{{ Hey, if you can negotiate with enemy leaders in the middle of a firefight, you should be able to talk and cum at the same time, }} was Eliza’s response.
{{ Well, we’d better get dressed, }} Veronica replied, standing up before she could get sucked into another sexual encounter.
“No fun,” Eliza grumbled, looking for her pants.
———— —————
At Fort Crass . . .
———— —————
Eliza’s team pulled into the hangar where all the Living Jewels were being kept. The United States government and the World Council had four of the eight that the scribes and scientists had been able to identify from information in the Arcanum. They had The Dead Man’s World, The Ocean’s Heart, The Alchemist’s Dream, and The Spear of God. After some hit and run struggles, the Purity had gotten their hands on The Child of the Sun, which apparently involved some kind of containment magic. The Heaven’s Eye had been lost when the dimensional rift had been closed, and could possible be on the Terran side. That left two gems; The Serpent’s Kiss and The Dragon’s Breath unaccounted for, and that made Eliza nervous. Did the Purity have them or were they still out there somewhere? If their enemies indeed had The Dragon’s Breath, then all hope of reuniting Earth and Terra were lost. But Eliza didn’t think that was the case. There were still too many rumors of Purity movements. If they had The Dragon’s Breath, the Purity might well go underground and disappear.
Captain Corbin was obviously eagerly awaiting their presence. No sooner than the team had gotten out of the car than he was gesturing for them to join him. He was standing near a table with a map of the world laid out. “So glad you’re here,” he said. He looked Eliza dead in the eyes. “I think we’ve got a lead on The Dragon’s Breath.”
The team went silent but jittery. This was the news they had all been waiting for. “How? Where?”
“Here,” he said, pointing at a remote section of mountains on the Argentine-Chilean border. “One of our scouts came across a small village that had a legend of a ‘magical fire stone’ that sounds an awful lot like what we’re looking for. It’s supposedly located somewhere around this volcano!”
“That figgin’ thing is active, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but our scientists have sworn that there isn’t any real activity at the moment. We want you guys to get down there right now. We’ve got a full tactical team ready to go, and we can get another ten teams down there by the time you’ve made camp.”
“Camp?” complained Wyrm. “It’s friggin’ cold in those mountains!”
“Don’t worry,” Eliza said, “you don’t need to go on this one. You’re not a combatant and you have all the outdoor skills of a toy poodle.”
“Hey! I resemble that remark!”
“Besides, I want you to work with Kelik and Valar on going through the other scouting reports and trying to pinpoint the locations of both remaining gems if this turns out to be a wild goose chase. Try every algorithm you can think of, then think of some new ones.”
“You got it boss.”
Eliza looked excitedly at her team. “Suit up! We’re going hunting!”
—————- ————————————
In the mountains of South America . . .
—————- ————————————
“This is the most boring ‘hunt’ I could ever imagine,” Allyson Murgo said as she crunched through the snow. “Can I PLEASE shoot something? My feet hurt! I’m hungry!”
Eliza stopped in her tracks and grabbed her friend by the shoulders. “One more complaint and I’m throwing you off the mountain. When did you become such a whiner?”
“I’m used to jungle ops. I HATE the snow! Why do you think Dennis and I moved to California?”
“Because you like earthquakes?”
“I’d say bite me, but I don’t know if you’d actually take me up on it!” Allyson was trying to get a rise out of her friend.
“Don’t worry,” Eliza said with a grin. “I’ve only got fangs for one neck.”
{{ How sweet! }} came a thought from the other side of the mountain. {{ You are SUCH a romantic, }} finished Veronica. Their link had become strong enough that they seemed able to communicate telepathically at any distance, a feat that had previously been reserved for when they were dreaming. It also allowed the two of them to lead different teams and stay in constant contact without cluttering up the airwaves with something the Purity might be able to pick up on. So Veronica and Dennis were working one side of the mountain with a couple of tactical teams while Eliza and Allyson led the rest of the force. Veronica wasn’t done mentally grumbling. {{ By the way, I have a complaint of my own. Why can’t ancient legends be written down somewhere in PLAIN ENGLISH! }}
{{ Those pesky native tribes and their non-English-speaking ways, }} Eliza teased.
“Actually,” started Allyson, interrupting the mental sparring, “I’m REALLY worried that we haven’t heard or seen anything from the Purity. You’d think they would have had SOMEONE watching the base and trying to track our movements. But we’ve been her for more than a day and nothing!”
Eliza was sobered by that. She had been hoping that maybe the lack of Purity involvement might mean a decrease in resources, but she also realized that it was wishful thinking. In the last few months, the World Council had figured out that the Purity was probably being sponsored and supported by a number of theocratic governments in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where people were so desperate for something to believe in that a few venom-spewing racist leaders with charisma had started wooing them almost a century earlier. And the seeds of dissent had quietly grown until they had become a far more dangerous opponent than anyone in the World Council had initially imagined. And they had backing from some secrete and powerful elements within the United States and Europe who supported their pro-human stance. “We’ll see them,” Eliza said. “They wouldn’t dare let The Dragon’s Breath slip through their fingers. And . . .” Eliza looked around. “Has anyone seen Thug?” Her team all looked around before shaking their heads. “How can we keep losing a half-ton troll?!?”
———- —————-
A mile away . . .
———- —————-
Thug had been quietly sitting in the snow, staring at a particular rock formation. ‘Humans are too impatient,’ he thought. ‘They keep looking for things as if they hadn’t changed. Everything changes.’ Thug was looking at the rocks, imagining them before wind, rain, snow and time had done their will upon the stone. After someone had finally gotten it through to him what a “llama” was and what a “llama god” might look like, he had begun wandering the mountainside looked for the rocks that resembled one, following in the footsteps of the village legend. An hour or so ago, Eliza and her troop had wandered near this spot but had paid no attention to it. So he had simply stopped, fading into the background. After a while, a couple of small furry animals came and sat on his shoulders, unaware that their perch was a potentially dangerous predator. Luckily, he had already eaten that morning.
After a while, he decided that this fit the description he had been given. He walked up under what had once probably been the head of the beast. He looked to either side and saw boulders, admitting that they could well be the soft hooves he had been told that these llamas possessed. So he cleared the snow and began to dig with his massive hands.
———— —————
An hour later . . .
———— —————
It had taken a while for Eliza to backtrack to where her troll friend had vanished, using her keen sense of smell as well as her own fading footprints to arrive at where he had been sitting. She looked up the mountain and saw a HUGE mound of displaced earth between a couple of boulders. She signaled for her team to hold their position, and started walking toward the pile of dirt.
“Thug?!? Is that you?”
|| EITHER THAT OR THE WORLD’S BIGGEST GOPHER! || came the response from the hole. || THAT’S RIGHT, ISN’T IT? GOPHERS ARE THOSE SILLY LITTLE MAMMALS THAT LIVE IN THE GROUND? ||
Eliza shook her head. Thug was a good friend, but he could be awfully flighty from time to time. “Yes, gophers live underground. What the hell . . .”
A greenish-gray hand appeared over the mound of dirt. In those powerful fingers was a clod of dirt, but one with shiny red facets peaking through in a number of places. || IS THIS WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR, OR SHOULD I PUT IT BACK? ||
Eliza’s eyes almost popped out like they would in a cartoon. She broadcast the image to Veronica as she flew into the hole and hugged the incredibly filthy troll with tremendous strength. “You brilliant, wonderful, smelly animal! That’s it! You found our way home!”