Sophia searched the shadows for the mystery attacker. Was it the vines on the trees themselves or was it something else carrying the vines? She was fairly confident it was the second, with the way the corpsevines worked, but she needed to find it so she could guard against it.
The next few yells she heard were all because of squirrels. She helped as best she could with her Animated Blade, but it was only slightly faster than the squirrels themselves. After the third squirrel was killed by someone other than her, Sophia realized she had to keep her blade to a small area. She’d already cleaned up the ones damaged by Samuel’s large fire spells, so she directed the blade to float closer to her; it would guard access to Lady Essia better if it was closer.
Movement near the blade pulled Sophia’s attention. A shout moments later made her focus on the movement and she caught a clear, if partial, image of a spotted tail and an animal’s hindquarters. With a little more of an idea of what to look for, she was finally able to see it the next time it emerged from the shadows to quickly savage someone: a spotted cat with greenery growing from its fur, often in areas where it looked like spots should be.
Vine Ocelot [https://i.imgur.com/qeFWwGV.jpeg]
It was behaving far more like a cat than Sophia expected a plant to manage, but the cat’s wide eyes and jerky movements were wrong. It might be trying to hide and pounce, but there was something off about it. It didn’t move like a healthy predator or hunter; instead, it moved like a zombie.
A vine-animated zombie was actually a pretty good description of the bodies animated by the corpsevines. Sophia suppressed a shudder at the thought. There were undead dungeons on Earth; they didn’t bother her nearly as much as this did.
A moment later, one of Samuel’s guards managed to smack the cat with his large hammer. Sophia hadn’t really paid much attention to the fact that they were all armed differently, that was normal, but it suddenly made even more sense. They didn’t know what they were going to fight, but having a variety of specialties made it easier to adapt. A maul wasn’t what Sophia would have expected to work well against a stealthy opponent, but once the cat showed itself in the wrong place it was quickly squished.
A hand touched the back of Sophia’s armor. She felt Lady Essia’s aura, so she didn’t try to block the young woman when she performed a quick search for issues. There was a pulse of mana, followed by a tingle near Sophia’s injured knee and the pain disappeared. Essia’s voice whispered in Sophia’s ear, “I’ve repaired your Shield and closed the puncture in your leg, but there was nothing to purify; you must have fought off the corsevines’ venom already.”
Sophia didn’t feel like explaining it was her necklace in the middle of a fight. “I’m protected,” she admitted. “Can you heal the others?”
“You and Dav,” Essia said. She sounded almost exasperated. “I guess that’s why Samuel wanted you two, the best guards for a healer are people she doesn’t have to heal.”
Sophia’s eyebrows flew up. She hadn’t even realized Dav was hurt; he certainly hadn’t shouted the way some of Samuel’s guards had. More than that, Dav didn’t have any protection against venom like Sophia’s necklace. She wondered if he hadn’t been targeted by a squirrel or if he was somehow more resistant.
“As for the others, not from here,” Essia stated and turned to face the group. “I have to touch them.”
That meant Essia either had to get closer to the monsters or Sophia had to bring the injured to Essia. Since the injured were still fighting and the corpsevines were getting more common instead of less, Sophia knew which one they needed to try. The sooner any venom was handled, the better, but pulling people out of the fight early had its own risks.
“Behind that tree, watch out!” Rae called out. Sophia spun, but Rae’s warning was not aimed at her. Instead, it was aimed at Liam, who had clearly run to the new front of the group after Essia finished healing him. He was just in time to repeat the shield-blow that started the fight with the deer. This time, the recipient was a second large cat, though this one was sandy-colored, larger, and more heavily built. It reminded Sophia of a lioness, though that wasn’t quite right even before she considered the leaves draped along the cat’s upper back.
Vine Cougar [https://i.imgur.com/b6mVRfb.jpeg]
The new cat didn’t repeat the trick of the deer and grab the shield with its vines, but it also wasn’t disabled by the shield blow. Sophia could already tell that getting healing to Liam and Eliah, the pair of brothers that were two of the three with large shields, was going to be difficult. It was also important.
Liam was fine for the moment. Eliah, on the other hand, had three squirrels actively biting him while he tried to deal with a vine-wrapped racoon. He definitely needed help and no one else seemed to be available.
Envined Racoon [https://i.imgur.com/vWJJwVv.jpeg]
“Dav! Help me get those squirrels off Eliah!” Sophia called out, then directed Essia’s attention towards Eliah. The girl darted forward faster than Sophia expected. “Essia, dammit, slow down before you trip!”
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Sophia picked her way across the forest floor behind the healer as she focused most of her attention on her Animated Blade. It was maneuverable enough to get at the squirrels and she managed to kill two of the three before Essia made it to the warrior.
Essia stopped a step behind Eliah. She seemed unsure of what to do, which made sense with the way the man was moving around to deal with the racoon. He nearly moved into Sophia’s blade and she had to yank it out of the way instead of killing the third squirrel.
That was when Dav arrived. He’d left his Thorn Emitter back where they started, but he had his sword and caught the zombified raccoon squarely on the back of its neck as it lunged towards Eliah. Two pieces of racoon squished into Eliah’s shield and he stopped for a moment in apparent confusion.
Sophia took that moment to kill the third squirrel. They all still hung from vines connected to Eliah, but at least it was a start.
Eliah collapsed to his knees and seemed to balance against his shield. “This is so much worse than the stories.”
Sophia had to chuckle at that. She’d heard some of the stories about the fight against the corpsevines a decade earlier; they varied from horror tales to songs about heroism. Few of them seemed to have the sort of information she’d have wanted if this was a dungeon, but she’d been able to learn enough to know that the real problem wasn’t out here; it was the groups that actually entered the West Conservatory and faced the corpsevines in their home that were truly in trouble.
Even so, she hadn’t realized just how fierce the opposition to a Fire Mage was. It was clear now why there were a dozen people to guard Samuel and Essia.
Sophia leaned forward and tugged on one of the squirrels. “I assume this needs to come out?”
“Yeah,” Essia said with a frown. “If you remove it, I’ll get started on the healing.”
While Sophia helped Essia with Eliah, Dav summoned his Thorn Emitter and a Healing Beacon. That was his limit; he couldn’t manage more than two summons, no matter what they were, and he couldn’t have two of the same summon active at a time. It was a limit that Dav kept muttering about improving as he leveled, but Sophia was certain it would take practice if he wanted to stretch the limit of the Ability. Either way, it wasn’t like he could afford more than that for a long fight anyway. He could manage one beacon almost indefinitely, but maintaining two beacons drained his mana faster than it recovered.
Right before Sophia removed the vines from the third squirrel zombie, a wolf padded over to the group. Sophia took a long, careful look and noticed a complete lack of both vines and hostility. “Amy?”
Wolf Amy [https://i.imgur.com/VXb8D2X.jpeg]
The wolf gave a clear nod and moved between them and the forest. Sophia wasn’t certain when the shapeshifter had decided that it was worth the risk to use her wolf form, but it was obvious that arrows weren’t the best choice against vines.
“More coming from the southwest!” Rae shouted from somewhere behind Amy. “Samuel, your fire!”
Sophia spared a glance in that direction. There were vine-zombie wolves approaching. These seemed to be in worse shape than anything they’d faced yet; the flesh was actually missing in places, held together by the vine outer netting Sophia had noticed on a few of the other monsters.
Zombie Wolves [https://i.imgur.com/MAqH2hs.jpeg]
One of them swayed and tripped over its own front feet. Sophia recognized that: it was Moti at work, slowing them down. He couldn’t actually stop anything, and his killing power was very limited, but this was still an excellent place for his powers because he seemed to be able to use his handful of tricks on a wide range of opponents and give others their chance to shine. Most of them didn’t work for long and they lasted less time with each application, but that just meant he needed to delay another monster. There was no shortage of zombies right now and it looked like that wasn’t going to change any time soon.
Later, the next few hours would exist in Sophia’s memory more as snapshots of action than as a coherent experience. She remembered Essia declaring that Eliah could return to the fight and she remembered moving with Essia, Dav, and Amy the wolf on to the next patient, but she couldn’t really remember who it was. There were too many, but they blurred together.
The Quinn twins didn’t directly help guard Essia; instead, they helped guard the entire group by finding things before they attacked and slowing them down enough to let the more effective combatants act. They were useful enough in that role that any thought Sophia had of calling them over to help watch over Essia was quickly dismissed.
Sophia remembered more animals joining the fight; she took note of some but others would be a complete surprise when she encountered them. The most memorable one was when Amy seemed to fight herself. It took Sophia a long moment to realize that the wolf Amy fought was another gray wolf, controlled by vines. They were far too similar until Sophia took a good look.
Not-Amy [https://i.imgur.com/ZflSLnn.jpeg]
That wasn’t the end of the fight, but it seemed to herald the end. Essia had to stop helping others to heal Amy after that fight, including removing some vines that tried to plant themselves in her mouth. She wasn’t even close to done healing Amy when she called over to Samuel. “I’m not sure how much more healing I can do, it’s getting a lot harder!”
That seemed to be what Samuel was waiting on. “Fight as we leave! Liam, Eliah, you have the rear; Dav, carry Amy if you have to.” He stopped his slow series of fire spells and threw another bloom of fire up into the sky. Sophia didn’t have time to look to see it, but she was certain it was a signal of some point.
The last coherent group of enemies to attack that day were, oddly enough, opossums. Like the squirrels, they carried vine-shells on their back that could attack independently of the opossum.
Vine Possums [https://i.imgur.com/kdfX3hf.jpeg]
Sophia found that she was glad the opossums were last. They were sturdier than the squirrels but slower and after so long fighting, power was easier than precision.
Once they were outside the boundary wall, the few surviving opossums turned and disappeared into the forest. A hundred feet after that, Samuel told everyone to stop and take a rest break. It was sorely needed, though Sophia noticed that Essia returned her attention to healing Amy and Dav pulled out a healing beacon and tried to stay alert.
They were all exhausted.