Chapter 422 - All Quiet on the Bees-tern Front

The Sparkling Desert actually ended up calming down after a bit. The cacti stopped shooting new beams and the existing beams died out as they eventually shot towards the sky or the ground. The thorns would apparently need to absorb more light…and by that point the sun was setting. Belissar would have to keep that in mind, apparently he could send forces to that room so long as he paid attention to the glow of the thorns. Or if the forces were underground, since the sand stopped the beams for the most part…maybe the digging and groundmelder bees might work?

In any case, now that his new trap fields were set up, Belissar rearranged the room, moving the battle Bog back to the front and pulling back the Abyssal Trench to the end of the second floor. He informed Duke Turuhave of the rearrangement, the silver elf then set up a watch rotation to keep an eye on the room throughout the night.

By that point, the sun had set and most of the Tower had gone to bed. The zombie rabbits didn’t need sleep, so they kept gnawing away at the mushrooms, but Belissar decided to order the Second Third of the First to return to her hive and rest. It would take her undead a while to clear the room, so there was no reason to push herself now. With that in mind, Belissar went to rest himself afterwards…

***

Belissar awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of buzzing. His mind snapped to alert in and instant and he found Niobee zipping about in front of his face.

“King! Second Third of the First says hive under attack!”

Belissar leapt out of bed.

“What?! How did a shade get out of the room?! Get everyone up!”

Niobee, however, stopped buzzing and slowed her dance.

“Oh, shade not out of room. Second Third of the First’s magic palace ok, says cutes under attack.”

Belissar blinked.

“Cutes…?”

He was blanking on that…but now wasn’t the time to try and figure it out.

“Niobee, where is the attack happening?”

“Corrupted room!”

That made more sense. Belissar immediately through his Tower sight towards the corrupted fairy grove. He could only see through the eyes of the Second Third of the First’s undead, so he discovered the situation right away. The undead rabbits were under attack, spines were flying through the air and impaling the small zombies. They could handle being impaled, since they were already dead, but apparently they were still taking damage, his vision through one of the rabbits cut off as more and more spines hit it.

He looked around through the surviving rabbits and the zom-bees hovering around them to find the culprit. He caught sight of movement…apparently, it wasn’t the mushrooms themselves that were attacking. There was a spiky salamander shade standing between the stalks, flinging spines towards the rabbits. The rabbits, at present, were ignoring the attacks and continued gnawing the nearest mushroom even as spines impaled them. The zom-bee workers buzzed, then attacked. They were small enough not to get impaled on the spines, but the spines were dense enough that they couldn’t reach the shade’s flesh…or Hunger equivalent.

Belissar frowned.

“I guess it won’t be that easy. Niobee, can you ask the Second Third of the First to pull her undead back? We’ll need to reconsider the plan. For now, though, we should let Duke Turuhave know there are mobile shades that might attack.

Niobee sent off the messages and the recipients responded accordingly. The Second Third of the First pulled her undead away, the salamander followed them as far as the room’s exit but did not follow them into the Bog for now. Though, that didn’t last for long…

Warning! A corrupted room has produced additional corrupted forms! Corrupted forms are now assaulting the rest of the dungeon!

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Estimated purification strength: Below Average.

Incoming corrupted forms: 5

The warriors of the Silver Host on watch were already moving into position, after taking anti-poison potions or casting protective spells. Their silver armor somehow blended into the now ever-present mist, Belissar found it hard to keep track of them even with his Tower sight. Hopefully the Hunger would find it equally difficult.

The spiky salamander then arrived in the Bog…and was joined by several others. A squad of the shades crawled through the muck, their bodies almost slivering through the mud and water without slowing down in the slightest. They might have even been moving faster than they had on dry ground!

At least until they hit the thorny roses. The lead shade tried to crawl beneath the thorns…but the spikes on its back got caught on branches and thorns. The shade growled and whipped spines at the bushes…but the roses didn’t care about getting impaled. The branches and the thorns remained in place.

The shade gnashed at the branches…and got a mouth full of thorns. It whacked at them with its front feet, but lacked any claws. With no other options, the salamander backed off…or tried to. Its attempts to remove the thorns had gotten its spines further tangled in the branches and it was now stuck. The shade writhed and lashed about…but that only got it further entangled.

Eventually, the shade resorted to its all-out spine attack, ejecting all the spines from its body. That freed it from the entanglement…and left it defenseless while it was still surrounded by rose thorns. It managed to back out of the bush but was leaking hunger from scratches all over its head.

Finally, it was free and back out in the open…and that was when a silver arrow shot out of the mist and landed straight between its eyes, while it still lacked spines to protect it. The shade died immediately.

The other shades immediately launched spines into the mist, but they hit nothing. They continued to attack for a while, spreading out their spines, but the silver elves had already left their range. After a while, with no further attacks coming from the mist, the shades ceased their futile assault and began searching for a way forward again.

The rest of the shades did not attempt to crawl through the thorny bushes, managing to find the safe path Belissar had prepared for them instead. This led them to a pond, with the path turning to the side to go around. The shades ignored the turn and crawled right into the pond, the salamanders perfectly at home in the water.

At least until the air distorted and the salamanders found themselves pulled through the water, towards a patch of gravilion flowers on a small island in the center of the pond. Then the gravilion fields reversed and pushed the salamnders away. The sudden reversal in force also caused the water to spin and churn upon itself, causing the salamanders to tumble around. Then the forces changed yet again, keeping the water and shades in motion.

Spines began shooting out of the water as the salamanders tumbled. One managed to hit another in its unprotected belly, even. Eventually, though, the gravilion flowers created a wave that pushed the shades back onto the banks of the pond. The shades wasted no time scrambling back up onto the safe path…save for the one that had been injured by its fellows. That one was moving slower with a spine in its belly…and so was still in range when another wave from the pond crashed over it. Water and gravitational forces pulled it back into the pond once more…

The other shades left it to its fate and continued along the path, probing the bushes along the edges for any additional way forward. They were moving noticeably slower at this point…and growing slower every moment.

In the end, the purification ended with a whimper. The shades eventually stopped and faded as the toxic mist took its toll. The silver elves didn’t even need to engage them again.

Incoming corruptive forms: 0

Assault concluded. Purifying partially corrupted rooms.

Fortunately, the Tower managed to clear the corruption spread by the salamanders, so the Bog would be fully ready for any further assaults. Unfortunately, Belissar didn’t receive any rewards for defeating the assault…but he was fine with that. He was just happy it was defeated without issue, save for the loss of a few undead rabbits.

Honestly, the Bog did better than he had hoped. He had to admit it didn’t seem as impressive after the chaos that was the gravilion-filled Floating Islands and crystalspine cacti-covered Sparkling Desert, to the point that he was considering whether it was worth the mana cost…but it had been effective in the end. Thorny roses didn’t do much on their own, but they did make it harder for the shades to advance, especially with the gravilion flowers covering the watery areas. As a result, the shades’ advance was slowed to a crawl…which was a serious problem when the entire room was filled with toxic mist. The Bog would have defeated those spiky salamanders all on its own, even if the silver elves hadn’t helped.

Belissar still remembered the wounds just one of those salamanders had inflicted on the bee army and the karnuq. An entire squad of them, that could cover each other in between spine attacks? That could have been a tough battle…and it died without encountering a bee.

He decided he’d keep the Bog’s trap field for a bit longer, at least until the Hunger proved it could get past it.