Forty-Two
Kon’s feet were on the edge of the strong mushroom that only bent slightly under his weight. His torso dominated the rest of the space as he held himself as still as possible as the wake of passing earth rippled toward him. Sweat beaded along his forehead and dripped onto the glowing mushroom. His heart was a hammer in his chest, he could feel the blood rushing through his veins.
A snout emerged slowly from the earth. The albino skin was coated in dirt but it slid free like water on wax, the light of the blue glowing moss danced on its skin. Skin folded back to reveal a pair of nostrils which snuffled loudly in the silence of the chasm. It froze suddenly, pivoting back so that its nostrils were looking directly at him. The holes widened again and he could feel the passage of air as it drug in more air.
Kon shot it. It was nearly instantaneous as his body reacted before his mind could react. The skin around its nostrils blackened and burned and the creature surged out of the earth. Dirt fell like rain over Kon as it rose up out of the ground to tower above him. It was all smooth, rubbery skin, with only the long flat head having any sort of definition.
Wide jaws gaped open and it swung its head back and forth as short, stubby, legs pawed at its snout. Kon took it all in slow motion as the guardian towered over him. Its exposed body was nearly ten feet long, its claws were short, wide, and dull. Claws meant for churning through dirt and stone.
Kon shot it again in its exposed, white belly. Flesh blackened and cracked and the beast bent in half, snout crashing into the ground. The vibrations tossed Kon off the mushroom and onto the ground. As his body hit the earth, the creature’s eyeless face snapped toward him.
“Oh, shit.” Kon fired again and again, holding down the trigger as the rifle fired a stream of energy. Blackened fissures formed over the beast, but it still rushed forward without care. Its arms dug through the earth like a swimmer’s through water, its wide jaw opening large enough to try to swallow him whole. Kon could see the rows and rows of teeth, all broad and stumpy, just waiting to pulverize him.
He fired down its throat and the guardian gagged and coughed, blue-white blood flowing from it as it jerked to the side and then dove back into the earth. Kon watched the rest of its body rise up from the earth as it dove. It was snake-like with a half dozen legs that lined the back of its body with three broad toes on each foot.
The ground grew still as it disappeared and Kon quickly replaced the spent energy cell. He kept the drained cell in one hand as he leapt onto an outcropping of rock and climbed a few feet off the floor, juggling the cell and rifle as he did so. Getting about six feet off the ground and feeling a bit safer, he waited. The creature was hurt, mad, and long. It would take it a second or three to turn around.
“Alright. Let’s hope this works.” With a casual flick of his wrist he sent the spent energy cell into the middle of the cul-de-sac. It landed with a soft thump. Kon blinked and the creature was there, rising up from the ground in all its wounded glory as it chewed up the ground and energy cell. Holding onto the walll with one hand, he aimed the rifle with the other and started to fire.
Burn marks appeared along its long body and it writhed in agony as it slammed back into the ground. Even in its agonized state, it stayed far away from the mushroom. Its head scraped along a section of wall only a few feet from him and the vibrations sent Kon flailing toward the ground as the entire wall shook.
Dust and pebbles rained down on the ground as the beast writhed in agony. Its claws were digging into the ground, trying to get back to the comfort of the earth. Kon needed to kill it now. It was exposed and vulnerable and he didn’t think he’d get another chance like this without risk.
Bouncing to his feet he didn’t bother to shoot the thick torso. He ran toward it, racing forward with a manic smile stretched across his face. Euphoria and adrenaline sang through his veins as he leapt, his strengthened body allowing him to make a nearly ten foot jump with ease. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He landed on the back of the beast and scrambled forward, balancing himself as he ran toward the head of the monster. Blood and charred skin made the creature slick, his feet threatened to betray him, but he kept running without cease. Its head was only a few feet away when it finally stopped its silent writhing and froze.
Kon was airborne.
It had reacted so fast he hadn’t had time to register it. The guardian had bucked like a mad bull and Kon was sent sailing up into the sky. He kept the grip on his rifle as he spun, the world a crazy kaleidoscope around him as he raced back to the ground. The guardian had its wide mouth open, an invitation that Kon’s current trajectory seemed pleased to accept.
Kon fired as he fell, a bolt streaking directly into the beast's open mouth. Its jaws snapped shut just as Kon reached them. His chest impacted with the monster’s bony jaw and he felt something crack. Pain lanced through him as he slammed into the ground, face looking into the sky. The writhing guardian’s belly was inches from his boots, its spasming head ten feet above him.
“Ow.” Kon shot it. In a daze he held down the trigger and blasted bolt after bolt of energy into the soft jaw of the massive creature. Something popped and the lower jaw fell free, thudding into the ground next to him as the beast toppled over backward, slamming into the side of the wall and dying.
It ended as fast as it had begun. Kon just lay there, stunned that it had died so quickly. He let the rifle fall out of his hand and looked over toward the mushroom, sitting there undisturbed.
“Better be worth it.” Kon got to his feet and looked over to the scorched, broken, monster. Blood was running in thick rivers down its blackened flesh. There was a powerful core in there somewhere and he was going to have to get it. Alice and Diur had both explained how to harvest treasures if they were like this. Kon was almost certain that Alice had raced through this rift and scouted it out as her advice to removing plants had been tailored to things like this.
“Dig out the roots and save it all.” Diur had more specific instructions but he had let those fly over his head. He wasn’t going to say prayers and burn incense as he harvested a plant. Mushroom. Whatever it was.
But both had been very firm on doing it last. Once the treasure was harvested he was on a timeline to get out of the rift as every monster in the place began to look for him. So, first thing first, he had to cut open the guardian and harvest it.
“Had to be peak F-Grade.” The final energy cell slapped into place as he dropped the spent one. He was burning through the energy cells faster than he had thought he would. He had more back at camp, but if he kept up this pace he was going to be back to using a spear before he knew it.
He climbed the belly of the beast, pushing his hands through the burnt and charred flesh to use as handholds. As he climbed he could feel a fainter pulse of energy, nearly obscured by the reactor levels of the treasure behind him. At the midway of the guardian’s corpse it strengthened to the point it was easy to tell and he began to dig. He had blasted this area a few times and with just a bit of effort he was able to punch through the skin and muscle layers. There was no bone.
Heat baked his hand as he blindly searched for a moment until his hand gripped the core. Greed washed through him as he felt the vast reservoirs of power in the core. It wasn’t like that E-Grade core he had used when he first crash landed. The one that had nearly killed him as it scoured him from the inside out. This was like smelling a feast as he arrived from a long day of work without food. A hunger rose in him, threatening to break through his self control. He wanted, no, needed the power in the core.
“Fuel for a new node. Fuel for a new node,” Kon said out loud as he pulled his gory hand out of the guardian’s body. He slid down the creature’s belly to the ground and quickly tucked the core away in the tight waistline of his pants.
“Really should have taken some type of utility belt. That’d be helpful right now,” Kon continued to talk to himself as he walked over to where the mushroom was. It was a mixture of trying to push past the pulsing pain in his chest and to stop thinking about how delightful it would be to drain the newly acquired core dry.
Freeing the mushroom didn’t take long. Soft earth yielded easily as he dug deep around its base, going far out to try to free up the entirety of the root structure. Thousands of small, thin, membranous fibers stretched out in a wide circle around the mushroom. Kon grimaced and winced every time he broke apart some of the fragile mycelium.
Working so close to the treasure was like being next to a hearth. A heat burned at him, threatening to cook him if he wasn’t careful. After twenty minutes of careful digging he had the treasure free and uprooted. He draped it across his shoulder as he started upwards and toward the top of the chasm and back through the bird rift. He could only hope that the birds were still occupied with their earlier meal.