Blake stopped with everyone else when he heard the alarm-like blare. He and his constructs were busily tearing apart the engineer's quarters looking for blueprints or runes, but weren't having much luck.
"Was that us?" he squinted and tried to hear the direction of the sound before he heard Mason shout something incomprehensible. He glanced at the others, then they all ran from the room and looked towards the hall.
Flickering red light mixed with the constant whining of a triggered alarm. Mason and Streak were battling some kind of giant construct. Oh, and it looked like a kind of security door was closing him inside.
"Stop that door from closing," he said, ordering his constructs forward as he ran.
Calypsa sprinted past him, Becky and Annie not far behind. His constructs thumped along but weren't exactly built for acceleration. Blake basically accepted he was going to have to use True Making, but he soon saw Annie and Calypsa get themselves under the security door and hold the damn thing on their shoulders (Calypsa), and hands (Annie— who was considerably shorter).
They both grunted in strain, but held long enough for Blake's constructs to arrive and lift the thing in unison.
"Good work. Now go help Mason," Blake said, starting True Making as the others ducked under and ran towards the sound of fighting.
A quick Animation seemed wise, but the damn power took a minute. Blake tapped his foot as his channel built in power, then glanced at Navi floating beside his head. "Wait. Didn't you say you can help me with my spells? Can you...I don't know...channel for me?"
"No, Master." The little construct pouted as if ashamed, then instantly brightened. "But I can maintain spells! You need only transfer them to me. Though…my mana is limited."
Blake had almost stopped listening after the word 'no', but soon fought the creeping smile. That meant he could potentially maintain even more constructs, depending on Navi's mana. He supposed he shouldn't be in such a good mood when his brother and friends were out there fighting for their lives, but he wasn't really worried.
"This spell really is slow," he muttered with a sigh, arcane energy building between his hands. "Navi, you know any good jokes?"
* * *
Mason smashed his foot into what he'd hoped was glass, but apparently was more like...translucent metal. It didn't even crack. The robot stumbled back but seemed very stable on its flexible tri-pod of legs. The corpse-like goblin inside hardly even flinched, then the robot aimed one of its...tubes.
Fire sprayed and Mason rolled away before running around his foe in a circle slashing. Streak ducked and threw himself against the thing's legs, and when it tried to turn it caught itself on the huge wolf and lurched to the side.
Mason moved in for another brutal kick, and the robot teetered and fell. Both he and Streak leapt to chew or cut anything with a joint. In a few moment's work they had an arm half ripped off, a couple tubes bent or twisted.
All in all things were going rather well. Save for all the other robots. And the oncoming horde of goblins.
"Keep chewing," Mason said as he jumped to his feet and lifted his crappy bow off the ground. Half naked goblins were coming down lifts, up lifts, others were climbing up ropes or ladders.
Mason activated Endless Quiver, and started a brutal, rhythmic volley at anything that moved.
You didn't need much draw weight against unarmored targets. Goblins shrieked and fled or dropped whenever struck, but it didn't do much to stop the oncoming tide. Mason also noticed in the corner of his eyes that his mana was dropping, and realized this didn't count as a 'natural' setting. So that was neat.
Then he heard Blake and the others at the door. Calypsa, Annie and Becky all raced up beside him and stared at the goblins.
"Jesus, Mason, what the hell?" Becky held up her disc but clearly wasn't sure what to do.
"Orders, druid?" Calypsa held her spear without any expression at all.
"Kill them," Mason said, forming another fire arrow. "All of them."
Annie, at least, seemed enthusiastic. With a high pitched, vaguely cute scream that was probably supposed to be scary, the tiny redhead lifted her fireaxe and charged into a cluster of goblins.
"Shit. I got her!" Becky chased after, her shield wrapping around her and the smaller girl like two big, soapy bubbles. Mason just kept on shooting.
Unfortunately, the goblins started shooting back. Some had their usual bows and javelins. But apparently here in the Engineering Guild, they had a variety of new toys.
Mason jerked as something like an electrified bean bag hit his shoulder. His First Blood title flared as a few more struck, and by the sad looks on the goblins' faces he was likely supposed to be on the ground twitching.
He put an arrow in the shooter's eye, and kept loosing.
Something exploded near his feet. A piece of shrapnel bounced off his knee, which seemed small and didn't do much damage, but actually fucking hurt. He moved a little and kept shooting, and more explosives rained around him or slid off the platform and blew up in the air.
He could see more goblins setting up some kind of launchers that looked like mortars, babbling at one another and stuffing something into the tubes. Mason was still good on mana but wasn't sure standing around exchanging projectiles was turning out to be a great plan.
"I'll go up," he called to Calypsa. "Get over to Becky and Annie and protect them."
Then he dropped his bow and summoned his Claws, Streak close on his heels as he ran for the ramp going higher. The goblins saw him and panicked, some launching their 'mortars', which apparently shot some kind of net. They missed horribly, then Mason was on them.
His swords cut through goblin flesh and bone like it was nothing, taking off limbs and chunks of head and torso with every swipe. One of the goblins cried out and leapt straight at him, surprising him enough he just elbowed it weakly before it grabbed his chest and held on. As he was about to push it off with a forearm, he heard a click.
The goblin exploded.
Apex Predator flared with elemental affinity, and Mason felt his feet slide as his senses numbed. He dropped his swords and grabbed at anything, feeling a kind of vertigo, unsure where exactly he was until a bit of smoke cleared. He was still on the ramp, fortunately, clinging to the metal floor.
Bits and pieces of goblin lay splattered everywhere. Mason's ears rang and his lungs and face hurt, but otherwise he seemed mostly fine. He groaned and struggled to his feet, the first sound to return being Streak growling and chewing as he thrashed some poor goblin to the floor.
A net hit his chest, wrapping completely around his torso but too weak to hold him back. He moved forward again and searched for targets, keeping his movement erratic to help reduce the amount of missiles still bouncing off his flesh or Sleeves or all around him.
Then the net around his chest hummed and stank with the acrid scent of arcane magic, and he saw his mana start to drop. He slashed the net and pulled it off with his shorter blade, moving again to hunt the shooters.
One by one he cut down goblins or threw them from the ramp as he climbed. Streak was covered in nets and darts and arrows. They stuck out from his thick fur with a few splotches of red, but he was just too big and strong to be slowed down much, and the creatures soon fled from them both in terror.
When the last of them jumped to their own deaths or escaped up to the higher levels, Mason turned back and raced to the others. He found them back to back (to back) on another platform, Annie yanking apart a construct while Calypsa dealt with the goblins. And Blake, apparently, had arrived.
What looked like four of his constructs were charging down the ramps, smashing anything that didn't run. He ignored them and found one of the robots, seeming to have it frozen in place in some kind of spell.
"Oh it's delightful," he said as Mason approached. "A new enchant. And a new chassis!" He beamed as if this made perfect sense, and Mason sighed as he saw the last few goblins running from the girls.
"I'm glad you're having fun," he said, not even sure it was sarcasm. "Is everyone alright?"
"We're good, ya'll," Becky called, tossing off a net with an exasperated huff. "But these damn...things! They pretty much drained me. I can still shield myself, but I can't do much else for awhile."
Calypsa spun her spear and cast some kind of spell on herself, but looked otherwise bored. Streak was eating...something, darts slowly popping out of his flesh. Annie sunk to the floor covered in blood and started rocking back and forth before Blake knelt beside her.
Mason supposed it hadn't gone too badly. He picked up a random shitty goblin bow and sighed, looking up and down the huge cavern without much idea of where to go. One for down, he decided, two for up.
"Blake," he called. "Pick a number. One, or two?"
"A little busy here, brother," Blake called, but then pursed his lips. "I like one. Number two makes me think of bowel movements."
It made as much sense as anything in the post-apocalypse. Mason whistled for Streak, then started heading down.
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