Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 22: Escape

Toren Daen

The pieces of a plan started to solidify in my mind.

I lobbed another fireball into the path of an oncoming hornet, taking note once more of how many were attacking our small group versus how many were swarming the downed nest.

The glowing green acid seeping into the ground provided enough light to see across the forest floor. And from what I could make out. far, far more hornets were swarming what remained of the nest. If that many hornets attacked us, we would be overwhelmed in an instant. Furthermore, there was a notable lack of green acid coating the papery nest material.

The hornets had outright avoided coating it in the dissolving fluid. That meant that the nest was more important to them than our ragged resistance.

Acting on a hunch, I began to condense a sound grenade in my palm. I packed in a decent bit of mana, but not too much: I had only a little over a quarter of my maximum mana capacity left. I couldn't afford to waste it now.

I lobbed my mana construct into the night, the shimmering oil-like rainbow of colors within belying the power it contained. When it got far enough away, the grenade burst in a thunderous bang.

Many of the hornets around us froze, then zipped toward the explosion in an angry buzz. They whirled around where my sound bomb detonated, searching for whatever made the noise.

I quickly maneuvered to Vaelum, killing a few of the remaining bugs along the way.

"Vaelum!" I called, causing the man to turn. His hair was matted to his head by sweat, and his eyes were wild with adrenaline. "I've figured out a way to get us out!" I called, swatting away another hornet.

Vaelum's eyes flitted to where my sound grenade had gone off, his mind clearly working to catch up. "That sound won't be enough. We can't get out if the dome isn't breached! And what's to stop these monsters from chasing us down even after we escape?" he asked, anger lacing his tone.

I pointed a finger at the caster with graying hair, who shuffled closer to us. "He's our ticket out," I said. "If he can create a wind ball large enough, he can blast a hole that we can escape through. And if I use my sound grenade to draw the stray hornet's attention, we can make a clean getaway!" I said, my breath coming quicker. "The hornets came here because of the crashing sound this nest made when it fell. They clearly care about it more than us. We have to get away from it if we want to survive!"

It wasn't difficult to put together the pieces on how these insectoid bastards hunted. Every instance I had run into them–which to be fair, wasn't terribly often–was always preceded by a loud noise. They mobbed the drift apes when I detonated a sound grenade near them. They swarmed us here after the echoing crash of the falling nest. Then, the hornets attacked the location of my most recent sound grenade.

Vaelum and the wind caster looked at each other, some silent conversation occurring between the two. "Do you think you can do it?" Vaelum asked aloud, having calmed down slightly at my explanation. "Blow a hole in this barrier?"

The wind caster looked at the edges of the buzzing dome. "With my Wind Ball spell? I think it would be pretty easy. But keeping the gap open for long is the hard part." He turned to me, raising a graying eyebrow. "And that's where your sound bomb comes into play, I presume?"

I nodded. "Do you think you can do it?"

He looked over the remains of the convoy: once forty strong, now less than twenty. "I have to try. But I'll be out of mana after this. It's my last shot."

I nodded, then began to focus on condensing a sound grenade. Vaelum began to rally the remaining men, urging them to move toward the dome's edge. We began to shuffle toward the buzzing horde, but having to avoid puddles of septic green ooze hampered much of our progress. All the shields were now visibly tiring, sweat on all of their faces and weak in the knees. This was truly our last shot.