Devastation reigned over the skies of Anvilage as Monga the Wyrm of Doom screeched its roar of destruction, shattering the ground around like a living eathquake.

  It took all of Mera’s willpower not to simply launch herself at the monster, despite knowing full well she stood no chance against something like that.

  Focus, do what you can!

  She had to leave it to Meras and Bay, the ship could… hopefully handle it. Instead she focused on the images she gleaned from the priestess, searching through them to make sure she understood.

  The Verdant Hood’s goal, the very reason they were here must have something to do with this Elementalist, and that meant finding her and protecting her was the objective. How did this worm help them achieve this goal?

  She looked closer at the person she saw riding the massive worm noticing something that she missed before as the creature let out another scream. Chimera tried to maintain her focus even as the sonic blast threatened to rip her apart.

  Her eyes focused, enhanced by biology and magic, to show her something she thought she mistook for a trick of the light.

  But no, the Hoodian priestess atop the monstrous tube of booming death wasn’t a trick of the light.

  It was a hologram.

  …

  The ship made its way upward as the batteries from both the kinetic blasters and the laser banks unleashed their destructive fury upon the mile long worm of death, creating a light show of explosive death.

  A few of the mass drivers, large overcharged rail cannons smashed their payloads into the side of the beast's hardened carapace, yet with how wide it was and how long, it was hard for the crew to tell if the super heated slag was even making a dent.

  “Focus on the head, aim for the spot where that witch is!” Bark shouted over the intercoms.

  Bayleaf took a moment to check her own viewfinder to hone in on the head of the massive worm, and sure enough there was a lone Verdant Hoodian priestess from the look of it. A staff was stabbed into the worm’s head, glowing an eerie green as the priestess in question made a show of cackling, her eyes pointedly staring her way.

  A show of her garbled tongue was all the warning Bayleaf had when the resonant roar of the worm focused towards the ship, and a vibration assaulted her and everyone else aboard the vessel.

  Bay saw many of the crew get knocked out, while others began casting healing magics on themselves, trying to outlive the resonating roar.

  Bay tried to copy, using a healing aura on herself and the surrounding crew in order to keep everyone’s heads from popping. Despite the roar, it was working, her own flesh reknitting while the rest of the downed crew slowly began to make it back on their feet.

  As they approached though, Bay could tell the strength of the roar was only going to get stronger.

  “Captain, we need to strike it while its roaring! That much focus, it has to keep that going for it to be this effective!” Bay shouted over the din of the last of the roar.

  “Ahh hells that stings, alright, you heard Bayleaf! I want targeting solutions set to fire as soon as it tries that death wail again!”

  She watched Bark gather himself as he casted a silence spell for the crew, a message of text sent to them all by Bark as his new orders were relayed.

  ‘Attention all crew, Silence protocols engaged for the foreseeable engagement. I want all healers ready and on standby to receive another sonic blast. We’re going to hit that worm with everything we have, and this should hopefully offset the damage we are going to receive! Brace yourselves! Engine crew, ignite the cores!”

  The cores of the Meras were the very ones that Chimera had spent her time outfitting, the very ones she also used to supercharge the tractor beam. With the ship’s cores igntied once again, the laser banks, the mass drivers, anything that ran on magic would be superpowered.

  Another text shifted over her screen.

  ‘Shields are set to maximum, engaging in five!’

  A stray laser struck the worm as it began to circle Anvilage, the massive tube of fury slowly but assuredly approaching the city. Its head was currently under the ground as it dug a massive trench around the outer perimeter of the city.

  Stolen story; please report.

  With no target for their assault, Bayleaf held a crazy idea in her head as she watched the worm begin a slow rise on the outskirts of Anvilage, clearly turning to hit the city walls. The strength behind that worm was too much for any wall to handle.

  But what would happen if the worm was no longer tunneling?

  Bayleaf rushed out of her chair, asking Meras to send her to the engine cores. A second later and Bayleaf found herself in the center generators, the three massive engines humming as they started their ignition.

  Bay stabbed her staff in between the three, funneling magic from her own reservoirs into the three power plants. Closing her eyes, she felt the Meras contact her in the mind palace, a query sent to her about what she was attempting.

  She sent an image back, Bayleaf struggled to focus as she heard the laughter coming from the ship’s mind, a littling thing that reminded her of fey and their tittering laughs of mockery.

  Going to pull the same trick Mera did?

  Bayleaf gritted her teeth as the synchronization between her mana and the ships reached an apex, and for the briefest of moments, she felt like she could destroy an armada with the fury of power coursing through her.

  Here, let me help!

  Suddenly the power focused to a laser point, and Bayleaf felt Meras more than saw her appear before her. The smile reaching her ears almost seemed surreal as the power tugged at her, activating the tractor beam.

  …

  “Sir, major draw from the engines! It’s coming from the core room!”

  Bark was so focused on maintaining their heading as the worm began to make its ramming charge that when the message finally registered, he looked up for a moment, only to glue his eyes on the screen once more.

  A mile long worm, a creature that had at one point been a mere legend in the old stories he used to read, was being lifted out of the ground like a single thin shear of grass, wiggling with the air current. The tractor beam carried the sapient noodle of death over the walls, carrying it with the ship as the engines ignited, sending them to the nearest lake on Torsca.

  He couldn't help but ask the Meras what he was seeing, and to the ship’s credit it gave him an answer.

  Showing the worm as the ship took a dive beneath the waves, the now submerged harbinger of doom was thrashing about as though…

  As though it were drowning…

  Bark let out a chuff of laughter as the rest of the crew cheered, waiting and hollering as the worm slowly but surely ceased to move, its body bloated and waterlogged.

  …

  Chimera pulled out a data slate as she sent a message to the rest of the Harriers to meet up with her as soon as they could, activating a beacon on the slate to serve as her tracker.

  She watched as Bargo and Arrose fly up to meet her, their bodies lifting into the air on slabs of magnetic stone.

  “Captain, what’s up, I just heard they took out that Monga thing?” Arrose spoke, worry creasing her face.

  Bargo shook his head, “that snake and the bigger snake are still out there. Missions not over yet.”

  Mera nodded, “I figured out their objective, but it doesn’t make sense to me at all. Tell me, do either of you know anything about an Elementalist?”

  As if a hammer dropped in a silent room, the look of shock on both her Harrier’s faces told Chimera that her early feelings of worry were right on the money.

  “Captain, that’s a crown secret, something that only we and the Empress’ family know. You’re certain you heard this?”

  Arrose’s demeanor shifted, her eyes staring at Chimera as though she was a second away from becoming a threat.

  “Straight from the priestess’ head.”

  Bargo gritted his teeth, “fuck, fuck!”

  Arrose shook her head, “damnit to the hells and back.”

  “What? What’s the matter?” Mera spoke as the two Harriers started flying in a direction.

  Only Bargo answered her as Arrose sped up her slab of rock, taking out her communicator that blared in Mera’s head.

  “Captain, the Elementalist is a caretaker, one chosen by the Empress herself to oversee the land and tame the planet in case the locals prove… hostile.”

  “High General, we have a traitor, Iaos has been compromised!” Arrose shouted over her communicator.

  “Wait, like some kind of first response or something, that doesn’t seem worthy of… this.” Mera pointed towards Arrose as she began screaming more details.

  “We’re heading to Highmount! Send reinforcements to our beacons immediately, Iaos has been compromised, repeat, the Elementalist is vulnerable!”

  Bargo gritted his teeth as he spoke, “we aren’t supposed to reveal details about them, as they have a mission that is vitally important and critically damning if word reaches the wrong people. Unless the High General releases the details, I can’t tell you.”

  Mera shook her head, “look I get it, but it’s pretty obvious to me that whoever this Iaos person is, they’re in danger. Tell me at least, what would happen if she’s taken?”

  Bargo looked ahead, where the Meras was already pulling the now dead worm out of the lake and placing it along the bank.

  “Whatever that thing could do, would be like a rumble compared to the earthquake that the Elementalist could bring, and if that pheromone crap works on her…”

  Bargo drifted off as he moved to Arrose to convey more details over the communicator, but Chimera had the gist of it.

  If the Verdant Hood got their hands on this person, the whole of Torsca would be theirs.

  …