Garrote, in this moment, truly did intend to kill himself, his will absolute. The beast, sensing this, reeled back from him in a vain attempt to save itself as the very space around it warped from the first utterances of Garrote’s magic. Yet, Garrote never actually finished casting this never, never finished killing himself.
In the exact same moment when Garrote began to coalesce his essence into one final cast, two events occurred simultaneously, neither coinciding with the other. Above him, unbeknownst to Garrote at this moment, Trenton had rended a stalactite from the ceiling, one positioned directly above the creature. He soared through the air, clutching onto the massive pillar with both hands, steering it true into the flailing red mass that was the beast's skull. The creature's whole head bowed upon impact, exploding out in every direction in a mass of unidentifiable viscera as it slammed against the ground, the stalactite burrowing itself deep into the earth, and Trenton landing hard on his feet.
While Garrote had been running for his life, neither Trenton nor Karfice had tarried, instead focusing their efforts on finding a weak spot with which to slay the beast in one fell swoop, knowing better than to try fighting against such a powerful creature head on. As Trenton stood, Karfice joined him, leaping over the roiled earth without much difficulty. And although these events solved the first of the boy's problems, a new one had been created in Garrote’s desperation. It was this problem that brought the other consequence of the circumstances, one which none of them could rightly explain.
Just as Garrote began his magic, the world in front of him split open, like one lash wrapping the whole world had descended from the heavens to split this great monument of stone in twain. In one clean stroke the ground, the walls, and the ceiling split perfectly in half, sundered by one great strike far beyond comprehension. And within the path of this strike, missing Garrote’s body by inches, was Garrote’s one remaining arm, the very one he’d been using to concentrate his magic. Garrote tumbled backwards, his consciousness fading as his body and arm clattered against the ground in odd, asynchronous motion. The last thing that Garrote saw, rather the last thing he thought, was the timeliness of the intervention. It was too purposeful, too specific. Divine intervention? Perhaps. But the only thing he could say for certain was what he could see, the immutable facts. The world had been split in twain before him, and he was naught but a leaf just shy of its path.
***
The glade, once peaceful, rife with fresh life and lilies, was now assailed with conflict, a battle beyond what the passive nature scene had ever had to endure before. The great mushroom monster tore its roots from the ground, using them to fling mixtures of stone, soil, and water at Kiva as she swung through the air using her new supply of vines and grasses, effectively tearing from underneath itself the very ground it relied upon. It listed to the side, several of the outgrows from adjacent mushrooms piercing into the monster's succulent flesh at Kiva’s behest.
It was marvelous, everything Kiva had hoped and beyond. The monster was great in proportion, surely, but this was her paradise, land bespoke for her. Every little nook and cranny could be used to her advantage, exploited for her gain. So even as she fled from mushroom top to mushroom top, she was able to hold her own, sending her magic into the earth in bursts to stimulate the many plants within the vicinity, some bursting in great explosions of fire which engulfed the screeching beast, some excreting volatile acids which bore into the creatures flesh, some which did pretty much nothing but still got pretty big. The only problem was she wouldn’t hold out forever. The light of her canary slowly faded with every strike against the monster, thick spores big enough to be visible to the naked eye bursting from the creature's body in every direction, hanging heavy in the air. With the air bubble she had a means of safety, but if it took too much damage, she’d surely perish, and likely become an infested corpse–not an idea she was fond of.
Kiva forced a great branch to sprout towards the ground, granting her one large ramp towards the top of a grassy knoll overlooking the battlefield. The whole place had become inundated with flame, many of the mushroom creatures spores alight with flame, giving a calming orange hue to the otherwise ruined scenery. For the time being it was still safe to move around, but should a conflagration start, she’d be in an even worse situation, she needed to focus on finding a way to actually kill the monster, not just harm it. It had to have some sort of core somewhere in its body, a point which when struck would be absolute death. She just had to find it.
But as Kiva ruminated over the best means to slay the rampaging monster still devastating the glade within its many branches and secretions, leaving behind great sections of torn and necrosed earth, she failed to notice the cracking of the ground just beneath her. One stray branch burst from the ground beneath her, piercing clean through her arm, dragging her up into the air. For a moment, it held her still, the beast turning to face her, before deciding she made better for a battering ram.
The branch flung her through the air, grasping onto her tight as it slammed her body into every conceivable structure it could, breaking her frail body against the stone pillars, and dragging her against the wall until thick smears of crimson blood marked the stones. And it wasn’t just her that it had. One by one it had been cornering the frightened dwarves, grasping them by the ankles and hoisting them into the air. Several of them it simply ripped apart, tearing them open like canned fruits, stuffing their bodies deep under the ground to use as sustenance. Others it slowly drilled into, flushing out their internal organs through either existing orifices or freshly made ones.
Kiva tore at the thick root holding her aloft, wincing at the sharp agonies in her sides as she moved. It wasn’t the time for weakness, not when the enemy still remained so clearly in front of her, but she was quickly losing blood, the world growing fuzzier by the moment. If she focused on healing herself, there was a chance she’d be able to free herself, but it was risky. There was no telling who the beast would see fit to kill first, and it would only cost more dwarves to spare her own life. She needed something larger, power beyond her means to simply overwhelm the beast, rather than run around playing tricks with its shadow. And it seemed that whatever happened to be listening to her prayers agreed.
In one clean strike, the monster split perfectly down the middle, its mushy organs spilling out onto the already blood soaked grass. In an instant, Kiva fell to the ground, what remained of the creatures falling limp. It seemed that it couldn’t survive if you simply ripped it in half. Brilliant! Why hadn’t she thought of it?
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Kiva carefully picked her way through the turned soil, collecting wounded dwarves moaning in pain into one collective grassy cot. She’d need a moment to tend to them, but whoever remained, only half or so of the original group of dwarves so far as she could tell, seemed to be fit enough to last at least a couple moments as she figured out exactly what happened. Where the beast's corpse lay, one great cut was made through the earth, cleaving the entirety of the glade in half. It was remarkable, a perfect cut straight through the earth leaving behind a markedly black crevice in the earth stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see. It hadn’t simply sliced through the ground, it had pried it apart, opening up the cave to its very depths.
“Think we could climb up through there?” Harvir asked, strolling up behind Kiva. Unlike some of the others, he seemed to be in pretty solid condition, at least enough to be walking around without much blood loss.
“Possibly, but I’m not sure if it's worth the attempt,” Kiva replied, shrugging her shoulders.
Theoretically, if she was brave enough to risk it, she could try climbing through the new opening in the earth. Although, that brought with it a whole host of new worries she was without the wherewithal to consider at that very moment. The important thing was that she was alive, injured, but alive.
Kiva trotted over to her collected pile of dwarves, inspecting them for any grievous injuries. There were a couple that needed immediate attention so as to ensure no one bled to death, but for the most part a couple grass stitches and a kiss on the cheek was more than enough to tide them over. And a good thing too. Kiva was rightly exhausted from the effort of the combat she’d just endured. Even just holding such a gargantuan beast from killing them all for a couple minutes had been an incredible drain on her stamina, far more than she’d realized.
After a quick 10 minutes of rest, Kiva watching her slowly fading canary like a hawk, most of the dwarves were back on their feet, what few remained too wounded to walk carried along by some of the more able among them. The fire that hung in the air, and most of the spores, had all but died down by now, instead replaced with the sad ruins of what had once been a calming nature respite. It seemed that they were safe for the time being, but the question remained, what now?
Just as she was scanning the environment to chart a course forward, a soft voice echoed in Kiva’s head, “We’re just below you, some couple hundred feet or so. It seems that something wanted us alive.”
Kiva latched onto the voice, calling out to it as best she could, “Trenton!? Are you alright?”
“Fine. I found Garrote and Karfice. We had a little stint of our own, but we’re alright. Take the dwarves with you down the stairs. I found something I think we should have a look at before we leave.”
“What stairs? And how did you-”
Off to the side, bordering the crevice, a thin set of stairs materialized, the stone pressing against itself and shifting like water to allow for the complicated construct to form. Was this Trenton’s magic? Surely not. Geomancy wasn’t a fluid magic. The earth could only move in solid chunks. Yet she knew what she saw. It was no lie. Kiva rallied the dwarves to her, taking a handlight and leading them down the thin staircase into the black abyss. Just as Trenton had said, after a couple hundred feet or stairs, the confined walls opened out into another massive cavern, this one in even worse shape than hers. The walls and ground had been ripped up completely, large plates of stone overlapping each other and jutting crags all that was left of the once serene environment. And although she did the corpse of a great monstrosity, its head caved in by a massive stalactite easily the size of a house, neither boy was present.
Kiva continued down the staircase, leaving this new cavern behind, and venturing once more into the tight embrace of the bottomless crevice. This time, however, it didn’t take long to find what she had been looking for. At the bottom the staircase opened out into a small room with sheer walls of stone carved to perfect shape, a large stone double door at the other end grabbing her attention. It looked pretty simple, no carvings or runes of any particular note, and just before it, Karfice and Trenton stood holding Garrote, looking up at the simple structure with passive eyes.
Trenton glanced over at her, nodding to Leo’s plant cocoon tucked in her arms, “Thank you for looking after him.”
“Yeah, of course. Are you alright? I saw-” Kiva said.
“We don’t have much time. Please tend to Garrote quickly. I’d like to keep us from sitting still for too long. I can explain more once we’re safe.”
“But…right,” Kiva took Garrote from Trenton, laying him gently on a bed of grass, and quickly sowing together his basic wounds and personally healing some of the internal bruising and bleeding she couldn’t quite make out.
Notably, Garrote was an arm or two more than when she had last seen him, more on the former side of that count than the latter. It was tempting to ask what had happened, but she had a feeling Trenton wasn’t much in the talking mood. Garrote would definitely need some casts and a proper operation to straighten out all the stray bone chunks, but for the time being her field operation would have to do. His breathing was stable, albeit ragged, and the blood loss was temporarily sated. Still, the deep gouges and pale tone of his skin was worrying, not to mention how hot he was. Did he have a fever? Now of all times? What exactly had happened to him? Aside from just the physical ailments he looked deathly ill, like a sickly little child that had just contracted a great plague, a thick sweat clinging to his skin, not the type of thing you’d see from a boy that was healthy just an hour ago.
Kiva tentatively stood, rubbing out her sore limbs, “He’ll be fine for the time being. And I expect answers just as soon as we’re out of this mess.”
“Peace, both of you. I want to see what’s beyond the door, and I’d rather sightsee without the couples squabble,” Karfice sighed, pressing his hand against the door. “Ready?”
The dwarves looked uncomfortable, muttering amongst themselves over the public psychic channel, but none objected, following faithfully behind Harvir, who followed closely behind Kiva, “Of course,” Trenton replied, pressing his hand against the door and pushing it gently open.