The Gem-Croc roared. The sound shot up from the stone and resonated deep in their bones. It lowered its immense head, ancient eyes locked on the Stomper’s defiant orange glow, and charged.
A living avalanche of gem and scale churned the murky water into a tidal wave that crashed against the cavern walls. The stone floor groaned under its weight as it accelerated, its jeweled hide gleaming in the faint light of the Stomper.
“Choke on it, you oversized lizard!” said Ezy as the Stomper braced, both its arms snapping forward. A torrent of elemental fire spat from its arms and met the wet, gem-encrusted hide of the giant monster in a furious hiss of steam. The Gem-Croc recoiled with a bellow of pure fury, its charge faltering in front of the flames.
Trenn ignored the grinding agony in his ribs and moved. He bounced Skate on the ground and swung at him with his enchanted club—a blow fueled by every ounce of his pain, fear, and desperation.
Skate flattened against the bat and shot forward with concussive force, exploding under the Gem-Croc’s massive snout.
A crystalline CRACK, like a pane of reality shattering, echoed through the cavern.
A hailstorm of obsidian shrapnel peppered the beast’s face. The vitreous fragments tore into the unprotected scales of its throat and around its eyes.
The Gem-Croc’s furious bellow became a high-pitched, agonized shriek.
The yipping Kobolds froze. Their devotional dance stuttered to a halt. Beady eyes went wide with a dawning, horrified disbelief.
Their god was bleeding.
The silence of their shock shattered into a discordant symphony of blasphemy. A high-pitched shriek of terror from the back ranks triggered a panic, and a dozen Kobolds scrambled away, turning to flee into the swampy darkness. Others remained frozen, their minds unable to reconcile the sight of a bleeding god.
The silence of their shock did not last. It shattered not into fear, but into a wave of blasphemous, incoherent rage. A huge Kobold, its bronze armor adorned with the teeth of its rivals, pointed a trembling spear tip directly at Trenn. Its voice rose in a fanatical shriek, a command that cut through the cavern's stunned silence.
"Kill the blasphemers!"
THWIP.
Mara’s arrows shot out from her shadowed ledge. The lead zealot’s fanatical cry was cut short as an arrow sprouted from its throat. It stumbled, clutching at its neck, and fell face-first into the murky water.
THWIP. THWIP.
Two more arrows hissed from the darkness in a fluid, deadly rhythm. Another Kobold went down, an arrow punching through its eye socket. A third spun, a feathered shaft buried deep in its charging leg, its momentum carrying it into a painful, sliding heap. Mara nocked another arrow, her movements a blur of deadly efficiency.
Enraged, the Gem-Croc paid no heed to the loyalty of its followers. Its world had narrowed to the source of its pain—the tall, soft-skinned creature who had dared to mar its ancient hide. With a roar that shook the cavern's foundations, it lunged. Its blind, unstoppable wave of vengeful destruction obliterated fanatic and faithful alike, crushing its own charging zealots under its immense weight without a second thought before it slammed into Trenn and the Stomper.
It moved with a speed that defied logic. Trenn’s world became a blur of scaly, gem-encrusted underbelly and crushing, inexorable weight. He and the Stomper were rolled and bounced between the cavern floor and the living mountain. Trenn spat blood while bones cracked and broke. The stomper’s metal plating groaned and bent at odd angles.
The few remaining Kobolds scattered, scared by their divinity’s fury.
From a high, shadowed ledge, two arrows hissed through the humid air, burying themselves deep in the soft tissue of the Gem-Croc’s eye. Its shrieks echoed down the cavernous path. Mara nocked another arrow as a blur of pink and yellow dive-bombed from the ceiling.
Bomber swooped down on the beast’s good eye. A glittering cloud of iridescent powder erupted, causing it to redden and swell.
The Gem-Croc thrashed. Its immense body slammed against the wall, underneath Mara’s ledge. A deep groan echoed through the cavern as the ceiling fractured and the ledge broke. A river of rock and dust poured from above and carried the unsuspecting Mara down to the floor, buried alive.
Blinded, bellowing, the giant monster slid from the rubble and disappeared beneath the surface of the black water.
With a groan of protesting metal, Ezy shoved herself from the wrecked cockpit. A thin line of blood traced a path from her hairline to her jaw, but she ignored it. Her professional calm shattered, replaced by the wide-eyed horror of an artist staring at her slashed canvas.
One leg was a mangled ruin of slagged armor and weeping hydraulic fluid. The chassis, once a smooth expanse of cerulean blue, was now a cratered, blackened mess, crushed and warped from the Gem-Croc’s weight. The spiked arms were locked at grotesque angles.
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A grim, determined spark ignited in her eyes, replacing the horror with a desperate focus. She stood alone, a two-foot-three-inch engineer surveying the mangled skeleton of her life's work.
"The chassis is slag," she whispered as she ran a hand over a crushed piston. "The frame is bent beyond repair. The plating is dissolved, bent, and broken… Total structural failure."
Her eyes then fell to the faint, steady orange glow emanating from deep within the wreckage. A flicker of something wild and dangerous ignited in her gaze. "But the heart... the heart is still beating." She opened the Stomper’s storage and pulled out what was left of her spare parts and her tools.
She scrambled to Trenn first. He was half-buried in a pile of the rubbery fungus, his mismatched armor caked in mud and slime. A nasty, weeping gash on his forehead was matted with dirt, but his chest rose and fell in shallow, labored rasps. When she pressed her fingers to his neck, she found a weak but steady pulse. Alive.
Zeen was worse. The ambitious smuggler lay sprawled in the rubble where the Stomper had thrown him, his leg twisted at an unnatural, sickening angle that made Ezy's stomach churn. A slow, dark trickle of blood wept from a wound on the back of his head, a stark crimson stain against his shock of white hair. Alive. For now. Thank the Schedule.
A muffled groan cut through her spiraling thoughts. It came from the massive pile of rubble where a section of the cavern wall had collapsed.
"Mara!"
Ezy rushed over, her boots slipping on the slick floor. She clawed at the smaller rocks, revealing a glimpse of white fur crushed under a colossal slab of stone, the size of the Stomper's chassis.
“It’s crushing my leg,” Mara growled, her voice a low sound of pure agony from beneath the rubble. “Get it off me.”
Ezy’s gaze darted around the wreckage, her engineer’s mind instantly assessing angles, weights, and potential tools. Her eyes snapped to a long, twisted piece of brass railway track—a lever. The principle was sound. The scale was insane.
“I can’t move it by hand,” Ezy panted, her voice cracking with the admission of physical limitation. “But don’t move. I have an idea.”
She scrambled over the treacherous debris, grabbing the heavy track. It was nearly as long as she was tall and brutally heavy. It took every ounce of her strength to drag it into position, jamming one end deep under the edge of the massive slab and positioning a shattered boulder as a fulcrum. The shriek of metal scraping against stone was a raw, tearing sound in the cavern's quiet.
"Ready?" Ezy yelled, her voice tight with strain as she climbed onto the far end of the makeshift lever.
A choked grunt, tight with agony, was the reply.
Ezy took a deep breath, braced her hands, and threw her entire body weight downward. The track bowed, groaning under the immense load, a high-pitched metallic scream of protest. The slab shifted, a millimeter of movement that sent a fresh shower of dust down.
It wasn't enough.
"Again!" Mara’s voice was a sharp command, a whip-crack of pure will cutting through her pain.
Ezy scrambled back, repositioned her feet, and launched herself down again, this time adding a desperate, grunting heave. An agonizing groan of tortured rock answered. The slab lifted—an inch, two inches, a gap of air and hope.
"Chock!" Mara pleaded, her voice strained. "Now!"
Ezy, without looking, kicked a smaller, wedge-shaped rock under the rising edge with her boot. It skittered into place as her strength gave out. The slab settled back with a heavy thud, but the chock held. She scrambled to the other side of the rock as Mara, her face a mask of sweat and grime, dragged her mangled leg free with a final, guttural cry.
The moment she was clear, the last of her adrenaline evaporated. Mara didn't get up. She collapsed, her body going limp against the cold stone, a pained gasp rattling in her chest. Her leg was a ruin, the white fur matted with blood and grime, the limb bent at an angle that made Ezy’s stomach heave.
“My… pouch,” Mara choked out, her voice a strained whisper. Her one good hand fumbled weakly at the leather satchel on her belt. “The balm… Get the balm… Trenn…”
Her amber eyes rolled back, and her head lolled to the side. She was unconscious, her body finally succumbing to the massive trauma. For a terrifying moment, Ezy was alone, the only conscious person in a cavern with two dying heroes and a waiting god.
Pain was the first architect of Trenn’s new world. It was a searing, grinding agony in his ribs that made every breath a fresh torment. He woke not to sound, but to the suffocating feeling of his own broken body. He tried to take a deep breath and choked, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth.
He cracked his eyes open. The world was a blurry smear of guttering orange light and cavernous shadows. He was lying on his back. A thick, hastily applied layer of healing balm covered a weeping gash on his forehead and was slathered across his chest.
A few yards away, by a small, sputtering fire, Mara lay unconscious. Her mangled leg had been crudely splinted with a piece of railway track and leather straps. Her burned arms were wrapped in linen, the poultice already applied. Ezy, her face a pale mask of exhaustion and terror, was shuttling between Mara and Zeen, checking their breathing with trembling, soot-stained fingers.
And looming in the background, a silent, titanic silhouette in the vast, dark pool, was the Gem-Croc. Two shield-sized eyes poked from the water, patiently watching them.
The rhythmic clicking of a wrench was the loudest sound. Ezy, having done all she could for the wounded, had retreated to the Stomper. It was beyond repair, but she was determined to jury-rig it. Safety systems? Gone. Suspension? Repurposed. Hydraulics? Cannibalized. Plating? What plating.
The clicking stopped. Ezy's head poked out from behind a mangled piece of armor, her face so smudged with grease she looked like a different Gnome. Her eyes were dark with exhaustion and fear.
"Look who's back among the barely-living," she said, her voice a strained whisper as she rushed to his side. "Don't try to move. I think… I think your ribs are broken. A piece of your own armor was driven into your side. I pulled it out, but…" She trailed off, gesturing uselessly with the wrench.
Trenn’s gaze drifted past her, to the colossal, watching silhouette in the water. "Is it... going to attack again?" he rasped, each word a spike of pain.
Ezy let out a tired, humorless laugh. "It's been watching us for hours. Hasn't made a move. It's waiting. Or learning. I don't know which is worse." She shook her head, her gaze falling back to Trenn with a strange mix of weariness and genuine curiosity.
"So, Wild Mage," she continued, her voice musical. "Did you charm the giant monster? Is this our ride out of this pit?”
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