Cayde Barbaten POV:
3 days later Ulter held an assembly in the guild standing atop the staircases wooden railing with Albert, I, and a brown-haired archer beside him.
"Thank you all for gathering here to combat the coming threat to Entrana." Ulter scanned the crowd with sadness knowing he'd be sending several people to their death
"A two-day carriage journey away in the plains of Thistle in the south, an ice attribute wyrm has made its nest right next to a red mantis underground swarm."
There was a flurry of mixed reactions from the crowd. Some where excited, some where nervous, while some acted as if it was old news.
"The scouts have all reported the same thing on the wyrm characteristics. It's got a long body that's roughly 50 meters long and 15 meters in width and most likely an adult with dark brown scales. Supposedly it's using an old underground cavern as its nest!"
Many muttered in fear at this information but the Fuden brothers looked to be taking this with no worry making me think they weren't taking it seriously enough
"I would like to introduce gold high ranking adventurers Eloy the arrow of fire and Incursik the battle demon who have both agreed to lead this adventure."
Many stared at me subjectively as I stepped forward alongside the archer and asked what right a child had to lead this, to answer them I briefly crushed them beneath my magic aura and they seemed to acknowledge me afterward.
Eloy was a regular human with brown hair and average looks, before speaking he politely cleared his throat readying to speak.
"I Eloy, alongside incursik promise to keep as many of you alive as possible during this. I know many of you have your own reason for doing this but please keep one thing in mind. We all want to be able to go home after this, so let's kill that overgrown snake and get our money's worth!" The crowd resounded at his simple speech making a good start.
We then all climbed into a row of wooden carriages waiting outside the hall ready to take us to the nests' entrance. I saw Albert and Ulter see us off outside making their worry for everyone visible on their faces as they talked about their concerns for the operation.
The carriage ride was silent as we had very little information to go from other than its location but the group I was with did exchange a few pleasantries on the way.
In total there were 43 people who ended up signing up for the subjugation including the haughty Fuden brothers and the son of Nallos who said it was his duty to help as a noble.
In the carriage, he had sat next to me and I gave him advice with his fire magic which he greatly appreciated, thinking it would be good if he owed me one I told him to stay close to me and away from Rory and Maarten as they're the most likely to run away.
As we neared the nest entrance into a dark cave we could all feel the strong colds bite making us hesitant to go in until Eloy in thick leather gear took the initiative to head in.
"Try not to get cold everyone!" He said acting brave. Quickly I followed after.
He and I stood close to the front expecting any small monsters that had been hiding in the nest to avoid the predators outside, we came across a few gooey crablike creatures that didn't have any pincers but gooey tentacles sprouted from their flaccid bodies they were called "crell seem to have already infested this place. Any good ideas to deal with them quietly incursik?"
"I can kill them easily if I make a type of grinder with my dark magic going forward. but I'll be depleted of mana if the cave goes on too long since we don't know its length."
He gave me a nod to do it and handed a glowing rainbow crystal to me secretly "use this to regain your mana quickly don't tell the others about it."
What he handed me was a synthetic scintilla very rare and only capable of holding mana.
I could hold loads with my own scintilla the only problem was the speed of recovery but now with this, I could be done in three minutes instead of an hour.
Placing my hand on the stone wall I created a series of black blades down the circular cave and started spinning them as we quickly advanced tearing apart all the crell that swarmed us until we reached the end and entered into an open underground cavern 20 minutes after I started the grinder heavily out of breath absorbing mana from the two scintillas
"that was impressive Incursik, can you tell me how to do that?"
Many of the adventurers thanked me, asking for tips while a few kept watch, I observed the area to see the Fuden twins plotting something in a dark corner that I couldn't hear but I could tell it wasn't good by Rory's dispersant face.
We set up flame-lit torches to brighten the area and searched the cave following the sound of heavy breathing from deep inside the stone cavern estranged from the lack of ice
"they said it was an ice dragon right? How come there's no, ya know... ice?"
We all increased our guard expecting the worst. My mana sense went crazy saying there was something behind us but whenever I looked I saw nothing tensing me.
"Hey over here!"
A mace wielding man in the party had found paw prints to something other than the dragon making us confused, they were about the size of a book and much larger than my hand
"I think there's a lot more down here than just a dragon" dread had set in now that our problems had grown
"I think we should leave and report to the guild. I've never seen a print like that."
Eloy looked at me asking for my opinion
"I think it's some sort of chimera maybe. If it is big the wyrm would have eaten it recently as well unless it's some sort of poison type. I think we will maybe be fine so long as we're not in its territory for long."
My analysis seemed to calm people down but then I felt my integrated chimera soul shiver and looked behind me to see a grotesque mass of flesh disgustingly shaped like a purple praying mantis mixed with a snake covered in ice charging the group behind eating half a man and spraying poison everywhere until a flashy robe wearing woman dispersed the poison with wind magic.
Several riflemen including Maarten shot at it with magic shots pushing it back, I chucked a large icicle into its chest piercing it, killing the wounded mantis.
"I thought you said we'd be okay if we weren't here for too long?" Rory's fearful remark made everyone mad at me as I walked through them pulling out the heart from the mantis seeing that it has a soul
feeding it to mine strengthening it in front of them I said "I did say maybe. But I was right about it being a chimera, if you want to lead go for I'll have no objections. Just know that I'm willing to put up with your crap brat."
The group then remained silent as I shattered the crystal heart in front of them. Maarten clicked his tongue in annoyance as I looked at him daring him to try and challenge my authority.
"Enough distractions let's go!" Eloy quickly reorganized the party and we continued our journey now a man less than we started.
We were all relieved when we found ice covering the walls with several statues of frozen red mantis' "these are fire mantis. But...why are so many down here?"
I looked at Damian in his nervous state. His conviction to help is noble but foolish though he's not the weakest here "Isn't that obvious Damian? It's to protect their nest from the ice wyrm. We were told their nest was close by."
He looked at me with sweat down his face "but then what was that chimera from before?"
Eloy then came around his other shoulder answering him "It's not unheard of for chimeras to be able to sneak into packs of creatures whose form they are somewhat similar to." Eloy's response seemed to unnerve him tensing Damian up as well as a few other scaredy cats.
"Keep your distance! Some of them may still be alive, do not touch them!" I kept an eye on the frozen red mantis' as we walked seeing if any would try to attack us.
"Hey, Rory. I'm an ice magic wielder" I looked behind me to see Maarten being an idiot standing in the lap of one of the statues acting all smug as his brother took photos of him, I could see the statue starting to shake showing the mantis was still alive and wanting to kill them.
Eloy and a shield-holding man stood beside me also observing "shouldn't we say something?"
"But do you want to Gregor?" Eloy's response caught me off guard slightly but I chuckled "we'll wait for it to break free first then well save them."
The giant red mantis then broke out screaming and Maarten shot into its head repeatedly but did no damage as it swiped across its chest smacking Maarten away "brother!"
"Is now a good time?" Gregor was worried for them but I could tell he was enjoying the show.
"Give it one more minute"
the two continued to humiliate themselves constantly attacking its head not realizing that was its strongest point of defense until Maarten finally screamed for help
"Okay, nows good"
Eloy shot a fire arrow through it into its chest and the mantis collapsed on top of Maarten covering him in pink blood as he got up through the large wound in its chest making others laugh at him. "I'll remember this."
We then continued through the long and distant field of frozen red mantis' killing the odd ones that broke free but making sure the two Fuden brothers suffered while also helping teach Damian as he managed to take one down himself after a few attempts.
"There's less breaking free from the ice now." I looked at Eloy who was growing worried himself
"must mean we're getting close then."
I heard clattering below as I moved away from the group and I peered down the stone ledge of the ravine spotting several creatures rushing to the same direction we were "hey Eloy, come check this out."
He came over peering down alongside me as many others watched the clashing of different insectoids running over each other heading further into the cavern
"where are they all heading?"
Eloy responded full of recovered hope "it seems the wyrm has made a lot of enemies from the setting up of its nest disturbing the ecosystem. If we're lucky it will be half-dead by the time we arrive."
"Please don't jinx it Eloy"
many chuckled at my response including Eloy "yeah I hope I haven't either. Let's pick up the pace people! We're getting close now so make sure to conserve your mana as much as possible!"
We continued to venture into the cavern coming across several crushed, cut and frozen corpses from several different giant insects lit up by the flames of the torches that filled the air with death.
The appalling sight steadily decreased some people's fighting will until we came to a beautiful ice dome-shaped room of ice that glistened with rainbow colors when exposed to the light of our torches.
"You think this is the nest, Eloy?"
"Judging by the number of holes all over the walls I'd have to say yes. But what do you think of that bit up there?" He pointed towards a higher part in the cave where a fence made of ice looked to be protecting something at its center
As I looked up he turned to instruct the group "get the lights set up! We'll need full visibility when it comes back! Were going to set up a trap to collapse the ceiling on top of it!"
A rumbling then shook the cave for a few seconds as people spread out setting up lights.
Screams could then be heard from down below us and several of us looked down to see a hoard of insects chasing after a brown tail
"I think your gonna need a new plan Eloy. Cuz that hoards nowhere near as big as it used to be"
A frosted breath then shot over the insects freezing them all in a large spiked cube of ice. "Yeah... well, need to drop an entire mountain on it if that's going to work aren't we?"
My excitement seemed to grow as I sensed about feeling the movements of the large snake in the wall palpable for everyone to see.
There was another name I also went by in the last two years as an adventurer and that was "battle maniac don't do anything rash we still have others to think of! You may think you can do this on your own but you cant!"
Eloy's words pulled me out of my excitement and I thanked him for straightening my mind. "So... any new ideas then Eloy?"
He pondered for a moment looking around before he responded "Only one. We create a small fort for rangers to fire out of to protect them drawing the worms' attention while the close combatants hide out and wait for it to get close then jump onto its body from that ice bridge."