Entering the basement, he found that most of it had been built from basalt with metal bands supporting the walls and roof. On the floor and lower sections of the wall the basalt had circles that had been turned into a softer stone.
Above each circle of soft stone, a guard was standing with a spear or hammer waiting for something.
"This is an impressive basement, where did you get all of the basalt from? I don't recall a mine for it near here." Chronos said.
The senior disciple spoke up, "It takes time, but we can easily create a non-magical stone like basalt using a mixture of earth magic and fire magic. Come stand over here, you'll be in charge of these four holes."
Nodding Chronos took his position in the middle of the room. Lyla was standing nearby, also in charge of four holes. She had already summoned her gavels and was waiting for the signal to begin.
"I don't see the badger, where is it?" He calmly asked her.
"Digging the tunnels. It's going to come out of the hole in front of you so don't swing at the first thing that appears."
"Got it."
He had been surprised when they had proposed this plan to the senior disciple.
The plan they suggested was to dig tunnels that the burrow drakes would find and use those tunnels to funnel them into a single location where they could easily kill them. Like a debris catch on a kitchen sink.
It was risky because the burrow drakes might outnumber and overwhelm them but if they continued trying to stop them with just the earth mages, they would eventually be exhausted and killed anyways.
In the end the senior disciple had decided to take the risk. To lessen the danger, he had brought them to the heavily reinforced basement of the armory.
The basalt walls and floor would prevent the burrow drakes from making more tunnels or opening new holes nearby ensuring that the guards could easily kill them without worry. Having Chronos and Lyla there was an extra measure to stop any accidents from happening.
The whole plan reminded Chronos of the children's game whack-a-snake where you had to hit the snake's head before they could bite you. It was a game that the young werewolves of the clan played to train their reaction speed.
A few minutes later the sun badger poked its head out of the hole in front of Chronos
"Hello, if you could mo..."
"Grraar."
With a vicious growl it leapt out of the tunnel flipped around and breathed fire down it. With its back turned to Chronos he could see that something had bitten its backside while it was digging.
No wonder it was so pissed.
Chronos would be upset if something was taking advantage of him while he worked too.
Leaving that hole to the badger Chronos turned to the hole on the right when he heard scratching coming from it. A moment later a dragon-like head broke through the stone, it let out a low roar that was cut short when echoforge crushed it.
As the body faded Chronos could hear scratching coming from everywhere under the basalt. The drakes had found the tunnels and were digging up into the room now.
"Brace yourselves for the rush. It will slow down once we kill the first wave." Chronos called out.
"Haah!" The guards cheered in response.
A second later every hole on the floor broke open as burrow drakes poured into the room. All the guards moved as one, killing every drake that dared to show itself only to have them replaced with another a few seconds later.
Chronos and Lyla, being in charge of four holes each moved rapidly striking each drake before they could fully pull themselves through the holes.
In a corner of the room a handful of drakes managed to make it past the initial strike only to be destroyed by an earth spike launched by one of the three mages guarding the room's entrance.
Rather than leave the guards on their own the senior disciple had put three earth mages and a priest in the room as a safety net.
As he killed the burrow drakes Chronos noticed that they looked like lizards but with two large front claws for digging through tough dirt or stone and a large head with a serious underbite. They lacked wings and other than looking vaguely like a dragon he couldn't help wondering why they were called drakes.
They weren't very large measuring at one meter in length and only a third of that in height. But they had durable scales making it hard to kill them if you didn't deliver an accurate or heavy strike to them.
But even if they had durable scales and were shaped like a dragon, calling them a drake would just insult dragons, and he didn't think people would be stupid enough to insult dragons like that.
Boom! Sizzle!
Looking at the noise Chronos saw that one of the drakes had magma dripping down its lower jaw as a ball of magma slowly slid down a stone shield in front of a guard.
"So that's how they earned the drake name. They create and spit magma at others. I wonder if they have a breath gland like other dragon type creatures? Still such a small creature really isn't worthy of being called a drake."
A burning smell came from his left while he was distracted, before the drake could launch a magma ball Chronos swung echoforge behind him. Hearing a satisfying crunch Chronos turned back to his holes continuing to kill every burrow drake that dared to show its head.
The basement battle lasted for an hour before the burrow drakes finally stopped coming out of the holes.
"Is that all of them?" One of the guards hesitantly asked.
Chronos carefully listened to the surrounding stone then shook his head.
"No, there are still a few of them digging around us but most of them have been dealt with. Leave a few guards and a mage in this room, the rest of us will go help the guards on the walls. These pests won't be able to cause serious problems anymore."
Chronos left them to decide who would remain behind. Leaving the armory, he found Gregory waiting for him just outside.
"How are the walls holding up?" Chronos asked.
"The south wall was attacked by weaker beasts with large numbers; it wasn't hard to fight them off. The most vicious attacks were focused on the west wall that Sariah was defending, she wore herself out casting curses and is resting in our room now. I think she has a number of new curses too." He said with a grimace.
He tried to hide his worry, but Chronos saw right through him.
"She's purchasing the skills from the system, right?" Gregory nodded. "Then I don't think you need to be worried, the system skills don't have serious flaws or drawbacks to them like most curses."
"But what if the curse's drawbacks build up? What if there're some hidden traits that we don't know about? What if..."
"Calm down." Chronos interrupted him. "If you're really that worried send a message to Hrólmir asking for advice or a skill to help you monitor her condition. You could also talk to Nimsy about it; she's always keeping an eye on her condition."
Once Chronos brought up Nimsy, Gregory realized he really might have been overreacting. If Sariah was going overboard with the curses Nimsy would definitely do something about it.
He decided to talk with Nimsy and set up an emergency response if she did go overboard.
They made their way to the gangplank where they found Micheal and Magar having an intense discussion.
"Hey, everything alright?" Seeing their scowling faces Chronos interrupted them.
"Magar wants to use the airship to search for the tear but I disagree." Micheal said.
"If we can find the tear then we can end all of this right now! We won't need to wait any longer!" Magar huffed at him.
Chronos thought about it for a moment before shaking his head.
"Sorry Magar but I agree with Micheal. If we leave to search for the tear without any direction, it'll take us days to find it and leave your village open to attack."
"But you have a way to track the tears, don't you?"
Ah so that's where the confusion was.
"Our method is very inaccurate, little more than a visual search with a height advantage. If we don't have a general direction to look in, then it's useless."
"Really?"
Chronos nodded.
Sighing Magar gave in.
"Alright then I'll continue my rounds." Magar sighed in disappointment as he went back to helping his people.
"Micheal, we'll be retiring for the evening as well." Chronos said as he and Lyla made their way inside the ship.
"Un, rest well. We'll be sending you into the tear with the first group once we find it." Micheal responded without lifting his head from the clipboard he was writing notes on.