With the threat taken care of, and Xalmann having done his part to help, his end of the deal was filled. Now it was time to have the Halfling, Veliky, fill her end. He let the heat fade away and his scales returned to a dark red. The ball of fire he was controlling dissipated, and he sheathed his weapons again.

As he started to approach Veliky, though, he was cut off by the appearance of the Minotaur who began speaking with her about some things that Xalmann knew nothing about. Ray, Simon, and Hector? Those were names the Lizardman knew nothing about. Well, fine. He could get his answers in a moment once these two finished. They clearly knew something about whatever those zombie-like people were as well, along with the flash of green light that brought them and possibly other here. He stood next to the Minotaur and faced Veliky with his arms crossed, patiently waiting until they were finished, but then the Minotaur asked who the Lizardman was.

"Xalmann Dakarr, last of the Bloody Axes." he said, looking far up at the large Minotaur's face and introducing himself before turning back to look far down at the Halfling and continuing. "I helped you. My part of the deal is done. Now you translate."

Veliky immediately turns her attention to Xalmann. 'The Bloody Axes...' that's a name she never wanted to hear again. And this is the last of them? The last Bloody Axe just so happened to be here, looking for the Sol Stone in the exact spot that Veliky happened to be teleported by an errant spell?

If 'Lady Luck' is a real person, Veliky wants to strangle them. But she keeps a straight face, like she always does.

"I heard about what happened to your tribe^[1]. Awful. It's good to see that someone survived, at least. Wait just a moment, and I'll have that scroll translated." She glances at the gnashing jaws behind her. "...And let's walk, the audience is creeping me out."

Veliky begins to pace across the road, her arms crossed stiffly. These new bots are truly a sight; one of them, summarily designed in the image of a horse, has a half-dozen nozzles lining the back of its neck that constantly spew fire. That seems wildly impractical!

"Local units, what's that bot?" One feature that's very convenient about the bots is that, if she asks them all to do something, or asks them all a question, they'll figure out among themselves which of them actually complies. This time, it's a bot that seems to be entirely new, wielding a trident. Its frame is slightly different, lighter.

"Mistress Veliky, report: that bot is a Type-I Mare-Model "Envy" Blixtbot™. Its designation is Envy-02."

"How exactly are you supposed to ride it?"

"Report: while the flames produced by its thermobaric nozzles are threatening and capable of causing severe burns, they are also capable of diminishing in proximity to allied Blixtbots™, as well as Master-designated persons: you."

"That's absurd. Exactly the sort of thing the Gnome would build." She shakes her head, but not in disappointment or disapproval, merely at the absurdity of the entire scenario. "Bot, whatever your name is, inform the city magistrates about this... incident. But leave our names out of it."

The trident-golem chirps in recognition before marching down the road. It doesn't know exactly where it's going, which is a good thing, in some ways: by the time it actually informs anyone, Veliky and the rest will be long gone.

"Shaa, I have no idea where these things came from. When we were teleported here, my usual bots were gone, replaced by these ones, awaiting my command," she elaborates with a sweeping gesture. "I'm not complaining. I have a dragon now."

She turns back to Shaa, with a half-grim expression.

"But, last I checked, Hector was the one with the tracking orb. So, we'd better hope he was brought with us, especially since, if he wasn't, he's still in Zombieville."

She lets out a sigh and glances at the red-scaled lizardman.

"This lizard has the same clue that we found. What do you want to do with him?"

Shaa felt very conflicted about the situation. On the one hand, they could use all of the help they could get tracking down the cultists. On the other hand, Shaa didn’t know flamey flamerson from a hole in the ground. He had heard of the bloody axes but had never met any of them personally, at least that he knew. He had punched an awful lot of beings at this point so he couldn’t say for sure.

His biggest issue was that he didn’t know his motivation. If Hector was right, the Gods never intended mortals to get the stone. What would a fiery war lizard do with it if he got his hands on it? Was it worth the risk? He didn’t want the thing but that doesn’t mean he was just going to let anyone grab it. They just didn’t have enough information yet. It would probably be best to keep an eye on this guy in the mean time, just in case.

Shaa turns to Xalmann. Hey Xalmann. I am Shaa Rhunn of the Fighters Guild…and occasional bar fight…ahem. Anyway, after looking at your paper, it seems that we may have some aligned goals. As we are probably heading in the same direction, how would you feel about hanging with us a bit. Shaa turns to Veliky and winks.

While Xalmann considered his response, a middle aged elvish woman walks up to Shaa and nervously taps him on the shoulder. She is tall and looks too thin and a bit ragged. She looks as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. Despite that, she still maintains the ageless grace of the elves.

Excuse me Sir? But did I hear you correctly, that your name is Shaa Rhunn? As Shaa was somewhat infamous for both good and bad reasons, he was immediately suspicious that she seemed to know his name..Yesss….?

Oh! It is you! Thank the goddess! We might make it out of this yet. My name is Senna and I have something for you.

Senna? Realization dawns on him. You mean Hector’s missing researcher cousin Senna?! What are youdoing here?

It’s kind of a long story, but I had better let him explain. Senna hands over a large red marble. When Shaa holds it, he can hear a buzzing then a voice. 

Shaa! Shaa can you hear me? It’s Hector!

Hector! Shaa almost drops the marble. Where are you bro? Is Ray with you?

Still in Moonviel, Ray was too but he just left to go looking for you. You just vanished along with half the town and Veliky.

Veliky is here with me and a bunch of new robots. 

I’m not surprised. Simon had lots of power but lacked experience. They are still mopping him off the street. Shaa grimaced grateful they didn’t meet a similar fate.

We thought the same for you until Senna reached out using the red stone. She said a Minotaur and robots were invading the town and it wasn’t hard to guess what was happening. The mother stone is here in her house you see. She was held captive for weeks but, for some reason, they let her go. She called me as soon as she could conjure a connection. Always good at that, my cousin. 

Does that mean you can teleport here?

Friad not. Red stones are communication only. Frankly I’m surprised it’s reaching all the way there. That’s my cousin for you. Senna blushed.

Shaa, times running out. …find…stone…st…Bart….it’s not what you think…..

Hector? Hector! The stone falls silent and a large crack appears down the center.

He's not sure what Veliky knows about the fate of his tribe. He wasn't aware the story had been very widely told. He certainly hasn't been going around spreading the story himself. Maybe he would ask about that later, but for now there were other issues to deal with.

Xalmann is a bit confused by the conversation with the Elven woman. There's clearly a lot going on here that he isn't really aware of, but it doesn't concern him. His priority is the writing and knowing what it says so he can find what it leads to. While Shaa and the Elf, Senna, she introduced herself as, were having their conversation, Xalmann pulled the bundle of rubbings from his back and silently passed them to Veliky expectantly.

Senna looks a little frustrated when the voice from the stone starts to break up. When it breaks, she curses under her breath, but doesn't actually seem surprised.

"Well, it seems that's all it could handle. Not surprising at this distance." She said quietly, recomposing herself.

"I've been searching for the two of you for weeks. Hector contacted me for assistance as soon as you disappeared. I'm just glad I was able to track the magic that Simon used to this general location. That magic left quite the trace, but anyways, I couldn't find you until now. What happened to you? Where have you been?" Senna asked, still masking the tiredness in her eyes with a refined grace. She clearly wasn't exaggerating when she said she'd been searching for weeks.

A wink? Really? It does its job, Veliky supposes, as the lizardman didn't seem to take notice, but she can think of few more conspicuous ways of attempting to be inconspicuous. The meaning is clear enough: let him help, don't let him get the Stone. Good plan. Surprisingly tricky for whom someone would assume to be a fist-first thinker.

But, though he seems keen on playing mischief himself, he seems blind to the obvious hole in Senna's story. Does she really expect them to believe that the cultists just let her go? No, not Veliky. There's something Senna's not telling them, something she hasn't told Hector.

The revelation that they've been absent for two weeks, though, is deeply disturbing to Veliky. That's 4 missed meetings and a loss of nearly 1,200 solars. If she doesn't get a Sol Stone out of this, this will be a new record in business expense.

It's around then when she's finally pulled from her thoughts by Xalmann holding the bundle in front of her. It's both larger and wider than she is. She snaps her fingers, beckoning one of the bots to approach and take the bundle in her stead.

"Alright, talk amongst yourselves, I'll look at these."

She and the bot walk aside, but not out of sight. One by one, the bot unfurls the scrolls, presenting the texts for Veliky to read^[1]. It's just as she'd already known; it's the exact clue that she'd gleaned from the enchanted journal. Translating it fully was little more than a formality.

So, this Xalmann wants the Stone. That's not going to happen; no matter where he's from, the Stone can only do evil in anyone's hands but her own.

Once all is read and done, the bot takes the entire bundle and places it on the ground. Veliky taps her boot to one of the parchments, and the entire bundle begins to burn.

"Can't leave any evidence. Don't want more people finding this trail."

She leans back and crosses her arms, looking at Xalmann with indifference.

"It's a riddle. We already know the answer and where it leads. I'm assuming, given that you had these texts in the first place, that you've already acquainted yourself with the insane cult that also happens to be after the Stone? They're here, and, odds are, they're here in bulk. So, unless you want to try dealing with them on your own, or try kissing up to them, you're with us. No negotiation."

---

1. Fluency
2. Angelic Light

Shaa had been in a lot of crazy groups before but this one was up among the more interesting. There was Senna, Hector’s cousin and researcher. Even though she was Hector’s cousin, she was also wrapped up with the cultists from the start of all this. Shaa wasn’t quite ready to trust her yet. Then there was fire lizard guy Xal. He didn’t seem all that crafty which could be a good thing or bad thing. And there’s Veliky. They had a little history but there was a lot about her he still didn’t know. And that blasted stone. It’s been lost for so long and now, all of the sudden , it starts showing up? Something didn’t add up. Despite that, Shaa’s main mission hadn’t changed. Find that @$*# Bart, get him to fix the mushroom zombies and then eat his liver in front of him. Or punch him. Or stab him or something. He had time figure it out. At least Hector and Ray were ok.

Ok kids , if we’re all on the same team now, it’s story time. According to Hector, we need to be looking for some sort of temple at the Giants Steps here in Arid Mesa. We were going to follow something to get there but that plan is shot now. And I don’t exactly feel like getting eaten by giants so I am open to suggestions on finding it.

The temple? Senna asked. Oh I can get you there no problem.

You’re kidding.

It’s a big giant ornate building in the middle of the desert, it’s not like it’s trying to be subtle.

Shaa looked at Veliky and shrugged. For some reason I thought this was going to be tricker.

Finding the temple isn’t the tricky part. There it is Shaa remarked. The cultists have been hauling supplies down there for weeks in large caravans. You would have to be blind to miss it. The hard part is getting IN to temple. They are guarding it 24/7. And then there are the rumors.

What rumors?

Some of the merchants are saying that they saw demons outside the temple. Then people went missing, no more rumors. Point is, even if you make it through the desert and to the temple, it’s not like they are just going to let you in.

All Shaa heard was Blah blah blah guys you can punch with little to no consequences blah blah.

Well I’m good with that. How about you guys?

Xalmann gave an angry, hiss-like snarl when the Halfling suddenly burned the rubbings without even asking. That was his property and he wasn't pleased about someone taking or destroying his property. He really didn't like this Veliky person. She was rude and presumptuous. Even Granth, a bandit leader, had been more polite than this person.

He was indeed familiar with the group that had been guarding the ruined temple in the Shadewood where he and his companions had found the stone tablets he'd taken the rubbings from. So, that group was some insane cult then. He didn't remember seeing any zombies at that time, though. They may have been two different groups with similar goals of findin this Sol Stone. Well, now he would find this stone and use it himself, even if he had to fight these two to get it. For now, though, he would go along with them. They knew where to go, or at least their Elf friend did.

"Fine. I will go with you. But do not destroy my property again." he replied to Veliky with a hint of a silent threat in his voice.

His reptilian face made it easy to mask his annoyance with her, but he made sure to show it anyways. His hand gripped his axe in its sheath for a moment before letting it go. He wanted her to know he wouldn't take kindly to her thinking her actions would always have no consequences.

He looked at the Minotaur and crossed his arms in front of him. He didn't know how this guy could be friends with her.

"I am... good with that." he replied, no emotions in his voice or on his face.

To be ordered and then disregarded... Veliky finds few things more infuriating. Her entire face contorts into an ugly grimace when Xalmann looks away, and his threat doesn't change that.

But she manages to calm herself with a sigh through clenched teeth. She'd have some words about cooperation if she actually intended on cooperating with him.

"I can't say I've seen or fought a demon before. But we do have the numbers for a small-scale attack. Not to mention our transportation isn't bad, either." She crosses her arms and looks over the shining, tin hull of the drake-golem. It could easily seat three people, maybe even more, although she's reasonably hesitant to push the limits of a flying mount.

But then, her face grows dour, serious, as does the air around her. She turns to survey her troops: a minotaur with fists of iron, a pyromaniac with a grudge, a small squadron of the most technologically advanced beings in the world, and an elf to guide the way. If she wanted to be more threatening, she'd need an actual army. But, just like an army, they need leadership.

"I don't think I need to elaborate on how important this quest is." She paces by the drake's foreleg; the monstrous metal beast compensates for her own meek stature. "This isn't archaeology, and this isn't a treasure hunt. It isn't about that anymore. We might not know what this 'cult' wants the Stone for, but we've seen what they've done without it and I think we can imagine what they'd do with it. This is a matter of the safety of the kingdom."

She lifts her hand to look at her glove. Slightly loose. She pulls it tight, then points forward in a gesture so authoritative that even the caged villagers stop and listen. Her voice is strong, passionate, shockingly so.

"No weakness, no fear, no excuses! Fight as mercilessly and efficiently as these machines, or don't bother fighting at all!"

...For a few seconds, she merely stands there, pointing. But, slowly lowering her arm, she gives Shaa and Xalmann a look, as if they're somehow doing something incredibly strange. Then, she turns to them, posture straight and hands clasped behind her.

"Let's get our preparations done quickly. Senna, how long until-"

She stops. One of the bots walks toward her, out of line and out of turn. That's unusual.

"Mistress Veliky, query: would you like me to prepare your broom?"

"...My what?"

---

"Whoa! Whoah!! Nonononono, nonono..."

Veliky clings for her mortal existence to a broom^[1] as it floats through the air, like in the old stories of pointy-hatted witches and warlocks. She certainly doesn't remember owning this, and it certainly doesn't feel like something the Gnome would make, but her head hurts the more she tries to think about it, and her stomach hurts the more she tries to pilot this wooden locomotive. Her eyes are shut tight.

"How - how high am I? In the air?"

"Mistress Veliky, report: you are currently four feet above the ground."

"Shut it!" she snaps. She'd rather have not known.

"Affirmative: entering silent mode."

She peeks out of one eye, but only slightly, enough to look at her eldritch vehicle in disenchanting spite.

"How do I... How do I land?! Urgh, where's the manual for this thing?!"

Another bot answers.

"Mistress Veliky, report: you incinerated the manual three days, seven hours and twenty-six minutes after purchasing the item."

"Crap, why did I... wait, I bought this?"

Only about four minutes have passed since Veliky gave her rousing speech. Though her personal progress has been minute, it's been plenty of time for Xalmann and Shaa to iron out the last preliminary details of their journey.

---

1. Flying Broom

At this point, Shaa was getting a bit antsy. He knew his friends were safe. They had a direction/guide. They had…slightly weird but manageable transportation. The very idea that Shaa was less than a days ride away from putting that smarmy wizard 6 ft under was almost more than he could stand. It made him sad that Ray wouldn’t be around to see it but he would make sure it would be a great story when he found him again.

Shaa watched as Veliky stomped around. Like he needed motivation to go punch these guys, ha! If it made her feel better and got her all reved up to fight, fantastic. He hoped that they would all fit. He had gone through some recent training in earth magic and his body was actually bigger and bulkier than ever before. It was to the point that surface injuries didn’t even cause him any pain. He would need to be as tough as possible if demons were involved. He had fought his fair share of the arcane and they could throw out some weird stuff. talesofcharon.proboards.com/post/6066/thread  but he was ready for them.

Shaa came to himself a bit and was surprised Veliky was now on a broom. Did he miss something? Shaa slapped himself in the face. Erghhh distractions! 

Look. It’s been a really long day…apparently several days. Let’s just grab some snacks and some water and get going. We don’t have any more time to be goofing around. Shaa grabs Senna and slides her next to him. You are coming with me. I have some other unrelated questions for you. Senna blushes a bit and nods her approval.

Shaa rounds up some provisions from a nearby food cart. The man is so ruffled, he doesn’t even make the Minotaur pay for them. He just wants him to leave. Thank you kind sir. He says with an exaggerated bow.

Shaa looks to Xal, throwing him a piece of fruit. I’m ready if you are.

---

Stone Giant

Xalmann catches the fruit that's tossed to him by the Minotaur and simply nods at his question. He'd honestly been ready to leave since before the two had even arrived. He was in the middle of travelling through the town when the green flash had suddenly dropped the annoying Halfling and her small army of machines in front of him. His bag was full of rations and water, and his weapons were ready at his side. That was all he needed.

He looked over at the small figure of Veliky in the sky, clinging to a broomstick for her life even though she was barely off the ground. Flying seemed convenient. He had never really tried it, but it looked like it would be much faster than travelling on foot. Though, the Halfling seemed to be embarrassingly awful at it. He silently wondered if he could try using the broom, but he didn't want to ask her for such a thing, especially after the two were clearly not getting along. Maybe he would try buying one of those for himself later. For now though, his eyes turned to the metal drake looming over them. Would he be riding on that? He also didn't know how all of the other machines would be travelling with them if they flew. The drake didn't seem like it could carry all of them.

He walked over to Veliky who was now hanging upside down from the broom, her arms and legs wrapped around it. Even Xalmann felt a bit embarrassed just from seeing this sad display. He looked down at her with his arms crossed, his face completely emotionless.

"We are almost ready to leave." he said to her, trying not to cringe as the broom spins around with her a few times. It was painful to watch, but he couldn't look away. "Are you... ready?"

Veliky was now upside down, the broom's bristles pointing straight up into the air. Her hat fell onto the ground beneath her before she slowly slid down the handle until her head was on the ground next to it, the broom having drifted to the side a bit. It continued drifting, rubbing the top of Veliky's head along the ground. Xalmann just watched her go, enjoying the show just a bit.

Mortal fear has long since devolved into humiliation. Head still dragging across the ground, Veliky is dragged in a circle. She tries to swipe for the hat as she passes it. No luck. Her face is deathly serious as she speaks.

"The bots are ready. Lucky this place is so close; we don't have many Blixt™ reserves."

Her path loops again past the hat, and she takes another swipe. Nope.

"You seem to be an adept pyromancer. When we're fighting, keep your flames away from the bots, as usual. They might be made of metal, but it isn't very good metal."

One more pass; she sweeps her arm and, this time, manages to nab the hat.

"Finally," she starts with clear frustration. "As for me, I'll be ready to go as soon as I... as soon as I figure out how to make this thing go UP!"

Suddenly, the broom whips upward, into a neutral position. Veliky's too shocked to even make a sound, but she sits wide-eyed for a moment before dusting off her hat and replacing it atop her.

"...Up?"

Nothing happens.

"Forwards..."

The broom slowly floats forth at barely the pace of a leisurely stroll.

"Stop?"

It stops.

"...Alright." She looks to Xalmann. "We can leave now."

---

Rocky cliffs and barren trenches under an empty, blue sky, permeated by dry heat: to say that there are more pleasant places in Charon would be an understatement. Tin trotters crush gravel beneath their feet, paving the way.

Unfortunately, the broom proved to not be as viable a transportation as Veliky had hoped. The magical device seems to be fuelled by some arcane energy (not Blixt™), making it ineffective over large distances. So, instead, Veliky rides atop the flaming horse-bot. The added heat makes the journey even less bearable, but Veliky is no stranger to making sacrifices in the name of efficiency. Speaking of efficiency, to say that she is riding the horse-bot is actually somewhat inaccurate; she is sitting on the lap of a Bishop bot, which is riding the horse.

She looks up with a complicated semi-envy at Shaa and Xalmann, currently riding on the back of the soaring drake-bot alongside Knight. On one hand, she has to deal with the scorching heat of Envy's fire. On the other hand, she doesn't need to be approximately 100 feet in the air. She would ride one of the bots, but they have a similar problem to the broom when it comes to long distances, and there's no way she's walking. Not happening.

Her mount does become somewhat more perilous, though, as the party must walk a narrow (7-foot-wide) path along the cliff face. They must be about halfway there, now. The Sol Stone belongs to Solaria, right? That sounds right. Veliky wishes to Solaria that the second half of their journey is as uneventful.

They had been flying for awhile now and Shaa was finally getting used to the rhythmic wing beats of the mechanical beast he was flying on. Although not afraid of heights, he did much prefer being on the ground as most of his fighting style was made for ground combat. That being said, the feeling of freedom was exhilarating and the rush of wind helped keep him cool.

Before they left, he had pulled Senna aside to talk to her about Moonviel. It was where she was from originally and they had left it in kind of a horrid state. When he had felt they had connected a bit, he pushed a bit more into how she had gotten connected to the cultists in the first place. She had explained that because of her theories of Lunaria, she had lost a lot of funding for her research. The cultists kind of came out of nowhere and offered help when she had needed it the most only to betray her in the end. Shaa believed her as it matched what Hector had said for the most part, but still felt like there was something she wasn’t letting on. He would have to watch her.

Shaa looked down at the ground group and saw that they were coming up on a narrow path. This would probably slow them down a bit so the drake might have to circle to keep the group together. Shaa looked for at Xal and made a circling motion with his finger.

Peering down at the ground again, something looked strange. It appeared as if something was moving ahead of them, like the ground was shifting. It could be an optical illusion but it didn’t seem to be dissipating. If it was something, the ground group were about to run right into it.

The whipping wind made it almost impossible to talk. Shaa waved his hands frantically at the knight and at Xal. He then pointed to his eyes then to the motion on the ground. Would they see what he saw?

Xalmann had been a bit disappointed in the usefulness of the broom. It had been far below his expectations and he was reconsidering his thoughts of getting one for himself. However, flying on the back of the drake was definitely more enjoyable than he'd anticipated even with him sandwiched between a huge Minotaur and a metal man. Though he didn't think he'd want to get one for himself.

While the drake flew above the rest of the robots and Veliky, the group on the ground was walking on a precarious path that snaked its way up the side of the cliff. As he's watching the group, Shaa gets his attention, making him look over his shoulder to see the Minotaur making a circling gesture in the air with his finger. The drake would be circling to keep from going too far from the ground group. It was understandable. If only there weren't so many of these machines, the whole group could have just flown on the drake.

Shaa then seems to be staring at something on the ground ahead of the group. Xalmann follows his gaze to see the stone cracking and shifting like something was pushing it from beneath. Suddenly, a creature emerges from the ground, sending rocks and dust into the air. An enormous purple worm with a head like a black, three-pointed beak emerges from the ground with a guttural screech. Several tentacles emerge from its gaping maw and flail around as it turns to face the group walking along the cliff face. The path beneath it is completely blocked and mostly destroyed.

It's almost too tremendous a force for the cliff to withstand. Veliky's company struggles to maintain their footing until they're showered in dust and debris by the emerging behemoth. An ordinary person would quake in fear if they even managed to remain conscious. Veliky's response, though, is far more typical of a seasoned adventurer.

"You've gotta be kidding me." She gestures raises a hand and waves it backward, away from the worm. "Fall back! Across the trail!"

Her metal soldiers immediately obey, mounting a full retreat. But the horse-bot has more difficulty on the narrow, rumbling path. As the monster lurches further out of its den, its chitin grinds against the stone, shaking the cliff again.

Crunchhh!

From above, a slab of scoria crashes into the horse-bot's body, sending it to the ground with barely a hint of resistance. Though its red oculars were intimidating, the lifeless grey hue they assume is far more dire.

Their riders, too, are sent to the ground. The Bishop's leg becomes trapped in a way that would be extremely painful for a living being. Veliky, however, is lucky that her legs aren't even long enough to reach down the sides, else she'd be stuck as well.

"Alert: I am trapped."

Veliky pulls herself onto the horse's crushed body.

"We've all got problems, Bishop!"

And Veliky's plight is especially grim. The whipping tentacles, or perhaps tongues, slither revoltingly across the dusty trail, toward defenceless halfling.

But, for Veliky, 'defenceless' is far from 'helpless.' A defiant sneer plays across her face as she taps the insignia on her hat. The platinum mark emanates a terrible aura of totalitarian despair^[1].

The worm rears back and writhes pitifully as its mind is subjected to negative emotions far beyond its comprehension: the incessant need for to break even, the gnawing demands of a 9-5 job, the shame of being judged by its peers for earnestly enjoying Blixt™ Pumpkin Spice. It's agony! The creature's squirming shakes the stone again, sending rocks hurtling down the cliffside, but Veliky has long since vacated.

At the same time, the creature's weakness makes a perfect opportunity for a strike from above. Knight produces a series of chirps, buzzes and clicks: some mechanical language that no tongue could replicate.

Suddenly, spurred on by whatever command the Knight uttered, the drake-bot rears its head back and emanates the noise of an imminent geyser. From the holes in its jaw, it sprays several beams of pressurized water, each carrying enough force to bore through rock. The beams crash loudly into the creature's chitin, scratching it like as a diamond scratches glass.

The worm screams in the horrific, alien way that only a creature without lungs can. Then, its chitin scraping against stone again, it retracts into its burrow.

But it isn't gone; the rumbles' have only changed position, not faded. Then, in an explosion of detritus, the beast bursts from the earth below, rising into the air like a dread sorcerer's tower, jaws open and tongues reaching for the riders of the drake!

---

1. Bannerlord II

It’s not like this thing has straps to hold on to! Yelled Shaa as the dragon, knight, Minotaur, lizard combo took a steep 80 ft dive to attack the ground worm. A little warning would have been nice! He groused to the knight who was apparently preoccupied.

Shaa couldn’t quite remember ever hearing about giant worms in the desert before. You would think someone would have mentioned that considering the size of the thing. It wasn’t like everyone had a flying dragon to skip them. On the other hand, if you ever did meet a giant worm you might not live long enough to tell anyone about it, so there was that. Then a weird thought crossed his mind. “Hmm I wonder what they taste like?” As Shaa was pondering the inconsequential, a sudden explosion of rock bursts from the side.

The worm beast has now burst from the ground. It’s snake like tentacles are shooting right for them, writhing and snapping as they came. Shaa grabs the first one and tucks it under his arm like a bully giving a nerd a hard time. As the second snakes around, Shaa only has one free hand so he punches it in the “ face”. It really didn’t like that so it screeches and attacks again with even more fervor. As it attempts to bite him, Shaa jams the first one in front of its face so it bites the first snake instead, causing them both to scream.

Shaa can’t see what’s going on with Xal, but he hopes he is having a better time with it.