บท 277: The Trap
Great Ocean Plains
A small camp could be seen bustling with activity on the open plains. A huge rectangular area was cordoned off with white ropes and red flags while Marines in work fatigue unloaded large barrels and supplies off the supply trucks.
Irisval, her long hair tied up and stuffed into her cap and dressed in a pair of grey work overalls with military boots walked the ground around the cordoned area. She turned to the military liaison following her and asked, "Are you very certain it will come directly here?"
"Yes, mdm," The Marine replied politely. "Our scouts have plotted its course, and it hasn't deviated for almost two days."
"I see," Irisval replied. "But it doesn't comes this way? Won't we waste all the effort and time here?"
The Marine just replied, "Mdm, the higher up has planned for that contingency already."
"And what are the plans for that?" Irisval continued to press the soldier.
"I am sorry, mdm, it's on a need to know basis..." The Marine shrugged apologetically. "I have no authorization to tell you the plans..."
"Hmph!" Irisval snorted. "If you don't tell me the plans, how am I going to prepare the trap to accommodate any changes?"
"Sorry, mdm," The Marine stone-facedly replied. "It's above my pay grade..."
"Tsk!" Irisval gave up. "Alright, step back, I will create the pit now."
Earlier, she had drawn a formation on each plot of marked out land. Now she took out several brown yellow mana stones and placed them on the anchor points of her spell formation. She focused her mana together and the earth before her quivered and a pit slowly formed.
Excess dirt and soil magically piled up at the sides where a couple of half tracks with bulldozer blades shoved the soil up and dumped them into the dump trucks which doubled up as cargo trucks earlier.
They transported the dirt to a short distance away and dumped them before returning for another load while Irisval constantly forces the earth to climb out of the pit.
Soon after half an hour, a pit the size of a basketball court appeared that was over fifteen meters deep. Irisval sat down on the grass panting as the spell took out a lot of her stamina and power.
The Marine handed her a bottle of fruit flavored water and a fruit bar for her to recover her strength,
"One down, another eight more to go!"
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Before Irisval started to work her magic on the pits, hundreds of ex slaves hired to help with the digging watched on in wonder at the magical way the strange rumbling mountless wagons two, three times taller and larger than any wagon they have ever seen, moving all the materials, equipment and manpower easily and smoothly like magic!
"Hey!" A Barbarian Lord wearing a thin orange skull cap called out to the gaping workers. "I need the team leaders to form your people up into teams of twenty!"
"Each team will be responsible for their own areas!" The Barbarian foreman continued his briefing and pointed. "Shovels and other equipment are on your right! Over there!"
"Make sure you wear your protective gear! Helmets and gloves are at the equipment point!" The foreman continued to drone on. "Safety first! Drink plenty of water! Water points are at those tents on your left!"
The ex slaves looked at each other in confusion. Safety first? Protective gear? Drink plenty of water? What insanity ideas these Barbarian Lords have!
One by one they drift over to the tents where several tables stood under the shade. A Barbarian soldier stood behind each table ladened with equipment of all types, the ex slaves recognized the weirdly colored uniforms, looked shyly at the equipment laid out.
"The line starts from here!" One of the soldiers yelled and pointed. "Start queuing up here and move down the line after you taken your gear!"
The ex slaves timidly followed the soldier's orders and they shuffled from one table to another under the directions of the soldiers. They were each given a tiny white skull cap and a pair of thick gloves and a pair of solid working boots!
Their faces lit up with excitement when they heard that they could keep the boots but the 'safety helmet' and gloves they have to return. The line started to turn more lifely as the men started to get impatient for their free boots.
When the hired ex slaves were properly equipped, they followed the instructions of the soldiers to remove the topsoil without destroying the grass around a large roped out area. They moved the clods of grass carefully to the side, unsure what was the purpose of all these actions.
Once the marked out area was cleared of the topsoil, a pretty girl in strange wear came up and she started drawing circles and arcane runes on the dirt while the workers rested at the side watching her work.
They oooh and ahhh when the earth was magically dug out and they followed their team leaders and started to help with the excavation of the site. Ramps were dug down into the pits while a timber frame was constructed to prevent the sides of the pit from collapsing in.
The work for the ex slaves was mostly catering away the earth that had gathered at the bottom of the pit and building the overhead support for the trap.
The ex slaves were quite surprised at the pace and welfare were given to them, as they thought the conditions for this job that was posted in the city square would be similar to the how they were treated usually at the mines or farms.
They did not expect such good conditions, from proper tools to adequate rest times and even food and water were provided to the men for free!
Soon the men broke out in songs as they willingly work harder for these Barbarian Lords that treated them like people.
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"Carefully now!" The Marine Sergeant yelled at his men as they lifted the barrel of napalm onto the wheelbarrow. "Don't drop it and spill that shit out! Or I make you lick it all up!"
The Marines grunted as they carefully transported dozens and dozens of napalm barrels down into the nine pits that had merged into one major pit with skeletal frames of wood pillars that reached up to the top. Hundreds of tree trunks transported over from the forest were buried at the bottom of the pit with their ends sharpened, making the bottom of the pit looking like a forest of giant stakes.
Over forty drums of 20 gallons (75.7 L) containing locally produced napalm were buried into the football field sized pit with its round front end exposed. At the back of the drum was an explosive charge which, when triggered, will rupture the drum and shoot a jet of flame about 10 feet (3.0 m) wide and 30 yards (27 m) long.
Another troop of Marines carefully hooked up explosive charges to drums of white phosphorous to the tips of the sharpened stakes and the roof supports. The idea was that if the God Snake landed in the pit, the white phosphorous will blind and burn it while the main killer was the napalm flame fougasse and sharpened stakes were just icing on the cake.
Once the mines and traps were emplaced properly, the workers and Marines climbed out of the pit carefully. To cover the pit, dozens of tree trunks were laid across the roof supports and filled up with tree branches and leaves.
The workers carefully scatter earth and soil over the layer of leaves and slowly the pit started to look similar to its surroundings except for the lack of grass. To cover that up, before Irisval started her magic, the marked out area had the topsoil with the grass carefully removed.
Now that the cover of the pitfall was completed, the workers carefully moved and replanted the topsoil with the grass back to their original positions and the pitfall merged with its surroundings. If there wasn't the white ropes barrier around the pitfall, it was hard to spot the land had been disturbed.
Following that, the soldiers and workers started to pack up everything up and clear all traces away. They spent over two days working on the massive pitfall, and at first, the clueless ex slaves also got some inkling of what was happening here from conversations here and there with the soldiers.
The ex slaves started off skeptic about the pitfall trap, wondering if it was enough to kill a God Snake, but after watching the amount of strange arcane weapons being emplaced and the braggings of the soldiers of how power just each barrel of 'naa-palm' was, they started to feel assured once everything was completed.
-----
Irisval pat her hands clean as she stood up after putting her finishing touches to the pitfall's camouflage. She has expended a lot of her magic and stamina over the past two days, despite the work being portioned out in smaller loads.
If she tried to tackle digging out the entire pit without portioning it out, she would have fainted from mana burn and exhaustion without even reaching a fifth of the depth!
The only issues she had was trying to dig in a rectangular shape instead of a round shape. That took her some serious concentration to achieve and once it was done, she felt a sense of pride at her handiwork.
"Thank you, mdm!" Her military liaison thanked her. "Without your help, we couldn't finish this in just two days!"
"It's my duty to help," She smiled at the young soldier who blushed. "So, do you know how far away from here that Thing is?"
"HQ reports that it should a day or two away," The soldier replied. "Once we packed everything up, we will retreat back to Orwell's Point."
"So what will be the lure?" Irisval pressed. "You don't expect that Thing to come and obediently fall into the trap right?"
"Well, we have a bait for it," The soldier smiled.
"What bait?" Irisval frowned, having this conversation several times over the two days.
"I can't tell you, mdm. It's above my pay grade!"
"Arghhh!"
-----
Hunger. It hungers for souls. Even when it rested in the day, its dreams were filled with the chaos of the Great Feast where it gorged itself with thousands and thousands of souls!
Its gently coiled itself tightly in the crude shelter it dug out the morning before daybreak. Many patches of its once pristine skin were scarred or peeling. Milky white pus slowly leaked out before evaporating into black wisps of smoke as they dipped onto the rocky earth.
Slowly it opened its flint eyes and watched the light slowly receding away like an ocean's tide from the entrance of the burrow. Soon it will be night, and the hated Sun will vanish under the earth and it can move.
It could only feel a tiny presence of the Sun Gods power in the distance and it was desperate to get to it faster, or its body will cease to exist in this realm much longer. Its no longer bothered to spend what remains of its power to regenerate its body as it saved it to keep its presence on this realm longer.
Only by feasting upon the powers of the Sun Gods, does it have a chance to break the barrier between realms. And once that was achieved, it will be free to travel between the realms and feast upon all those delicious souls!
It has accumulated its power over time and periodically sent trinkets containing its Will on to this realm in hopes that it could gather followers. Followers it did get, but most of them were just too stupid or weak to fight the Sun Gods' champions!
Even if there were bodies willing to host its magnificent presence, there were strict requirements needed for the host bodies. Not all mortals here could endure its powers and it was pleasantly surprised when it found eight compatible mortals from a distant world that was abandoned many many years back!
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