I sent everybody except Merlin, Jack and Gorger back to the greenhouse, Gorger is eating imps still while Merlin stays and practices using his {Black Cowl}, the thing has a lot of necrotic energy there, so what I want him to do is use it to hold black quartz in it, he is at the same time practicing with the heart of frost and his shade mantle. I also have him sometimes help and train magic with Jack, I had them do a game of hot potato with the fire skull and another with the frost one, it’s a simply game to improve mana manipulation, if Jack controls it he can delay the explosion until the mana inside the skulls fades out, so I have them throw the skulls at each other and grab them, Jack’s control is not so good so they did explode a few times.

I have yet to give the mark skills to anyone, I might create some undead specifically to put it on them, just to see how exactly it works, as of yet I am unsure how good influencing all abilities and evolutions to one type of element would fare. I might give {Mark of Bones} to Kaiman though.

Invasion Trial: Undead Centaur

Kill the undead centaur the pass the trial.

I already see it, it’s making quite the ruckus bringing down trees where it appeared, since there are no individual challenge rules I will send most of the stronger undead to it. I can see that it has an actual small band of both skeletons and zombies around it.

You know saying “Centaur” brings a certain image to your head, the classic horse men, body of a horse and its place a humanoid torso, with arms and head.

So whoever made this got the last half right, mostly, and decided to put it into a mammoth that is about 5 meters tall, it has the entire mammoth body including the heads and gigantic tusk and then an undead,larger than human, body protruding right from its forehead. Well calling it human seems a bit far fetched, this thing’s spine is also really long, and it has four arms, the lower two arms are very long, both dropping so low to reach the mammoths knees.

It is quite funny seeing the mammoth walk on it’s tippy bone toes though.

Anyway, on its lower longer arms the undead carries a really large scythe, with a grass green blade and wooden handle. On its left arm a colorful blue conch, with white and pink accents, one of those really big ones used as blowing horns.

On the last arm there is a large hammer made out of dark red horns.

The monster is swinging its scythe around, creating large cutting wind blades hitting the trees in front of it after a few cuts the undead pile on it and begin pushing it down. Initially I thought it was clearing the way, but the monster seems to be cutting in a circle around itself, is it trying to reinforce its position?

Looking around it troops don’t seem too impressive, and a quick headcount put them around 300 or so.

I can see my troops getting closer and closer, Bob on the lead followed by Kaiman and Stinger.

Bob breaks into the clearing, jumping over the fallen trees and barreling towards the boss centaur, ignoring the lesser undead or running over them. The mammoth undead swings its scythe the fast motion turning his arms and weapon into a blur, the wind slash cuts Bob right into his ankles and cuts them off, along with some of the undead troops, because of his momentum Bob flies forwards, but before he can faceplant he uses his hands to keep advancing forwards.

As he closes in, the mammoth puts the conch into his lipless teeth and attacks again, Bob jumps over the slash, almost losing half of his hands. A huge sphere of rotating blue water explodes out of the centaur’s conch standing between the two, Bob cannot change his midair course so he plunges into it, the water bubble starts floating up.

Bob starts trying to swim off it but the currents of the sphere keep messing his momentum and direction. Kaiman arrives, and like Bob tanks through the little zombies and skeletons, even more violently than Bob, the centaur again swings his scythe, another wind blade comes yet as it hits Kaiman it does little damage, specially since Kaiman has been adopting walking on all fours and his frontal legs are extremely thick and dense. Stinger arrives and activates {Last Stand}, unlike Bob and Kaiman she actually jumps up and uses the heads and shoulders of the undead like steps.

Kaiman approaches, slower than Bob, but easily taking the wind slashes, however as he closes in the bubble Bob was trapped in explodes and a huge amount of water, and Bob, fall right on top of him.

Again the conch meets the undead teeth and the water reforms around the two. Stinger gets close enough that the mammoth tries to gore her but she simply dodges left and keeps going past it, the centaur again attacks her, trying to bash her with its tusks, but she is simply too fast.

His foot stomps the ground near her creating shaking the earth around and soon after a small crater forms, Stinger starts falling on it, but right as the skeleton is about to turn to attack her Bob kicks Kaiman and both burst out of the bubble, Bob in the direction of the centaur and Kaiman the opposite.

Bob wastes no time, he latches onto the centaurs human head and bites it with his fearsome fanged mouth, both of his hands grabbing its upper arms Stinger runs up and tries to jump and grab onto its legs, but the monster suddenly sprints forwards right towards Kaiman making her miss.

The mammoth lowers its head and tusks to the ground, right as Kaiman falls to the floor he has no time to move before he gets struck by the large mammoth’s tusk, who immediately flips him upwards again.

Showing its flexible spine the humanoid part of the centaur mammoth bends down as the tusk goes up and impales Bob right through the chest. Stinger is coming in hot right behind the mammoth who’s charge slowed down significantly, In one swift motion it changes the grip on the scythe, holding it with its right upper hand, changing it with the hammer, Bob’s legs are up, while his head is downwards, he has grabbed the tusk and is trying to both break it and drag himself out, the centaur positions the scythe right behind Bob’s head and pulls it against its tusk and Bob’s neck almost like a guillotine.

Bob is decapitated, his head flies off, his body suddenly spams out, and his hand reaches and grabs his own head. Bob immediately throws it right at the humanoid part, it tries to dodge it by moving its spine backwards but the odd position of the scythe against the tusk makes it stagger, Bob’s head hits it right in the ribs and he proceeds to bite them. I can hear the cracks as the Stinger is able to jump up the mammoth’s body, she jump up at its lower back and sprints towards it human back, the undead bites at the conch and a water sphere is formed around its humanoid torso, engulfing it, Bob’s head and Stinger, who immediately kicks the undeads spine and leaves the bubble only for the water to explode in all directions pushing her backwards and Bob’s head right of the humanoid, with three of its ribs. As his head falls his body, which kept itself trashing, tears itself off the tusks right in the middle and runs towards its head, which is biting a few undead around it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Kaiman shoots large bone darts as he closes in, one which comes close to Stinger, who simply kicks it and uses the momentum to climb back onto the beats spine. Bob has his head back and is hand galloping towards the mammoth, the humanoid grabs its hammer with its upper arm again. Right as Kaiman gets in range the beast blurs, faster than before it strikes Kaiman on his side and sends him flying towards Bob who jumps over him, his hammer holding arm blurs again as it goes down, its sudden bursts of speed are probably some skill.

A large fiery red seal appears in a circle around Bob and Kaiman who slam down onto the ground as if a large weight had fallen on top of both. The ground catches fire.

Stinger gets right behind the humanoid and decks him in the side of the skull, her fist suddenly becomes two, right as they hit the head, {Twofold fist}, {Power Strike}, the head vibrates and the body move, pushed by the punch it tries to tag her with a back elbow but she dodges and immediately kicks its spine with {Dodge Kick}, the head suddenly cracks, as if it was hit again and pieces of the skull vibrate off, {Vibrating Strikes} and {Aftershock}, the same happens to the spine. Through her eyes I can see two depressions where she hit the skull, probably done by Bob. The soldiers arrive and start fighting the undead, easily slaughtering them, the flame seal is still holding both Bob and Kaiman down.

The earth beneath shakes, the grass withers along with the fallen trees, which are absorbed by the ground.

Green stalks, like those of beans, sprout out of the ground entangling everything around it, the closer to where the trees were created sprouts that are as thick as tentacles, while everywhere else it seems they are much much smaller.

The only exception is the burning area around Bob and Kaiman. The mammoth ignores them and raises its front body trying to throw Stinger off. She simply jumps down with the movement and is able to grab at its ribs. I see Alexander, the assault shield run at the mammoth, who stomps on it. As it does the earth shaker and a large hole is formed and Alexander is stuck there.

Through the corner of her eyes I see Bob and Kaiman, Kaiman seems to be cracking and…hollow?

Stinger advances and instead of trying to attack the humanoid head it goes backwards, grabs the small bony tails of the beast and simply starts beating its lower spine, punching it with one hand and unleashing {Relentless Assault} and {Combo}. Her {Battle Frenz} has made sure she gets stronger each second this fight continues and you can see it in the punches she is dealing, the bone starts cracking and reforming. The monster tries to shake her off, but all that does is activate her {Counter}, finally the humanoid torso turns and strikes at her with the scythe. His arms blur yet she is able to jump over it while still holding onto the little tail yet the mammoth moves its back end again, trying to knock her off, it succeeds and she falls off.

Yet, right as she falls she unleashes another attack{Counter},{Flicker Jab},{Stinger Jab} the combination makes her arm extend, through the beast’s pelvic hole to strike right at the underside of its spine. She falls with a roll and dodges an attempted stomp. She jumps and stomps on its legs with {Counter} and {Dodge Kick} and propels herself up into an uppercut.

As she falls the mammoth starts to stomp on the ground with its four legs violently, shaking the ground and creating large depression on the ground which Stinger falls on, the battle with the goons is stalling, the weird sprouts not only interfere with my skeletons but are entertaining and holding the enemy undead together, even when using miasma to rot the stalks more simply grow in its place. Meli’s group can more easily deal with the stalks with her thorns and her cape. I tell one of the faster drone skulls to fly towards Stinger.

Even though she is trying her best, Stinger can only really dodge and try to keep her balance in the middle of the stomping of the monster and the rolling wave of earth it causes with each pound, should she try anything else she runs the risk of falling and getting stomped to bits. She is biding her time, thankfully the constant stopping seems to have destroyed the sprouts right at their roots.

I can tell through her eyes that with each stomp the spine gets worse. Just as she is staring at it one of the winged drones flies underneath the mammoth Stinger sees jumps and grabs it, with the boost from it she is able to jump of the small crater she was on, the skull flies upwards expending all of its energy with the extra wait to bring the to the top of the mammoth. She falls with a punch, the bone cracks and falls off. From the ground Kaiman jumps up, his form spindly compared to before, I can see his bone mass back at the seal, still being weighed down, he immediately jumps onto the pelvis and it starts to warp as he takes control of it, I tell all the present mages to throw their magic onto it to make it easier for him to combat the centaurs own necrotic mana.

The mammoth falls forwards, its head dipping down and its tusk sinking in the ground. The humanid part turns and tries to strike at Kaiman in his weakened state. Stinger gets in the way, she literally slaps the sytche’s blade down with {Palm Shield}, the blade goes down and sinks into the ground. Stinger jumps on top of its handle right as the wielder pulls it back out of the ground, a large cloud of friendly necrotic energy arrives near Kaiman, who sucks it in.

As she dashes in, Stinger throws a rain of jabs right into the humanoid's face. It swings the scythe upwards but she simply jumps with the movement, gracefully going on an arch upwards behind him and still raining punches with {Relentless Assault}. The monster swings its hammer creating a large combustion that pushes her back. The seal around Bob disappears and he immediately grabs the bone body and runs towards them.

Stinger flips midair and falls on her feet, and immediately rolls to dodge a wind scythe, another one comes and this one she has to block, she pushes it with both palms joined together and activates her skills, {Palm Shield}, {Twofold Fist}, [Counter} and {Iron Arm Block}. The blade is broken in the middle, but not without cracking most of her hands apart, if not for {Battle Frenzy} and {Last Stand} and her improvements that would have probably taken her arms. The undead lifts its hammer up, Bob immediately throws the bony body in his possession to Kaiman, right as the hammer falls and again the seal is created right on top of Bob. All the while it kept sending the wind blades into Stinger, who was able to dodge most, but the few that she couldn’t cost her hands, yet she did notice that the blades seemed to be getting weaker.

Kaiman creates a large spine and connects with his body, which shifts almost like a thick fluid and attaches itself to the mammoths bones, the centaur turns and stares at Kaiman, like it legitimately forgot about the giant bone crocodile that was trying to overtake its posterior.

It slashes once at Kaiman, who now ignores it simply connecting deeper to the bone and starts finally moving them.

Using the mammoth's front arms the half centaur crawls and drags itself closer to Kaiman, who likewise does the same. Kaiman, in an almost gorilla like movement raises his fist and attacks the centaurs humanoid body, who immediately drops his scythe and uses his lower hands to detach completely off the head of the mammoth to dodge it. As the leg smashes down Kaiman creates bone darts all over the side where the humanoid dodge, it immediately sounds its conch, which creates a much small sphere of water in front of its body, sapping much of the power of the bone darts there, is it running out of mana? While the humanoid was exchanging blows with Kaiman it was not attacking Stinger, who is now right behind it and punches it again, right in the back of the head. Kaiman is absorbing the rest of the body while Stinger finishes the humanoid off completely cracking its skull into little pieces, it still fights for a little while, not to much avail at all .

I wait for the little invasion thing to appear, until I remember that I probably need to kill the rest of these sorry assholes, the goddamn bean sprouts actually killed some of my units, which means in this fight with a bunch of zombies, skeletons and a fuckign mammoth centaur the thing that actually got kills was beans. I see Bob get up from the burnt ground and kick dirt around, clearly quite pissed just like me, though I guess our reasons are slightly different. I guess the good part is that Stinger is now level 24, though she got no skill, her next level is going to cause her to evolve.

Whatever, I tell Bob and Stinger to get the magic items and bring them back to back, Kaiman can stay and get more bones if he wants, I actually see that the ivory tusks seem to be quite resistant to being absorbed and molded. The rest of the body seems to be much easier to absorb. Kaiman actually uses his abilities to remake Stinger's fingers.

Looking closer the hammer seems to be made of stone or something like it and fashioned after horns?

Gnarled Bloodwood Hammer

A hammer made from specially alchemically treated bloodwood, it has the magical ability to create large combustions of fire and create an area of heightened gravity and heat.

Water Sphere Conch

A magical conch that creates a water sphere that the user controls, the water sphere can trap opponents and explode in any direction the user wants.

Grass Cutter

A scythe with the ability to create wind slashes.

As they leave I notice that all around, in a circle there are beanstalks almost as thick as trees growing. Honestly I am going to let it be for now, but if it seems to be growing too much I might just burn this whole thing down, for now let’s see where it goes.