Book 3 Chapter Two: Swarm Mechanics

TWO

“Roan, what are you doing?” Taoya asked. Roan froze with his hand firmly on the giant’s shoulder. Using his bloodline was coming more naturally now, but it still took a moment of concentration. The wind whipped over them, a screaming gale that attempted to steal their words away.

“Ummm, I’m cleansing you. In case of mental commands,” Roan said. Taoya rumbled for a second and Roan realized he was laughing.

“I realize that. The cleansing part, not the mental command part. Better answer than purifying me of a V.D. That would lead to a conversation about boundaries,” Taoya said.

“And this isn’t?”

“You have my permission to cleanse me of unwanted mental commands whenever you want. And venereal diseases too, just not right after I see my longterm girlfriend. Because of the implication.”

“Thank you. It helps me. Because of the assasination attempt.”

“I know. Hey, look, Dreadhawks.” Taoya pulled away and stood next to the railing, power starting to fill his body.

“Oh, thank god, this was getting a bit awkward,” Roan whispered, pulling his hand off of Taoya’s shoulder and looking toward the distance. Just like before the monsters were coming from the distance, black dots on the horizon that rapidly closed the distance.

“I need to kill something.” His new bow appeared in his hand along with an arrow. The Dreadhawks started to get closer, their feature made apparent. Roan nocked the bow, the weight of it fighting against him for a moment.

He tracked the leading Dreadhawk, the deadly arrowhead glinting in the light. Roan thought they were in range and led his target, releasing the bowstring with a thunderous twang.

The arrow zipped away in a black blur, crossing the distance in the blink of the eye. He completely missed the lead Dreadhawk.

“Hey, Roan,” Taoya began.

“That was over two-hundred credits, I don’t want to hear it,” Roan yelled. He summoned the next arrow into his hand and waited for the Dreadhawk swarm to get closer. The ship started to zig-zag, Tev beginning evasive maneuvers. Behind them in the dust cloud, Roan thought he saw other ships moving in a similar erratic pattern.

“Tev, try to keep us steady,” Roan snapped. He drew his bow back, impressed by the first shot. The power of the bow was more than he’d thought it would be, beyond anything non-tower made.

“Alright, let’s try this again. Old man preferred spears for a reason, I guess,” Roan whispered to himself, drawing and firing in one smooth motion.

The lead Dreadhawk dropped like a meteor, crashing into the dusty flatlands. The kill alert for it came a second later. A hundred credits earned for using a two-hundred arrow. It wasn’t the type of transaction that he could afford long term.

“Nice shot,” Taoya said. Roan didn’t say anything, summoning another arrow. Roan scoured the flock, looking for the wyvern that would be in it. If he could kill the wyvern before it landed on the deck it would save him a lot of trouble.

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The Dreadhawks weren’t making it easy. They danced and whirled on the thermals, a cloud of death floating above them. It was a larger swarm than the last one, nearly double the size.

“Taoya, you have anything to help with this?” Roan asked. The quiver of arrows he’d bought wouldn’t even begin to dent this swarm.

“Maybe.” The big man’s hand became filled with stones. Regular, smooth, riverbank like stone the size of robin eggs. The stones began to blur, energy warping the air around them.

“Some of my older family members can do this. Imbue momentum into other things. I wondered how they did it, but I think I figured it out,” Taoya explained. With a lazy flick of his wrist the stones shot forward like rockets.

And dissolved into chunks of gravel, spraying across the air to ineffectually slap the Dreadhawks like sand.

“I don’t think you figured it out,” Roan said deadpan. It felt good that he had something to fire back at Taoya. The big man just hummed and a series of crumbled metal balls appeared in his hand.

“Scrap metal, inferior-grade weapons that I crafted,” he said. They rocketed off, turning bright red from air friction. Six of the burning pieces of metal speared through the Dreadhawk swarm. Creatures screamed and fell from the swarm, nearly a dozen of them collapsing to the ground.

“That was slightly more effective,” Roan grumbled. Another set of the metal orbs appeared out of his spatial ring.

“How many times can you do that?” Roan asked.

“With my current mana core? Without absorbing momentum a couple dozen times.” The metal orbs launched again in a screaming attack that sheared apart the swarm.

From the dust cloud came some few attacks, but the advantage of being further down the line was showing. The further back in the convoy they were the more hidden they were. They couldn’t see the Dreadhawks, but the thick cloying cloud also protected them.

“Still a long way to go.” Roan couldn’t help but feel jealous as the big man rocketed barrage after barrage without hesitation. His own new bloodline was powerful, but only in narrow circumstances. Outside of this tower, or even this level, he wondered how useful it’d be. Nothing like what Taoya was doing at the moment.

“Just have to be more creative.” The swarm was breaking apart, bits of pieces of Dreadhawk falling to the desert floor. With the swarm breaking apart Taoya was having a harder time hitting multiple Dreadhawks with each attack.

“Still needs work. You see the wyvern?” Taoya said, sidearming another handful of metal balls.

“Yeah, I see it,” Roan said. In the center of the dissolving swarm the massive beast was finally revealed. It screeched in rage and as one the Dreadhawk swarm cut the distance and began to dive.

“You think it’s strange how these swarms interact?” Taoya asked.

“No. It’s a fairly basic swarm mechanic. I’m just waiting for the wrinkle,” Roan said. There would be a wrinkle, there had to be. Unless the accelerated tasks messed with how the mechanics were supposed to be working like on the last level.

Roan drew the arrow back and fired. The wyvern bow flared with heat when the arrow struck. From the center of the cloud of wings the wyvern screeched in pain, wings folding around it like a shroud. It fell and hit the earth in a plume of dust.

“No kill alert,” Roan warned. He tried not to think about having spent six hundred credits in a single fight while only getting back a hundred.

“Dreadhawks are retreating now. Kill or injure the wyverns to break the attacks. We’ll have to spread the word at the next oasis,” Roan said. He lowered his bow and returned the arrow he’d summoned back to his ring.

“This isn’t bad at all,” Taoya said. He froze and sighed, shaking his head while Roan stifled his own groan.

“Fucking jinxed it, didn’t I?” Taoya asked.

“Yeah. You did.” The two of them stood by the railing for a second before turning to look back at the swarm that disappeared in the distance. The quiet druid still sat on the deck in a lotus position, having not opened his eyes the entire time.

“This is going to get bloody.”