Chapter 101 - Heartwood of Darkness

Smitty charged directly into the mass of the Dryad, knocking it off balance, allowing Mariana to dart over to Carter. She began some kind of holy magic spell, evidence of which was the bright glow over Carter's body.

The shine of her healing was, unfortunately, a beacon to the monster, its many eyes turning towards her. Mariana was focusing intently and didn't notice it reaching its vines towards her. I felt a sinking fear hit me, as losing our healer was the least ideal situation I could think of in a fight like this.

Almost instinctively, I reached out, and a fire bolt flew from my hand, no spell poem uttered. It just flew out and caught the creature on fire, causing it to recoil.

I was, of course, surprised, but there was little time to think more about it. This monster was proving to be complicated.

The Warped Dryad, as I decided to call it in my mind, had a great deal of advantages in combat. It had reached with all of its tendrils, had complete vision with the multitude of eyes, which meant it couldn't be snuck up on.

Or did it? It sure as hells saw Mariana, but it can't seem to get a bead on Myth. What's more, the tendrils seemed unfocused.

Were the mutations messed up somehow? Vestigial? I'm no monster biologist, but it was starting to give me an idea.

"Eira! Flank it, Opposite side from me! Smitty, keep your attention on you! We need to split its attention! Myth! Keep doing what you're doing!" I ordered everyone.

Eira rolled under a lashing vine as she let out a vibrato note that wreathed her fists in a sort of pinkish fire that she then drove right into one of the eyes, which popped like an overripe fruit.

The sound the creature made was hopefully one of pain, but I had no idea. It focused on Eira, all its eyes turning towards her, the tendrils following. I flooded Ice Moon with mana and struck, ice forming around where I plunged the sword. I didn't want to risk burning through too much mana all at once, so I didn't activate its full power, but I could tell it hurt. The tendrils and eyes turned away from Eira and back towards me.

That confirmed it. Tendrils and eyes in every direction, but not enough brain power to juggle all these new limbs and sensory input. At least, that's what made sense to me.

"Keep at it, don't give it time between attacks!" I shouted over the chaos, thrusting and slashing with all my might. Eira kept hitting it over and over before backing up to pelt it with some spells.

I turned my attention for just a moment to check on Mariana to see her dragging Carter behind the crates, which we had apparently decided was our temporary shelter.

Soon, she popped around the corner and started sending glowing arrows at the monstrosity. I wasn't sure what exact spell she used, but the arrows weaved around us to strike the beast, allowing her to keep firing in rapid succession without worrying about hitting us.

Myth had started mixing up her fireballs by launching them in smaller triplets of fire, then gouts of flame, then occasional bolts of light and frost. She was casting as fast as she could chant, knocking back mana potions like they were water.

It wouldn't be long till potion toxicity hit her, and hit her hard. We were all hitting the thing with all we had, and it was certainly doing a great deal of damage to the thing. But it wasn't enough. The damnable thing was healing just as fast as we could damage it.

I felt my own mana draining fast, despite the increased reservoir I had obtained in my adventures. I still hadn't gotten a good grasp of how to use it correctly.

I cursed myself for letting my magic training slack during my recovery from the dungeon core incident. If I survived this, I was going to have to put a lot more work into my spell craft.

That thought immediately left my mind as I saw Myth drop to a knee before ducking behind the crates. She was past her limit. Eira was also struggling to keep her pace. Smitty didn't seem a bit diminished, but I could never really tell.

I was also starting to feel my muscles screaming from the effort of all the hacking and dodging. This was turning into a battle of attrition we were very much at risk of losing.

The next thing I saw was Cori, atop the crates, taking the place of Myth. She was holding something I couldn't quite make out, other than it looked very mechanical. I could make out the herbicide canisters, some other smaller cylinders, wires, gears, a few levers, and I hadn't even the vaguest idea of what any of it could be. They almost looked like scrap from trap parts.

Cori let out a cry of rage and defiance, and leapt towards the wooden writing mass and slammed the machine mass against the creature, before being tossed off like a rag doll. She hit the floor hard with a loud grunt, but she rolled with the landing and popped back on her feet.

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"Run!" She shouted at us before making a beeline for the crates. None of us even questioned it as we trailed after her in a mad dash.

I made sure Eira and Smitty were safe, and I looked around the edge of the sturdy boxes to see what was going on. At least I prayed they were sturdy. I had no idea what rapidly constructed device Cori had cooked up, but it was sure to be amazing. Or a dud. It was a high-stakes coin toss, really.

The dryad queen, or at least the horror it had become, thrashed and tried to pry the thing off, but it couldn't manage it. Whatever it was, it was stuck on there very solidly.

There was a loud, solid thunk, and little wires sprang from it, wrapping the creature in some kind of tight metal web, cutting into the wood of the tendrils, lopping some of them off. Then each of the canisters began to pop with thick thuds, clouds of vapor emerging, causing the creature to scream in terror and pain.

I watched as it lashed out in anger and pain, trying to move, but bound by the wires that bound its malformed shape, the wood of it dying and withering into dust, soon causing the baleful glowing red crystal that made up its misgotten heart to be exposed to the stinking air of the sewer.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and was pulled back around the crates roughly, knocking me on my rear end.

"Hunker down, this is going to be bad!" Cori shouted, pulling herself into a fetal ball. The others had done the same, save for Smitty, who held her shield between the crates and us, extending all of the extra panels and the anchor spike.

I followed suit. I may be foolish sometimes, but I'm not an idiot.

There was a loud burst of heat and light, the crates around us exploded into flinders, peppering us with shards of burning wood. I had never been so grateful for armor in my entire life.

As the heat and wooden shrapnel calmed down, I noticed a distinctive ringing in my ears, and the sound around me was muffled. I shook my head, trying to clear it. It had been a while since I had to deal with that much concussive force.

I looked around and saw that my allies were all still standing. On top of that, Carter, that bitch born bastard, thrice accursed, was tied up and unconscious, but still breathing. Whatever Mariana had done to him kept him alive and docile. I'd have to ask more about that later. Could be useful.

I stood and looked at the site of what had at one point been the dryad queen.

The red core still pulsed on the ground, but it had disconnected from the body of the dryad, which, while still twisted, looked more like a humanoid. I walked over carefully and stood over it. Its eyes had returned to their previous emerald, and it gasped softly as more and more of its wooden body began to turn to dust.

"Curse you, meat. All I wanted was a grove of my own, for my daughters to feed and flourish. Why couldn't you all have accepted that?" She rasped at me.

"Would you accept being turned into kindling willingly?" I asked, kneeling, and picking up the false core.

"Of course not, but dryads are...superior...to meat...." She groaned in pain as the withering reached her throat.

"Do you have any last words before you go? Or a name to be recorded?" I asked. I didn't honestly care all that much. As far as I was concerned, she was the definition of a monster.

She laughed, a harsh, weak sound.

"I have no name fit for your kind's ears. I have no use for the memory of meat. One day you will die, and feed the next generation of my kind. That is enough satisfaction for me, filth." She laughed again, a haughty, arrogant sound, defiant at the last, turning to dust and silence as she crumbled into dust.

I held the core in my hand, its sickly dungeon mana leaking gently, barely perceptible. I'm sure Danica or Calderon would want to study this thing.

"What in all the hells above and below was that explosion?" A welcome voice said from one of the remaining bridges. It was Noah and Adhara, with a bound and gagged Felestil in tow, dragging him unceremoniously across the filth-covered undercity floor.

"Ah! Scarletti! You missed a great little party here! We blew up the dryad queen! And captured Carter!" Cori said, dusting herself off.

"He's alive? I'm pretty sure I saw him get run through by a branch or something." Adhara looked very confused. Or as confused as one could be behind a mask.

"Thanks to me, that is! I'm the best healer, I'll have you know! I wouldn't let a little thing like a fatal wound keep a person from dying on my watch!" Mariana boasted with an arrogant little strut.

"In any case, we should get these two back up to the surface. I'm sure Walther, Lord, and probably Farina have a lot of interrogating to do. I also want to know more about that conversation between them I overheard in the alley." I said, looking at the two bound knights.

"What conversation? What are you talking about, Alta?" Cori asked, confused. "Was that the alley I found you in?"

"Yeah. The alley. Where I was spying on their secret meeting with some magister, and I overheard the magister talking to something that I'm pretty sure now was the dryad queen. That conversation? You know the one." I said, looking at all the confused expressions from my party and our allies.

"We have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Alta. Did this happen after we met at the tea shop?" Myth said, her eyes narrowing at me.

"Sweetie, what is this all about, spying on stuff? I feel a bit out of the loop here." Eira gave me a look that I imagined was one shared by a million disappointed mothers through history.

I searched my memory, trying to remember.

"Oh shit. I forgot to tell you all about that, didn't I? Ummm....Ooops?" I tried to give an apologetic shrug.

"I swear to all the gods above, below, sideways, and crosswise, you are insufferable and an idiot, Marchesi! Seriously?! We need to know this stuff!" Mariana threw up her hands.

"We are going to discuss this later, Alta Alba Marchesi," Eira said, putting a stern hand on my shoulder.

My full name. Ooooh, I was not going to enjoy this one bit. Stern Eira could be hot. Stern Angry Eira was a whole different thing, and it made me more than a bit concerned for my immediate future.

"Let's uh....let's just get these guys up to the surface and plan our next move from here, yeah?" I laughed nervously, and everyone just rolled their eyes at me and picked our prisoners up off the floor.

In an awkward silence, we escorted them and our tired and bruised selves out of the stinking pit that was the undercity.

I was looking forward to seeing sunlight and breathing air that wasn't filtered through a mask.