Mitch and Drew changed positions. He didn’t watch, but the sounds Mitch and Katie made were enough to convince him that the whole experience wasn’t fun. It took about twenty minutes to break the legs off, the thick chitin resistant to damage even in death.
“Any ideas on how to carry this? They’re gonna cut through anything we have,” Katie asked Drew, who took off his blouse again and handed it to her.
“Guess Juan will just have to repair that again.” They wrapped the legs up as best they could. “Alright, I think we’re done here,” Katie said, putting a hand on Drew’s shoulder. He nodded, his eyes never leaving the stairwell.
“Okay, let’s get back up the stairs and I’ll do another storm and kill the eggs.” Everyone retreated, and Katie managed to convince the knight to hold the lights while she took the legs. About halfway up the stairs, they hunched down. The memory of the earlier storm was enough to keep them as far back as they could make it. Drew, partially hidden by a new wall Katie made on the stairs, leaned over and began to create seals with his hands.
Again, it seemed to take forever, his fingers flashing through the movements before the room they had just been in caught fire.
Massive fireballs rained down amidst the storm, electrical pulses flashing around them. The rain did nothing to stop the fires from starting, and the eggs were apparently quite flammable. Wind stoked their fury and the conflagration spread. The raw ozone and smoke reached them even as far away as they were, the occasional furnace blast of heat erupted out as the wind caught it and flung it out into the stairwell. The crackling sound of flames died down in an instant as the storm ceased its fury. Scorch marks and the lingering fires of masses of eggs thrown together into large piles in the corners of the room were all that was left.
“I don’t think I ever want to be on the receiving end of one of those,” Katie said, shaking her head again.
They both began to climb for a moment before realizing that Drew wasn’t following them. He stood staring into the flames, whispering under his breath:
“Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.”
After a few minutes, he turned. Nodding to them, they walked up the stairs to the cart.
They returned to the safe room without incident. Juan and Sarah, sensing the group’s somber mood, didn’t say anything; they just took a portion of the food and began eating it. Drew seemed lost in thought and the other two had an edge to them. The sheer destruction of what they had seen the former Information Technology Specialist do had made them realize just how dangerous this world was now.
This was the power of spells in the new system, and these weren’t even the most powerful level. What would happen when they were upgraded up to legendary? What other monsters did this world have that would need such levels of destruction?
Chapter Nine — Breakdowns
The pistol landed on the table with a thud. Everyone eyed it before Drew began talking, “The queen had already been injured when I fought her. If she had been at full speed, I probably would have died. Whoever emptied the magazine into her probably did.” He looked at the other four, “That said, we didn’t find a body or even a trace of a body, and the Spider couldn’t have eaten it that quickly. She may have cocooned it and stashed it away somewhere; we didn’t search around too much.”
“Could they still be alive?” Sarah asked.
“It’s unlikely, ma’am,” Katie answered, “If they were able to empty an entire magazine into the spider, and she was still able to fight through Drew’s attacks for a while, then survival…I don’t think that’s possible.”
“I think we should send another group out to raid some of the close vending machines. With careful rationing, that should last us a week or two.” Sarah’s words were met with incredulity.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but did you say you want to stay here for another two weeks?” Drew asked, looking around the table to gauge everyone else’s opinions. Katie looked as confused as him, while Juan refused to meet his eyes. Mitch looked between Drew and Sarah but kept his face relatively impassive.
“That’s right, IT2,” Sarah emphasized his rank, “We’re going to stay here until we are properly relieved of the watch.”
“Sarah,” Drew emphasized her name, “No one is going to come for us. If they were going to come, they would have been here already. The phones are dead, and the power still hasn’t come back on. Heck, the backup generators that should have kicked on immediately didn’t even work. If they were going to come for us, they would have done it days ago. The only thing that sitting here is going to accomplish is to give the dungeon time to spawn more monsters and make our eventual escape that much more difficult.”
“Petty Officer Michalik, you are dangerously close to insubordination.” Sarah stood up, trying to intimidate Drew by physically looming over him.
“Quite frankly, ma’am, no, I’m not. I swore to defend America from threats both foreign and domestic. Look around you. We aren’t helping anyone in here. Our jobs, my job? It doesn’t exist anymore. There are no more computers to monitor, no more risk of being hacked. You guys? You’re supposed to be coordinating the intelligence efforts of the commandant. You can’t do that here. You have nothing to report, no one to report it to. But there are bound to be a lot of scared people out there, and our oaths require that we render that aid. You most of all, because I promise you that there are injured people out there, and if you sit here safe in this little room, you are refusing to help them.” Drew had stood up in the middle of the speech, glaring down at the shorter woman.
“Ma’am, I think Drew is right. We need to get out of here,” Katie stood next to Drew as she looked at the Ensign. Juan and Mitch stood up as well, supporting the two more senior enlisted.
“We can’t stay here. Drew’s right, the longer we let those monsters grow, the worse it’s going to be,” Juan offered.
“We can’t put up much of a fight on half rations of potato chips and soda. We need supplies, and this place is just going to become more and more of a death trap.”
Sarah looked between the four of them, her mouth opening and then closing again.
“Look, ma’am, our responsibility, our duty, isn’t here anymore. And I for one have no intention of abandoning that duty. If you feel like you need to stay here, then I understand. But I’m not going to be coming back here, and your best chance of getting out of this place is going to be with us.”
“I could order you to stay.” Sarah’s voice was soft, the fear in her eyes obvious.
“You could ma’am, but that would be an order to abandon my duty, and I’m not at liberty to obey unlawful orders.” Drew’s voice lost the edge that it had previously. He understood that she was afraid, afraid of the darkness on the other side of the door as well as the gore, the blood and other viscera he had arrived in earlier. “Don’t worry ma’am; we’ll keep you safe.”
They all nodded, and Sarah folded. Drew walked over to the cart to get it situated, while everyone else gathered up the few items they would be taking with them. Katie had stopped after the three men left the table, whispering something to Sarah that Drew intentionally tuned out.
Having the least amount of work to do, Drew considered how best to utilize his time. The confrontation with Sarah reminded him that the two youngest members of the team, Juan and Sarah, hadn’t had the conditioning he had out in the fleet arresting drug runners and human traffickers. Making his way over to where Juan was picking through the things on a desk, “Hey, we haven’t really had a chance to talk. How you holding up?”