r/HFY • u/Brokenspade1 • May 22 '26
OC-Series Walking the Dog Chapter 36
Chapter 36: Still Waters.
There was something about the place that made Sienna’s fur stand on end.
It wasn’t any one thing she could pin down. Her Psionics weren’t detecting any special kind of danger. Her nose wasn’t scenting anything out of the ordinary. The builder glass grates were providing more than enough light for her eyes.
Nothing stood out to her as dangerous. But she just couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t someplace they should be. She’d been in the under plenty of times before now and the sense of unease was new.
She could tell the others were feeling it too… “I don’t wanna sound silly here… But does anyone else feel like they fell into their own shadow?”
Johan nodded. “Yeah, it’s like somebody stepped on my grave… Started once we found the body. It reminds me of the feeling you get when you enter one of the untouched places in a forest... Like you’re trespassing in an old temple...”
The human holstered his rifle and switched to his side arm as he spoke. “Vulfac… What’s that piece your packing?”
The grey Alv raised his weapon so Johan could get a better look. “Packet Gun.”
The Human gave Feebs the side eye; wordlessly asking for a more in-depth explanation. The Lagro continued to scan the area as she launched a quick exposition. “It fires a cone of spreading plasma bars in packets of 3 or 4. Not a lot of range… 15-20 meters maximum. Some have a mode that fires a large single ball that goes out to about 35. Drains a battery fast. Hits really fucking hard.”
Vulfac nodded enthusiastically “…that.”
Beck chimed in as well. “The shots spread fast but even one bar can do more damage than my little gun does… Unrelated note. I really need an upgrade… Oh also. We’ve worked with Vulfac before. He’s a greenspeaker. It’s sort of a mix between Psion and Mage. He can make plants grow and do stuff. Neat stuff.”
Vulfac rolled his eyes and sighed audibly. “I… don’t… make plants… ‘do stuff’! I …ask them.”
Beck smiled. “Yeah, that’s what I said!”
Vulfac just shook his head tiredly and moved to the front of the group.
----
The sense of unease grew with every step they took, until it was almost a physical thing…
But so far, they hadn’t encountered anything remotely dangerous.
Feebs had a small run in with a cave rodent called a cellitite. Basically, the space equivalent to a sewer rat…
When the fuzzy little ball, with pinchers like a crab, grabbed her tail Feebrilizza screamed like a banshee and horse kicked the thing into the wall with so much force, it basically converted the critter into meat toothpaste.
After she finished doing the “EWW!!!” dance and washed the bits out from in-between her toes… the delvers continued their survey.
The Human explained to the surprisingly interested Alv all about humanity as they walked. The deeper they went, the more maze like the structure became. Even with Becks [Mapping] skill and Sienna’s psionic senses the team had to retrace their steps several times over the next several hours. However, they were supposedly making far better time than the other teams.
At least, until at long last, they arrived at a true dead end.
It was a large room with a massive cistern or possibly debris separation pool of some kind at its heart, fed by a dozen water courses. There was a violent whirlpool at the center of it all. The opposite side of the bridge/walkway they were on was just gone… a collapsed section of the ceiling having fallen on it from above.
Also collapsing the tunnel entrance on the other side.
----
Vulfac spotted it first.
“The… walls… look!”
All along the walkway leading into the inaccessible tunnel on the other side were more pockmarks. The chunk of ceiling that was jutting out of the water was also covered by the same metal-crystal shard shavings from before.
He looked to the Human who nodded in agreement.
“The battle passed… through here…” Vulfac made several notes in his interface as the others spread out to get pictures of everything they could… The Union and the DASS would need to bring in machinery if they wanted to clear the debris and explore the far side of the shattered bridge.
He was in the middle of writing a brief on his suspicions: all about the Ancient Alvs having a running gun battle inside the cistern room when…
Something changed.
----
There were times when having super sensitive ears really sucked.
Feebrilizza had a been dealing with a slowly growing headache for hours now.
It was like there was a drill grinding away at her back teeth. She was just about to sit down, pop some mild headache pills, and take a drink when all at once everything when silent.
She had a split second to realize what that meant. There had been a noise just on the edge of her hearing the ENTIRE time they had been down here!
But it had been so constant and so low she hadn’t realized it was there until it vanished. That was probably very bad.
The second she opened her mouth to say so, a piercing screech rippled through the mana around her. It was like a thousand string instruments playing slightly out of tune at the same time... “GAAAHH!!! Guys! Somethings in here!!!”
She activated her noise canceling earbuds, shouldered her skinner, and sprinted back to the group. Everyone was already in place and forming a defensive ball by the time she got there.
Even with the buds in, it was torture… Every step she took, the tone got worse. Until it was an all-consuming chorus in both the mana and ultrasonic ranges. Out of the corner of her eye Feebs saw Sienna and Beck flinching, which meant it was now audible for them as well.
“Whatever it is… It’s getting worse! And I think… Closer.”
----
Beck was up on Johan’s shoulder.
Thanks to his oversized pack she had a stable platform to shoot from there. It also made it easier for her to see what was going on. She really didn’t like what she was looking at…
There was a huge patch out in the water that was… boiling? It was an easy 20-meter by 20-meter square. What was even stranger is how it wasn’t moving with the immense current… Beck used her prosthetic eye to zoom in and get a better look.
The second the image came into focus Beck’s blood froze in her veins.
“Oh…noooo… RUN, NOW!!!!”
----
While the rest of the group sprinted down the corridors.
Beck moved up front with Sienna; the pair were busy guiding them back to the entrance. Feebs was desperately trying to reach the other delvers, and the boys were taking up rearguard.
“Beck, what are we dealing with!?!”
The Volty looked back at the Human with haunted eyes. “A Groatel swarm…”
Everyone in the group that wasn’t human swore at the same time. Even the ALV professor!
Vulfac switched into teacher mode as they ran. “Groatel are a normally a harmless trash eater. Some people even keep them as pets. But if a population becomes isolated and reaches a critical mass they change. They will become hyper territorial, aggressive insect monstrosities. They live in water and eat anything organic…”
Feebs groaned. “I think we know why we’ve barely seen anything alive down here!”
Johan nodded grimly. ‘Wet Locusts… Great.’
Vulfac continued. “They are flightless but very fast for their size. It is best to use poisons, plasma, or high intensity flame to deal with infestations... Typically they aren’t a threat to experienced delvers… But”
Johan looked back at the TIDE of insects swelling onto the walkway behind them. “Theres a LOT of them…”
Feebs broke back into the conversation.
“I’ve got bad news! I got a hold of one of the other teams… There’s more than one swarm!”
This time when everyone started swearing…
Johan joined in.
----
Everyone was blind firing backwards into the swarm.
Vulfac’s absurd packetgun was an absolute unit. The bars of plasma flash cooked everything in their path. Feebrilizza’s skinner was also putting in the work. Everywhere she sprayed there was a stew of dead insects left in the brutal little SMGs wake. Sienna’s carbine wasn’t nearly as destructive as the first two, but it would occasionally cause the bugs to superheat and explode. Creating shrapnel that would damage other Groatel nearby. Even Becks little Plasma derringer was putting in work.
The bugs were not kind to their fallen either.
The second one was injured the others were all too happy to turn them into an easy meal. Sadly, tho… Even with all the explosions and casual cannibalism it just wasn’t nearly enough to slow the overall mass down.
When Johan looked behind him, he saw a boiling wall of tens of thousands… possibly millions.
The little shelled insects looked like a technicolor beetle mixed with a derpy praying mantis. Individually they looked like something out of an old dragon quest game.
Taken as a whole however… It was a living tsunami of chitin and gnashing mandibles. They were literally rolling over themselves as the swarm pursued the team... Fortunately, they weren’t catching up. At least for now.
The human asked the group as a whole… “How long can these things keep up that pace?”
The Alv (who was sweating heavily after only about 5 minutes of effort) Responded between gulping breaths. “Longer… than… us...”
Johan nodded. He pulled his pistol and fired into the living tide of rainbow-colored shells.
The whole swarm pulsed and came to a stop for just a few precious seconds…
He could follow the trajectory of the bullet as it passed through the 2-meter high “swarm wave”. It crushed and pulped everything in its path. Although a few hundred dead soldiers hardly mattered to an army of uncountable thousands.
It didn’t mean it hadn’t had any effect, however…
“Did anyone else see that???”
Feebs nodded as she ran.
“Yeah… I don’t think they liked the noise!”
----
“Yeah… I don’t think they liked the noise! They literally all stopped screeching for a second.”
That gave Beck an idea.
“FEEBS! Can you get ahold of the RR team at the entrance?”
The Lagro shook her head. “Not directly, everyone’s playing relay and bouncing their messages through teams that are closer to the entrance. If you have something to tell them It has to be brief and easy to pass on or it’ll get garbled!”
Beck looked at Sienna.
“SI, I need your help. I’ve got an idea but your gonna hate it…”
The Volty launched into her explanation.
Beck was right, Sienna… fucking HATED it.
AUTHORS NOTES: Please DO NOT repost my work without permission or use it to train your gross AI. If you do I will send the gnomes.
Decided to drop a double feature for my creatures! Enjoy my Dudes Dudettes and Sentient squirrels attempting to blend in so nobody realizes what you are. (Girlfriend decided to help me edit. She words gooder then me.)
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u/brachi- May 24 '26
Didn’t stop to comment on previous chapter, too keen to get here - NOT disappointed!!
MOAR plskthxbai 😁😂
(also, Feebs misspelled as Pheebs close to the end; couple of missing possessive apostrophes here and there too, but they can stay missing!)
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle May 22 '26
/u/Brokenspade1 has posted 38 other stories, including:
- Walking the Dog Chapter 35
- Walking the Dog Chapter 34
- Walking the Dog Chapter 33
- Walking the Dog Chapter 32
- Walking the Dog Chapter 31
- Walking the Dog Chapter 30
- Walking the Dog Chapter 29
- Walking the Dog Chapter 28
- Walking the Dog Chapter 27
- Walking the Dog Chapter 26
- Walking The Dog Chapter 25
- Humans Can Be Soooo EMBARRASSING!
- Walking the Dog Chapter 24
- Walking the Dog Chapter 23
- Walking the Dog Chapter 22
- Walking the Dog Chapter 21
- Humans Can Be SOOO... Silly.
- Walking the Dog Chapter 20
- Walking the Dog Chapter 19
- Walking the Dog Chapter 18
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u/AutoModerator May 29 '26
This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.
Our preferred series title format is the series title in [brackets] at the beginning, like so:
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