59 Slight of Hand

"I have an idea on how to save your friend, but I'll need you guys to sacrifice a few things."

Galahad said this just before they began to arrive at the cavern.

Tern made more sour faces of refusal, but the others were willing to at least listen to his demands. Galahad followed his statement by pulling out the orb from the Giant Golden Vesplug and began explaining.

"I more or less can make these things go off like a gas bomb if they're unprocessed. Normally they might kill a human or really any living thing that's not from down here; if its demons, then they'll become very irritated by it and avoid the clouds."

"That's ridiculous, nobody has a skill like that." Denied Tern. He began backpedaling to the idea of Galahad just trying to scam them while the team was vulnerable, but then Tass stopped him.

"What exactly happens that makes them a gas?" Tass began to suspect he already heard the answer earlier that night.

In completely honesty, Galahad replied "I still don't understand the power completely yet, but I do know that I can make orbs of this size or smaller detonate like popping glass balls. Hopefully the sound and gas makes for a big enough distraction for what I have planned."

Arkiu's team looked around at each other, they finally found the source of strange popping noise. The stranger known as Solteer was detonating mana orbs like a weapon against the demons. Their curiosity and questions about him were continuing to grow, but they didn't have much time to ask, instead they started opening up their bags and searched for their mana orbs.

*****

From the tunnels connecting to the cavern, the assassin was able to scout the area without getting caught by the monsters inside. He returned to group awaiting a quarter of a mile behind and told everyone what he saw.

"Three tunnels connecting total. One at our three o'clock and another at our seven. The second one has a lead off into our current tunnel just a few yards from the exit point. As for the inside, it looks like a solid gold hornet's nest with two dozen giant Vesplugs just hanging around, practically waiting for us."

Arkiu was cursing at their misfortune. Normally a cavern of the Vesplugs would hold about ten or twelve at most, the rest would be out terrorizing the other demons and adventurers along the nearby tunnels.

"But I can tell you why there's so many." said the assassin to interrupt Arkiu's strings of swears. "They have a cluster of larva and unhatched eggs in the center. Ell is sitting unconscious by the mounds of younglings and I can only assume they plan to use her for food."

"That's perfect." Galahad said before picking out the last of the mana orbs too big to consume yet. He returned them only because of the fake limitations he told the team about was forcing him to give them up and commit to the story. After consuming so many smaller orbs he could eventually work his way to the bigger ones, but that would being more distrust onto himself.

Despite the pile being level elevens and below, he felt he had one of the biggest piles he had seen in a long while. As he sat their with the list growing in his head, he counted a mass of over eighty little orbs, the hunger was practically gargling at the thought.

It seemed that the team Arkiu's team had been waiting after a few visits to the dungeon before getting them all appraised and sold. Saving up all the orbs at once was most likely due to how busy appraisers are in a city so massive. Galahad took that as a sign of good fortune and began packing up.

"Umm, how is that perfect?" Asked one of the females asked Galahad. He sat up from the ground and collected all the usable orbs into a single bag as he spoke. It was nearly the size of his head and had a decent weight to it.

"Because they are currently on parental defense mode and concerned with feeding their children something as fresh as possible. That means they don't sting their meat into oblivion, cause that would spoil the growth of their children with their own poison."

Tern's bow was now beginning to strain under his increasing grip. He didn't like how Galahad considered Elldry as meat in his explanation.

"They're keeping her alive and they have a big fixation on the middle of the cavern. That means they won't know what's about to to come right at them." He said with a big mischievous smile showing under his partial-covering skull mask.

*****

Two minutes till the dungeon Shift.

The plan was beginning to set exactly as Galahad was hoping it would. He had a huge mound of orbs he was going to 'detonate' while the rest of Arkiu's team went in to rescue Elldry. While he acted as a distraction and absorbed the mana orbs, he figured he could heal his body at the same time he started slaughtering whatever he could find in the cavern. His endless loop of carnage would hopefully put him at the top of this scenario.

He had read everyone's identification and knew their classes before evening talking, but he still let them explain their classes and abilities. Anything with an extra kick would certainly help his ridiculous plan.

Galahad's plan seemed crude at best, but it was going off of what the team was comprised of; a few longe range fighters, swordsmen, an assassin, and only one magician. What made matters worse was the magician only knew earth based magic, the least effective against flying monsters in an open cavern.

He wanted to use the instant-and-better-detailed plan making part of his brain with his special skill, but even if he tried to focus on making Fury and Fyre activate just around his head; he doubt the adventurers around him would just ignore a strange red flames dousing him.

Once everything finished on his end, Galahad just hoped and Arkiu's team came up to surface in the commotion of needing the medical team; Galahad would possibly get to walts out as quickly as he could without being questioned, even if that meant leaving his drained magic sword.

In exchange for letting him hold so many orbs, he had them keep ahold of his magic sword for insurance. The blue gem in the center of the hilt has yet to flash since the last time he used it. Galahad assumed he had overclocked the blade after changing its shape and unleashing so many lightning strikes in one day. He could only hope he didn't somehow damage the magical structure throughout the sword.

Magical weapons need mana crystals to pull mana energy out of the atmosphere, or from the wielder themselves, depending on the class. When a crystal harnesses enough mana energy, the arrays imbued to the weapon would be able to funnel and stabilize the energy into whatever skill is crafted to the metal. All results and value depend on the metal, crystal, the skill, and every bit of the process behind making it.

Galahad wasn't sure what the metal of the blade was comprised of, but if he could figure it out and have someone check the magic arrays, maybe he could possibly get a decent magician and/or forger to make the blade more comfortable to his usual weight of weapon.

The only thing Galahad could do at the momentthat was magical, was change the sheath to fit the blade and drape it across his back. He passed it off the swordman leader Arkiu, that nearly fell over despite bracing for its weight, he turned around wondering silently how someone with Galahad's stature could possibly carry it all day long, let alone swing it.

Slowly time began to tick down to the last minute before midnight. At that point everyone was just waiting closely by the edge, watching how Galahad had been acting this whole time and readying themselves up to fight to save their friend. When Galahad was about to start creeping a close as he could to start his sprint inside; Arkiu grabbed him by the shoulder and asked one last question.

"Hey, you know you never told us why you are willing to help us. Risking your life in the process of saving someone you don't know is crazy stupid- No offense I mean, but thank you."

Galahad looked around the tunnel and saw everyone was still bracing themselves, but had an ear angled to listen for his response. He let out his breath and answered.

"Truth be told, I've lost friends down here. They tried doing the same kind thing we are doing, but were ambush by a monster that forces me to wear this mask. I was the only one to make it out in somewhat one piece. I consider tonight a bit of a redemption on the mistakes I made."

On his last word, Galahad then ran full speed into the cavern. He left his audience a little shocked at that news and understanding what this rescue actually meant for him. A way to redeem the sad failure that shadowed his life in the dungeon.

At least, he said all that to make them feel that way.

Galahad did feel like this was somewhat of a second chance to try a rescue, but his emotions were hardly a fog against the sunny source of being driven to consume orbs and escape after. He needed those orbs, and he need those adventurers to leave before he was going to devour every single orb in that cavern.

The rumbling of the ground indicated the staging of a rescue had begun.

*****

Vesplugs are a territorial species of insects. They normally thrive in regions filled with forest roots or plants that grow in the dungeons. They could pull all the nutrients from the life around them and spit back up on their larva to hatch them as quickly as possible. That was how they always acted in the tunnels unless something changed the habitation factors.

Something like a cavern.

Whenever a Golden Vesplug was fortunate enough make itself a home in a cavern, it was finally capable of slowly developing its offspring in a more carefully incubated environment that they could defend and horde their sustenance. After living in one space for so long, their shedding flakes would leave residue everywhere nearby.

They were never intelligent enough to understand the flashy bits of gold were attracting more and more prey for the cavern to develop into something stronger overtime, but it still worked all the same. Before anyone could even realize it, a whole swarm of Vesplugs would emerge close to the surface for some unfortunate adventurers to find.

This particular group of Vesplugs had just laid a large sum of eggs that needed a pretty hefty meal to make a greater force of demons to grow and one day pillage the surface. It was their lucky day to find a perfect specimen of food, it hardly resisted them as they dragged it inside to be eaten by the now hatching larva. Once the hatchlings were a few hours old, the pincers would become strong enough to rip at flesh and begin feasting.

The whole process was a thing of beauty to the prior generation that sat and watched, nothing could pry their attention away from the incredible growth they were about to witness. That's what they believed until another piece of food came running in screaming and reeking of their fallen brethren.

Galahad was indeed screaming loudly and running through the cavern in the way that was not in the least bit discreet. The parent Vesplugs watched in shock as he pulled a large sack making glass clacking noises and swung it like a mace at the nearest egg he could find.

The splattering noise the egg made on impact was sickening to the fully grown Vesplugs. They shouted in a choir of heart retching screams with their little black tongues in the air and front pincers rapidly clicking. The screams only worsened as Galahad did it two more times.

'Come on you bastards, start chasing the boy who just killed your children.' He thought as he let loose a fourth swing.

At that point, the bag had taken a beating and ripped open to unveil all the orbs Galahad had put inside. They were now scattering among the slimy pods of larva and eggs Elldry was laying unconscious on. Her skin was turning very pale and the veins on her left arm were turning a light green instead of the normal soft blue.

Galahad had certainly diverted the large Vesplugs attention away from the feeding and transformed them into a raging frenzy. The insect monsters were jumping off the walls and ceiling to swarm Galahad and tear him to shreds for what he had done. That was his cue to leave into the tunnel next to the one he just came from.

Over half of the Vesplugs began chasing Galahad through the tunnel and the only reason all the monsters couldn't chase him was the mass of them were too many condensed to one spot. Only so many could trying fitting through the hole in the dirt.

Now they were left completely exposed from behind to the onslaught waiting nearby.