Fortress – Part 1

Oritiki flies over to our ship and floats beside the bridge.

"Are you sure that the Leviathan is inside?" Kaata grunts a question.

"No, but both the mana trail and the blood suggest that it is," Kurii answers.

The panda-man crosses his arms and grumbles, "They'd need something more dexterous than harpies to operate a fortress."

"The door is closed? You can't see any other entrances?" Hihiriwa asks.

"The paint on the fortress is gone, but we can see the lights on the main gate telling us that it's still powered and active," Kurii answers.

"Find a way in, but quietly. If the Leviathan is there, you don't want to scare it away," Hihiriwa orders.

"Stealth isn't our specialty, Marshall," Nohopu responds with a grumble.

"You have all the necessary tools for this," Hihiriwa affirms, slightly annoyed.

"The albino might come back at any time. We don't have the time to slowly sneak in," Kurii adds.

"You're free to go as far as you feel is reasonable," Hihiriwa responds, sounding like he's relenting a little.

"How can we even get inside it quietly?" Nohopu asks.

"We could open a hole through a cannon port," Oritiki suggests.

The sniffer whispers something to Kurii. "Only the gate seal seems to be active, so that might work," she says.

"Kurii, take four men and help Oritiki. Take the [Divine Lance] with you," Nohopu orders.

The beagle-headed woman gets up from her seat and bows, "Yes, sir!" Then she turns around and quickly leaves the bridge.

"I'll participate, too. I have [Gate], so we can instantly teleport out if necessary," I say.

Oritiki nods and replies, "I'll take two of my men with me. The others will stay here to protect your ship." Then she flies away.

"You're leaving me here?" Alissa questions, but she already knows the answer.

"You're the only other one of us who can pilot," I answer with a hint of sadness in my expression.

"The golems can pilot defensively." She holds back her pout, keeping her expression neutral.

True… I guess it's fine to put some trust in them.

"Hm… you'll have to carry Roxanne, then," I reply.

She brightens a little. "Can I carry both of you?"

"Wouldn't that tire you out?"

She shakes her head gently. "We haven't been exhausting ourselves lately, so I have lots of energy now."

"Hm… fine." I nod confidently, then I jump down to the deck and land with [Telekinesis]. I unsummon all the wind elementals and announce, "Roxanne, Yunia, I need you both with me. We're sneaking into the fortress."

"Understood," Yunia says earnestly, while Roxanne just smiles and nods.

I walk up to my elven princess, then I hold her hand and ask, "How are you doing, Yunia? That [Chain Life] seemed to have taken a lot out of you, but I'll need you to use [Silence] on us and potentially use [Chain Life] on the Leviathan again." I pull off her gauntlet and caress her delicate hand with a subtle soul touch.

The corners of her lips curl up into a subtle smile, and she answers, "I'm doing fine. It's tiring to hold back such a huge beast, but I can do it again at least one more time before I'd need to rest."

I kiss her hand and let it go, then I turn to Roxanne. "We'll need you to conserve your mana. We might have to use [Explosion] to finish off the Leviathan."

She nods silently, then stores her staff in her [Item Box] and skips towards me. I hug her waist, and she kisses my forehead, then she giggles girlishly.

I turn to Alissa and Yunia and say, "Both of you, wait here. I'll open a [Gate] to the deck here when we land again." Then I turn to Ciel. "You're in charge now, my angel."

She mockingly salutes me in the imperial way and exclaims, "Yes, sir!" Then she smiles and adds in a soft voice, "Be safe, all of you."

"Gih," Gify chirps and waves her claws from Lina's shoulder. No way is she getting close to that Leviathan again, wounded or not.

Roxanne summons her bat wings and holds her wide-brimmed hat in place, then I use [Telekinesis] to lower our gravity, blow a kiss towards Ciel, and jump. Roxanne guides our flight, so I just sit back and let the megalophobia sink in as the huge black wall gets closer and closer. Just the gate alone seems to be at least three times as wide as the Winch, so the fortress itself must be absolutely massive. If only there wasn't this mist blocking our view…

We fly to one the Horns who's waiting for us, and he guides us to Oritiki.

The mist thins out as we get closer, allowing us to see the fortress with increased detail. The black stone is slimy and mossy, but in a few spots, we can see the caked remains of a coat of paint. This whole fortress must've one day been fully painted in the usual Chimeric Renaissance style.

The fortress' walls continue deep into the mist, but they follow a slight inward curve in every direction, so I assume that its true shape is spherical. Perhaps it's as big as the Shell around Escanso's castle.

We're taken towards the right of the gate, and I start to discern protrusions equally spaced along the wall: thick square metal plates, each about a meter and a half wide. Oritiki twinkles her armor's glow right beside one of them as a beacon for us.

We stop in the air right in front of the slimy old metal plate and observe it carefully. Rust seems to have formed over it, but it's mostly covered in a dark slime, almost camouflaging it with the black stone of the wall.

"So, how are we going to open this?" I ask.

"[Beam], obviously," Oritiki replies and raises her glaive.

"Do you know the locking mechanism? I think I might be able to open it."

I can't see her expression behind her helmet, but she takes a second to respond, "Hm? Can you do it faster than I can melt it down? It should only take us a few minutes to cut through this plate."

"It depends on how complicated the lock is."

"Well, see these bolts?" She points to one of the four bolts, each at one corner of the plate. "You need to remove the pin locking them in place, then push them in, and the plate will slide down by itself, though we'll likely have to force it down since everything is slimy and full of moss. How are you going to take the pin out from here on the outside? Spirit elementals don't have the strength for that."

"There's no defensive enchantments against spirits, right?"

"None that I've sensed, no."

I could try to use "Items" to make this fortress disappear, but I don't think it'd be worth it if I'd have to then deal with the Chimeras' questions afterwards. But, I still have another miraculous tool I could use, and it might even earn myself some more respect with Oritiki.

I summon a spirit elemental and tell it to show me the pins. While it explores, I have a short discussion with the girls about what I'm going to do.

"She'll think that you're a noble," Yunia responds.

"But we haven't explicitly denied that we are," I say through [Bind].

"I approve of this idea. Showing her this power will make them more impressed, and it won't give anyone an advantage over us since it's hardly something pivotal in combat," Ciel says.

"I wanted to show them [Explosion] since they'd start to fear us because of it, but this is fine, too," Roxanne adds.

Yunia shrugs. "I approve, too. Do as you wish."

Alissa, Lina, Hana, and Aoi have similar opinions to Roxanne, so they also agree.

Roxanne floats us closer to the plate while I shuffle my points around. By unassigning most of my points in combat and magic skills that aren't immediately essential, I manage to get [Godly Language] up to 100.

I touch the plate and focus on the spirit elemental's vision. I recreate the four pins in my mind, then I imagine them all being slowly pulled out until they fall and clank loudly on the floor.

"Unlock," I whisper with [Godly Language].

I feel an odd ripple in reality that fills me with a primordial fear that I've just "broken" something, but no nausea or confusion comes with it like it did the first time I used this skill in this way. In the blink of an eye, the ripple is gone, and we hear a muffled clanking as four heavy pins fall down on the floor.

Oritiki and the other Horn stare at us, their arms hanging limply beside their bodies.

Was that too much?

"Are you a Divine…?" Oritiki asks with a faint voice.

Heh, a little more than I expected, but this is fine, too.

"I'm a noble from Domum, and [Godly Language] isn't exclusive to the Chimeras," I lie soberly with a frown.

Oritiki twitches in surprise, then lowers her head for a second as she says, "Oh! Apologies… I'd forgotten that land-dwellers could learn it, too."

The other Horn is silent, but he's observing us intensely.

"I prefer not to rely on my background, so I don't tell others about it, but you must've had some suspicions about my origin, correct?" I question with a slight smirk.

She nods. "Yes, we did, especially about your elven wife."

"I'd prefer if things remain as they've been so far." I push us away from the plate. "Now, can you open this for us?"

Oritiki signals to the other Horn, and he floats closer to the plate. With a grunt of effort, he starts to push it down, and we hear the sounds of metal grinding against stone.

A few seconds later, another Horn appears, followed by four winged soldiers with Kurii and the sniffer as passengers on a Wasp.

"Oh, you already got it open?" Kurii asks, surprised. She's wearing a set of Kite Dragon scale armor, different from the usual dark green jumpsuit that most of the Chimeras soldiers wear or the dark leather armor of the winged soldiers.

The second Horn helps the first one, and they manage to push the plate down, releasing a gust of stale and dusty air from the inside of the fortress.

Oritiki enters the room and illuminates it, revealing a "fuck you"-sized cannon that seems similar to the Trinity Cannon. In its revolver container, there are five gems thicker than Ciel's thighs, each about half a meter wide.

I want to yoink one of these cannons so bad…

We follow Oritiki and slowly pour into the room. Kurii and the sniffer disembark and the Wasp flies away. Roxanne lets out a cute sneeze as we land, but then Kurii makes such a heart-stoppingly adorable squeak that we all turn to look at her.

"That was a sneeze…?" I question her with a smirk.

"Apologies…" She mumbles awkwardly and lowers her head. If her face wasn't furred, she'd be blushing for sure.

I smile wryly and open a [Gate] for the girls. Fox-Alissa and Yunia immediately cross through, then Roxanne and I mount my Heavenly Fluffy Fox. The winged soldiers whisper among themselves in wonder while staring at Alissa. Not many Chimeras should've had any contact with wereanimals before.

"Yunia can cast [Silence], and I have [Quiet Steps] and [Quiet Action], but what about the rest of you? How good are you at sneaking?" Alissa asks.

"We can float, though that costs a small amount of mana to maintain," Oritiki says.

"Same for us," a winged soldier replies.

All eyes turn to Kurii and the fluffy kiwi-headed sniffer.

"I have [Quiet Steps], but it'll be useless with this armor on," Kurii says with a frown.

"I have neither skill…" The sniffer stiffly responds.

"We can carry them," a winged soldier suggests.

"I can use my [Silence] on both of them," Yunia adds.

"Oh, that'd be wonderful. Please do so," Kurii says and gives her a short bow.

Yunia is working so hard; we'll have to give her some extra time to rest soon.

We establish a few hand signs since Kurii and Yunia won't be able to hear anything due to [Silence].

--

We put on our helmets and draw our weapons, then we move out of the room and enter a pitch-black corridor of moss-stained concrete. It's completely silent, making me feel uneasy at even taking a single step since any sound echoes far and wide. Once every minute or so, we hear a faint clanking coming from very far away.

This darkness is rather bad for us because monsters will be able to notice our lights long before we can see them. Alissa can sense most monsters, but if we're unlucky, something that can hide its presence might notice us before we can see it, and if it's smart, it'll raise an alarm.

The only things we have that can properly see in the dark are Hollys and spirit elementals, but the latter has pretty bad vision overall, so the Hollys are much more useful in this situation. I don't want to summon a monster in front of the Chimeras, so I summon a spirit elemental at the same time as I summon a Holly.

The spirit elemental will lead a dozen meters ahead of us as bait, the Holly will follow closely behind it as our eyes, and Alissa will be at the forward edge of Oritiki's faint light so that we can properly scout ahead.

It's kind of creepy having the Horns and the winged soldiers slowly floating along behind us without even making a single sound.

We only make it a few steps forward before we're forced to take a different route because Alissa detected a decayed Living Armor coming down the corridor. If there's one, then there's sure to be many more, so the Armors are probably the source of that distant clanking.

This section seems to be a small labyrinth filled with murder holes. There are quite a lot of Living Armors roaming these corridors, so it takes us over ten minutes to find the exit, but it's being guarded by an unknown black slime monster. It's about as tall as the door and as wide as four Oritikis. Quite massive.

Yunia cancels [Silence], then I relay the description of the slime to the others and ask, "Alright, ideas on how we should deal with it?"

"No fighting in melee," Kurii immediately answers, then turns to Oritiki. "Your [Beam] will likely vaporize it and release a strong odor, and if we cast magic, the mana might awaken it."

The Horns and Kurii turn to Roxanne, who stiffens from the attention.

"I've seen you cast [Ice Lance]s like you're using a magic tool," Oritiki says.

"She'd release a large amount of mana that a monster could detect," Yunia says.

"I think it's best if we lure it away," I suggest and tap Alissa's neck. "She has a spell that can do that."

"Very well, let's try that," Kurii replies.

Roxanne dismounts, then Alissa and I circle around the area to get to the other end of the corridor. She does the same thing we did outside Hihiriwa's private quarters and casts [Mesmerizing Butterflies], then peeks it out around the corner little by little, carefully attracting the attention of the slime.

It starts to twitch, then it extends some twitching tendrils towards us in a creepy display of curiosity. It eventually starts to roll forward, so Alissa leaves the butterfly there, and we run back around before it can see our [Spirit Light]s.

We meet up with the others, and Yunia casts [Silence] again, then we dash towards the double doors, and Alissa ends her spell. Yunia opens the doors without making a sound, and we immediately cross through them, then we stop and look around.

We're now in a wide and tall hangar where a derelict Floater is parked.

"There are monsters inside the wreck," Alissa says through [Bind], and I make the signal for "monsters." Everyone nods in response, and we give the Floater a wide berth as we make our way north.

Kurii points to the north-western door of the hanger and makes the sign for "trail." The monsters inside the Floater don't seem to be moving, so we cross through the hangar without a problem and enter into another. This one has lots of piles of rubbish scattered around on the floor, but no monsters, fortunately.

We continue west, and just as we reach the middle of the hangar, a Living Armor suddenly appears at the south-western entrance. I make the sign for "light," and Oritiki immediately extinguishes her faint glow.

We all stand still in the complete darkness, waiting for the Living Armor to pass. It stumbles around, clanking loudly with each step, seemingly almost blind in the darkness, then it trips into a pile of rubbish and stays there, but it's not dead.

"Well… that's a problem…" I comment through [Bind].

"I could try the butterflies again," Alissa suggests.

"Hm… I don't want you to waste your mana on this."

"It's not like we need light to walk. Wolfy, you have a rope, right?" Roxanne asks.

"Right. Let me try that…"

I pull out a rope and walk over to Oritiki.

"Everyone, grab this rope, and I'll guide you," I whisper, then I grab her hand and guide it to the middle of the rope.

"Aren't you resourceful," Oritiki whispers back, and I smile wryly.

I walk over to Yunia and hand her one end of the rope. Kurii and the sniffer are holding her shoulder for safety, so I just guide it into their hands.

With everyone ready, Alissa quietly walks forward, and we carefully continue crossing through the hangar.

We reach the door at the north-east corner of the hangar, and Alissa squeezes everything she can out of her [Quiet Action] to not make the door creak as she pushes it open with her snout. She immediately smells blood on the other side.

The Holly and the spirit elemental enter the next room first, and I let out an internal "wow" through [Bind] as I take in the sights. I can see a massive tunnel and the equally massive gate that we saw from the outside. Periodic lights along the tunnel indicate a path that leads deeper into the fortress, and the glowing blue blood of the Leviathan is evidence that it did pass through here. Unfortunately, the mana-rich blood has already attracted monsters, which are silently fighting for every last drop.

A mix between a bat and a sugar-glider desperately tries to lick up the faint streaks of blue blood off the concrete floor. Their faces are ugly like a bat's, they have a blanket-length furred wing membrane between their legs and arms, and they don't seem to have claws at the end of their long and thin fingers, but the spirit elemental can clearly see that they just have transparent [Soul Blade]s, instead.

A full dozen of them are spread along the entire tunnel, angrily eyeing their competitors. Some of them are even committing cannibalism, feeding on the blood of their fellow monsters that they've killed to defend their drop of Leviathan blood.

"Stop, I think these monsters can see in the dark," I say to Alissa through [Bind]. "Monsters ahead," I whisper to Oritiki.

Alissa walks us back to Yunia, then I boop my blind elf's nose, and she dispels [Silence].

"This is a stupid signal," she whispers.

I ignore her and say, "Kurii, there's a tunnel ahead, but there's also monsters on the way."

She clicks her tongue and anxiously responds, "We're wasting too much time sneaking around. We need to get past these monsters as fast as we can."

"They don't seem to be that smart, so maybe we can rush them," I suggest.

"It's time for us to get to work," Oritiki whispers, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

"What kind of monsters are in there?" Kurii asks, and I describe them.

"Alright, we'll deal with them," Oritiki whispers confidently, then she turns to the winged soldiers. "You'll fight with us while the Ryders protect Kurii."

Kurii and I nod, then Roxanne and I dismount from Alissa.

"We're ready," I whisper.

"Alright, let's go!" Oritiki exclaims, then Alissa shifts back into her humanoid form while we all cast [Spirit Light] and the Horns make their armor glow.

An arrow and an [Ice Lance] fly towards the collapsed Living Armor, then the Horns burst through the doors and dart towards the bat monsters with the winged soldiers following close behind them.

Well, we were going to drop our stealth act at some point, anyway…

Kurii draws a heavy saber and rushes out of the hangar.

I have a feeling that she doesn't actually need that much protection.

--

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