Four Horsemen: Chapter 37 Part 1 of 2

Chapter 37:

Petor’s mana came back under control as he watched Mya work on her cannons. While she waited for Valter she loaded her other weapons.

“Just like your rifles,” Petor said.

“Yeah, clean them out of anything hot and sparky, then shove in new powder, shot and something to keep it in place.

Valter handed her a second cannonball, working on a third. She shoved it in and then followed it up with a wooden block.

“How many cannons do you have?” Petor asked.

Mya tapped her finger on the side of her nose and winked at him. “Captain has to have ‘er secrets.”

Petor smiled and held up his hands.

“Alright I have it all copied now,” Desari said.

“Good!” Mya took the last cannon ball from Valter. He stood, running his hand over his gear, shaking his attached shield and shifting in his armor.

Petor shifted in his, tight where it needed to be, without any rattling or looseness. A shake of his arm told him his shield was still good.

Mya shoved the wood piece and cannonball into place, spinning the gears expertly to bring it back to center before she added taps of powder to the top of the cannon and stored it away.

“Ready?” Valter asked, his dagger still in his hand as he stood next to the pedestal.

Petor looked at Desari and Mya.

“Ready,” Desari said.

Valter checked his notes, put them away and started to cut away at the pedestal.

“Its not healing back over like some of the test cuts,” Valter said.

The dungeon core stopped filling up with power and the new inscribed lines began filling with brown crystal.

Valter slipped his dagger away and drew his sword. Petor held his spear ready.

“The power is being redirected and filling those others inscriptions, this is incredi—teleportation activating!”

Desari dropped into a fighting stance as the light distorted around them into shades of light and shadow that spiralled into flashes of blinding light and breathtaking darkness.

Light burned. Petor looked away, finding it all around him, flowing through the walls, through the floor to the pool of roiling light over a whipping vortex of fire that had blinded Petor. The room was several times bigger than the one they’d fought the golem in, a porticullis leading into the space.

A beast of shadow opened its eyes, with the same intensity as that of the vortex behind it.

Petor drove his mana, as color snapped back into resolution.

The room was hewn black stone. The vortex of blue flame, the walls leaking magma that ran through channels cut into the rough floor as if a dragon had gouged them out with its claws.

The beast of shadow was a humanoid with the head of a wyvern, its eyes glowing with molten intent, in its chest a core of crystalline flame spun under robes of black material that appeared burned and tattered except the stark red runes.

Anyone without a core would have burned with just the temperature of the room. Petor felt sweat coat his skin as he moved next to Valter, facing the creature. Desari on the other side, Mya behind.

Its arms were pulled apart by chains running into the walls on either side. The porticullis shifted with his movements.

If he pulls the chains then the portcullis opens.

It opened its mouth, speaking.

He made to open his mouth but his throat dried up, he coughed and spat to the side.

Desari responded in the same harsh voice.

“Don’t want to worry you, but as it pulls its arms together, its raising that portcullis and there are creatures on the other side,” Mya said.

“Desari?” Valter asked.

She waved him off and pulled up her hand, clenching it into a fist, purple runes appeared down her hand and arm.

The beast strained at its chains harder, runes lighting it up.

“We got creatures coming!” Mya yelled.

“Desari!” Petor yelled.

She said a few more words and snarled, drawing an arrow and fitting it to her bow. “He’s a trapped elemental, and like most of them he’s a stubborn bastard. He controls everything in this dungeon. He’s summoning the other creatures.”

Mya’s rifle cracked, Petor felt the essence flood him. Those aren’t weak creatures.

Desari released her arrow.

Armor sheathed the elemental, covering him in blackened armor covered in a red haze.

The armor rang out from the arrow’s impact, flaring with fire the elemental taking a half step backwards, its chains jerking back down. There was only a black mark upon it’s chest.

Valter ran. Petor followed him, both of them diverting along different paths.

“Gotta take him out before he opens that damn gate,” Valter yelled. “That’s fucking Dimantium armor.”

“Fuck a goddamn duck,” Petor growled. A plan forming in his mind. Yeah cause it went so smoothly last time.

“What use would that be?” Mya cackled, firing her rifle to another rush of essence.

Arrows struck the elemental’s armor aiming for weak points.

Petor stored his spear replacing his thorns for stormvine spun and released, aiming wasn’t really needed with such a large target.

The stormvine hit it in the leg going off in a flash of light and ozone that ran through its armor and into the ground.

The elemental leaned its head back and flames gouted out of its helmet.

“The Chains are steel!” Valter yelled. Stone melted under his feet as he accelerated forwards, leaving steps of magma in his wake.

The chains sparked from an arrow and round shot on each chain.

Petor threw another piece of stormvine, hitting the elemental in the chest. Lightning ran through it to the ground, its gaze turning to Petor.

“Hit the chain on the left!” Desari yelled.

A sense told Petor what was going to happen as he saw the glow of the elemental’s mouth. He shoved mana into his body and hurled himself forward, focusing solely on not landing in the channels of magma.

Flames crossed the twenty meters, and hit him as he was in midair, throwing him back.

He arched his back at the sudden burning heat, the openings of his underlayers igniting, burning him.

He hit the ground, tumbling till he smashed up against one of the sides of a magma channel, his foot dipped into the molten rock, he yelled as right foot and leg hit the magma, catching his underlayers on fire and superheating his armor.

He reached out with his left for the side of the channel and heaved.

Petor rolled out of the magma flow onto the cold stone, his armor smoking and tingling with the heat, his underlayers on fire from where the flames and magma had touched.

His liquid back stuck into the burning underlayers. Pulling out a barrel of water he punched into it, water converted into steam, the barrel charring as he picked it up and tore it open, dousing himself and stopping the flames. The resulting steam cooking him.

Petor cast Glacial freeze around himself. The steam converted back into water and the temperature dropped rapidly as he drained a healing potion.

The other potions on his belt had cracked and soaked him in a lucky turn of events. The wounds moved in reverse. Nowhere as bad as being torn apart from the inside, my soul cracking.

He gritted his teeth into a bloody rictus. He’d been through worse, he’d made it. He got his leg under him, taking a pain numbing potion.

The pain disappeared even if he could still smell the sickly sweet stench of burnt flesh. He spat to the side. Clearing the pile and thoughts that rose.

It gave him presence of mind to take in his wounds. Severe burns across most of his body. His right leg, arm and his back were the worst but they were healing.

He cut off the glacial freeze as ice started to form on his armor and sat up, cracking the hardened magma on his arm and leg.

There was no way he was going to be able to run back into the battle in short order.

Chains clinked and ran, the elemental was pulled to the side as the porticullis dropped, its left chain broken. The portcullis dropped onto several flame beasts trying to enter the fray.

Valter, Mya and Desari called out to one another.

The elemental used the chain as a whip, lashing out at Desari. She dodged the attack and hurled back lightning that stunned it as the air cracked. Valter, a blur as he stabbed his sword, encrusted in ice, into the elemental’s knee, his footsteps melting the very ground he stood upon.

It roared. It had the remaining chain around its hand, staggering away from the wall, pulling the portcullis up with every step.

Mya fired and the elemental grabbed at its chest where its revolving crystal core had been. It turned its gaze on her as Valter tore free his sword, causing him to sink to one knee.

It unleashed its breath, melting the floor as it chased Desari, the air behind her catching on fire as she bent it to her will, riding the flames and heat as if she was born within them.

Petor got to his feet, and summoned Mirradon.

She took in the room as he levered himself up into her stirrups.

“Not our normal ride.”

She tossed her head as if in agreement.

He drew his spear, shoving it into the crook of his arm, using his hand stuck like a claw to clamp onto it. That’s not good.

He wiggled his fingers, they were coming back but it would take time. Time they didn’t have. The elemental staggering forward, hauling its one remaining chain as it lashed out at Valter, chunks of rock hitting him as he avoiding the magma that spewed from th floor.

“While the elemental’s focused on them…” he said into Mirradon’s ear, turning her head to the path under the chain still connecting the elemental to the porticullis.

She snorted and set forward. She built up speed into a full gallop, her hooves falling on the  stone between magma channels, wheeling around the elemental.

Valter stabbed his warped blade into the elemental’s other knee, it swiped at him. The air detonated to his side, throwing him to the side, leaving his weapon still smoking in the elemental’s joint.

It turned, Mya cursing as it threw her shot. Desari’s arrow hit as hard as Valter’s Arbalest, spreading ice that hissed with the creature’s blood, hot as magma.

Petor clicked. Mirradon and he connected as few individuals ever were. Her hooves thundered on the ground, and green flames spread down her mane as the wind tore at Petor’s  face, drying his unblinking eyes.

Petor jumped free from Mirradon, storing her as he hit the elemental like an arrow from a bow, aimed right at the gap between its greaves and breastplate.

He wrapped his good arm around the spear, its leading edge igniting with blue flame as he impacted.

The elemental lurched forward, its shoulder popping like Mya’s shot as it came out of place.

Mana flooded Petor, his head ringing and vision swimming as it went to work. Valter shot past, tearing out his blade.

Petor directed the mana into the spear.

“Cavicate.”

The spear tilted as he held it. Magma colored blood and viscera spewed out of the elementals armor. Petor’s feet touched the ground as he shoved his spear forward and up into the creature’s chest.

His head swam, the pain coming back as the mana healed his wounds and cleared the numbing potion.

“Here we are,” Valter said, beside him, grabbing the spear with him and driving it upwards, the runes illuminated along the spear.

Petor activated cavicate again.

The creature turned to try and roll over them, still hanging one-handed from the chain.

Valter jumped and rolled free. Petor, trapped in the space between where the spear’s butt stuck in the ground and where it went into the elemental’s armor.

It was reforming within its armor as it tried to get at him.

Impacts hit the elemental as the others kept fighting. Petor used the mana flooding into him, casting glacial freeze inside the elementals armor.

Yelling as it drove into his body, healing him in reverse. He focused on his casting, letting all else fade away.

The elemental writhed and slammed back, the spear shifting, giving him bare centimeters between him and the elemental’s back.

The elemental shifted suddenly and then slumped. The cold relieving some of the immense heat pouring from it.

Essence poured into Petor as the armor slumped, the elemental’s body liquified into a magma-like slurry. Petor stored as much of the elemental as possible.

The chain moved several links, dragging the elemental’s gauntlets.

Petor gritted his teeth, focusing on healing himself, thankfully most had been already repaired, but his skin was frigging itchy.

He pushed himself upwards to focus on something else. Desari stalked over, her blade engraved with purple runes. An identical purple stained the elemental’s neck where its head had been separated from his body.