The Primal Hunter 8: A LitRPG Adventure, page 20
Getting rid of the terrorists—because that is what they were—had only taken her around a minute. In that time, Ell’Hakan and his two followers had not rushed over but simply walked up to the edge of the barrier at a leisurely pace.
She observed as the man stopped in front of the barrier. He raised his hand and touched it for a faint moment, waiting five or so seconds before speaking. "Ms. Wells, I believe you should be able to hear me. Am I correct?"
Miranda briefly opened her eyes and saw Neil was still hard at work, having even put his party members to work placing down materials in the circle. Closing them again, she decided to buy time. At that moment, when she felt his hand touch the barrier, she also felt a pulse enter it, making her tremble. She did not know what it was and decided that if the guy wanted to talk… she would talk. Well, she wouldn’t talk.
Focusing, she took out a small doll and infused some magic into it. Placing it in the middle of the circle, she said an incantation and immersed her mind.
In the outside world, a figure faded into existence. A human-sized doll looking quite a bit like Miranda appeared, more than a little scary with its oversized buttons for eyes and amateur craftsmanship. Miranda had had to sew it herself, and damn, was she bad at sewing.
But the doll worked, and its mouth moved to say, “Is it not a basic skill expected of a City Lord to have some level of perception within the domain they rule?”
“It is," Ell’Hakan spoke, looking at the doll. "I must say, this is my first time ever meeting a witch, and I am already intrigued. I would like to apologize for before. I believed it necessary to show that I have ways to break barriers such as this to make you come out for a talk. Ah, on that, I would advise you to not rely too much on the Pylon for city defenses. As a noble with a significantly higher rank and a profession that allows it, I possess skills to combat it quite effectively. Instead, I would work on making your own skills the primary basis of the barrier, with the Pylon only acting as an auxiliary energy source."
Miranda looked confused at the man speaking. Enough to doubt if Ell’Hakan could influence her through the puppet. But she quickly ruled that out simply by how she assumed it worked. If his ability was to influence emotions, he had to influence the soul, and the puppet she had sent did not contain anything to influence. Which begged the question…
"Why are you telling me that?"
"Friendly advice from one ruler to another," Ell’Hakan answered. "And a good icebreaker that shows my intent. I want to make an educated guess and say you are currently working on a method of escape or some kind of counterattack. Probably escape, considering I just defeated the Chosen of the Viper."
"You did not defeat him; you just delayed him and pissed him off," Miranda countered in a curt tone.
"I did what I intended. Today was not the time for an actual fight.” The man nodded in recognition. "I will just lay the cards out on the table. I have no interest in causing you any harm, Ms. Wells, but I have made a deal with the United Cities Alliance, as they call themselves. They very much would like to see you dead."
"Are you really going with the ‘it’s not personal’ line?" Miranda scoffed.
"Not really. I am going with the line of saying that you should escape. I will not stop you. But I will warn you that the United Cities Alliance will try to take you down. From what I heard, the Chosen’s influence on this planet would be significantly weakened, and his current political position ruined, if you were to die.”
"Doesn’t sound like a reason to suddenly spare me and not break in here and now," Miranda answered. She briefly disconnected from her doll, and Neil signaled that he’d soon be ready.
Entering it again, she saw Ell’Hakan shake his head and chuckle. "We both know that entering wouldn’t lead to a pleasant experience. For either of us. What you are capable of is not pertinent information, and I would prefer not to take such an unnecessary risk. The Verdant Witches are notorious for their mysticism, and you are no different. With me having no interest in attacking you, simply waiting for you to leave seems like the best course of action. Ah, but do be warned that if you choose to stay, I will have to act at one point or another.”
"You want me to just leave Haven in your hands?" Miranda shot back. That was exactly what she was going to do, but she had to at least act like the man didn’t have the upper hand. Also… she wanted to know what he was planning.
"I will lay no claim on anything here today. Someone from the United Cities Alliance will come and take charge for now. No one has any interest in killing the citizens, so rest easy.”
"Grand words coming from someone who is all about bullshit lies and making up stories."
"But I do speak the truth, as no story matters if there are none to remember and tell it," Ell’Hakan simply said.
"A story that is a lie. What are you even hoping to accomplish? Ruining our reputations? Even if you succeed in doing that, how will it matter? Can you truly call that an actual victory? To me, it all seems like the pathetic actions of someone too weak to battle Lord Thayne head-on."
Miranda hoped to get a bit of a rise out of the guy. Maybe make him temporarily lose his cool and overshare. She had confidence that even if he wanted to attack now, she could hold him off long enough for Neil to be done.
"Fighting… holds little meaning," Ell’Hakan spoke. "A fight is always just a single line in the history books. A declaration of the outcome after the fact. Tell me, how many were truly aware of our brief battle here today? A few dozen? Add on a few bored gods gazing upon events they truly don’t care about, and it is little more than a handful. My words of the battle will echo more true than anyone else’s. All they know is that a fight took place, and it ended up with me left standing and the Malefic’s Chosen gone. I know what you are hoping to accomplish, but let me assure you, a story is better told if not spoiled beforehand. Killing the Chosen would have been a waste. I am not telling a small tale, but a true epic."
"One where you try to define what is the truth," Miranda said.
"Precisely." Ell’Hakan smiled. "I have enjoyed our brief conversation, even if it was rather one-sided. I would advise you to leave now or show your hand, as I can delay no longer before my partners get dissatisfied with my dallying."
He snapped his fingers, and Miranda’s doll caught fire and burned down in an instant, throwing Miranda back to her real body. In the middle of the ritual circle, her small doll had now turned to ashes. She only had time to orient herself before she felt another pulse go through the barrier. The pulse seemed to attack not the barrier’s energy, but the very framework.
"How long?" Miranda asked.
"Done—was just waiting for you," Neil said.
Miranda nodded as she hurried over to the teleportation circle. Just before stepping on it, she briefly spoke a final spell before getting teleported away along with most other notable characters in Haven—besides Sultan and Arnold.
No one liked sand. As spoken by a not-that-wise man long ago, it was coarse, rough, irritating, and got everywhere. And that was normal sand. Magical sand was even worse. Not because it was finer and somehow more everywhere, but because it sure as hell was coarser and rougher by a significant magnitude.
And then there were sandstorms. Sandstorms on Earth before the system could be devastating, but a post-system sandstorm was on an entirely different level.
Jake was already in an even worse mood than usual when it arrived. He had tried to hurry through the desert while hunting down sand worms, but the fuckers were borderline impossible to kill. Even the peak D-grade ones, Jake could not easily get rid of. Their bodies were massive, and they clearly had an equally massive health pool, but the worst part was their behavior. He had yet to have a single one even try to fight back. He had even tried to attack a C-grade, done all the preparations, been as ready as he could, only for him to land a single Arrow of the Ambitious Hunter before the worm dove straight down and swam away, never to be seen again.
That was when he truly realized… these worms did not at all care about fighting. They just ate stuff. Jake had wondered how that would even work, as the surface was bound to run out of natural treasures and high-energy items at some point.
Which is where the sandstorms came in.
It was like the very horizon had moved towards him. A towering wall of sand reaching into the sky for several kilometers had barreled towards Jake as he tried to fly through the desert. He had reacted quickly and tried to mimic the worms by boring into the ground and hiding until things blew over. Which should work, right?
Wrong.
Because this sandstorm was a true marvel of the elements. It was a zone of earth and wind mana that mixed and created what could almost be called a moving domain. A true wonderland for creatures that relied on these energies. Or one to spawn such creatures.
Elementals simply came into being within the massive sandstorm, and while the sand worms did not want to fight, these elementals sure did. As though a giant vacuum cleaner had been turned on, several elementals sucked up all the sand around Jake and pulled him out of the desert.
He felt sand hit his body, damaging him as it impacted with nearly supersonic speeds. Sand even found the eyeholes of his mask and hit one eye, forcing him to close it. Jake was well and truly pissed as he used his one good eye to Identify one of the elementals attacking him.
[Sand Elemental – lvl 184]
One would maybe think that this kind of environment was bad for Jake. And they would be right. But that did not really matter much when all he faced were D-grade elementals.
Arcane Awakening in the stable mode activated, and a faint arcane barrier covered his entire body. This passive shield was usually not a big deal, but when it blocked thousands of small "attacks" every second? It allowed him to effectively ignore the environmental effects and move to kill his foes as he did the one thing that always worked: blow them the hell up with destructive arcane arrows.
Meanwhile, Jake made his way out of the sandstorm. As he traveled through it, he saw entire sand worms had been dragged out of the ground and into the storm, as well as hundreds of other creatures. The sand worms seemed to make it out, though, as they worked together and used sand magic of their own to help others escape. Elementals consumed the creatures that could not get away, and it was as if the sandstorm itself absorbed some of the energy whenever something died.
However, while the sandstorm took, it also gave, as it left behind treasures. Treasure generated from the sandstorm itself that simply dropped onto the sand and was left behind. If not for being stuck in the middle of the damn storm, Jake would have marveled at the ways the ecosystem had evolved.
After more than an hour of struggle, Jake finally made it out of the sandstorm and saw the massive natural phenomenon just continue sweeping across the desert. His momentary sense of relief from being out was promptly broken as he realized he had been flying back in the direction he had just come from to get out of the damn storm.
"Fuck me," Jake muttered as he wondered what to do. As he was flying up in the air, he saw dozens of sand worms begin to emerge below to consume the natural treasures dropped from the sandstorm. As Jake stared at them, he got an idea. An idea that just might work.
He just needed one of them to eat him first…
Chapter 23
Into the Ground
Getting a massive sand worm to eat you was actually way easier than Jake had expected. Not that Jake should have expected much from the get-go; it was a stupid expectation. All he had done was just land on the sand, get semi-close to a natural treasure while using Arcane Stealth, and boom—a worm popped up and swallowed him. It was a level 198 worm—so damn close to evolution, too.
The worm nearly instantly noticed it had caught something it didn’t want and tried to spit him out. However, Jake held on inside its massive maw as he spoke, "Hey! Worm! Make a deal!"
It did not react aside from continuing to thrash and trying to spit Jake out. That was when he realized that the sand worms had no ears and probably not even a sense of hearing, making him switch to telepathy.
"Worm. Make deal. You help me, I help you. If not, death."
As he said the words, Jake took out a handful of earth-affinity herbs and tossed them down the gullet of the worm. It was a gamble… that paid off immediately, as the worm stopped moving. By now, Jake was hanging onto the flesh walls of the giant worm’s mouth as he spoke again.
"If you help me get that way," Jake sent telepathically as he poked the side of the giant worm’s mouth with a weak arcane bolt, "I will feed you. Okay?"
It should not come as a surprise that the giant worm could not speak. Jake was really gambling on this idea, as he assumed that these sand worms were dumb as bricks and—
"I apologize; I think there is some kind of misunderstanding,” a deep, rumbling voice said in Jake’s head. “I did not mean to try and eat you… Actually, what are you?"
Wait, what? Jake questioned himself.
"You understand me?" Jake asked, confused.
"I think? I am more questioning how you can speak. You aren’t a worm. Or are you? You don’t look like one, but I have seen weird worms before…"
"I am not a worm, no," Jake made clear. "I am human and ended up here by accident. All I am looking for is a way out of the desert."
"Human? What are those?” the overly curious worm asked. “And why leave? You can’t move properly outside. A few tried. Oh, unless you get stronger and evolve; I saw one able to do it. Are you evolved?"
Jake had to admit, when he began his plan, he had not expected to have a conversation with a worm. He had more hoped to communicate his intent and perhaps find a way to nudge the worm in the right direction while bribing it with stuff.
"I am not evolved, no, but I can move properly outside,” Jake said. “I cannot move properly here, though, which is why I need your help. If you can help me get out of the desert, I can give you good stuff in return."
The worm fell silent for a few moments, still just sitting there while poking out of the sand like a tower with its mouth wide open, allowing Jake to fly out at any moment. "What kind of stuff?" it finally asked.
Jake smiled to himself as he took out one of the orbs he had looted from one of the many earth elementals he had killed while traveling with Carmen. "Things like this," Jake said as he threw the orb down the long tunnel that was the worm’s mouth.
Seconds passed before the worm answered, "Okay. I will help you, human. Also, don’t I have to? If not, I will die."
He had kind of forgotten he had threatened death before. Jake had really only done it since that kind of intent was something animals tended to understand.
"I promise I won’t hurt you at all. Instead, let’s make this something to benefit us both."
"Sounds better than death—that is for sure," the worm said, Jake detecting a hint of sarcasm in the voice. Had he found himself a sassy giant sand worm?
The next few minutes passed as Jake talked with the worm and got a better idea of how their species worked. The worms were actually damn good at magic and moved primarily through some kind of earth telekinesis to push them forward using the sand, allowing them to travel at frankly insane speeds for their size.
To hunt for treasures better, the worms all stayed in contact through some kind of telepathy network. It worked by linking them up with one another while in the area, and often a single C-grade always stayed close to the larger groups of worms to help them in case anything went wrong. There were creatures besides the sand elementals that hunted the worms, but most never chased down into the sand; so as long as the worms could warn others in time, they stayed safe. All in all, Jake learned to not disrespect the intelligence of giant sand worms.
In return, Jake told the worm of things outside the desert while he guided it.
Using threads of stable arcane mana, he anchored himself to the side of the worm’s mouth and got into a comfortable position. Contrary to what one would expect, the inside of the worm was not moist at all, but rather as dry as the desert outside. The walls of the mouth were also rough and tough like rock, likely from repeatedly swallowing sand. Something the worm would avoid doing with its passenger inside.
That is how Jake managed to catch a ride inside a giant sand worm as he traveled what had to be a few kilometers under the sand. They shot forward with the speed of a bullet through the desert, and Jake faintly felt a few worms around them at times, but being inside of one made them all ignore him. The worm did say that a few detected him, but the worm just explained it away somehow. Jake chose to trust his driver in this, as, honestly? It seemed like a stand-up worm. Would definitely rate it five stars.
He felt good enough to enter meditation, where he finally found time to ruminate on one of his most pertinent issues: What if Ell’Hakan could do that weird transportation skill again?
It didn’t seem likely, but Jake saw no reason to gamble on that one. Even if he didn’t have more orbs or a ritual circle, it was a huge risk anyway, simply because Jake had no way to currently combat whatever concept the skill relied on.
While there were aspects of it, it wasn’t space magic. Jake had a strong feeling that even if he managed to break through and use One Step, he would not have been freed. Maybe he would have moved a bit, but the skill would still have taken effect and flung him away, making the few hundred meters he managed to teleport insignificant.
One Step was a skill that was purely space magic. It relied one hundred percent on the concept of space to travel, so if space magic was just a part of it, it wouldn’t allow him to get out. He needed something far different.
Considering his first escape skill was Shadow Vault, Jake popped into his Soulspace and—
"No," sim-Jake said the moment he appeared.
