Firm: Opal’s Story

Empyrea

I'm back. I apologize for not informing readers here about the impending post-volume break like I did on Discord. Even then it was longer than expected due to some burnout I was struggling with. It turns out people were right when they suggested I take some days off. For now at least I won't normally be posting on Tuesdays and Thursdays to try and keep it from getting as bad again. Thank you all for reading my novel so far and I'll try to keep everyone updated properly in the future.

-POV Pops-

I watch as black smoke billows into the distant sky. Damn, Opal really started a forest fire didn’t she? The leader of the squad I sent with her just finished giving me a brief rundown. Some kind of special boss monster and waves of suv-sized spiders. He apparently saw my mother-in-law use some sort of circular fire skill. So unless the godforsaken spiders can breathe flames, the burning I see miles away has to be her doing.

The spiders started as a trickle, chasing the skirts of the squad, but we’re getting more and more now. From the report, we’ll probably have a full horde of them hitting our walls soon. Fucki-… Damned spiders. I shake my head, realizing I gotta stop swearing inside if I want to stop saying it out loud accidentally. Snow took away my anal privileges last time I swore around a kid. The poor squad leader was distraught for leaving Opal behind, thinking that she’s surely a goner already. I couldn’t help but smile at that and tell him she’ll be fine. I guess the kids didn’t realize who I sent to shadow them.

The boss spider could be capable of hurting her, but from Citrine’s report, it fucked off towards Ruby’s Rest. She didn’t have details about how Opal was fighting the spiders, but she didn’t mention her mother being in trouble either. I’ll assume she’s fine then. Obviously. The smoke in the distance might mean she’s barbecuing the creepy shits. As long as the fire doesn’t spread too far, we’ll have plenty of people with rain skills to put it out anyway.

Our only disadvantage of her being out there kicking spider ass, is that we aren’t getting the normal up to date stream of information from the other towns. I signal for my archers to take out 10 more of the spiders headed towards the walls. I hope she can get a body here quick. Jessica is practically breathing down my neck for updates that I just don’t have.

-POV End-

Opal’s Bunny body

My fire hounds have made a huge ring around the summoning portal, and the numbers just keep going up. There are more spiders dying than hounds, mostly due to the large explosions when they get taken out. Another fireball envelops my body from a nearby example, and I sigh. Well at least my Lofty body is able to smash the things uninterrupted. If lessening the huge mass of monsters wasn’t important, I might have canceled the skill already. I know it’s counting them as my kills, but it’s just not as fun when a summon takes them out.

There doesn’t seem to be an end to the spiders surrounding me. They climb over the charred corpses, which turn to dust after a few explosions. It’s difficult to get a clear picture most of the time. Jumping into the air helps less and less as thick smoke and ash billow from the corpses and trees. The surrounding forest is already cinders, but the wind changes and carries more my way. The fight here would be less miserable if it were my Hellbitch body instead. Probably. Well, I’m stuck in some cum cavity with it, so there’s not much I can do to swap.

I get an idea, but quickly dismiss it. My hound body doesn’t have the paired piercing, so I can’t swap with Amber to give birth if I can’t get out. As I fight with my wife’s cow body, I can tell she’s not used to that spear yet. Her stats and tier are more than compensating for it though, and she’s killing more of them than I am with my lofty body. She must have gotten another level. Each one at her tier gives huge amounts of stats, and would explain the difference. I’m happy for my wife, and continue to support her with tendrils from my riding spot between her breasts. Our other bodies and her sisters should be here soon to help out.

Anyone below 7^th tier is being kept back for defense. There are just so many spiders in the wave, that 6^th tiers like the squad I was with would get drowned in hairy spider bodies unable to defend themselves. If they get to the walls, we’ll have to hope they slow down the tide well enough to make a difference. Citrine still hasn’t hit 7^th tier with everything she’s been dealing with lately. I hope she doesn’t feel left out once everyone else starts fighting. My angel daughter is basically acting as transportation and messenger right now. She’ll be getting back to Barrier with Cindy and her body some time today and should be able to do more. I just don’t know how long it will take us to deal with these things.

A couple hours later

As my one Eidolon and four normal bodies approach the advancing wave with Sapphire, she points to our left and yells “The arrow pointing towards your hound body has been in that direction for a while. It’s not headed towards any Land we own or know about, but you must be pretty far away already if there’s that little of a difference.” I can kind of understand her reasoning. If I was closer, then the arrow would have a bigger change in direction over time since we aren’t heading straight at it. I can see something similar with my own arrows. Luckily not being able to see around me doesn’t stop me from seeing tracking arrows.

I rush forward, placing tons of tendrils to get attention and slow their advance, Sapphire stays back and pulls out her bow. I stop one of my running bodies to stay near her. She might need some cover once the wave hits her location. I hear a roar from behind us, and watch as fire rains down on a line of spiders. Pearl and her husband Marble aren’t high tier, but flying keeps them away from danger. I see lightning fork off a few of the monsters, and realize that Marble might have taken mage classes to better fight with his wife. Their skills aren’t killing a lot of spiders, but they’re safe and every little bit helps at this point.

They probably would have gotten to the fighting much sooner, but Pearl was busy laying the couple’s first egg. The only reason she was willing to leave it at all was because I promised I’d watch over it with my body staying behind for healing. Amber’s other body should join us soon. She’s well known now in Opal’s Home, but Morganite isn’t. So she couldn’t get people moving fast enough and my wife had to help. She’ll be bringing a lot of 7^th tiers with her. Hopefully.

Sapphire’s other body already spread news to Ruby, who’s going to be in charge of the overall defense movements on our Land. By now I know we won’t be able to hold all of these spiders back, so it will be important to have someone who’s good with that stuff be in charge.

Rain starts to fall as my bodies hit the front line of spiders. I don’t feel the tingle of healing, so this must be the new skill Sapphire told me about. I hear pained shrieks from the spiders around me, even over the sounds of crushing shells. I smile. It’s always comforting when my babies get stronger. It means I have to worry less about them getting hurt again. I can’t let up though. She said the skill doesn’t do damage, it just causes pain and lowers a lot of the enemy’s stats. She shoots off arrows that pierce several spiders in a line before stopping, but we’re soon surrounded and pushed against each other.

With my Eidolon body, it’s easier to stay out of the way of my daughter’s moving limbs as she switches to her daggers. My tank class’s skills finally come in handy, and my body gets shunted in different directions, blocking blows that might have dealt damage to her. My other bodies are still nearby but I can’t see them past the masses of spider limbs. One spider lunges it’s fangs at Sapphire’s arm, only to hit the top of my head. I think this skill would have been a problem if I weren’t so tough.

The Stamina use isn’t really a problem. With so many bodies, and at this tier, I’m regenerating quicker than it gets used. The reason I’ll advise any of my kids not to use a skill like this is the fact it doesn’t care where I get hit to do the blocking. Everyone else has squishy parts that it might have put in harm’s way by now. I would be using it with my tiny body targeting Amber, but she doesn’t seem to be taking damage from the spiders either, and I’m not sure if I’d get hit far away by a strong strike. It’s a skill that I don’t get a lot of chances to use, so it hasn’t been tested for that yet.

About 30 minutes later, the spiders around Sapphire and my 5 bodies start dying. Even the ones we haven’t done anything to just start falling over dead. Why though? I jump up and see that there are more spiders scrambling over their dead comrades toward us, but they’re pretty far away. Finally able to hear again, Sapphire yells to me “I think it’s your damaging aura skill! My rain can increase the damage dealt to enemies, and you have five bodies here! I can’t think of anything else it would be!” I could probably hear her now without the shouting, but maybe she got used to the loudness being a problem.

What she says makes sense. My other bodies are too far away from each other, and the spiders could probably just regenerate through the damage that one body puts out. It’s a nice discovery in dealing with the spider problem, but when I jumped it’s barely made a dent in the wave that even now passes us by and moves towards Ruby’s Rest. It does give my daughter and I some breathing room before more spiders get to us, and she says “Cast your tendrils and see if you can make them hold me higher up!” She’s a little quieter now, but still yelling.

I cast Dark Tendrils and try to think about them sticking straight up in the center. I already know they can’t hold me. I’ve tried using them to cross streams while escorting the frogs, but my babies aren’t heavy so it’s worth a try. She jumps up and balances on the tip of the highest tendril, but it slowly bends and she starts descending again. I’m about to consider the idea a failure, when a second tendril shoots up and she moves over to it. It starts bending as well, but gets replaced quickly by another. It’s not exactly working like I thought it would, but Sapphire is agile enough to move from tendril to tendril while shooting.

The spiders get back to us, and I fight them at the base of the tendrils. They don’t seem that smart, and focus on me. I guess they don’t realize a concentrated attack on the tendrils might bring my daughter down here with me. She’ll be getting many more kills from now on. Luckily she no longer has to create her arrows from trees, and instead makes them using just a skill. Otherwise, I think she’d run out and not have the time to get to a tree. With so many of the hairy spiders rushing around us, they’ve pulverized the poor weak plants. Today is definitely a bad day for trees.

-POV Citrine-

I fly through the wall of smoke created by the burning of spiders and trees below me. I spot mom after a little searching, and see her sitting down next to a flaming disk that seems to be constantly spitting out fire dogs… well, they’re probably supposed to be hounds, but it’s hard to make out the exact features. I sigh and dive down. She told me about this new skill of hers and seeing the dogs explode in the distance, I can understand her reluctance to use it against the slavers. Mom seems to be drawing in the ash layer with a bored look on her face. It’s likely she can’t get too far away from the portal, and her summons have already pushed beyond that. I land next to her and say “Mom.” She looks up and smiles, quickly getting to her feet and giving me a hug. “Citrine! How’s everything going? I haven’t gotten any news since setting out.” She asks, and I squeeze her back.

I answer “They’ll pass by Ruby’s Rest if left alone and hit Central, so everyone is making a plan to redirect them.” The fort being a much more defensible location than Central. I continue “I’m on my way to see how Barrier is doing and update them. How is the fighting with your other bodies going?” Mom lets me out of the hug and replies “Nothing dangerous for us. It’s hard to tell if we’re making a difference though. Oh right! One of my bodies is stuck inside the boss spider still, but Sapphire says it’s headed away from anything we know about… I can’t remember the direction.” I guess Amber wasn’t able to get her out, but her marriage to my blue haired sister will let us track it.

If she’s right about it changing course, then we just have to deal with the normal giant spiders for now. One of our biggest concerns was the boss plowing through all our obstructions, letting the masses through. So other than mom being stuck in the thing, it’s great news. I am a bit worried, I was swallowed by a tentacle abomination in my last life, and it was not an enjoyable experience. Mom isn’t likely to be affected by stomach acids though. I’m sure she’ll be fine.

Remembering the way she said the first part, I tell her “You’re doing a great job mom, because of your and my sister’s efforts, the spider swarm is more stretched out and won’t hit us all at once. From what I can tell from the sky, the hounds from your skill are even holding a third of the spiders here.” She lets out a relived sigh and I give her a kiss on the cheek finishing “Keep up the good work mom and leave the rest to us. We won’t let you down.”

She squeezes me tightly again and wiggles. Can’t have my wonderful mom doubting herself. She really is doing the most to deal with this threat. A massive hidden boss was diverted, and we have time to prepare.

-POV End-