Icarus Awakens

Three skyshock wyverns and an alpha descended on Roost’s Peak at once. The leader almost reached the range of its lightning powers before the city’s ballista finished it. That didn’t stop its body from colliding with a building, though the stone of the Peak held.

Even before the Upswell, Claire had always felt she was a fish at the bottom of a shark-infested sea. Recent days made for more dangerous waters, except for when that man was in town. The wyverns somehow sensed his presence, or perhaps the power he used on them, and now only attacked while he was away.

A thin smile crossed her face as she turned a page. Claire perched on the wall farthest from the tall mountain ridges to catch the last of the day’s good light. Parduc was working nearby. The sound of grinding stone would be distracting for someone of lesser focus but she blocked it out. Study was a core component for any Arcanist’s advancement. Indeed, many used that method to reach the initial intelligence requirement to take the class and continued the practice through at least the early levels. No small wonder that Arcanists were so involved in the keeping of libraries, even if there was an entire church devoted to knowledge.

The fading light departed from the botany book and Claire closed it with a sigh. Only then did she pay Parduc attention and saw the draconoid leaning halfway over the wall. “Running out of stone, are we?”

“No, no I’ve got it!” the stout voice responded. The Arcanist calmly walked to the parapet to look Parduc in the eye. The man’s scales were primarily blue, belying a water dragon heritage. An uncommon race matched by the man’s somewhat uncommon class.

Parduc was a Builder, having evolved from the Craftsman class after reaching level two. Favoring endurance and intelligence, the class existed in the realm of utility classes with the Artificer. Where the latter was rare and valued, Builders were less so due to the ease with which their materials were acquired and the constant demand for their services, along with the fact that it was far easier to get the precursor class. This Builder was drawing from the stone floor around Roost’s Peak, which would be used to form ballista bolts to replenish their supply.

The city had been relying on this method for years now, confident the Spoke would be completed before they would run out of convenient material. They had been right and then very wrong. “You’re going to need another level to keep that up.”

“I was thinking of taking it from inside the walls next time,” he grunted, body struggling to lean backward as a boulder’s worth of stone mirrored the motion. “Or, if you’re done befouling that roof I could start there.”

“Gossip, I’ve done nothing of the sort,” she accused. “I thought you kept your nose clean.”

“Isn’t much to talk about nowadays that isn’t doom and gloom.” A heavy thud shook the wall as the stone fell in a neat pile, cut into long bolts. Parduc dusted off his hands and looked at the nearby ballista. “That’ll hold her through the night. Huff, really drains the mana, that.”

“Doesn’t seem too hard.”

One of the ballista bolts lazily rose and floated over to her. “Want to give that a go then?”

“I thought you were low on mana,” she said suspiciously.

“Never said that, did I?” The bolt returned to the ground. “I’m just feeling the burn. Drinks?”

“I’m going to stay here a little while longer. You could see Eido from here before, you know? At this time of day the light would still reach it.” She clutched at the ramparts with both clenched hands.

Parduc followed her gaze to the hole in the horizon. “Hammer, Claire, I know it’s been a month, but are you sure it’s still not too soon?”

“It’s like you said, I need something more than doom and gloom. Lyander’s… he’s gone. It was hard, but I’ve accepted that. It’s time for me to move on. I’m not saying he’s the one, but how will I find out if I don’t try?”

Parduc rasped, cutting off what he was about to say with a sigh. He put a scaled hand on his sister’s shoulder instead as both looked into the irretrievable past.

…

Devil Root Core – (5) (Monster, Infernal, Plant, ???)

A network of vegetation infused with the essence of Elemental Evil. The central cluster supports a system of lesser Monster: Plant which it controls to defend itself. ???

Kob was insane. Daniel looked at his phone, at the distant, huge red outline, and back at his phone. He was insane too for not just going back to the city. The bomb Kob dropped shook everyone in the group for different reasons but foretold the same doom for all. A dragon, a flesh, fire, and blood dragon, guarded the only escape route out of the Thormundz. Lightning dragon, Daniel mentally corrected. Blue dragon? Or would it be purple like the spines?

There was a separate entry in his phone for lightning dragons. Several, actually. Each time he encountered a new level of variant, be it alpha, hatchling, or veteran, new entries were added for creatures he had previously seen so long as they shared that variant. Dragons only had normal and young variants from that list, and both lightning dragon variants were grayed out. I’d want to find out what one looks like if it didn’t mean actually finding out.

The devil root core was another matter as that entry was accompanied by a picture. Hunter identifying it for him apparently gave the Encyclopedia enough to add the image. It looked like roiling dark and red energy infused into a gestalt and firmly anchored into the earth. Was it a corrupted gestalt? He didn’t want to think that way, but the race seemed to tip more towards monstrous than human.

Kob had chosen it as their next target. The gestalt only knew about it because, along with the rogue construct, it was on the list of things they should avoid at all costs. The root core was planted in the center of a rock wall, surrounded by lesser plant creatures. They ranged from levels one to three, but the thing networking them was level five and hundreds of meters in diameter.

If Lograve were there, he might have comforted Daniel by explaining that the devil root core was not a typical level 5 threat. Its power was in its minions, similar to the balance of power with Beastmasters compared to other classes. Swarm hosts like this tended to have relatively weak endurance and limited personal attacks compared to others in their level. That didn’t change the fact that their target commanded an army on impossible terrain, and Lograve would have also demanded Kob choose something else. But he wasn’t there.

The knowledge of the dragon had changed things and now Kob wanted to fight a level 5. The mass of vines as large as a house hiding in the stone giant wanted to fight a boss from some kind of particularly messed up horror game. Daniel was still walking next to them. At least my cheeks didn’t scar, he thought unhelpfully.

Tlara, naturally, blamed him for everything and was passively projecting her intense fury towards Daniel. She’d squawked, actually squawked, him down the last time he’d tried speaking. Even thinking to Hunter was dangerous as the Beastmaster seemed to sense when he reached out to the ringcat. They walked in silence, speaking only to adjust course around enemies they couldn’t afford to fight.

This is like war, Daniel thought. Like everything else before now has just been a game. God, I- he stopped, and Hunter pushed him in the back to get him moving again before anyone noticed. How are you ok with this? he asked the beast. Tlara glared at him again, but the glare had lost its edge through repetition.

It is the hunt. This is who I am. There was grim resolve in the ringcat’s voice.

Do you understand what we’re walking into? The level of enemy we are facing here?

I would not fight it alone. But we are not alone.

Yeah, we’re with the murder bird. Daniel turned his face into a mirror of Tlara’s, sans beak, and looked at her. What are we supposed to do? Die instantly?

They will kill. We will watch. Hunter sounded confident with a strange layer of respect directed towards Kob.

How do you know that?

They want to Grow, Hunter answered and didn’t elaborate.

Standing under the infested rock wall felt like being trapped in a spider’s web while waiting to be devoured. The odd cracks that ran through the mountain were always vertical near the top, though this one had an odd slant for the first tenth of the hundreds of meters it reached. The thought of what the network of passes and valleys looked like from above distracted Daniel from what was happening, but only briefly. “Alright Kob, we’re here,” he said carefully as blackened vine clusters moved among carnivorous, toothed plants above. “My crossbow can probably hit some of those things, but I don’t see how you expect us to climb after you.”

Kob’s stone pseudo-face concentrated for a moment before two bursts of mana shot out in rapid succession. First, its stone armor shattered in a familiar way and formed into the blades of large climbing axes that bit into the wall. The second sent vines from the main mass sinking into the ground, four small groups shooting for one of each of the party members and a fifth for Hunter.

Daniel let out a soft scream as plants reached out of the ground and encircled his feet. It felt like standing in a pile of very large worms. Instead of devouring him, they coalesced into a set of writhing boots that extended up the back of the leg and circled his waist.

“A group buff from a Berserker?” Tlara was under the effect as well, though she had her spark beetle out which didn’t need the enhancement.

“Climb,” was all the response she got. Kob attacked the wall with a dozen stone points and soared up like a spider tank. Khare’s form was able to climb up the wall at a slower, but controlled pace, with Kob’s vines intermixed to assist their smaller kin. The rest of the team’s movement was less coordinated. Once the initial shock was over, Daniel realized what was happening. The vines were sinking into the ground to anchor him, and reaching up his back to support it against gravity. Walking was similar to what he imagined space age magnetic boots felt like. Each step had a delay as vines rooted into the earth or retreated to the boots.

Get them off. Hunter lost the early calm now that all four of his paws were covered in vines. On the ringcat, the vines formed something more akin to mittens that parted to allow claws to poke out. He was close to tearing at them with his fangs as he shook one paw in the air.

You can’t climb the wall without them. Daniel put a foot against the vertical ground, and then another. The pressure of gravity was spread across his back in a way reminiscent of a climbing roller coaster. Well, maybe you can, but this is faster. We’ll hang back and do enough to participate. He tried to sound confident for Hunter’s sake and failed.

Hunter’s only answer was a growl, but he started climbing as well. The process was laborious but faster than free climbing. It also left Daniel’s arms free to fire the crossbow. Twenty crossbow bolts. All he had were twenty shots against roughly one hundred plant monsters and the giant commander he was ambling toward. Also the four lightning bolts in one of Hunter’s special packs. They wouldn’t be much use here, and if he was close enough to the root core to use them he’d also very quickly die. Better stick to the normal ones.

The vines on his back adjusted as he brought his crossbow up to his shoulder. It didn’t perfectly compensate, but Snap Shot should do the rest. Daniel placed a hand on the crossbow’s firing mechanism, sighted, and gasped. Kob was now at the first group of plant monsters that were reacting to the invasion. They were like blades of grass against a tree. Another air hammer of sizable mana burning up hit as a dozen were scythed from the rock wall without a break in Kob’s pace. How much mana do they have? Daniel wondered. And if that’s just level 4, what will this thing throw at us?

Shooting anything near Kob was pointless, it would die well before the bolt hit home. Daniel adjusted further up to the far end, aimed, and didn’t fire. Right, gravity. He’d forgotten the change in axis, but Snap Shot had saved him from wasting a bolt at the cost of a bit of mana. He picked a mid-range target, fired, and internally cursed as the bolt sailed through a vine monster. Damage immunity? Really? His logical mind tried to tell him it made sense in hindsight but Daniel was too on edge to care. Well, if attacking a mass of evil spaghetti didn’t work, the immobile level two piranha plants should make better targets.

The rock face shook a little as one of the rooted plants was injured. Instantly, a black vine with a red barb shot out towards Daniel only to be torn apart by Hunter. It was hard to tell from this vantage, but it looked like the root core itself was shifting to meet its adversaries. The core was like the head of a jellyfish with vast tentacles. The largest roots had been spread out in a circle which now moved down as if suddenly affected by gravity. From the red outlines, it seemed smaller barbed roots were being fired at the invaders from beneath the earth. “It’s attacking from the ground!” Daniel shouted.

“I told them we needed flight to fight this!” Tlara complained back. She had things slightly better as she was mounted, but tendrils were lashing out at her at a higher rate than anyone besides Kob. From that, Daniel made an easy deduction.

“It’s sensing our movement through the ground! Er, cliff,” he added as the directional dysphoria caught up with him. “You could use your beetle to draw fire.”

Even from a distance, Daniel could sense the hostility emanating from Tlara renew through her aura. “If you’re so smart, use your tool!”

The exchange, and chaos of trying to dodge attacks from the ground itself while rooted to it gave Daniel enough time to reload before responding. “Who’s being attacked more? Staying on your mount is just putting you in more danger.” Tlara seemed like she wanted to argue, but the root core’s attacks on the beetle made a solid point.

She carefully dismounted to join Daniel, Hunter, Sigron, and Khare. Kob was too far ahead to catch up to. They’d climbed so far so fast they’d be on the root core in a minute. By the way they were literally mowing down the plant army in front of them, there seemed to be no sign of them being stopped. How is this a level 5 monster?

That question was answered twice. For the first answer, each member of the plant army stopped trying to intercept Kob at the same time. The rooted carnivores placed like defensive melee turrets couldn’t do much to move, but the writhing vine masses started ambling away instead of towards the hurtling giant. The hive mind of the root core had realized the futility of stopping the engine of death with mere minions.

Instead, they fell from the sky. Daniel cursed himself for once more forgetting he wasn’t on solid ground. Most of the mobile vine monsters were level one, but several stronger variants were falling towards them as well. The group rapidly approaching Daniel’s side of the battle would have been an appropriate group of enemies to train on with Kob, but they could be deadly without the giant’s protection.

The only saving grace was that Daniel’s crossbow had just been reset. Guess I’ll use one after all. “Sigron, stop!” he called out. The knight had begun working his way to meet the charge as the group’s bulwark. He saw Daniel fitting a modified crossbow bolt into his weapon and nodded. Tlara noticed too and begrudgingly slowed her spark beetle so it would intersect after Daniel’s shot.

The vine group that was practically a proto-Kob reached out with many vines to slow its collective fall. The action hazily reminded the Artificer of high school biology, similar to how immune cells exited blood vessels. The comparison wasn’t too far off. Almost, he thought, judging the distance. Almost…

Snap Shot could assist his aim, but not the timing of the bolt’s explosion. That Daniel could handle. The real contributor was Scatter Shot, which could be used alongside Snap Shot due to it being a spell and not another attack. Though the cost was less than that of Moment of Clarity’s initial activation, it wasn’t as negligible as Snap Shot. That meant it needed to be reserved for hard hitting abilities for which Daniel’s crossbow was perfectly suited. Now. He fired.

With no other lightning spine near enough to arc to, the one in the bolt fully built its charge and sparked dangerously in the air. The vine mass swallowed it before it exploded, which caused secondary electrical explosions all around the original point. The effect was like a massive airburst ordinance, throwing most of the vine creatures off the mountain. Those of higher level remained to be intercepted by the distant spark beetle and Sigron.

Then came the second sign of the root core’s true power. Everyone had taken their eyes off of the major roots. Each was slowly curving towards the surface like a flower closing its petals, all the while throwing minor barbs that harried everyone on the cliff wall. Five of the eight targeted the space above the root core to form a defensive line, whereas the remainder addressed the group of invaders below the main threat.

There was another shockwave of mana expenditure as one neared the surface, this time coming from the monster. A barb the size of a car speared up and out of the rock surface to impale the spark beetle, immediately striking it dead.

“Fuck!” Tlara cried out as the group was showered with upturned rocks. The large black and red root slowed once more but did not withdraw into the rock face. The body of the spark beetle fell to the ground as the root angled downwards towards her and the others. “You’re on your own,” she said flatly and detached from the wall. Her arms had already changed into wings and would secure her safety.

Daniel quickly ran through his options in his mind as he cursed her cowardice. Crossbow, out. Glue, useless. Dagger, a good scatter could work. Talons? If I have to. He extended his thoughts to Hunter. Slowly move behind us and stop. I don’t know what I’ll do if I see you on the end of one of those barbs.

Keep your head. You cannot freeze again, Hunter thought with forced calm.

I know. It’s not as bad as it looks. He was trembling, to be fair, but the Artificer wasn’t stunned with horror like last time. Daniel looked up to where Kob was still carving his way up the mountain like the villain of a horror movie. We just have to hold out for them to colony collapse these guys.

What?

Hive minds have their weakness. One big one, really, he explained.

The two remaining vine monsters with appreciable health would reach them before the massive main root. Sigron planted his sword into the rock and met them with a two-handed shield bash. These vine monsters weren’t as well rooted and the Knight recognized the chance to use gravity against them. The largest was the most affected by gravity, and the level three vine monster fell past the group.

The level two vine monster was able to detach and land on Daniel before it shared its larger kin’s fate. He’d seen Kob consume Sigron for both protection and mobility. This was more along the lines of straight consumption. The vines pulsed in a motion far too similar to peristalsis and the strength was almost overbearing.

The talon hand ability and Daniel’s almost level two strength allowed him to resist for long enough for another to intervene. A greatsword, impossibly large for Khare’s mass, clumsily swung out from the vines of his ally and into the ones of his foe. His crossbow had done nothing against these creatures, but the sword was deadly to them. Khare didn’t seem as practiced with it but it got the job done. Most of the vine mass around Daniel fell away. The remnant concentrated on his left arm. It contracted suddenly, and there was a snap. Tearing through the pain of a likely broken arm, Daniel broke the roots off with his free talon hand.

The exposed primary root sent out another mana pulse and speared toward the group. Sigron was still in front and was the best positioned to take the blow. One, then two, then three flashes of mana burned across the shield still held in two hands. The amount of exposed root that hit the knight was twenty times his length, with far more buried underneath the earth to provide strength. Kob’s vines on Sigron’s back strained against the blow and held. The shield did not.

A red point of hardened plant mass emerged from Sigron’s shoulder and tore the arm away. It was the knight’s shield arm, so broken armor and limb fell together. There was nothing Daniel, or anyone nearby, could do. Blood was spurting out from a massive gash where the joint had once been and would continue to do so unabated.

Two huge vines were snaking underneath the ground to strike at them as well. Mana pulses filled the air, three of them in succession, but they were distant, aimed at Kob. Both the giant and the defensive main roots had reached the core. Kob was using stone spears to pummel the cliff wall and reach the heart of the level five when their back was pierced three times.

Still, the gestalt continued. They dug into the earth, faster and faster against the roots trying to pull them out, until Daniel could only see them by their gray outline. Just like the nights he’d watched Hunter clear out the countryside, the Artificer waited for them to intersect with the red core buried deep in the mountain. He prayed, first to the god of his world, and then to the gods of the Octyrrum that Kob would reach the heart before the massive roots around them won.

They all waited. There was nothing else to do but for Sigron to clutch at his side and bleed. Kob dug and dug and dug until they reached the mountain’s heart. The cliff wall shook violently once, and then the giant root in front of him grew limp.

Blood was dripping on Daniel’s armor. Sigron was staggering, trying to reach the ground in a death march. He’d abandoned his sword in a desperate attempt to do something. But there was little to be done, it didn’t matter if he was on the wall or the ground. The only healer capable of treating his wounds was in the city, hours away at best.

“Fatal,” Khare’s gnarled voice was sad and shared the realization of inevitability that shone in Sigron’s eyes.

Daniel’s phone buzzed. Advancement, he was certain, but he would throw himself off the mountain now if he was even slightly tempted to check it. The Knight was someone he’d never spoken to, and yet he knew Sigron’s measure. Tlara had run at the first sign of true danger, but Sigron? He’d faced a strike from a creature three levels above him and survived. Actions always spoke louder than words.

Survived initially, at least. His class favored endurance, but it couldn’t entirely replace the need for blood. Sigron was back to where Daniel and Khare stood, still walking woodenly to the ground. It was like the legs were moving of their own accord while the Knight’s life force was-

Glue! Daniel suddenly thought as the wheel of options spinning in his mind stopped on the right space. He had one orb in his pack. The rest were with Hunter, but that wouldn’t matter. The hardened shell normally required time and water to peel off. Instead, he used a talon hand to crack it with brute force. The sphere was just large enough to cover the torn flesh and while the glue’s direct contact with exposed flesh was painful, it worked as Daniel just got his hand off before he fused it to Sigron.

Sigron looked from his arm to Daniel and understood. He shakily clasped Daniel’s left shoulder with his remaining arm, causing the Artificer to cry out in pain. The arm was broken, but it wasn’t the worst thing that had happened to an arm today. The Knight’s lips moved in what was an attempt to apologize, which only made Daniel laugh.

“Y-you,” he started but was just as lost for words.

“Kob,” Khare’s voice reported the reemergence of the other gestalt. They were moving slower than they had before and even from this distance appeared injured. Gestalt didn’t have flesh to tear or bones to break, but they did have mass to lose. Kob had shrunk a considerable amount. It didn’t matter, they would recover. More importantly, they’d killed the level five and stopped the roots at just the right moment.

The massive one in front of Daniel started to flake away as if it had caught fire and been immediately reduced to ash. “Must be because it’s demonic?” he wondered aloud. “Or devilish, right. I should look that keyword… oh no.” The other two looked at him and found unexpected terror. “We need to-“

The mountain shook again. The devil root core had infested it for years, working itself deep into the stone to bear as armor. Eventually, the parasite had caused enough damage to the structure that its sudden removal had imperiled the rock face. Daniel had seen the size of the roots and guessed too late what was about to happen.

It started first near Kob. The mountain slumped as a pocket of air opened, once occupied by the main mass of the root core. The channels of the large attack roots were next as stone folded in on itself, and at that point the reaction was self-sustaining. An avalanche of rock hurtled towards the team as the mountain broke itself apart.

Daniel kicked himself off the mountain. What else could he do? His arm was broken and his mana was almost spent. The reaction was instinctual and instant, letting him realize too late that he was leaving Hunter behind. Jump! he thought, and Hunter obeyed. That was another mistake. The last sight he was treated to before hitting the ground was one of the pouches on the ringcat sparking. The bolts were too close together. They were too close together! It would have been easy to put them in separate pouches and it should have occurred to Daniel every time he withdrew one. Sure, they would be shocking Hunter now, but that was better than what was about to happen.

The pouch exploded, violently altering Hunter’s fall and sending a spray of feline blood into the air. Daniel’s back hit the ground and he fell unconscious, cursing cowards, Kob, and most of all, himself.