Steel voices echoed eerily over the wetlands, the corvid’s warnings undulating like a cacophonous klaxon. Liv grimaced, flipping up her own twin birds in response, but Logan didn’t seem quite so willing to dismiss the phenomenon. He slowly and cautiously grasped his bow, eyes flitting about to scan the area. He quickly zeroed in on the cypress copse, as it was the only thing in the area that could reasonably hide any enemy movement.
“Calm down. It’s probably the buzzard brothers causing a ruckus.” Liv blithely dismissed his caution. Logan spared a moment’s attention to shoot her a glare.
“Lest you forget, those birds are half of the Allfather’s retinue…” he chided before returning to scanning the trees.
“If ol’ One-Eye wants to show up on my doorstep and scold me, he’s more than welcome to -“ Liv found her blasphemy cut short by a crack of thunder. She instinctively looked upwards, but was drawn back down to earth when Igore crashed to the ground. A strip of bare wood scarred the mangrove’s trunk where an impact had flensed the bark off. Already Mosstache was shambling over to assist, but to her confusion, Liv saw a third tree moving out of the tiny grove.
“Please tell me that’s one of yours…” Logan called out over the din, nocking an arrow. Liv blinked, clearly baffled, as what looked like one of the tall cypresses stepped right up to the edge of the mist. She was about to respond in the negative when it finally shambled into the open and moved toward the downed Igore.
Darker than a barren ebony tree, the thing had a chromatic, oily sheen that gave the impression of something recently dipped in a bubbling tar pit. A bulbous base on stubby roots rocked to and fro, each limb unnaturally bent and jointed. The thing waved its leafless branches as it ambled unevenly forward, and Liv glimpsed flashes of cloven hooves between the blades and brambles of the marsh.
“WHAT THE SHIT IS THAT?!” Liv exclaimed, pointing needlessly at the enemy. Any passing semblance to the local flora was banished as the stiff, angular branches relaxed into a flowing mass of boneless tentacles. With a jolt, she realized the thing had been camouflaging itself, hiding in the trees.
“Questions later!!” Logan chided, loosing an arrow. An obsidian hoof smashed down onto Igore, pinning the mangrove and snapping several heavy branches just as the arrow thunked into its blubbery hide. The inky flesh quivered in irritation, flinching like a horse's flank shaking off a fly. A crusty seam just above the projectile split apart like an old scab, a narrowing hourglass pupil the size of a dinner plate anchoring itself on Logan.
Realizing he was right, the spectral core turned her mind to action. She didn’t want her forces to leave the safety of their barricades, but then she couldn’t just fall back and abandon Igore either.
“Javelineers,” the fiery punk roared, “suppressive fire!!” The ground swarmed with frenzied movement, as the Leshies rushed to take up practiced positions. Tucked behind the ragged barricades, flytrap soldiers formed ordered lines, passing ammunition bundles forward in a constant stream. From the tops of the defensive structures, her leafy shrubs took up their javelins. Logan was already shooting another arrow, his expression lined with concentration, as the growing exponential that was the volley of tiny spears took flight.
The great eye closed, and the tentacles began to twist and flail. It looked as though it meant to try and bat away the weapons, until dozens of rubbery lips parted to reveal jagged, malformed maws.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Nyal’tōk ph’nglui, uaaah…” The echoes of the phlegmy chorus slammed into her like a shockwave, setting her spectral skin alight and her fantasmal joints to creaking. Liv staggered back, bewildered. Beside her, Logan was clutching his ears in agony.
“IT CAN TAL-“ her words were drowned out as a patch of open space wrent apart, revealing a glittering void. The very air vibrated, rushing like a river into the disk of midnight, through which Liv could swear she saw pinpoints of starlight. The volley faltered, pulled into the void, or slowed by the buffeting wind before the disk snapped shut with a boom. In a moment of shocked silence, she turned to look down at Logan. The man stared up at her with an expression of horror that mirrored her own, a bead of blood trickling off his chin from where it dripped from his nose.
“… W-what was…” she whispered, stammering.
“Spellcaster,” was Logan’s slurred, nasal reply.
“… Fuck.”
Igore was struggling, kicking wildly beneath the larger beings bulk as Mosstache heaved at a muddy stone to lob at the thing. The sappy drool that leaked from the myriad mouths of the thing, hissed gently against the bark of the downed mangrove.
”Ftaghu f’lloig,” The words oozed like mucous, making Igore shudder, stiffly. Liv’s second sight showed her the impossible shapes of phantasmal threads those dark tentacles were weaving. Beside her, Logan screamed. “Wgah’n ’y’nyth uaaah!”
The brash woman clutched at her shirt helplessly, as the web of magic draped over her mangrove like a net, and the twin emerald flames in Igore’s eyes were snuffed out. Liv felt her own threads of connection sever with an almost physical recoil.
The roaring wind and creaking of trees gave physical shape to the Manglegrove’s agonized howl of rage. A grieving lament of wood and stone accompanied the whistling flight of Mosstache’s lobbed boulder. The being from beyond the void simply stepped back, finally opening its countless eyes to observe, as a mauled trunk stood to absorb the concussive impact of the stone with a splintering crackle.
Liv’s hands rose to cover her mouth as she stared. She’d thought Igore was dead when she felt the connection break. She wished now that had been true. Empty eyed and broken, her beloved mangrove swayed mindlessly before her. A flick of one tentacle sent it careening toward Mosstache in a blind charge.
This creature was strong enough to topple one of her guardians on its own, to say nothing of the threat its magics represented. Liv saw now that this was not the hill to die upon. Thanking the gods that she hadn’t ignored Logan’s advice and rushed ahead, she pulled up her menu.
”You’re not the only one with surprises, you ugly fuck!” she seethed, silently praying this would even work. With a jab, she poked her finger through a small circle with an amorphous icon. As the tiny button illuminated, she watched the already loose muck beneath the enemy’s hooves become almost fluid. Making a mud slick had been straight forward, but required more concentration than she wanted to spare. An issue she was glad to see could be overcome by the recent innovation of automated functions. Back within the guarded core grove, her network of threads was sending pulses of SP right back into her core itself, tied to the matrices that controlled her ability to shape the waters below the earth.
For a moment she was surprised to see that her forces weren’t taking advantage of the breather she hoped this would provide, but a glance at Logan revealed that her tactical advisor was preoccupied with bleeding ears. Something about the eldrich incantations was causing her lone flesh and bone companion pain, while her plants were unphased. Ducking down, she looked the panicked Halfling in the eye.
“RUN!!” she screamed, mouthing the word as clearly as she could and pointing back towards the grove. “GO!!” Logan nodded, still holding his throbbing head, and made to retreat. Liv had barely enough time to stand up and face the enemy again when the disgustingly moist voice of the enemy frothed once more onto the air.
”Ya ftaghu ‘fhalmaor uln. Throd, u’ha shuggor. Uaaah!”
Liv staggered, arms pinwheeling, as the ground beneath their feet began to bulge and shift. Textured, gelatinous flesh could be seen between the fissures of clay and soil, leaving only the mud pit beneath the beast devoid of the vile crags. This thing, this monster, could control elements within her own dungeon?!
“FALL BACK!” her command could hardly be heard over the rumbling. This was bad. They weren’t ready. “RETRE-“ The words caught in her throat, snuffed out by a crushing pressure.
”Ssä thuul’ga… Dungeon…”
Jasper eyes bulged as the crimson specter scratched futilely at her throat. Pain warred with confusion on the dead woman’s face as the rubbery tentacle heaved her off of the ground.