further burning, but three more of them were knocked back into the mountain on fire, and one member of the research crew was down as well.
Then a pulse of green light washed over the entire platoon, from Morgan’s position atop one of the carts. All signs of the remaining fire were extinguished, and all but one of the injured people got up. The last of the barriers was at last in place, and rifles were lifting at all positions, opening fire at the monster attacking them. For the most part, the bullets had very little effect, only chipping away at its scales. It completed another loop, then flew directly at the platoon, releasing a roiling fireball. The research crew dove behind the front squad for safety, and Nick appeared before them all in his Tek suit, blocking the projectile with his shield.
The dragon landed on the path with a shuddering impact before Nick with its wings flared, and roared a challenge. As dragons went, this one was considerably smaller than typical, only a few feet longer than the moles. But it was quick, and as Morgan cast a lightning spell at it, the magik was absorbed by its scales without any sign of damage. A Magik Drake, Jerik thought. He hoped Morgan wouldn’t try that again. Magik Drakes were known to eat mana, and would only become stronger if targeted with more spells.
Nicholas raced forward before the dragon could advance, putting some distance between himself and the platoon and grabbing its attention in the same moment. His tek sword cut back and forth, opening a shallow wound on the monster’s snout. It reared back away from him, then spun in place, its spiked tail swiping across his shield. He was pushed back several inches by the force of the blow, and his shield faded. Jerik could see the panic flash across his face at how quickly his shield had been used up, but he still moved forward again, gripping his sword in two hands now.
The dragon lunged, its jaws opening wide, to bite him, but nick was faster. He jumped, clearing nearly ten feet in an instant, and the dragon’s head flashed underneath him. He landed on its scaly back, stabbing the sword to the hilt there. It seemed that, with two hands, the scales provided no real protection from his tek sword. The dragon let out a terrible yell of pain and fury, thrashing back and forth. Nicholas was holding on for his life by the sword hilt, but it was far from a secure point. Jerik fired continuously at the dragon, and now his shots were landing.
After his third round struck it in the head, the dragon ran partway up the slope of the mountain, then rolled back down onto the path. Nicholas was force to release his grip on the sword to avoid being crushed, and went flying down the hill on the other side of the path, landing painfully on the slope. The front squad immediately opened fire again, and Katrina fired a rocket, which slammed right into its head. The force of the explosion knocked the dragon back. It reared on its hind legs, roaring yet more fiercely. This was a mistake for it, as the hail of bullets had easy access to its less protected underside and its wings. The thin skin of its wings was ripped to shreds.
The monster slammed its front legs back into the path, knocking up a huge cloud of dust. For those in the front squad, it vanished at once, but Jerik could see it clearly from his position. It had run in the opposite direction, using the dust as cover, and made a sharp turn to dart down the slope into the thick canopy of trees there. Jerik took one last shot as it vanished, but was certain he’d missed.
“Someone get rope!” He called over the comms, once he was sure the dragon was gone. “Pull Nick up!”
Nicholas wasn’t moving, indicating that he was unconscious. If he’d been killed, of course, his body would have shattered into a pile of loot. At once, someone was sliding down the slope attached to a rope. Jerik couldn’t make out who it was, but they hauled their captain up over their shoulder, and the others on the path started to pull them both up. Jerik flew back over to join the platoon, then walked over to watch the combat medic start to wake Nick.
“How’s he doing?” He asked at once.
“The armor protected him from the worst of it,” the medic said. “Apart from being knocked out, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of critical damage. But he’ll be the best judge of that. Just give me a second.”
He retrieved a clear glass container from his belt pouch, and opened it underneath Nick’s nose. The young man’s face screwed up, and he thrashed violently, then shot upright with a gasp. Jerik hurried forward to calm him with a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from getting up.
“Just wait now,” he said forcefully. “Don’t move. We need to make sure you’re not badly injured. You hit the slope pretty hard.”
Nick took a second to gather himself, then patted up and down his body. “Nothing’s broken. Damn! I should have put my helmet up first. Probably wouldn’t have been knocked out if I did that.”
“That’s fine,” Jerik assured him. “As long as you’re alright. But I’m sorry, the sword’s gone. It’s still in the dragon and it fled.”
“It fled? That’s surprising. I thought monsters like that fought to the death.”
“Rarely,” Jerik corrected him. “If we had time to set up a trap we could have killed it. But once it threw you off, it got pretty badly injured, and fled.”
“Did we lose anyone?” Nick asked.
“Just one, from the first fire it used,” Morgan said. “They should be using one of the teleportation circles any minute now to get back here. I have the corresponding runes already set up.”
“That’s good, but a dragon in the first hour?” Jerik asked, finally able to fully comprehend the shock of the moment. “This monster business has gotten really out of hand.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s obvious. Nick, do you have a backup sword?”
“I don’t need one,” the young man said. He held his hand out in the vague direction that the dragon had gone. Jerik could have sworn he heard a distant roar of pain, and wondered what it could have been, until he saw the sword flying through the air. Nick caught it easily. “Wasn’t the first time I’ve lost a sword, so I enchanted that one to return when I wanted it to.”
“We need to move,” Jerik said, glancing up at the sky. It was clear of any other monsters.
For now.
