Hourly Challenge: Sylvalum
a/n: In the unfinished (possibly abandoned) story "The Treasure of O'rrh Sim", Wolf the scary trainer from the Missions Board and Miss Duna Valdileo the Prone head off to Cauldros to find some weird Prone treasure. First they have to get safely through Sylvalum.
Vague descriptions, slight swear, under edited (what else is new).
All the good things belong to Monolith Soft, and I am ashamed to say I have forgotten a lot of the enemies.
Wolf reminded himself to count his blessings. The blinding white spore fog would hide his small team from the patrolling Ganglion. Sure, he'd have to explain to Eleonora why they hadn't checked in with the away teams along the originally planned route. Sure, they wouldn't get any crucial info from those teams on whatever their target was. Sure, they would be driving straight into Cauldros with only a ghost story to guide them.
He relaxed his grip on the skell controls. The trip was going fine, despite the weather. They'd skimmed across Lake Ciel with no encounters with the towering indigen Coronids that strode slowly across the shallow waters on their spindly legs. The few clusters of crocodillian Tersquals they had accidentally surprised were left snapping in their wake before any fight had to happen. The stifling fog would continue to keep them safe, which was his main goal. No way did he want his teammate, Miss Duna Valdileo, having anything to do with combat. Someone who had never flown a skell 5 hours earlier had no business fighting on this or any other continent.
It would be fine. He relaxed his grip again, and his jaw, and tapped the comms.
"How you holding up?"
Her laugh was shaky and low. "I did not enjoy the jump at the edge of the lake. It is good I had no time for breakfast. Otherwise, I am fine, BLADE Wolf."
They had shot up onto the lake shore at full speed, and Wolf had aimed them slightly east, towards the dune he knew was there even if the fog hid it completely. The slope was gentle, but there had been a moment of unpowered flight. He knew it would have been jarring, but it also helped launch them over yet another group of indigen, this set including a tyrant. The group was small enough that maybe he could have risked a fight. Hell, the tyrant was low leveled enough that he could have fought it on foot (provided he could see it in this weather). But the risk ... he was avoiding whatever risks he could.
"Sorry about that, Miss Duna," he apologized.
"It is nothing. My stomach has been twisting since we received our mission. I grow accustomed to it." Wolf pushed yet another worry into the pile of things that could go wrong.
They were skimming along a groove in the sand, worn from the incessant passage of ancient machines, artifacts of an earlier civilization and now serving the Ganglion. He leaned on the accelerator of the skell, feeling it shoot faster. On the map screen, he checked to see if Miss Duna's Ares 70 was following, and was relieved to see that she was positioned precisely to his left. She may have been a rank newbie but she was clearly a fast learner, despite any skell-sickness.
If it weren't for this fog, he'd never have taken her this route. Not because of Eleonora, not because of the info from the away teams. He'd never have risked flashing past the hosts of animals, plants, and Ganglion that would have descended on two lone skells in the center of the ribs of Sylvalum. The dunes along the path were open and offered no shelter from any enemy watching from the craggy cliffs or closer outcroppings. The Ganglion had built outposts on those prominences, some temporary, some fortified, and they were quick to pick off any intruders. Flight wasn't a better option, except for speed, since over everything hung a hostile installation so massive that it almost didn't register as an individual threat but rather as a geographic entity.
The sandy road was the fastest way, however, a direct vein into Cauldros. The fog, usually nothing but grief for away teams, was giving them protection and speed. For this he was grateful.
No sooner had he repeated this comforting fact but the fog disappeared, as quickly and completely as a slice of pizza down a Ma-non's snout. Okay, okay, he was prepared for this, he just needed to check their exact location. They would shift off of the path, a little tricky with having to avoid the indigen but ...
He recognized their location immediately. The rows of Ganglion enemy, in a neat angle now enclosing them clearly and snugly, that was distressing enough. It was the heap of scrap forming the hinge that made his blood run cold. The scrap slowly lifted from the ground. The sand poured off it a swirling mist as it rose. The slabs of metal assembled themselves into an enemy he'd been hoping to avoid. The Xe-dom towered in the air above them. Its deadly arms, ready to slam into their tiny skells, dangled loosely. In a moment, the first blast would catch his team.
Escape was impossible, by ground or by air. They would have to fight. He would have to do his best to keep Duna safe.
His pilot's capsule rocked as a beam of ether passed from behind, narrowly over the shoulder of his skell. The Xe-dom flinched, its deadly claws flailing high into the sky. It staggered to the left as one of its leg shields sheered from its torso. He heard Duna's voice on the comms, high with terror and excitement. "Aghasura Cannon! Aim for the hip. You told me this."
Wolf relaxed his jaw, relaxed his hands, and let Miss Duna get on with it. He would have enough to do, mopping up the remaining mob.
a/n: I am shamelessly using these prompts to get me back into writing Treasure. I need to run that stretch of Sylvalum a few more times to refresh my memory. Also to get Zoom background.