Vivid Stars Online

I froze in horror at the sight before me. Two times before, I had encountered tentacle beasts, and both times they had been some of the most arduous battles I’d ever had.

Something had always felt different about them, and both displayed psionic powers. Given how rare they were, even in powerful beasts, it was enough of a trend to concern me.

Perhaps this strange, corrupted rift was the cause of that. Either way, I had no desire to fight three at once even with my soldiers as backup. With how tough the beasts were, I doubted standard rifles would do much against them.

Worse, these looked to be some of the biggest examples of their kind that I’d ever seen. The two closer beasts were practically mountainous, standing at least forty feet in height. Their heads almost scrapped the odd water ceiling and they would barely fit through the tunnel behind us.

Despite their size, the third one was even worse. It was only two-thirds the size of the others and looked hunched over as if in age. Several tentacles held a long wooden staff that it was currently using to gesture toward the rift.

If that was some kind of wizard or shaman version of the creatures, then I wanted no part of it. The normal kind was dangerous enough with their abilities, the last thing I needed was to fight a psionic specialist.

Suppressing my urge to run, I began turning as slowly as possible. The soldiers had paused ten feet behind me as planned, and I gestured for them to retreat quietly as I came to face with them.

I tensed as they moved to do so, keeping still and listening for any hint of movement from the room. My first instinct was to use my Psi sense, but I suppressed that with a force of will. I’d always been able to detect when people scanned me up close and I couldn’t risk that they would be able to as well.

Only when the three squads and Linnea were behind them had turned and begun creeping away did I relax slightly. There’d been no movement behind me, so it looked like we might make it away safely.

Then, just as I began creeping along behind them, an echoing crack rang through the tunnel. Wincing, I looked ahead and swore at the sight of a soldier stepping on one of the bone piles littering the tunnel.

Almost instantly, a distorted screech rang from the cavern behind me.

They’d detected us.

“Run,” I screamed at the top of my voice. The one saving grace of facing tentacle beasts was their lack of speed. If we hurried, we might still escape this nightmare.

It was certainly a situation I would have to clear up eventually, but it could wait until I had sufficient forces available. Preferably, several squads of elite psionic shock troopers.

The men and woman in front of me hesitated for a second before taking off at a sprint. I only waited long enough to see them all moving before I took my own advice. Twenty feet down the corridor, the soldiers parted around Linnea, who covered the tunnel until I reached her.

Just as I was passing, a tremendous crack sounded as she fired the plasma cannon in her arms. The blast shot past me in a blaze of heat before exploding behind me. A high-pitched shriek told me she’d hit something, perhaps pausing their advance.

A moment later, she was sprinting along beside me as we raced down the tunnel. Behind us I could hear the slithering sound of tentacles on rock, and behind that a rhythmic pattern of birdlike cries and cheeps.

It was nothing I’d heard from either of the previous encounters with these beasts, and the sound made me shiver. It sounded far too much like some kind of incantation and I couldn’t help but think back to the old, staff-wielding beast.

Still, we sprinted on, gradually leaving behind our pursuers. Eventually, nothing could be heard from behind at all, and we slowed as we caught up to the soldiers.

Most of them were gasping for air, and I guessed they didn’t have as much inherent Toughness as Linnea and I. It had been enough to escape, however, and I allowed everyone to proceed at a slow jog back up the tunnel

“Um… Sorry, Sir,” one of the soldiers gasped as she lagged behind the others to where I was guarding the rear. “I’m responsible for getting us caught, it's all my fault.”

It was Private Simmons, her face twisted in guilt as she spoke. I looked at her for a moment before responding with a shake of my head. “It's all right, Private. Mistakes happen, and we still made it out safely.”

“You did well to find the tunnel earlier, so I think we can safely say it all evens out. Just be more careful in the future,” I finished, keeping my tone to only a hint of recrimination.

“Yes, Sir!” she responded, her face relaxing as she sighed. “I won’t let it happen again!” she continued with a salute made awkward by her continued jogging. I nodded in return, and she sped back up to return to the group.

If they were only in the militia before, they probably haven’t had any stealth training, I realized with a shake of my head. I’d better raise that with the Captain when we get back. It might not be worth training everyone, but I’d like at least a couple of squads to be ready for this kind of operation.

I hadn’t exactly had training either, but I’d spent months trekking through dangerous wilderness areas. I’d at least picked up enough to walk quietly and watch what was under my feet.

Still, it wasn’t the end of the world. As long as we could make it out and get reinforcements, everything should work out.

We made it back up the tunnel considerably faster than it had taken us to come down, though we paid a price for it in exhaustion. With my Toughness, I was barely feeling the strain, but my soldiers couldn’t go much further.

Even Linnea was gasping as she jogged, and I knew I’d have to let everyone rest soon. Let’s just get out of this tunnel first, I decided, that will give us more room to maneuver if the worst happens and might get us out of their territory.

Only a few minutes later, a commotion drew my attention forward. Everyone in front had stopped and was clustered around the illusionary exit.

“What’s the holdup?” I asked as I came to a stop. “Let’s get through and then we can slow down.”

“We can’t,” Linnea responded with a deep frown. “There’s no way through, the wall’s as solid now as it looks,” she illustrated her point a moment later by rapping her hand against the middle of the wall.

The sound echoed through the tunnel, and her hand clearly stopped as it hit the apparent rock.

“Fuck,” I muttered, a hint of despair running through me. “One of the beasts must have been behind the illusion. I heard some kind of chanting as we ran, maybe it made the wall solid somehow?”

“Why not just do that all the time, then?” Linnea asked with a shake of her head. “Seems like that would be a better defense than just the illusion.”

“I can’t be sure, but at a guess, I say it costs more energy to make the illusion solid, ”I responded with a shrug. “But it’s not like I’m an expert on strange psionic phenomena. Whatever the case, the important thing is we’re stuck here unless we can get it open.”

Reaching out with my senses, I thought I felt a hint of Psi energy in the wall now. It wasn’t like I had a way to do anything about it, though, none of my abilities were suited to countering other powers.

“Can we overcome it with force?” Corporal Murther asked. He was standing in front of the other soldiers where they’d moved to the side to let me through. He’d become something of a spokesperson among even the other corporals, and I mentally tagged him for potential promotion despite the circumstances.

“That’s probably the best idea,” I responded with a nod. “All abilities need power to be maintained, and if we can drain that power by putting pressure on it, then it should fizzle out. Everyone move back, we’ll put a few volleys into it,” I ordered.

We didn’t have unlimited ammo, but we could afford that much of an expenditure, at least. It only took a minute to prepare, after which a wave of plasmas fire exploded from our lines.

It splashed against the wall in a sizzling spray with no visible effect. Even normal rock would have melted somewhat, yet the illusion held strong. We fired a second, then a third time, yet nothing changed.

I exchanged a concerned look with Linnea, before ordering everyone back even further. Once at a safe distance, she aimed her plasma cannon and took a shot.

A massive explosion engulfed the door, shaking the walls and dislodging small chunks from the ceiling. Yet the dust cleared to reveal a wall as untouched as ever, even as the rock on either side bore clear signs of damage.

“Damn,” I muttered with a shake of my head. “It looks like that’s not going to work. It might be possible to dig around it, but we don’t really have the tools and I’m worried about bringing the roof down on our heads.”

We paused for a brief conference before I moved forward to try something else. Drawing my Psi sword, I empowered the blade to the max before swinging it forward. The blow glanced off the barrier with a screech, leaving not a hint of damage behind.

“How is it even doing this?” I asked thin air as I moved into another flurry of strikes. When these had no more effect than the first, I let my power go and turned back to the group. I didn’t have unlimited power, and I’d used over ten percent just on that test.

I could think of a few theories, mostly centered on the rift back down the tunnel, but none of them could help us right now. While it might be possible to overcome the barrier with brute force, it was looking like that wouldn’t be a cheap or quick endeavor.

My mind whirled through the options as I walked back before I finally settled on the one I’d been trying to ignore. “We’ll have to fight,” I said as I strode up. “If we kill the old looking one, then it should break the barrier.”

I was not sure of that, but it would at least remove the danger. With the Beasts gone, we might find another way out, even if this one remained blocked.

No one seemed to like that idea any more than I did, but after several more minutes of discussion, no one could come up with a better idea. The beasts couldn’t be that far behind us, and I wanted us to be prepared instead of being caught halfway through digging our way out.

With that in mind, I began setting everyone up in a formation. At the back were the fifteen soldiers, each group of five led by their corporal. We’d moved forward far enough to give them a hundred feet of room to retreat behind them.

Id initially wanted even more room but had been forced to call a halt as the sound of sliding tentacles became audible in the distance.

Thirty feet in front of them was Linnea as a second line of defense. Her armor might not be as good as mine, but it was still a far sight better than the normal soldiers. If needed, she would try to occupy a beast, but to begin with, she hefted her plasma cannon.

Finally, I placed myself another thirty feet ahead in the middle of the tunnel. I would be the first line of defense and could hopefully stall them long enough for us to do some damage.

I wielded my plasma rifle, to begin with, but I was prepared to swap with my sword at a moment’s notice. I still had vivid memories of almost being dragged into a gaping maw during my first fight with a tentacle beast, and I had no desire to experience that again.

Cutting myself free of the tentacles had worked then, and I hoped it would work again with my far superior weapon.

With everything as prepared as I could make it in our limited window, I braced myself for the fight ahead.

It was not going to be an easy one.