[X] Plan Minimax + Social
-[X] Give back six artifacts, keep Glasses and Earphones
--[X] Test out Pin by incorporating it into a Mask before giving it away
-[X] Enhance Mask (Arcanist's Mask): 6 Dwindlings
-[X] Enhanced Noble Cloak: 1 Dwindling, 2 Import
---
The Sea Urchin
The Pin, it seemed, didn't do anything - at least nothing short-term - so they handed it over once everyone rendezvoused.
"Given the common aphorism, 'pull the pin,' it might've been a red herring," the doctor theorized, musing out loud, rather than on the radio. "Or it had a function akin to energy accumulation, with the pin being pulled only once you wished to discharge that energy. Or, by putting the pin in something, you might make it easier to return to?"
The city was divided into north and south by a vast river, called the Airet. They were crossing a bridge over the estuary now alongside three other search teams, each one on watch for wildlife. One had already crossed, one was moving ahead of them, and one was waiting behind them, covering the rear as everyone else crossed.
Hundreds of yards under the concrete walkway, the torrential waters rushed with undiminished ferocity, seeking union with the sea. The flow was disrupted in a great number of locations where hydrophilic organisms made themselves a stationary home, including mutated cycads and trees of titanic size, some of their crowns reaching almost the same level as the bridge. The doctor made a casual remark of seeing tadpoles the size of puppy dogs, deep beneath the surface, amidst vast groves of giant kelp. There were fish swarms further out, where pine woods had colonized the beaches, and cypresses started to convert the near sections of the sea into a twisted mangrove.
The forest was merciless. Ruthless. It had invaded even the seawater, despite the salt's inimicality to life.
'Everything wishes to proliferate, to become more and more,' the earphones said. 'Life included.'
Curious, he asked once again.
'There is a predator out in those waters; once a humble organism, it awoke to something like sapience when the forest filled it with great vitality. It sensed your intercession here and now contemplates when to emerge and feast on you.'
"You've taken a liking to those earphones, haven't you, Dorian?" asked Japhris with a wide, cheerful smile, unaware of what Dorian heard.
"We're in danger," Dorian remarked calmly.
She stared at him. Andrei looked over, as did Linneas after a moment, tearing his eyes away from the front of the bridge.
"Danger?" asked the doctor, stopping abruptly and removing the helmet's faceplate, to better mount his mask if needed.
As if counter-alerted, the sea produced a sudden avalanche of sound, like a great tsunami had formed within the span of a second and fallen on the banks. Great waves of foam broke against the trees on the beachside, like a sudden buffeting of wind across the branches, as mangroves were forcefully uprooted and ripped from their comfortable resting positions, as a titanic beast rose from the turbulent waves. It seemed deceptively small and insignificant compared to most of the forest trees around them, but its size became terrifying when contemplated on a relative scale, as the creature was bigger than most of the surviving buildings they'd visited.
It didn't resemble a tiger or a wolf as one might've expected of the forest's beasts, or even a fish or lizard or some other organism that may enjoy the water, but rather, something almost like a ginormous black exoskeletal globe, with hundreds if not thousands of frightfully straight and sharp black spines protruding from its form, accounting for more than nine-tenths of its effective volume; a ball no larger than a van, that stood on spikes as long as some buildings were tall.
"A sea urchin..." whispered the doctor, eyes wide with astonishment and wonder, "How can it maintain such a size?"
His eyes narrowed with intense focus, as if wishing to observe the creature's body in more detail, then widened.
With horror.
Dorian noticed it as well, a moment later with Viscerally augmented vision.
On the sea urchin's spikes were men, speared like meat on a shish-kebab, or beads on an amulet. Alive, still, somehow. Their limbs moved languidly, clutching to the spikes for even a faint repose from gravity now that they weren't submerged. Their mouths coughed out water. Hundreds of people, if not thousands.
"How is that possible?" uttered Dorian with disbelief.
To Dorian's sides, Japhris and Linneas were reacting with delay - from this distance, it took a moment to comprehend what the writhing figures were. Linneas blanched slightly, then hardened his features, while Japhris' eyes widened with fear.
"I don't know, Dorian," admitted the doctor with a cold voice. "From what I can see from over here, it has somehow connected itself to their bodily tissue, with small dark clusters of nerve - or perhaps capillaries. I don't know what benefit it derives from keeping its victims alive like this."
'It feeds on misery,' the earphones helpfully provided when asked about the sea urchin. 'It is not attacking yet, drinking in the shock and horror your reactions provide.'
'A sea urchin. Once it dwelled on the bottom of the ocean. Then it became the epicenter of something like a Dwindling.'
'A monster of nature. It wishes to feed.'
The earphones fell into silent static when asked to tell more.
The radio buzzed, as the squad leader's voice asked them, "Team three, why have you stopped?"
"Look at the damn sea with your binoculars, sarge," answered Dorian, after a moment's delay.
There was a moment of silence.
"Holy mother of fuck, what the fuck is that thing?" asked someone else.
"Cut the chatter," the sergeant interrupted, and immediately started to give out commands, "Teams three and four, hurry along the bridge. Beat a full retreat. No telling when this thing starts to attack. One and two, maintain observation of the target. We're retreating north, we have a fallback with the assault platoon here."
"I don't know if the assault platoon can fucking take this thing in a fight, sergeant," one of the other team leaders radioed.
"If they can't, then we're all screwed anyway," the sergeant said. "Now move it."
They did, running as fast as they could across the bridge, dropping excess equipment as needed - all calm and caution abandoned. As a natural consequence of his enhancements, Dorian was an edge faster than anyone else on his team, but made sure not to sprint too far ahead.
This reaction, however, caused the ball to start rolling towards them. The sea urchin moved, spikes tearing across the wilderness, uninhibited by trees. It tore through the plants on top of the river and left behind a path of ruination, the victims on its skewers screaming and crying loudly as they were wheeled around faster than a car, or spun like tops, in the case of those on its sides. Its spikes came out of the waters with countless small amphibian creatures impaled, leaving behind quickly expanding crimson waters. However, unlike humans, it had no interest in them, allowing them to slide free instead of integrating them with itself and making sure they stayed alive.
Dorian's teammates almost reached the bridge's northern end. The other teams ahead of them had shamelessly already started running down towards the assault team rendezvous, as it was clear no amount of fire support from their mundane firearms would even scratch the monster - let alone slow down its movement.
That was when the monstrous sea urchin started climbing the gorge the river had carved out. Its dark skewers burrowed into the earth and rock, tearing into the cliffside, as it slowly and meticulously crawled upwards like a wheel on tape. There was no doubt in Dorian's mind that if nothing was done to save them, team four would become its newest victims; they were over a hundred meters behind, and the monster almost already caught up with them. As soon as it finished climbing, it'd have to turn one corner to move onto the bridge, and then it'd have a straight line to roll across - it'd likely catch team four as they were on the exact spot Dorian was standing on right now.
"How can it even sense us?" asked Andrei with an uncharacteristically irritated growl. "It shouldn't have such a capability!"
"I didn't want to tell you, but it feeds on misery," answered Dorian, huffing as he ran. "Perhaps it is spatially aware of where its food is coming from."
That must've been why it chose to climb the other bank, rather than attempting to move on an intercept course. Team four, realizing they're about to get left behind and face doom, must've produced a far more poignant meal. This meant it wasn't too smart or tactical, either - simply a dull creature, enhanced beyond wit.
"Magical demon sea urchins," Linneas muttered disbelievingly as he continued to sprint. "Just what we needed."
"Should we try fighting instead?" asked Japhris, clearly concerned not only for herself but also for the wellbeing of the team behind them. "We caused this. The Dwindlings must've attracted this monster." At the argument, Dorian's feet slidded as he stopped running. This caused Linneas and Japhris, then Andrei, to do the same.
Annoyed by how much of a note the argument struck with him, Dorian considered how to slow the beast down. Slaying it outright seemed like it could be a near-impossible task, at least not without support to act as a distraction or a good opportunity. "Can you use the forest's mana to reify some barriers? Preferably on the bridge itself?"
"With the new mask, yes," she answered with a confident nod. She sounded determined, as if fighting this evil were her purpose in life.
"Don't do that," interrupted Andrei immediately. "It'll crush them with ease. Instead, wait for it to almost climb up, and then crush the bridge by destroying its supports. It'll need to climb down and then climb back up, providing us with double the time to escape."
"Won't that kill off team four as well?" asked Japhris.
The doctor shook his head. "They're wearing power armor, so I should be able to pull them in with Fulminance even from this distance. They'll break some bones, but it's better than what the urchin will do to them. We'll have some questions to answer, though."
"What if we waited?" asked Dorian. "Until it's on the bridge? Then drop it so it dies or gets hurt from the fall?"
"Too much risk," said Andrei, shaking his head. "Also, it'll fall into water and plant life, which'll cushion its fall. I doubt this'd work on land either since its spikes look flexible enough that it should be able to amortize virtually any fall. If you wanted to kill it, you'd have to attack that core at the center with a truly powerful attack."
Away from them, the sea urchin was almost finished climbing - and team four was only about halfway across the bridge.
---
Tactics advisable.
[ ] Break the Bridge (Early) - Direct Japhris and use Gamaliel Contamination Protocol to collapse the bridge such that it'll slow the monster down, denying it the ability to cross in pursuit of you. Essentially triples the time you have to escape and plan, if it succeeds.
[ ] Break the Bridge (Late) - A riskier gambit. Wait until the sea urchin's on the bridge itself, to drop it from a vast height in hopes of inflicting some extra damage on it. This is unlikely to slay it, but might further slow it down by snapping some of its spines.
[ ] Mana Missile - A suicidal gambit if it doesn't work. Otherwise, an excellent idea. Instead of collapsing bridges, order Japhris to accumulate mana and attack the creature's core with the collected power. With the improved Arcanist's Mask, she's almost assured to slay the monster if her missile hits its center, or grievously harm it otherwise.
[ ] Slay the Beast - An avenue undiscussed with your comrades, perhaps because it sounds almost suicidal on paper: attack the creature directly. It has some fine control over its spikes, but you are faster than any human it has ever met. If you can catch onto one of its spikes and avoid falling off from turbulence, you'll be able to climb to its core. From there, as Andrei said, all it'll take is a truly powerful attack.
Don the Crimson Lost, and become a Hunter instead.
[ ] Try Gamaliel Contamination - Directly on the creature itself, or its surroundings.
-[ ] How? (Write-in)
[ ] Write-in
