The forest stretched out to the horizon below as I laid by the edge of the cliff, looking out at it.
A dozen constructs buzzing about all across it in a search pattern and I had sent out a dozen more a bit earlier.
One of them had to be close enough to spot whatever those strange snake things appeared, be it by portal or planeswalking or whatever.
No method of travel was silent magicwise and I put good sensors on them.
"Nothing yet?" Chromie asked as she dropped down to sit on the edge next to my head.
"Not yet," I confirmed, "But you didn't think they'd show up for another few days."
Chromie shrugged, "As far as we know anyway. We never managed to pin it down definitively."
I shifted to look at her with my closest eye, "So they may already be here?"
She shook her head, "Very unlikely," before she shrugged slightly again, "...But not impossible."
I growled and looked out at the forest, "We should send out our summons to see what they can find," I then sighed and relaxed again, "But that's a lot of forest to cover."
Chromie nodded, "I have agents of the Flight out as well," she said and reached to pat my head, "We'll find it, don't worry."
I snorted, "It feels like all I do nowadays is worry."
Chromie smiled and shook her head, "Welcome to the club," she said and climbed to her feet, heading back towards the ship.
Flexing my claws, I dug them into the stone beneath myself before I flicked my head, causing my helmet to deploy and I activated the magic viewing part of my helmet, looking out over the forest. Nothing visible, just the general background radiation of magic that was everywhere.
No, that was wrong. There was a spot of magic in the distance in the sky. It had wings and slowly got larger as it got closer.
Wrathion circled once and then came down to land next to me. I flicked my head to make the helmet fold back down, "Anything?" I asked him.
Wrathion shook his head, "Nothing," he said, "Not yet anyway."
Nodding, I moved to sit up, suppressing a yawn before looking out over the forest again. I wish they would show up already!
"Do you think we will have to deploy the device?" Wrathion asked as he walked up next to me, "Chromie didn't sound happy about the possibility."
"She's not," I confirmed, "If we do, it would involve a lot of damage control from her and her flight."
Wrathion nodded and then looked at me, "We should try fighting first, bring in as many bronze as we can."
"I don't know," I said and thumped my tail club against the stone, digging my claws into the rock, "These beings are dangerous. That may be an unnecessary risk."
"You and Alexis have summons so send in. I have some as well and so does Umbria."
"Ren and Sheila too," I said thoughtfully, "Maybe. We'd have to run it past Chromie, but it may be worth a try? Good idea."
With all our summons, we'd be able to put out a fairly significant force even if we didn't fight ourselves. Alexis actually had stronger summons than I did, even if mine were more varied. Well, not sure her squid would be useful here, but still.
Not a bad idea at all.
"Hmm," I said and looked out over the forest, "Still, I think I'll send out Witcher and Rogue, they are good at tracking. I'll send them out and see if they can find anything," I said before I took to the air, circling down to the forest below before landing in the shadow of a massive tree.
The cool in the shade of the trees felt nice against the burning sun above. We were close to the equator and it was hot, too hot for me to be comfortable to be honest.
The shadow down here helped a little however and I focused, summoning Witcher and then Rogue before I looked at them, "We are looking for large snakelike creatures somewhere in this forest. They have triangular heads and one limb each. Search and locate," I ordered before I turned my head and cast a quick spell to float a pair of crystals from my satchel, floating them to them, one each, "Shatter this when you find something and we will be alerted of your position. Go."
The witcher and the elf both turned and ran into the forest.
Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky.
I mean, it has to happen at some point just from pure statistics, right?
Yeah, I didn't think so either.
Stretching, I took in the scent of the forest before I took back to the sky, climbing back up towards the cliff the ship was landed on.
We had enough materials to make some more little thopters, I could still improve the search grid and increase our odds.
Hmm.
Maybe if I made some modified ones with giant eyes? Dubious because all the trees, but having look down capability would be useful outside of the range of a scrying spell.
#########
"Contact!"
I raised my head and looked over at Alexis, "Where?"
She shook her head, "My summon just died," she said and climbed to her feet, looking out over the forest.
"Which one?"
"One of the human guards," she said, "They are… somewhere in that direction," she then added and pointed.
I looked over there and activated a pair of small flying constructs. The head sized clockwork and enchantment constructs took to the air on buzzing dragonfly wings, buzzing out across the jungle.
"Any idea of what it was?" I asked.
She shook her head and then looked at me, "No. Anything on the sensor net?"
I growled and shook my head, "No. But we don't exactly have full coverage," before I turned into my mortal form, "I'll get the ship ready."
Chromie came running as I turned towards the ship, "What's happening?"
"Something killed one of Alexis summons," I said, "I dispatched a pair of scouts. Are the rest back yet?"
Chromie shook her head, "They should be soon, they went hunting hours ago."
I nodded and continued towards the ship, "I'll get the ship ready, we're lifting off as soon as they return."
I both hoped and feared that it was the contact we had been waiting for.
Hoped because it might soon be over and we can go home. Feared because… what if we couldn't handle it? Even with the bomb.
What if we really fucked up the future in the process, in a way the Bronze couldn't fix?
Timetravel is fucking terrifying.
I touched the wall of the ship and the light crystals inside lit up as I walked over to the control orb to bring up the viewpoints of the flying constructs heading across the forest in the direction of the lost guard.
Seriously, if it just got eaten by another fucking Revasaur…
"Chromie said we had something?" Sheila said as she walked into the ship, followed by Ren, Wrathion and Umbria. Chromie and Alexis also followed them inside.
"We're about to find out," I said and studied the view points, my hand on the control orb, "they should be getting close around now."
"There!" Umbria said and pointed, "Did you see that?"
"I did," I said and shifted both constructs around, one raising higher and the other going in lower towards the break in the forest where there had been movement.
It lowered beneath the branches, buzzing along in metal wings, slowly shifted towards the side as it panned, going lower towards the underbrush.
Something threw itself towards it, single clawed leg raised to strike, the green mottled snake like body hitting it and even as we watched it strike the construct, causing both to go tumbling towards the ground below.
As they hit the ground, a trio more of the snake like creatures attacked it in turn. I shifted the other construct a bit higher, trying to get a good angle towards the ground to see better.
There was a number of the creatures but I was unable to see how many, they melted way into their environment but I could have sworn there was a really big one there as well.
"That's them," Chromie said quietly, "How do we do this?"
"Alexis," I said, "Dismiss and resummon your angel. I need her to deliver and deliver the device, I don't want any of us anywhere close to this thing when it goes off."
Alexis nodded and headed for the exit and I turned to Sheila.
Sheila stepped over to her bag and pulled out the little sphere of horrible death before handing it over to me.
It was teeming with mana, full to the brim and fully charged.
Absolutely fucking lethal and terrifying and I'm saying that as somebody that built the fucking thing.
I nodded, "Everyone else stay here. The moment we set this off we're leaving, I want to be as far away from it as possible when it goes off."
Ren stepped up and put her hand on the control orb, "Ready."
Giving her a smile, I headed to step out of the exit and joined Alexis and her angle. I looked at the angel, "Do you know where you need to go?" I asked her.
She nodded, "Yes, Master Atregos. I know what I'm looking for. What do I do when I get there?"
I held the orb up, giving it a series of pulses of magic to arm it before I handed it over very carefully, "See the crystal on the top?" I said.
"I do."
"Smash it hard with the pommel of your sword."
"I understand," she said and turned to Alexis.
"Go."
The angel bowed and then took to the air.
"And that's our cue to de-tail the area," I said and ran towards the ship.
"We're already far away!" Alexis yelled and ran along, "Is it really dangerous here too!?"
"I don't think so, but I don't want to risk it, I put a lot of boom into that thing!" I answered and stopped to close the exit as she passed me inside, "Ren! Go!"
The deck shifted beneath us and the ship accelerated into the air and then away from the point.
"Still not too late to call it off and try fighting them," Wrathion said, looking at Chromie, "Wouldn't that be safer for the timeline?"
"Not if you die doing it," she said quietly, "As long as it doesn't blow up the continent, it can be fixed."
"I'm almost sure it won't. Fairly sure it won't be more powerful than a large tactical nuke. Not even in the megaton range. Surely less than a hundred kilotons. I think. The math is complicated and I didn't have a lot of time. I may have missed an exponent."
Alexis stared at me for a long moment before she looked at Ren, "Ren. Faster. Fly faster!"
