Sammy burst into action, determined not to waste one moment. Using her harness arms, she climbed upward hard and fast. “Waiting is pointless — charge past them! We’ll blow those fuckers out of our path!”

  Azure followed, though she was sputtering in argument. “A-are you crazy?! We could retreat and lose them in the forest!”

  “We didn’t see a single one down there. They likely don’t even go into it! If we run and they just wait here, what does that get us?! Their eyesight is obviously incredible, too. They’re practically dots right now and they saw us instantly.”

  Azure might’ve sighed. “Alright. If we die, we die, I guess.”

  “Gee, thanks for the confidence. Look, a plan is brewing in this brain, okay? Just follow my lead.” Alright, a plan, a plan, any plan...

  The immediate task in front of them was simply racing as fast as possible because it was a long charge before the beasties even met them. It took half a minute just to make them out decently. They were not familiar Cat Heads. Flapping bat wings on a feathered harpy-like body and what looked like three long scorpion tails with stingers.

  Oh, just fucking great, these are the worst of the worst! Again! “You have some venom protection, right, Azure?”

  “Of course I do. Wait, they have three stinger tails?! Fuck my life, these are the worst of the worst! Samantha… it’s not too late to retreat, you know. Maybe going down leads to some comfy twilight without bat scorpion murder cats?”

  Sammy scoffed loudly. “Yeah right! It would be something far worse and you know it. It doesn’t matter! This is where we have to go. It’s the culmination of this bullshit quest and where this bullshit queen is waiting. Now get on board and stop complaining about bullshit!”

  “Alright, alright! I’m with you. We’ll carve a way through these ugly furred fuckheads.”

  “Now we’re talking!”

  A frenetic climb ensued, and a decidedly unclear percentage of the way up to the top. As they moved, they quaffed a few potions, including a toughness upgrade and absolute poison/venom protection. Sammy/Rallindin were already immune to most such things, but the Wyld had proven itself to not care much about deific immunities, as she discovered the hard way.

  Better safe than sorry.

  Inevitably, the diving horde loomed menacingly. Sammy stopped short to make use of preparatory measures. The first thing she did was make a transparent bowl of sorts, made of invulnerable force walls, so they’d slam into it. It would be largely impossible to move, even for her, so inevitably she’d have to dismiss it. But it would blunt the first wave completely.

  Once the barrier was in place, she began layering protections over both of them. With wound negations ‘illegal’ essentially, she got around it by making automated barriers. Giant floating shields that would block the way without actions, though they’d eventually be destroyed. From a few altercations where she’d used them, they could essentially negate an attack once per ‘exchange’ or ‘round’ of five seconds. Depending, they could last two or three rounds, sometimes more.

  Azure focused on making as many of her constructed nemeses for the Cat Heads as possible — giant grappling spider-things. In a rather short time frame, she managed to summon all her strongest variety out. A dozen of them spaced out to help make the way and distract the enemy. Four of these were the size of bears and could keep multiple Cat Heads away continuously. The rest, significantly smaller, would largely jump and grapple, attempting to more or less permanently neutralize a single combatant.

  Sammy’s final prep was to utilize Hard Light layerings for more autonomous screens. She pulled her same trick as with the harness arms — flexible snake-like constructs. Blades, spears, bullets, and all such things were useless against Cat Heads, being invulnerable. Knocking and entangling were the simplest and most reliable physical solutions.

  Defensive efforts were soon over, and the Cat Heads fell upon the force wall with great ringing gongs from the impact, bouncing off again and again, until they were bouncing into their own confused and disoriented mass and it became a thick jungle of them crowding the bowl, sliding down, or batting their wings awkwardly away to reassess.

  Sammy and Azure simply held still, waiting for their moment and not presenting themselves as targets. Meanwhile, the spiders waited at the edges.

  Come on… daylight any day now…

  The press started to spill over the edge of the force bowl, and as soon as they did, a small army of snakes and spiders rose to the occasion, attacking from a relative ambush.

  The great mass quickly shifted at that point, abandoning the top of the bowl to try and come around.

  Spell ready to unleash, Sammy dropped the force effect, dispelling it instantly. A moment later, Azure fired potion rounds one after the other, causing raw concussive detonations, blowing the scorpion-tailed beasts outward, spinning and dropping from their loss of flight control.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  As they both moved into the gap, Sammy let loose on her spell, catching all those already knocked with another grand concussive wave, ensuring the space created stayed clear.

  It then became a relative sprint in climbing upward with their harnesses, abandoning attacks for as much speed as they could muster. It was a mad dash to shoot through the gap, as a thick concentration of the Cat Heads was still very close in a great ring that was quickly collapsing.

  The spiders in reserve jumped on beasts at the last moment before they could’ve slammed into Sammy or Azure and ruined the charge. One of the biggest spiders even jumped and sacrificed itself, grabbing onto four screeching beasts at once to fall far downward… then releasing them as it bungied back up on a powerful, thick thread. Cat Heads swarmed and attacked it ruthlessly, dooming it to destruction, but it had more than done its job of absorbing copious amounts of attention.

  In truth, the scorpion-tailed beasts held no particular priority for Sammy and Azure. Whatever was closest, they went for ruthlessly. They were quite capable with their tails, spearing spiders off of them, or grappling to hold their own against the snakes. After they did finally kill or disable something, they tried to eat it, which was favorable for a bit of extra delay.

  Sammy’s shield saved her from a blindside that would’ve been catastrophic. But a great, glowing tower shield moved in the way of a charging feline who then bounced into a wall with a great racket, before falling down over steps into others of its kind. The shield was flickering with damage but still held ready for more.

  Their variety of distractions and summoned allies did the deed of getting them through the gap and above it, all their enemies at their feet, and their harness arms continuously pulling them up, claw grapple by claw grapple. Naturally, the flyers were faster.

  But now we can really unload on these bitches!

  Words did not have to be exchanged. Azure already had her gun loaded, and she fired the customary three potions below into the mass, sending a fountain of burning spray and globules as sticky alchemical fire goo painted a horde of Cat Heads, to screams and howls of protest. Meanwhile, the spiders rushed out of the way, knowing exactly what was coming.

  The Wyld Inferno of Samantha-Ralindin dropped once more.

  A massive torrent of fire blossomed downward as if hell itself was rushing back from a trip to heaven. Every Cat Head below them was hit and bowled downward in a continuous roll, and explosion after explosion rained like fireworks from within as the alchemical concoction detonated in dozens of different spots. Some of the Cat Heads were seen flying in an arc free of the main mass of fire, blown clear.

  In nearly all cases, however, they were coated with flames and immolated, as the fire might not wound them, but it also would not go out. They howled and pawed at themselves as they fell, ignoring flight in their frenzied hatred of the substance on them that would not go away, die, or even abate. Time alone could consume it.

  Before they could think to celebrate, though, no less than a dozen of the flyers came from around the other side of the tower, snarling and hell-bent on their targets with a full head of steam.

  Shit! The tower itself shielded them from the napalm and the blast.

  More than half a dozen got blocked or grappled by leaping spiders and darting snake constructs. Three got through to attack Samantha, two to engage Azure, bearing down with talons and whipping scorpion tail stingers.

  Sammy’s phantom tower shield barred the way against one monster, which responded by ensnaring it in its talons and stabbing it, two tails breaking entirely through the force-like barrier. This sufficed to occupy it as it spun downward and struggled with a writhing shield.

  Azure’s shield managed to slam one foe as well, and, having more or less blindsided the beast, avoided getting tangled up or damaged.

  Sammy had two more to deal with. She attempted a feint as a retreat one way while going the other, hoping to juke both of them, but they didn’t buy it at all. Unwilling to risk her harness arms getting wrapped up, she focused on blocking them with her magical staff Jammer, flaring out a mass of entangling wires to interject.

  Both beasties tried to slice through with their talons — this worked for one layer of strands, but they slammed into another layer. One screeched and bulled its way through with surprising strength, buckling the restraints in a chaotic twisting spill. Sammy took a glancing blow in the shoulder, knocking her off balance.

  The other Cat Head instead grabbed the strands before it pushed in, and then pulled them apart, forcing an opening. Through that opening, its stingers came to bear, jabbing hard for the soft, wizardly center that was Rallindin’s body.

  She got stabbed in the side and the leg by a razor-sharp stinger, cutting through magical fabric, enchantments, toughness — everything — to bury oh so briefly before ripping out from Sammy’s jerking defensive motions, gashing her similar to a nasty sword wound.

  In truth, she barely felt it compared to the other pains she’d been through. She kept her head easily as a veteran of such combats. Focus in the heat of things; focus earned with scars.

  She spared an anxious glance for Azure, but the blue wonder had fared better, fending off her other attacker with an apparent quick harness-arm parry using two of them at once. On the other hand, she was perhaps a ‘step’ or two underneath Samantha due to the movement loss.

  I should have used them. I could’ve parried like she did. Oh well. I’m not down and out yet. Now’s our chance to blast these fuckers and get more separation!

  This would've been so much easier with a hundred balls of string to roll.

  Next Chapter...

  Who kept the dogs back? Who-who-who? A new, special spell is revealed during the altercation.

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