The first sensation that Isaac felt, before his digital body had even fully rendered, was the stifling heat of Al-Habar. Opening his eyes, he was nearly blinded by the early afternoon sun shining down… broken by the outline of the fast-approaching Earth Wyrm. He barely had time to blink before the humungous creature smashed into the ground in front of him, shooting up waves of sand and launching the party into the air with a whip of its tail.
Screaming, Isaac tumbled head over heels through the air, his world a blur of yellow and blue.
“Caught you.” Tenshi’s soft voice came from nearby, seconds before Isaac collided with something mid-air. His bearings returning, Isaac found himself in Tenshi’s arms, still flying through the air.
“Do you have a landing planned?” Isaac yelled over the sound of the wind, eyeing the vast, barren landscape stretching out beneath them.
“Trust me,” Tenshi returned, pulling out her rifle and launching what appeared to be a harpoon from the grenade launcher, a rope trailing after it. Isaac’s eyes followed the arc of the shot, widening as he realised Tenshi’s target.
“Heads up, Marie!” Isaac yelled, as the shot sailed inches past her soaring body, carrying on into the skin of the groaning Wyrm.
“Start shooting,” Tenshi commanded, reaching back and activating the winch concealed behind her hair.
Without question, Isaac aimed his revolver and unleashed a hail of bullets on the Wyrm. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the rope attached to the harpoon suddenly go taught, followed by the two of them snapping forward in the direction of the giant beast.
“WE’REGONNAFRICKIN'DIETENSHI!” Isaac slurred out, clamping onto Tenshi with both his arms and legs.
“Off,” Tenshi replied flatly, using her free arm to pull him off her by the neck of his jacket. “Just keep shooting.”
“It looks like my adventure’s ending sooner than I thought.” Isaac groaned, aiming his pistol again. “Damn though, what a badass way to go.”
Down below, the Wyrm was thrashing and moaning on the ground, its normally grey skin turning an unhealthy pinkish hue.
“The climate appears to be effecting it as planned,” Tenshi affirmed, locking her legs around Marie as she sped by.
“You saved me, Tenshi!” Marie exclaimed, grabbing onto her legs. Looking up, her eyes widened as she realized the direction they were headed. “Um, Tenshi, why are we headed towards the Wyrm?” she questioned nervously.
“On three, I will throw you at the Wyrm. Kick it in the clitellum as hard as you can, with the added momentum you should be able to damage it.”
“Are you crazy?!?” Marie yelled back. “I’ll damage more than just the Wyrm; my life will be in serious danger!”
“One.”
“No, seriously, stop!” Marie exclaimed. “This ain’t gonna work!”
“Two.”
“Wait, waitwaitwait, give me some more time!”
“Three.” In one smooth movement, Tenshi launched off a barrage of bullets, the recoil of which sent them into a spin. At the height of their momentum, Tenshi released her hold on Marie, sending her screaming towards the Wyrm. “Bon Voyage,” Tenshi called after her.
“Câlice de crisse, I’ll get you for this later!” Marie swore. “DRILL KICK!” she activated her skill, sending her into a high-speed spiraling motion as she hurtled feet-first towards the great beast.
Marie made contact with the Wyrm with a sickening thud. However, unlike before, the Wyrm’s skin was now dry and flimsy. Marie broke right through the outer layer, spraying greyish clumps of flesh everywhere, resulting in spasms of pain and a gut-wrenching cry from the beast.
“You’re next, Isaac,” Tenshi stated, looking back at him.
“N-not me too?” Isaac paled.
“Can I count on your accuracy?” she asked, staring him in the eye.
Isaac swallowed. “Absolutely.”
Tenshi nodded in response, sending out a rapid text to Marie and she and Isaac hurtled towards oblivion.
“Marie, drop the belt I strapped to you in the beast’s wounds and jump to safety.”
“What belt…” Marie started, only then noting the large cord of explosives slipped over her shoulder. “Torrieu, are you bloody kidding me…?” she started, yanking the belt off.
“No time to discuss, drop them and run,” an urgent text followed.
Still cussing, Marie flung the belt deeper into the beast’s wound, the squishy, bleeding flesh cushioning their collision. Flinging herself from the side of the monster, she landed on her feet in a nearby dune, breaking into a roll to escape the creature’s thrashing.
“Make that shot!” Tenshi commanded, as she and Isaac approached the monster.
“I’m trusting you on this, Tenshi!” Isaac yelled, taking aim.
“SNIPE!” he intoned, firing off a single, pinpoint bullet at the chain of explosives lodged in the Wyrm’s clitellum.
As the bullet soared towards its destination, a string of events occurred. As soon as Isaac pulled the trigger, Tenshi disengaged the harpoon, causing them to break into a spin, their momentum still carrying them in the general direction of the monster. As Marie got to her feet and turned to look, the bullet found its mark, causing the entire monster’s neck to explode in a blast of fire and flesh, the force of which knocked Marie flat against the dunes. Up in the air, Isaac saw the blast a split second before he felt it, as a searing rush of wind scorched his arm-hairs.
Trying to discern his surroundings, Isaac discovered much to his dismay that in spite of the cushioning effect of the blast, they were still spiraling out of control towards the ground, too fast to make out any of their surroundings or aim towards a softer landing. Squeezing his eyes shut, he prayed for the best.
Had his eyes been open, he would have witnessed Tenshi’s long hair billow up, revealing an oval, pill-shaped device the size of a milk carton imbedded in her back. The bizarre structure had a metallic sheen, looking like solidified mercury, with no discernable edges or apertures. Without warning, a section of it lifted off, extending from the rest of the body on a blackened metal track. Emerging from the resulting cavity, a multitude of two-dimensional, pixel-like white squares filtered out, spreading to either side of Tenshi’s back in the form of loose wings.
Flapping and billowing, Tenshi beat her paper-thin extensions trying to slow the pair’s descent, but the ground rushed up at an incredible speed to meet them. At the last second, she folded the wings around the two of them and rolled as they struck the earth back-first, sending up a shower of golden sand around them.
*******
Finally daring to open his eyes, the first sight Isaac glimpsed was a baby-blue sky, stretching out to all ends of his vision. Moving to rise, he felt as if he were under water, as his limbs moved slowly in response. The last thing he recalled was the sensation of hitting the ground, yet surprisingly he felt nothing more than a few bruises across his body. Sitting up with a little effort, he found that he was partially sunk in the sand, up to his waist. Grunting with exertion, he struggled to climb out of the dune, when his foot hit something alive.
Recoiling in surprise, he looked around, but saw nothing. Suddenly, directly behind him, he heard a sharp exhale of breath, like blowing. Twisting, Isaac glimpsed an amusing sight.
There, on the ground behind him was Tenshi, buried up to her face in the golden sand, so that every time an errant breeze blew, she vanished from view again. Blowing out another irritated breath, she cleared the sand from her face, fixing him with less-than-amused eyes.
“Well?” she challenged, noting his smirk.
“Nothing,” he responded, stifling a chuckle. “Need a hand?”
“It would be appreciated,” she admitted.
Displacing the dunes around him, Isaac rotated to face her, pushing sand away until her shoulders were visible. Scooping her under her arms, he bent his legs and lifted her out, the sand around them shifting to fill the empty spot she was vacating.
“That was less than pleasant,” Tenshi complained, dusting grit out of her clothing and hair.
“Still, at least we lived to talk about it!” Isaac exclaimed, still pumped with adrenaline from the feat. “How did we survive that fall, anyway?” he asked.
“Luck, perhaps,” Tenshi offered. “It seems the sand cushioned us some.”
“Hmmm, maybe,” Isaac assented, still unconvinced. “Hey, what’s all this?”
Scattered around the pair in a roughly circular pattern were little square-shaped flakes of white, which were slowly dissolving into dust. Picking one up, Isaac noticed that it was thinner than paper and essentially weightless, but he could not tear it in half. As he was examining it, it rustled slightly and dissolved to nothingness, along with its companions.
“What do you think that was?” Isaac asked Tenshi, only to see she had already left, and was heading towards the Wyrm’s corpse.
“Huh,” he muttered, searching for another piece, only to find them all disintegrated. Shrugging, he followed Tenshi.
“There you are!”
Isaac turned to see Marie scampering over a dune, heading towards the pair as fast as she could in spite of the sandy terrain, which caused her feet to sink in with every step.
“Glad you made it, Marie!” Isaac grinned, surveying the Wyrm’s body, which was now blown in two at the clitellum, with the many-fanged head imbedded up to its teeth a distance away, carried by the force of the blast. “Along with one head as promised. How’re we going to bring that thing back?”
“We can just drag it back to the teleporter,” Marie waved dismissively, turning on Tenshi. “But more importantly, what was that?! You threw me at that thing armed with live bombs! If I'd hit at a bad angle, I'd've been blown to kingdom come, Wyrm and all!”
“I trusted you,” Tenshi returned, expressionless.
“You've got a damned funny way of showing it,” Marie grumbled. “Didn’t it occur to you to share your plans ahead of time?”
“There was no time for that,” Tenshi countered. “I knew you would find a way to make a safe landing, and in doing so would protect the grenades. Had I thrown the explosives separately, it was nearly certain that I would have missed the wound, damaging nothing but the creature’s outer hide. Out of all possible plans I calculated, this one seemed the safest.”
Marie threw up her hands. “Right, I might as well argue with a wall, for all the good it does talking to you. Look.” She placed her hands on Tenshi’s shoulders. “In the future, just… try and warn us ahead of time when you’re gonna put our lives on the line. Okay?”
“Were our lives not already on the line in this particular situation?” Tenshi countered.
“Just… promise me you’ll warn us,” Marie stressed.
“I will do as you ask.” Tenshi nodded.
“Okay, good.” Marie took a deep breath, then turned to the Wyrm’s head. “Alright, now let’s lug this ugly bugger back with us!”
*******
“I have a question,” Tenshi interjected, and Isaac and Marie began attempting to move the carcass. “Before we turn in the head, should we not first go and determine whether the hot spring was excavated properly?”
“Hmmm, good point,” Marie considered. “All right, lets head back to Alsium first and check on the mining rune. The cold should help keep that big ol’ beastie’s head on ice, too.”
Moving the monster’s head turned out to be an unpleasant task. After stripping any sellable materials from the corpse, they set to task transporting it, which involved rolling the oozing fleshy parcel along the shifting sands, steering it by grabbing its jagged teeth and pulling or pushing to one side. Finally, after a good deal of effort and a few topples, they managed to roll the grisly trophy to the glowing portion of the sand which marked the teleportation rune.
“Okay, next stop, the hot springs!” Isaac quipped, tapping the new rune marked on his map.
Reappearing in the frigid plains of snow that marked Northern Alsium, Isaac hurriedly changed into his waiting winter uniform, disregarding the sand that still clung to his clothes. Looking around, he noted the slowly pooling steaming water merely a stone’s throw from him, which had already amassed into a small body of water the size of a backyard pool.
“We did it!” Marie exclaimed, forgoing her winter jacket and running towards the edge of the water. Dipping her hand in, she exhaled a sigh of relief as the deliciously warm mineral water washed away the gritty sand from their previous desert experience.
“Well, I guess all that’s left is to go turn in our quest,” Isaac shrugged. “And head,” he added as an afterthought, looking at the gaping Wyrm’s mouth.
“Well before that, I’m going skinny-dipping!” Marie laughed, already taking off her shoes.
“Are you serious?” Isaac asked.
“Dead serious,” she returned, locking eyes with him. “C’mon, you too, Tenshi.”
“Indeed, I would prefer to rid myself of this sand,” she admitted, twirling a finger through her gritty hair.
“Well… what am I gonna do then?” Isaac questioned lamely.
“You sit on the opposite side of that snowdrift and make sure nobody comes by.” Marie ordered, pointing. “And remember: peek, and you’ll lose those eyes.” She winked threateningly at him.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Isaac shot back, trudging up the snowy hill. “Nobody’s interested in those mosquito-bites, Marie.”
“Don’t make me come over there,” she threatened, laughing.
Seating himself at the base of the leeward side, Isaac packed himself a small seat in the snow, pulling out a notebook and pen as he tried to ignore the sounds of merriment coming from behind him.
“Ahhhh… I feel reborn!” Marie sighed contentedly.
“Perhaps, seeing as we assisted so immensely in this quest, we will receive lifetime passes,” Tenshi suggested, her voice mellowed out in comfort.
Sighing, Isaac scribbled prose in his notebook, the wintery wind biting at his face.
“/A bitter feeling
/Sitting all alone outside
/A nice, warm hot spring”
Isaac rattled off an improvised haiku, wishing he was in his own warm bed.
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