Grand Saint Alloy

The first leg of the trip was quite brutal. Crabs would come in ones and twos simply bursting out of the corn. They were all tier zero ghost crabs, but their death attracted slightly larger ones. Once the larger ones arrived to cannibalize the dead ones, they had to kill them as well. This cycle repeated with concerning frequency. It would have been fine, however the first step never stopped happening. It was like compound interest, but with horrifying monsters.

At first they were attacked once an hour, then it started happening every forty minutes. By the fifteenth mile, it was down to every fifteen minutes and the tier of ghost crab was up to tier two. The halberds were clearly showing their value by then. It only took one strike with the blade to cut a leg or tail off. The spike was able to punch through the top plate with relatively little effort. As the crabs only ever came in groups of five or six, they could be handled, but it would escalate beyond their ability to handle eventually.

In the eighteenth mile, the fields disappeared. The farmer’s community was visible in the distance and carts were scattered around the rim of the cleared section. Most were half filled with harvested corn and wheat which had molded in the past rainstorms. Bovine skeletons littered the area, their rib cages torn apart when the ghost crabs exited. The cows seemed to have been feeding on the plant matter that the farmers did not want.

The problem was, nearly one hundred crabs of varying tiers were between them and the warehouse. Fortunately almost seventy of them were the lowest variant, with many being smaller than a fist. If one of them got into a city, they could quickly overtake the rodent population and move up from there. Tristan wondered why these crabs had not over run nature yet. The only reason he could come up with was, they were only an environmental issue when they were safe from their predators.

“Do we make a run for it?” Clive asked. He clearly did not want to go this route.

“No,” Bruce said, “We need some way to distract them, but without sacrificing anyone.”

“Well they seem very attracted to blood, could we just go get a different ghost crab, and use that?” Eve suggested.

Tristan inspected the crabs. They were haphazardly scattered around, with no order or organization with one exception. The further to the southeast one looked in the gathering, the more likely one would find a higher tier crab. It was almost like the smaller crabs were being used as a vanguard by their larger cousins. Currently they seemed to be in a dormant state, Tristan had never seen a ghost crab sleep, but this is what he would expect it to look like. Their legs curled up beneath them and tail coiled around like a serpents.

Why don’t we use this?” Clive asked holding up the vial of poison, “will it work on them?”

Bruce took the vial and inspected it, “Yes, but not at this concentration, also I do not believe it will be enough to cull the herd.”

Tristan asked, “So what if I just ran in and started killing them before they woke up? You guys could just get through in the distraction, and I can outrun them if I get the tier threes in the back.”

Normally crabs were pretty speedy, but not ghost crabs. The main reason was that they moved forward as opposed to sideways. They only seemed fast because the problem crabs were an entire tier above the team. That and they did not have any trouble moving regardless of the terrain. One of the many benefits of having six legs

Bruce could only stare at Tristan, “No, thats dumb. We need you alive to finish the mission, why would we put you in harms way.”

Tristan shrugged, he was pretty sure he could pull it off, “Well let me know when you have a better idea.”

The issue was they only had a few minutes until the next wave of crabs located them, and if they fought back the group in the cleared fields would wake up and attack from behind. Poison would work great, but it would take too much time to work. They could light the field on fire and burn the stubble down, but it was likely to spread.

Eve raised her hand, like she was still at school, “Why don’t we just walk through? They are all asleep, and if we don’t wake them up, we should be good.”

Tristan spoke up, “I support this plan, mostly because it is mine without the stabbing.”

Bruce rubbed his temples, “This is not a democracy, I have the final say.”

Eve nodded, “he is right, he is in charge due to nepotism.”

Bruce shook his head, to Tristan and Clive’s chuckles, “It is the best idea we have on such short notice, so lets get going.”

Tristan gave Eve a thumbs up. Anything to mess with Clive and the Golden Hearts, she seemed confused by the gesture. They stepped out into the field and tip toed around the sleeping crabs. It quickly became clear that there were way more than one hundred, it was just that the vast majority were tiny.

The stubs of the stalks sticking out of the ground were plenty tall enough to hide them from view. Tristan wondered if these were what ghost crabs without a host looked like. They were the size of large rats and could be killed simply by stepping on them. If they were struggling with a food crisis, forcing the next generation to be small would preserve the resources. In fact these little ones would be a more devastating invasion force if they ever made it past the boarder ditch.

They crossed through most of the tier zeros and moved on to the larger tier ones. There were far fewer of these, but they were much larger. Most ranged from the size of a chicken to the size of a small dog or house cat. These ones were a pain to deal with because their shells were hard enough to resist stomping and they were low enough to the ground to be an inconvenient target.

The tier two’s were about the size of a calf or sheep. Despite being a tier higher, they were less than a problem than the tier ones. They had an easier time getting through armor, but they lacked the numbers to really make use of that. In fact they had the fewest numbers over all, as the creatures that they could be born from were less numerous.

Tristan looked up in the direction of the tier three crabs. The gradation of the herd was odd, when they attacked it was a swarm where first come first serve was the standard action. All of them were in a frenzy to consume, and Tristan had thought that this would be their default state. Tristan looked past the crabs and saw something on the horizon. It barely poked above the corn, a tower with a church bell.

With a start, he realized that the larger a crab, was the closer it was positioned to the Plains Caldera. Was there something like a queen in the city controlling them? If that was the case, the Caldera was in deep trouble. Kale had never mentioned a queen ghost crab, so Tristan had to assume it was dangerous.

There were other possible explanations, but Tristan’s thoughts were cut off by a crunch. He looked around to find the source of the noise. It took him a moment to realize that he had been the one to make the noise. Tristan looked down and saw a small body that had been squished under foot.

“Oops,” was all he could say to the people staring at him.

Bruce sighed, “Why didn’t you look where you were stepping?”

Tristan would have answered, but he was now on a time limit. He had to get to the tier three ghost crabs before they realized what was going on. There were only about ten of them, but that would still be more than he could handle if they woke up. If being the operative word.

Tristan reached the fist one and sliced the top plate in half with his long knife. The second had a sword breaker shoved through its brain in the same instant. Tristan successfully ended three more before the sound of crunching could be heard behind him. The first crab to wake up had started immediately consuming the dead crab closest to it.

It was disturbing how easily these things resorted to cannibalism. There was a possibility of it being an inborn trait, but Tristan suspected, it was due to the containment ditch. The ghost crabs had quickly overwhelmed the local wildlife and now lacked food. They were slowly starving. Perhaps, if other mythical beasts did not view ghost crabs as food, then quarantining the area would have been the best solution.

Regardless, he was halfway through the tier threes and the second half was distracted by food. Tristan quickly finished off the crabs while they were eating. The lower tiered crabs were making their way over, however they chose not to give chase. Tristan got away, and the smaller ghost crabs started eating the larger ones.

He looked back as he ran shuddering at the feeding frenzy that had started. It was disgusting how quickly they had turned to this, but at least with no tier threes, breaking through the warehouses doors would be impossible. They would be safe for the night at least.