Chương 338: AF Chapter 337 – Treed and Stoned

The path down that beach was brutal and cold, and took more Healing than I'd had to ladle out since Tou-Tou. Everything was throwing Platinum spells, and had Armor Classes above 30, just utter pains for most of the warriors here to fight. Without Wolfpack tactics enabling them to surround and gain some substantial bonuses and extra attacks, it would have been an extremely precarious advance. The only easy spawns were the 'true' moars, because they weren't much bigger than a small dog.

They were netted and held in place while they were killed readily enough, although if they evaded the net and got free they were as ferocious as honey badgers and even harder to hurt, damn things. The teams got pretty good at charging up on the other spawns or letting the archers pull them in, blocking them, surrounding them, and whaling away until they died.

Our goal was the Deru tree, and we stuck to open ground and not the very overgrown forest waiting for us, heading down the beach, killing everything on the way, Sealing every spawn point so they wouldn't recur, and continuing on. Kris and the Mick could take out a spawn of any of the things solo, which they demonstrated as much to prove it to themselves as to everyone else.

Sure, they had everyone green with envy watching how they moved, with Kris' Master of Ways easily matching the Mick's paramount-topped melee maxed capabilities as far as hitting them, then outdoing him with transcendental Weapon Sagedom that just had all the melee men and women staring at her in awe and envy of her ability. They could all tell she had room to improve yet, and actually wasn't any better at the fundamentals than the most skilled of her new knights.

She just knew sooo much more weird stuff than they did...

The ancient pyramidal temple complex set up by the Sisters of Light millennia ago was in good shape still, Empyrean regenerative construction keeping it in good repair and the plant growth that should have built up around it away, just like their roads. The great Deru Tree that had once been lovingly maintained by the priestesses who lived here was a great corpse looming over a ghost town or graveyard, it was hard to know which.

We stared at the bulbs of the powerful slithis tentacles sticking up out of the ground around the ancient roots of the Deru Tree, so powerful that even now, at least forty years after being known to Isparians, it still hadn't fallen over. It might even have been dead for centuries, but situated above the ley line and being such a natural siphon of natural energies, it was dead but simply not allowed to decay. The tentacles might even be using its roots to siphon the ley line energy.

Well, that meant it was basically a quasi-undead plant creature. There was no hiding the fact T'Thuun was involved with this. The Eyestalks, Tendrils, and primary Tentacles all Assayed as of T'Thuun. Well, it wasn't going to like what we were going to do to it. The Bane for everyone's Weapons was against the Aberrant, a pure blue and queasy yellow-green sappy light here, the latter as if responding to the presence of the tendrils.

Vivus was added on top of it, as the energies it put out and used were exciting snacks to vivus. Mass Protection from Curses was ladled on top of all of them, followed by Mass Death Ward." Tremble." Even for Kris, the word seemed to hang in the air for a disturbingly long time. Probably because it was said in Aklo. All the eyestalks in the area swiveled to look at her. - Ding!

"Tremble, oh, you Damned Thing! Tremble, we come! Across the ages, across Time and space, vengeance and thirst have come to this place! The Land will FEED on the maggot who thinks to drink Her blood! The ire of Creation carved on steel and wood!" - With a hiss, the Cerulean Sign painted on all those Shields ignited in sky blue rejection of the Aberrant, and the eyes on all those tendrils flinched closed at the azure, leaflike symbol of life and rejection of the unnaturalness of the Aberrant. -"Tremble and twist!

Tremble and writhe! Fire and light, to take your life! This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Your hungers, your dooms! Your pain now looms Before you, time to pay the price of mortal souls and the final knife As you feed the Land!

"TREMBLE, WE COME!" Ting! - Then the vengeance of the Land charged to the attack, while I started bombarding the upper reaches of the Deru Tree with Vivic Flaming Darts. According to the Mick, the tentacles here were bloody infuriating to deal with, because they used Plat and Mana-grade Drains and Harm Other effects, as well as some crippling short-term Curses that could reduce Stats down to 1.

Generally that was Strength, which could instantly immobilize someone under the weight of their own body, let alone their gear. Hitting Focus made people idiots, Self drained them of mana and ability to use magic, Coordination would lock up their muscles disobediently, Quickness would reduce them to the speed of frozen molasses, and Endurance… well, that hit Health, and one follow-up hit or spell could instantly kill someone who got hit with that particular one.

With the correct Protections up, they only had to deal with its melee attacks and extruded whipping sporeballs that hit like sling bullets when flung at targets. The Curses and negative-energy effects just bounced when hitting the Protections, and when all the tentacles erupted from the ground in writhing clusters to throw things, try to impale them, or slap down on them with crushing damage, the fighting was on.

Happily, the clusters were almost ideally set up for two or more people to work on them at one time, and the Aun archers setting up behind had a great deal of experience at shooting down slithis tentacles.

These particular ones might have been tougher, with stronger hides, but that didn't stop the broadheads from coming in with explosive force to chop into their bases, while the Melees covered one another as they surrounded each knot, and other teams with Shields deflected the incoming spore-shots from neighboring clusters. I watched them, and any who were slammed hard, nearly spit, or otherwise injured got quick Healing Cold Darts to them to get them back to normal.

The tentacles did attempt to grab and constrict them, a tactic that startled the Mick, as he couldn't remember any slithis ever doing anything like that. However, Close-Quarters Fighting was a Feat that he and Kris had agreed should be a standard part of the new world, as getting into a wrestling match with an extraplanar acidic tentacle, Elementals, or acid-dripping, flame-spitting moarsman was not in any way a good idea.

A tentacle that attempted to grab them immediately triggered an Attack of Opportunity, usually shearing through the tentacle with speed and force, allowing the person to get away from the grasping attack. Niche feat, only useful against things attempting to Grab or Grapple, but when it happened, offense and defense all in one.

The two of them were participating in the hacking simply because there were too many goddamn tentacle extrusion clusters all over the place, and killing them faster meant not having to put up with the flung spore-balls coming in and caroming off everyone's Armor with lethal force or acidic splatters. When they chopped off a tendril, someone with Blooding on a Weapon made sure to hit the base, even as vivus and Banefire continued to eat away at the stump hungrily.

These things were not going to be regenerating any time before the dawn, and by the dawn it was going to be too late. The tendrils were the only 'real' creatures we'd seen so far on the island. The fact all the nominal defenders of the temple were all Summons only, and basically suborned by the Tentacles, was a pretty good indicator that the originals had been long slain. Up above, the Deru Tree was on unwhite fire.

It had caught fire reluctantly, preserved status defying the vivus on the one hand, and the fire on the other. Both of them together, however, it wasn't so good at, especially Primal Heavenly Fire. Once the branches started to ignite, I simply expanded the centers of the flames, truly powerful Primal fires reaching past the mana-reinforcement to use that mana as fuel. The flames really started to take off, while vivus ate away at the influence of T'thuun preserving it and trying to defy the whole process.

Flaming leaves weren't coming down, but a vivic rain of misty droplets soon pattered around those fighting and onto the scattered clusters of T'Thuun tentacles, spattering the latter like acidic rain.

The fibrous green skins of the tentacles began to pit and corrode in the accumulating vivic mists visibly, while up above the flames Burned up towards the crown of the Deru Tree with ever more flames and fury and vigor, the Banefires and Kickers in every blast I sent up there guiding the mounting inferno above us to all the weakest places to increase the speed of what was going on.

The tentacles and eye-stalks could see me and what I was doing, but I was out of range of the spells and spores of the things, and they were getting chopped down with a great deal of speed and vigor. More and more of the clusters were erupting out of the ground as the vivic mists around slowly poured down around the ancient dry roots of the Deru Tree, its withered bark beginning to molder and wither… and then ignite as I blasted it with Fiery Darts, and started a blaze at the roots as well as the crown of the tree.

The edges of branches were falling, but when the Burning lengths hit anything, they simply exploded into white dust and mist, harming nothing and scattering more vivic mists everywhere explosively. The mists seemed to be forcing any hidden tentacles up out of the ground, giving the Knights and Roaches ever more to do even as they hacked through the last of the inner ring of tentacle clusters with their own Burning Weapons.

"Sweep them," Kris ordered remorselessly, pointing at the end of the arc of the tentacles, swapping shielding members out as hacking Melee combatants went to work and the stoic Aun archers kept up their target shooting. Everyone converged on the tentacles, not splitting forces this time. I left off my igniting of the Deru Tree when the whole trunk was fully on fire, the only smoke rising from it devoured by vivus and falling back to the mist-covered ground heavily.

I focused on the tentacle clusters and proceeded to Chain each circle of tentacles with a Split Dartray. Kickers blazed up with Aberrant Banefire in pale blue and Holy energies, eating the stalks away as a team instantly pounced on the blazing tentacles to finish them off. The Kickers Burned with Silver Fire for twelve seconds, enough time to set a second cluster on fire, and the primary team leapfrogged the second team to start on that cluster as well.

I didn't even have to move off my position on the side of the pyramid-temple to get at the clusters behind the Deru Tree, courtesy of Seeking and my Detects. The Rays bent around the blazing trunk of the Deru Tree and lit into the cluster of tentacles, letting them writhe and Burn as they were chopped into with speed and energy, freezing and Burning and electrocuted all at once, vulnerable and twisting in spasmodic pain as they were eaten away and chopped down with vengeful speed.