Chapter Six Hundred and Three – Whatever it Takes

The massive roots crawled up the rocky sides of the keep's underbelly at a relentless walking pace, which was terrifyingly fast growth for a plant. Everywhere they dug in, stone splintered, sending bits of rock tumbling toward the sea below.

I leaned forward, each hand clenching the railing. My heart was hammering in my chest.

Tristain had told us to flee. He'd told us to get away, to leave this fight to the Avatars.

And they were fighting. Fire and stone and arrows and strange liminal shapes were tearing into the big seed, and several Avatars had even leapt onto its surface to savage it with melee attacks. It responded in kind, bombarding them point-blank with seeds, lashing at them with vines, casting magical spells with impunity, and constantly pressuring them with roaring horn-blasts.

A flicker of motion caught my eye. An Avatar sprinted vertically down the side of the Keep toward the Evil Roots, an axe appearing in her hands. She swung like she was planning to hew down a tree in a single stroke.

The whole root system shook and I could see a shockwave sweep aside the rain, but the axe only bit halfway into the root. The avatar paused for a split second, then she swung around the handle like a gymnast, braced herself, and tore the axe free. Resetting her stance in a blur, she swung again. This time, the root cracked in two, and pus-like fluid spattered across the stone, but otherwise, there was hardly any reaction. Both sides of the root just kept growing, sending out rapidly thickening tendrils that wormed into the stone.

Tristain had told us to flee. But if we fled, I felt a growing certainty that the Avatars were gonna lose the whole Keep, at best.

Chips of Evil Root went flying as the Avatar attacked every tendril in sight like a lumberjack with a chainsaw. Nevertheless, the roots expanded outwards like kudzu. One chainsaw was not going to be enough.

But there was one person on the Beaver who was really good at Cleaning Evil Roots: me.

I gulped. I was the captain. If anyone was hurt on the ship doing what I'd asked them to do, the fault would spill down onto my shoulders. Even so...

"Clive."

"Yes captain?"

"Bring us around. Back to the Keep. As fast as you can."

"Aye captain."

Clive spun the wheel, and underneath me, the Beaver started swinging to starboard. I raised my voice and called out to my crew: "Battle stations, everyone! We're going for the roots! If you have shields, now's the time!"

On deck, Bastion and Desiree dashed to the prow of each hull.

Overhead, our harpy crew clung onto the underside of the ship's balloon, expertly clambering along the ropes to repair the thorn-holes. They were covering the area around the holes with thick, gloopy tar-like glue and then slapping down square-cut patches of cloth.

Good. That would stop us from bleeding too much of our lifting gas.

The deck opened up off to the side, and Awen's repeating crossbow turret rose out of the deck with a constant rattle of chains.

Our engine roared, giving all it had to fly us in a wide circle that put the keep between us and the enemy. It was nice to be behind cover for a moment, though the path also brought us closer to the storm walls, which looked like they were breaking up rather violently, the winds abating in some places and twisting into little vortices in others. It sent waves of rain splashing across the deck.

I patted Clive on the back. "Keep him steady," I said before I leapt over the railing to land on the port deck, where Caprica was kneeling next to Calamity. She had dirty bandages in hand, and there was a small first aid kit next to her as well, opened up, with some of its contents spilled out across the deck.

She'd already pulled the thorn from his leg. Caprica had cut off one end, and what remained was a long, dark piece of what looked like wood, almost, but it was covered in some blood and torn up on the edges.

"H-hey," I said, feeling a little awkward. This was a fault that had already spilled onto my shoulders.

"He'll live," Caprica said.

"I'm gonna die, cap'n," Calamity moaned melodramatically. He was gritting his teeth but still had a crooked grin.

"Ah, it's good that your humour isn't broken, at least," I said.

"Just my leg," he replied.

Caprica shook her head. "His leg isn't broken. The thorn just punched through some muscle; a healing potion will take care of that. The real problem is it was covered in toxins I can't identify. I need you to clean the wound."

I nodded, dropping to my knees next to Calamity, then reached a hand out to hover over his bandaged leg. I focused just a little, but at this point, using Cleaning magic was second nature to me, and it came out as a wave of pure, whitish mana that washed over the bandages and burned away any blood or gross stuff.

Calamity didn't react, which was good. Cleaning magic shouldn't hurt, but it didn't feel that nice either.

I patted him on the shoulder since a hug wouldn't be appropriate right then. "Let us know if it hurts too much, okay?" He gave me a thumbs up.

The Beaver shook. A shockwave rushed over us, and when I looked over, we were out from behind the Keep and I could see one of the squid-like plants careening away, trailing a long plume of purplish smoke as it quickly lost altitude.

I stood up. We were fast approaching the Keep. On this side, I could see the roots were halfway up the stonework, clawing in through any windows or arrowslits they could find. One of the towers was so strangled it looked to be on the verge of collapse.

Clive called out to pull some of the sails in, and the scallywags emerged from belowdecks just in time to handle it. In a breathless tone, Oda relayed to me that the loose stuff downstairs was stowed away as best they could.

I hurried to starboard, where I was joined by Amaryllis. She opened her mouth to speak, then flinched as a huge spell went off on the other side of the keep. The air shook, and a wash of warm air swept by, blowing back my hair and almost knocking my hat off. I checked on the crew fixing the balloon, but they had hung on well enough.

"We can't stay here forever," Amaryllis said. "This is... this is several high-tier people going all out. We're not ready for this kind of fighting."

"Yeah," I agreed, because what else was I going to say to that? I let a bit of cleaning magic flare along my hands.

"You better be quick," Amaryllis said.

I nodded. The nearest of the roots were still a little ways away, but my Cleaning magic could be tied up into a projectile. "When we get closer, I'll be able to do more, but I'll start now."

I reached a hand out towards the keep, focused for a moment, then fired out a quick blast of Cleaning magic, shaping it into a spinning sphere not too dissimilar from my little fireball spells, only with S-rank Cleaning it came easier and faster than that.

The glowing ball of magic darted forwards and smacked into one of the questing ends of an evil root. The root stopped, squirmed, then the tip of it melted away into a faint dust that was carried away by the wind. The burning effect worked backwards along the root for a little ways, until the magic was exhausted.

"It's climbing through the inside as well," Amaryllis warned. "You'll need to saturate it."

"Okay!" I agreed. We were already a little closer. So I focused harder, collected more mana, and shaped it into a great, more powerful spell. This time, when I launched it, the spell rushed forward. It was less a ball of magic and more a firehose spray. I could feel my reserves dropping as the magic surged forwards.

Then I split it, different tendrils smothering different sections of the crawling roots.

The magic washed away decades worth of dust and grime and dirt from the rocky bottom of the keep, and it seared into the roots, dissolving them down to black dust. The effect raced downwards and into the keep through some of the lower windows that the roots had been crawling out of.

"Got it!" I shouted. This was working! But my quest hadn't been updated, so... "Clive, turn us around! We need to maneuver so I can keep--"

I winced as a loud shriek echoed through the storm.

You have heard the roar of a monstrous being! Your existence is questioned.

I couldn't see the monsters anymore, but I could tell that something happened, especially when there were shouts from the Black Avatars.

Was it upset that I had scoured the root away?

"Captain!" Clive shouted.

It was too late. Something shot around the keep, moving so quick it was a blur. Then it slammed into the deck, just ahead of me, sending broken planks and bits of decorative woodwork flying.

I raised my arms to protect myself from splinters. When I lowered them, I expected to see another seed, or thorn, or something, but instead... there was a person, made of twisting vines with wooden skin, flowers for hair, and two tall clusters of petals poking up just like my own bun ears. And they, she, was looking right at me.

***

A note from RavensDagger

Sorry the chapter was late! Entirely my fault! Zoufii, my kind and loyal editor, left a ton of notes on this one, and I, uh, didn't look at them until it was time to post. The first note was 'you might want to edit this early because there's a lot' and... oops?