NOVEL WEB Chapter 1567 Through the Fire and Mist
--- Kamiko --- (Evening Day 11)
They'd done it. The bright silverly wall in the distance told them they had done it… but the journey to get there was more painful then they'd thought it would be. While physically the group was still in fine condition mentally they were exhausted. Constant vigilance in case of the bubbles for Bower and monsters for everyone else meant the group was fairly rung out. Hunter the sole exception to this.
She was still aware and in fine condition but everyone else not so much.
This included Kamiko who on day 10 had taken it upon herself to do the carrying for a while. There was an eight hour stint where Meg rested and Kamiko carried the ornery greed demon. It came up when Meg stumbled slightly and Kamiko asked "Um… would you like me to carry you for a bit? Let… let you get some rest?"
And instead of whining and asking Hunter to carry her instead Meg said, "You know what? Yes. Wake me up if you need me." At which point Meg waited for Kamiko to get off her back and then through herself into Kamiko's arms and promptly fell asleep.
Kamiko hadn't intended to be carrying Meg for quite so long, but nobody dared wake her and Kamiko was well enough rested that it didn't slow them down much.
Kamiko also spent a bit of time carrying Bower… but only a bit. The problem with letting him rest was that he was needed to keep track of the bubbles. This meant that Bower needed to be woken up at regular intervals and didn't get all that much rest from it. Bower claimed it was enough of course, but the slight sway in his steps revealed that lie pretty quickly.
Still they made it. Meg didn't get the best sleep and was a touch tired, Kamiko was somewhat tired, Bower was exhausted and Hunter was managing to act find despite likely being tired as well. The problem? They might be at the wall but everyone felt like they needed a break at this point.
"What…" Kamiko tried to speak but was interrupted by a yawn. "What's the plan here?"
"Well the barrier won't be a problem for us," stated Meg confidently. "I good punch from either myself or Hunter could take it down though it's probably easier to just apply a bit of demonic fire to it and burn our way through. It might not collapse entirely if we do it that way. The problem is… whatever is on the other side…"
"I can certainly remain combat ready for long enough to establish a beachhead for us. We can rest after clearing an area for us to rest in," stated Hunter.
"I'll trust ya lass because I'm about dead on my feet. I reckon I won't be much good for any combat that happens on the other side because I'm pretty well spent," said Bower.
"It's ok Bower you did well getting us here especially when you couldn't rest and it took longer then it should have," said Kamiko placatingly.
"So we're breaking it down then?" asked Meg. Everyone sort of shrugged in response as they kept walking. They were circling the wall, not getting too close but obviously not stopping either. Nobody was sure if they could be moved away from the wall at this point but they weren't taking any chances.
With that done Meg grabbed the compass back from Kamiko who had retaken it one Bower had claimed to be fine to walk on his own again. Meg put the compass away and then summoned up a ball of demonic fire. It was the same colour as her 'skin' and blisteringly hot from where Kamiko was sitting.
Meg kept summoning more and more fire, pulling it into a point in front of her and compressing it down. Meg kept this up for around a minute before decided it was acceptable. Meg then threw the ball of fire ahead of them. There was a loud sizzling sound as the mist was burnt away. The group kept up a steady pace, refraining from rushing ahead as the mist wall was eaten away.
Once the hole was big enough to hop through, Meg gestured for everyone to speed up. The rest of the group increased their pace and soon jumped through the whole. Kamiko even hopped off Meg's shoulder to make sure she could fit through the gap. Meg went last and as soon as she'd made it inside she pulled the demonic flames from the mist wall with her mind and snuffed them out.
Before Kamiko could even look around properly, she could hear the sound of sparking and grinding gears as a bunch of rusted robots all pulled themselves off the ground like zombies. They had plants growing off them and, in their joints, and their gate was stilted and stuttering. Hunter went to work taking them out quickly by bouncing from place to place and smashing them to pieces.
"What foul many of monster is that…" asked Bower as he glanced around at the still twitching and sparking corpses.
Kamiko went to correct Bower… before frowning. Wait… how do I explain robots to someone who doesn't know what a robot is? Golems I guess? But has he only met the stone golems? Um… hmm… Kamiko glanced around at the others and was thankful when Meg spoke up. "Technically they're a thing called 'robots' which are essentially a lightning elemental fused with a steel golem,"
"Hmm… strange. Why would you want that?" asked Bower. "I feel as though a lightning elemental on its own would be more powerful…"
"Perhaps so but the reason for this is that they are more easily programmed… err that is they can be more easily controlled via a centre intelligence then golems and are less likely to break free of that programming upon imbibing a large amount of magic.
Of course as you can see they break down over time without maintenance so many prefer sticking with golems but that's neither here nor there," explained Meg.
With that explained Kamiko took a chance to look around the area properly. The immediate surroundings mostly consisted of grass that had grown to about chest height and was responsible for hiding a bunch of the robots. It didn't seem special in any way besides there being a lot of it. There were a few piles of metal in the surroundings that barely peaked up over the grass but nothing useable.
In the distance there was a large glass dome set into a hexagonal pattern… at least that was Kamiko's best guess. There were holes everywhere in the dome. Some of them had trees that had grown up and through the glass while others looked like something large and heavy had struck it from above breaking the glass and metal nearby.
The surviving glass plates were all hexagons but some of the missing shapes didn't seem to quite match that template. Perhaps that had their own unique designs once upon a time but it was impossible to tell now.
Kamiko couldn't see any other robots for the moment, and the base of the dome was impossible to properly make out… but both of those issues were because of the long grass. Kamiko was quite sure they would be attacked if they travelled towards the dome… and she was guessing the drake part was in there. "So… are we camping here for the night?" asked Kamiko.
"Hopefully," said Bower flopping down onto the grass.
"I'm happy to rest but someone is likely going to need to stand guard for us just in case. It seems like enemy territory and I don't think I'd feel comfortable sleeping without a watcher. We can wait for whoever's on watch to get some sleep afterwards, but I think it needs to happen," said Meg. Explore more adventures at empire
"I can take the watch," stated Hunter.
"On second thought, I say we all take a break," returned Meg.
"I meant what I said," stated Hunter. "I can take the watch without issue and still be capable of combat tomorrow. I may not quite be in top form but I can definitely make it through the day. I did say I could manage a week and we haven't even gotten close to that yet,"
"Yeah but I didn't think you meant a week of full effort, besides there's nothing else here other then a few broken robots," retorted Meg.
"No I meant a week of almost full activity. I have trained to spend multiple weeks tracking a target without rest should it be necessary. I'm still working on refining the technique but as a lamia I have a better baseline for learning it then many others," explained Hunter.
"I'm not happy about this," said Meg. "I won't force you obviously but I want it to be known that I am not happy about this at all,"
Kamiko just stayed out of the this fight as Meg and Hunter glared at each other. *I feel like letting Hunter get some rest might be for the best… but if she says she's fine I suppose I'll believe her. I'm too tired to worry about it properly right now anyway.*