12) Prince with a thousand enemies [ Never tell me the numbers ]

  The Tamer’s opening move?

  A tightly woven basket was rushed forward by two Rating clutching at its handles with outstretched arms, as if they wanted to keep the woven container as far away as possible from themselves as they jogged along with their faces turned away from their burden.

  The two Rodent men stopped at roughly ten feet short of the bottom of the shaft leading from the drainage tunnel up into my outer corridor, before they carefully set the basket down on the stone floor of the walkway.

  Then the Ratling tilted the basket over onto its side before one of them pulled the wooden stopper out of the top of the fluted neck of the thing, which was now making a rather suspicious, buzzing sound.

  Then oversized hornets, with red and black bands on their abdomens, flew out in a swarm with an angry sound. Each of their tiny eyes burning with specks of green light.

  The sign of a beast that had not only been Tamed by the Goblin, but was under his direct control.

  Viola gasped, then identified the bugs to me, with a note of alarm, as “Dire Wasps.” Just before the insects began to fly up the shaft all as a group. At this time, I allowed myself a moment to think.

  How does that work for a Tamer, controlling a group of insects like that?

  I was under the impression that just like I was limited to having a number of Totems summoned that was equal to my Spirit Score, which, as my Fairy has told me numerous times, was very high. Therefore, it should be safe to assume that a Tamer must also be limited in some way as to the number of Beasts they could Tame.

  Or, at the very least, a Tamer should have to be limited in some way as to how many Beasts they could take direct control of at the same time. And a swarm of creatures seemed to be a mite too many.

  There is no way some random Goblin had a Spirit Score as high as mine own. I mean, I’m supposed to be something new, unique, even special? Right? And I doubted just Class abilities would be letting him control what looked to be something like several dozen Dire Wasps in addition to the four Lizards and the Boar, whose eyes were a glow.

  So what was going on here? Were Tamers that different from Summoners? And am I running out of time here?

  As the first of the Wasps began to hit the lowest strands of the Crystalline Webbing that had been made by my Earth Spider, I Dismissed the Arachnid, and then Resummoned them in my stairway to begin creating more webbing inside my second line of defense.

  And this time, I joined him.

  Using the Earth Spider’s own innate spell to draw lines made up of magic from one spot to another before anchoring it to another, and then allowing the Magic to solidify the strand into crystal webbing.

  It was actually kind of fun. I would have to try this out again under less dangerous circumstances.

  In fact, I had to wonder if I could spin the webbing into a thread, or rather some kind of yarn, and then knit it into something like a form of armor for some of my Summons. Or even Viola.

  Of course, I would need one of my Summons that had hands to do the work. Probably the Undine, as polished knitting needles would slip out of the Skeleton’s bony fingers. But then again, the webbing in between the Undine's fingers wasn’t much good for fine tool work like knitting.

  Just as heated pebbles poured out of the brass brazier were not very good for Dire Wasps.

  The heat of the open flame inside the enchanted brazier had been making the smaller stones directly around the flame break open with snapping sounds I frankly hadn’t been paying all that much attention to. Even broken up, the shattered stone was too big to do much to the Wasps, but at least some of the smaller shards that stuck to the webbing did something.

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  Not that melting the webbing was a good thing for me, but it did prove the concept. I’ll take my victories when I can.

  Dire Wasps getting caught on the majority of still intact sticky webbing was doing a lot more than the falling stone. As each wasp hit a strand, they struck the webbing with enough impact to cause the line to vibrate even as the insects became stuck.

  And the webbing, nearly as thin as a real stand of spider silk, was sharp enough to tear in deeper and deeper into the carapace of the trapped Wasps as the strands shook.

  Down below, the two Ratlings, which had unstoppered and tipped the basket over, leapt back from the shower of stones which snapped into even smaller pieces as they struck the floor at the bottom of the shaft.

  Followed by some bits and pieces of Dire Wasp.

  All told, I think the webs and, at best, slightly heated stones took out around twenty of the Wasps. A near quarter of them.

  For something meant to take out full sized Ratling, the plan had done fairly well against the unexpected, and relatively small, Dire Wasps.

  The surviving ones, however, upon reaching the top of the shaft, piled onto the Undine and Skeleton.

  The latter of which, the wasps weren’t doing all that much to. Stingers don’t penetrate bone that well, and even if they did, what was the venom going to do to a walking arrangement of bones? And the Dire Wasps' mandibles could barely stretch around even the Skeleton’s smallest bones, let alone pinch down hard enough to do any damage.

  On the other hand... can I even use that saying when I don’t have hands? Hrmmm...on the Skeleton’s other hand, stingers, venom, and even mandibles worked all too well on the Undine’s flesh. Even when that flesh was covered with a fine layer of scales.

  Viola gasped. “Oh, poor Nemo. Can’t you poof him so he doesn't suffer Fell?”

  The Undine didn’t look much like they were suffering. I mean, yes, they were bleeding all over the place and being torn apart one tiny bite at a time. But it wasn’t like they were feeling any pain.

  Instead, they, the Undine and the Skeleton, were slapping, rather ineffectively, at the Wasps as they landed on the two of them, stingers first. But despite my Summons' effort, the Wasp continued to either try, in the case of the Skeleton, or succeed, in the case of the Undine, in tearing into my Summons with their bites.

  “The Undine can’t feel pain Viola. And each sting they take drains the Wasps of their Venom.”

  The Fairy grimaced, began to look thoughtful, and then shrugged. “I guess he won’t mind if you are being this cold blooded Fell. After all, he is too.”

  Hrmmm? Oh. Fish man. Cold blooded. I let out a “Hrm.” out loud to acknowledge Viola’s quip before she could start poking my Core with her elbows while chanting “Did you get it? Did you?” over and over again.

  I knew the Fairie’s tricks.

  But my Summons needed some new ones. “You two. Stop slapping at them and try grabbing at them when they use their stingers. Then crush them in your grips.”

  That worked better. The two Summons didn’t grab nearly as many Wasps as when they had been swatting them. But instead of stunning the insect with the Summons's slaps that hit, the two of them instead managed to crush the one they could grab a hold of. Once turned into gooey messes before getting dropped to the ground meant that the Wasps were not getting up again.

  The fact that doing grossed out the Fairy was a bonus. “Ewww… Fell, I’m not going to clean that up.”

  “You don’t have to Viola. Those slug things out there will take care of it.” Looking more closely at the gooey mess on the ground, or caking my Summons’ hands, I was disappointed not to see any Cores.

  Not surprised, which I should have been, since Dire creatures should have Cores, but I had fully expected a Goblin that was willing to steal a Core’s pot would have some way of denying a Core’s rightfully gained Beast Cores.

  I hate him so much.

  With only half of the Swarm killed, the Undine had finally taken enough damage and vanished in a poof of orangish red mist, which began to flow back toward the center of my domain instead of dissipating into the air.

  Which is what normally happened to the Magic from slain Summons for substandard Summoners, but not to a Core Summoner like myself.

  From below in the drainage tunnel, a shrill voice cried out as each and every Wasp turned in place to watch the physical manifestation of the Magic I was recovering from my slain Summons returned to me, and went right back into my Magic pool to be used again.

  “Hax! I call Hax! That is some Vile bullshit Fell!”

  Pot thief calling the kettle black, enemy mine.

  Viola lifted her hands away from my Core and held them alongside her mouth.

  “Suck the pipe Torb! My boy Fell is all Registra approved! The system itself is backing my guy, and you are S. K. R. U. I… W… Screwed!”

  The Fairy flew out from my Core’s shelf so she could stand up straight as she hovered in the air, borne aloft by her gossamer wings. Viola finished yelling and then set her hands on her hips as she grinned while looking over at my Core.

  “Too bad he couldn’t hear any of that. Otherwise, I would have gotten him good.”

  Hrmmm. “Of course.”

  “Undine.”

  My Water Summons appeared from an orangish red Summoning circle, which had an interior filled with a greenish haze that matched the color of the Undine’s original Core, which I had turned into a Totem.

  A circle which I had called into being right next to the Goat’s water filled trough.

  “Remote Viewing.”

  I acquired a new focus of sight above the head of the Summons.

  “Puddle Jump.”

  My second perspective changed from the room filled with dry rotting straw, to a view of an infinite ocean which had never seen sunlight. From there, my view changed to a water, or mostly water filled underground channel cut into the floor of the drainage tunnel as the Undine transported itself from the water of the trough, to a section of that tunnel that ran through my Domain.

  From there, the Undine began to move along under the waters and out of my Domain.

  Hopefully, my Summons would make it all the way up the drainage tunnel to get along the side of the Goblin Tamer.