The Plains of Ọkara
The Marshlands is one of the locations for the training expeditions of all the trainee warriors of the Lagos shelter. The promising candidates have all been trained and proved to be the future of the Lagos shelter; the Marshlands were the safest place for them to farm experience points to Evolve.
"Alright, people, we are going to be a little harsher with your training today," the warrior in charge commanded. "Gather your weapons and prepare for a life and death-situation."
The trainees gathered the most sophisticated weapons that the shelter had to offer: cutlasses reinforced by Ẹbọra crystal cores, the latest technological crystal-powered rifles that would put the ones given to the E-rank to shame. The armour provided by the shelter was top class, not even the fangs of the Saber-tooth panther could penetrate the customised defence suit. The boots and the armour were also retrofitted with stat-boosting effects, each equipment was carefully selected for each trainee. Now the trainees were properly equipped and ready for the day's challenge, they were immediately assembled in front of the training ground for the official speech of the shelter; the screen displayed a recording of Abacha several years earlier, judging from how much younger he looked in the recording.
"This day is a proud day; today is your third day in your hands-on experience. To be honest, I am sad to see you end your training today because, after today, you will no longer be children; starting from today, when your training ends, you will have earned your badge of approval as Ẹṣọs of the Lagos shelter.
I can tell from just looking at your faces that you have been through a lot" Most of the recruits had tears in their eyes as Abacha spoke his compelling words. "You have had to go through difficult moments and I am sure you have made multiple difficult decisions and been through times where you were almost forced to give up. But you are here now; you stand strong, and that proves that you are warriors, the very best that the Lagos shelter has to offer.
Stand strong; I am sure that you will achieve great feats. Raise your heads, for today you are all men; now let me hear you chant the praise of Lagos!"
"Eko o ni Ba je! (Lagos will not fall)" the recruits responded,
"I can't hear you!" Abacha yelled,
"Eko o ni Ba je!" The recruits shouted even louder
"One more time" Abacha shouted,
"Eko o ni Ba jeeeeee" they screamed.
"Now go out there and prove your metal" Abacha commanded,
"Yes sir," the recruits cried highly encouraged. The recording came to an end.
The recruits rushed towards the marshlands in preparation to face the foe that they had been slaying for the past two days; the Ẹbọra was a small gelatinous organism with a tiny crystal core. That's right it was a small colony of harmless slimes that could easily be killed by simply reaching into the liquid body to extract the core. The experience points gained weren't enough to evolve them even once; the slimes were about one foot high, and they moved as slowly as snails.
"I just evolved!" One of the trainees cried out in excitement,
"Congratulations," his friend cried patting his shoulder, "So what evo are you now?" he inquired,
"I am now at Evo-level 3, so pay me some respect" the one who had evolved boasted.
"You better be quiet there," a bad-mannered girl spouted, "I am at Evo-level 4," then she placed both her fists on her hip, raised her chin and puffed out her chest, "And I have already acquired twenty slime cores."
The rest of the recruits gazed upon her awestruck; they had assumed that they couldn't reach Evo-level 4 within three days. There was a sudden explosion that startled all the recruits; they all looked in the direction that happened to be the source of the commotion. There was a crater in the ground where the trainee had used the overpowered weapon to kill the harmless slime. "You fool," one of the recruits cried, "Using the crystal gun is overkill! Without the slime core, you will not be able to prove that you killed anything."
"Sorry," the one who used the gun said, "Can't we fight anything stronger?"
While the recruits bickered amongst themselves, the warriors observed that they congratulated themselves for the prosperous crop and how much stronger they had become. "I do pity the E-ranks; if only their Evo-caps didn't end in the units, we might have been able to help them. Too bad they will not be able to survive 10 minutes in that forest."
"This is true; I guess we should report them all dead." the second said, "But I wonder why Abacha ordered us to send them to the dark forest; it is more or less a death sentence."
"No one understands how those corrupt leaders think, our job is to train the recruits and nothing else."
***********
Deep in the dark forest far from the marshlands called the plains of Ọkara, the E-ranks were also finishing up their hands-on training. They were up against the Arachnoid queen; her size was equal to a 3 story building, and her armour was thick and almost impregnable.
"I am telling you the modifications made to the sub-standard crystal rifles is enough to penetrate any armour," Attah said as if continuing an argument, "they will work, it is a crystal-chemical reaction," he observed as Lakan used the reinforced crystal gun to inflict critical damage on one of the Arachnoid's.
The arachnoid was trying to ram itself into Lakan's makeshift shield in an attempt to push him off balance, but it failed; the strength of this so-called weak human was able to stop it in its tracks. That was when Lakan found an opening to shoot it through its reinforced shelled skull; the arachnoid died instantly. Seyi and Tunde were the ones with the highest Agility stats in the entire team, so they both fought together as a team; they jumped through the trees to avoid detection and then attacked at the same time, picking one of the arachnoid queens guards each. They each had in their possession a makeshift spear with the edge of an arachnoid's claw; the spear was able to penetrate the ex-skeleton with the lightning reinforcement provided by Ṣeyi's unique skill. Then Adewale gestured to Attah the effectiveness of his makeshift weapon as though concluding an argument.
"Seriously," Attah grouched, "That impresses you; one blast from a well-designed weapon and the beast is dead; why endanger yourself with crude mundane toys."
"Attah, you are making me regret rescuing you," Adewale complained, he had Kehinde stand between them. Kehinde stood silently watching as the two friends bickered amongst themselves while enjoying the sight of their teammates mowing down the opposition. Ọsẹ was in the nest of the arachnoid queen, gazing at the eggs for the next generation of the arachnoids; in an instant, he had all the eggs incinerated.
"Adewale's orders were that I should destroy the eggs without plundering the cores," he said, "What a waste," one of the arachnoids placed in charge of the eggs attacked from above, but as soon as it got close to the human, it was immediately incinerated.
"What I'm trying to say is weapons should be modern…" Attah continued, Adewale was beside himself with both joy and rage. Joy because he had his childhood friend back; when they found him, he was unconscious. There were no wounds on his body because of the full healing upon evolution, but he was a little sickly. They had to rush him back to the cave where he had regained consciousness; they were able to prepare a warm meal for the night, making use of the little supplies they had brought in their packs. The next day, they spent farming experience points; Attah offered to use some of the raw energy crystals to power up the useless weapons they had in their possession, but Adewale disagreed; he believed that what they needed was to make use of the materials found from Ẹbọra corps to make weapons and thus their argument began.
An arachnoid suddenly attacked from behind, it was upon them before they even noticed its presence. The attack would have done some damage and even seriously injured one of them, but for the energy shield, as soon as the arachnoid made contact with the shield, the damage reflect skill took effect, blasting it back into the trees. The next attack was a bungee jumping arachnoid, which attacked Adewale and his group from above; the attack never happened because Ọrẹoluwa rightly predicted its path and shot it dead before it made contact with the shield.
"You see," Attah continued, "She knows how to use a weapon" Adewale was getting annoyed by Attah's insistent arguments; what he needs is a way to shut him up.
Ọrẹoluwa walked out from her post holding the weapon in her hand with an annoyed look on her face, "I thought I told you not to leave your post", Adewale voiced, in reply Ọrẹoluw handed him her weapon the mouth(barrel) of the weapon was seriously damaged and red hot form continuous use. Adewale smiled at this and then, in turn, handed it over to his childhood friend; Attah accepted the weapon with slacked-jawed amazement for the first time. He was at a loss for words. "Crude weapons are the way to go," he said with a smile on his face.
The battle with all the queen's guards had come to an end, all the eggs had been destroyed, and Ọsẹ had set the general area ablaze with his fire now there was nothing to get in their way while dealing with the arachnoid queen.
"Alright, people," Adewale said to his team, "the shelter might not have given us a minimum requirement for this hands-on training, but for us, this is the true test of our pride. We will not only return alive, we will return in victory. Are you ready!"
"Yes sir!" they all replied,
"I can't hear you!" Adewale continued,
"Yes sir!!" they all shouted at an even higher pitch.
"Attack!" he cried
Lakan used the skill taunt to draw the queen out of her cave; his shield was at the ready. Unfortunately, he didn't expect her to use acid as her first onslaught. Luckily, Ronke was posted by his side. Her energy shield was not as effective at blocking the damage but it did give them enough time to get away.
"A shield reinforced with crystal energy and Ẹbọra cores would have…" Attah began but Adewale snapped.
"Shut up!" Adewale spouted, and then he ordered Tunde who happened to be attacking from the opposite side. "Shoot Tunde, destroy its abdomen!"
Tunde started to shoot at the arachnoid's abdomen only to see his plasma blasts bounce off its skin harmlessly; Tunde gestured to Adewale, indicating the failure of the weapon. Adewale gave Attah a smug side-way glance, who scowled in reply and then raised his hand and declared, "Symbiot's domain!" In an instant, the queen's stats were reduced, and his attack force's stats were boosted; then, he used his skill called "master strategist" to reinforce all weapons with the lightning element. This would ensure that the blades would be able to bite into the reinforced shell of the arachnoid queen.
"Now attack!" Adewale declared; the onslaught began again; this time, both Tunde and Seyi shot their weapons at the same time, and the plasma energy beam penetrated the queen's abdomen, inflicting a critical wound. "Good, now let us press our advantage." Adewale continued feeling the excitement of success.
Tunde and Ṣeyi fired another shot with the intent of ending the queen's life, but to their shock, the weapon they held firmly in their hands shattered into several pieces. Adewale then looked at Attah once again and smiled while Attah bowed his head in shame; the queen continued to charge towards Lakan and Ronke, ignoring the pain that washed through its body. The queen knew it was cornered; all of her guards had been slain, the bulk of her army had been slaughtered, and the rest kept at bay. The most troubling thing that had happened that day was the death of all her offspring; the queen roared in defiance; even if she was going to die, she was going to make sure that she would take one of these evil humans to the afterlife with her.
Lakan ran towards the side of the queen and used his reinforced strength to smash the legs, thus limiting its movements, and then Tunde jumped out from one of the trees and charged towards the immobile queen's skull with his lightning-reinforced spear. The fight ended in one final decisive strike.
"The arachnoid queen has been successfully killed," Symbiot announced, "The quest to destroy the Arachnoid's nest is completed. Congratulations. Distributing all rewards now."
****************
A few hours later, they were heading out of the dark forest; they had made a makeshift cart using Attah's crystal tech knowledge and some stray wood found in the forest. They were not able to make wheels, but they were able to make long smooth crystals that served as makeshift (slay). Then they used a rope to tie the cart to the vehicle that was left behind and, thankfully, with Ọsẹ's help because he knew how to drive, moved triumphantly towards the Lagos shelter. They had the beast cores, the beast remains that could serve as meat for the citizens of the shelter and they had the battle scars to prove that they were worthy to serve.
As per the agreement, Adewale had Kehinde Akinbode sit upon the biggest kill in the cart; the spoils of the battle were his, after all, and Kehinde boldly smiled, looking the part.
"Halt!" One of the gate guardians cried as they approached the entrance of the Lagos shelter. There were more than three dozen of them, three times more than usual. "What is your business here?" he demanded then gestured for all of them to step out of the vehicle to face him.
They were all silent for a while, waiting for Kehinde to take charge; at first, he was hesitant, but then he stepped forward. "I am Kehinde Akinbode, the son of the Olori-ẹbi of the Akinbode family, My servants and I have just finished the recruit's training in the dark forest. Please let us pass!"
"You are lying" The guard shouted, "You are all spies from another shelter!" then he faced his men, "Alright men, fire at will "
"Wait, that is not…" too late; before Kehinde could speak another word, all the guards posted at the gate drew out their weapons and started to shoot. There was nothing they could do as blood splattered all over the place.