Deacon was impressed to see the collection of adventurers trudging through the thick foliage. There were five other than his as well as the Cardinal Unit. He assumed they just wanted to show off with some light combat. Especially Armand who has been gathering quite the following since unlocking his Class Specialization. Once they reached the tree line, Deacon sent out party invites to his three companions. He was happy to see that the skill didn’t just work for his guild mates. Tantus was shocked to receive the invite and the subsequent health regen that came along with Deacon’s perk. Apparently, it will work on anyone within a guild.
“How much further out?” Called an adventurer.
“Not far now.” Amanda called back. She had taken lead as the only person to have seen the nest.
They were brought to a halt as Elle stopped the forward momentum. Amanda looked back annoyed but understood when to listen and when to complain. Elle began casting a spell and a pulse of magic light emanated from her washing over the trees and brush. Suddenly the light came back, sinking into her body. She hurried back to the group and had an animated conversation with Armand. Armand pulled everyone together quickly for an update.
“There’s no animal life within the next quarter mile.” Armand said.
“What does that mean?” One of the adventures asked. He had a large war hammer strung along his massive torso. To Deacon, he seemed like the kind of dude who picks things up and puts things down.
“It means the infestation has run off or eaten everything. This is bad news.” Armand replied.
“We have a bigger issue,” Typhus interrupted, “My shadow has found a trail of blood leading in the same direction Amanda is taking us. Based on the width of the trail, I’d guess livestock from the farms.”
“Deacon’s team reported a few sightings near the farmland. We may need to change our strategy from a strike to containment. Amanda, how big did you say the nest was?” Armand asked.
“It’s built into the side of a hill. There is an opening big enough for deer to be pulled in, I guess. The biggest issue was they were digging further out around the hill. I saw some larger ones around the entrance while the standard dog sized ones were coming and going.” Amanda said.
“Let’s finish this quickly. Once we breach their clearing, I want all archers and ranged members to target the larger ones. That way if they charge, they will already be injured. Once they are brought down, fire at your discretion. Deacon, do you have a limit on how many people can be in your party? Time to find out. Invite everyone. Your passive healing could make the difference if things get out of control.” Armand ordered. Deacon made the attempt and found out he could invite everyone there just by looking at them and it didn’t seem to have a limit.
They began moving through the trees again until someone shouted an alarm. They were engaged with a dog sized corpungie. The creature didn’t last long once the attention of multiple people fell on it. The good news is Deacon got to try out the Inspect aspect of his party skill for the first time.
Corpungie Gatherer Caste- The Corpungie are typically found in the deserts of the world. They are a nomadic species that become the apex predators before leaving to new hunting grounds. Level 10/ Monster
Amanda walked over cut the stinger off of its tail. The rat faced creature oozed its poison from the wound and she collected it in a vial. Armand took the time to explain to everyone about its anatomy and what to avoid while fighting it. He pointed out the lack of a neck which makes them move their whole bodies when choosing targets. It was at this point when Deacon realized he missed Armand’s leadership.
They started up again, now widening the line to make sure there were no more surprises. Sometime later they reached a break in the trees where they could peer down on the hill in a now sunken depression in the forest. The area was swarming with Corpungie. Just as Amanda said earlier, there were two very large Corpungie milling around in front of the den entrance. Deacon used Inspect on one of them.
Corpungie Soldier Caste- This is an extremely dangerous version of the Corpungie hierarchy. It’s attacks all count as enchanted weapons. Known abilities include Rush and Beacon. Level 12/Mystical Beast
“Ok that’s extremely helpful. Now I know what creatures attacks I can ignore or not.” Deacon said in a whisper.
“Proud of you.” Elle said from a few feet away making Deacon frown.
“Open fire!” Armand ordered as he charged down the incline toward the twenty or so swarming worker Caste Corpungie. He immediately stabbed out at the first one that turned his way scorching its fur with his enchanted weapon. Then Armand batted away the stinger from another before Typhus buried a knife into its head. Deacon wasn’t idle, he knew his best way to help would be to stomp and carve up the workers with Ice Sickles spinning around his body. He consumed the soul energy necessary to create them and began pulling focus away from others. All while magic spells and arrows rained down on the soldier caste. Deacon lifted his head after killing his fifth to see the soldier caste just closing ranks in front of the den mouth. That little distraction earned Deacon a stinger to the face from his next victim. He grabbed the tail and lifted the dog sized monstrosity off the ground and started spinning in a circle smacking it into swarm. This was making Deacon extremely dizzy, so he released the bloody creature. It flew over its brethren and smacked right into one of the soldiers who stomped down it, fixing its gaze on Deacon. It’s tail began to glow white, and it fired a light from its stinger directly at Deacon. It was clearly ignoring the scorch marks on its fur as well as the multiple arrows sticking out of it. The light didn’t hurt Deacon, but all the worker class Corpungie turned to look at him.
“Oh shit!” Deacon said as he began running the outer rim of the depression around the hill.
“Where are you going? Stay put!” Tantus yelled as he shot a bolt of lightning at that same soldier caste making the taillight wink out as it finally died. Didn’t help much the damage was done. There was easily ten of these things chasing Deacon pulling them away from the pack the rest of the team were fighting. Deacon peered over his shoulder in time to see the other soldier on a collision course with him at a breakneck speed. That’s when the adventurer with the hammer collided with the horse sized soldier caste getting a stinger in the back for his troubles.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Deacon stopped running, his idea to separate the monsters caused someone to get hurt. Running toward the soldier caste that was charging earlier, he jumped up on its back to grab the stinger and yank it out. As soon as he did the hammer wielder fell back twitching. Deacon noticed vines wrapping him up and dragging him out of the fight telling him that Elle was watching. He held on tight to the tail while it bucked and tried rolling him off. Once his feet hit the ground Deacon pulled on the tail with all of his considerable strength to no avail. Then he remembered some of the benefits of his new body. He extended his claws on both hands and tore into the tail at the base. An ungodly howl came from its maw. Viscera shot everywhere as Deacon clawed the hell out of it. Once he realized it stopped moving, he tore what was left of the tail from the body. It must have been on its last legs during the charge over. The other teams had cleaned up what was left of the corpungie out here. Several adventurers were down and being dragged back to the tree line for healing. Deacon noticed his vision was getting a bit blurry and checked his notifications.
You have been poisoned with Corpungie Soldier Venom. This is a mystical contact poison. It conveys a numbing sensation before paralysis. Last five minutes.
You have gained Poison Resistance. Increased by five percent.
“Shit.” Deacon said as he realized the rings of poison resistance must only work on natural poisons and not ones of a mystical nature. The free poison resistance was nice though. Just then they all heard a dull rumbling. Deacon stumbled forward trying to wipe off all the venom on his pants. Tantus placed an item in front of the wounded people and a transparent dome of blue light covered over them.
“Any idea what that rumbling is?” Armand asked as his skin began to transform into metal.
“It’s nothing good, I can tell you that much.” Typhus answered.
Deacon was a good forty yards away from everyone else after his battle. He didn’t know if he’d make it over to everyone on his shaky legs. That’s when the hill exploded separating him even further from everyone else. What emerged was giant corpungie with chitinous armor plating and two tails. One of the stingers was glowing red while the other was a sickly dark green. Behind it came two more soldier caste. This big one was easily the size of city bus. Four legs, no neck, and a split mouth right down the middle vertically. Looked like the mouths on the vampires from that second Blade movie. It spun looking for targets, that’s when Deacon used inspection.
Corpungie Queen Caste- The brood mother of the corpungie. Extremely territorial, has an advanced birthing rate, and the more tails it has the more powerful it is. Known abilities; Guard, Poison cloud, and Burning Jelly Level 15/ Mystical Boss Monster
“Fuck me running!” Deacon said as he tried to scramble back. It appears that the monster has focused on Armand who was banging his sword against his shield. He was fully metal coated now and obviously trying to keep it focused on him.
“So what will you do?” asked Old Pai.
“What the fuck!? You were here the whole time. Help us you maniac.” Deacon shot back feeling even worse now that poison was taking hold.
“Then what will you learn, cotton head.” Said Old Pai.
“We got to kill that thing fast, but I’ve got some kind of toxin…” Deacon trailed off. He furiously tried to remember what the energy of The Black felt like back in the fight with Philo. If he could switch his matrix to that source of energy, he could use his new ability. It felt like. It felt like. Darkness and nothing.
“The Darkness Grows.” He spoke and the world changed. The whites of his eyes went pitch black ignoring his pupils completely. Deacon used his new prayer Toxic Waste. He began to feel better immediately as a ball of pure obsidian started to grow to the size of a beach ball.
“Arcane Power of Deific energy? Very unexpected. I don’t believe you are channeling the Nether right now. Be careful.” Said Old Pai.
Deacon then released the ball at the Queen only for it to be intercepted by one of the Soldiers. The parts of the corpungie hit by the ball started to blacken and flake away into nothing. The remnants of the body slowly began necrotizing and turning to what looked like fine powder. Old Pai stood there with his hand halfway down his beard. He obviously stopped moving mid beard stroke. Deacon stood up, angered that he might have ended this quickly and stalked toward the monsters. There were three full teams including Armand and Typhus attacking the Queen and her last soldier. Tantus was maintaining the shield over the injured while Elle was administering healing potions and spells. Suddenly the queen jumped back screeched loudly. The red stinger pointed at the shield protecting the injured before a jet of what looked like napalm poured out in an arc separating the injured from what was left of the fighting force. The ground began to shutter and Old Pai leaped into the trees.
“The time for observation is over. I will help defend the wounded and keep the forest from burning. Finish this quickly.” He said as he leapt.
Deacon took a look at his soul energy bar. It was two hundred and fifty percent. He decided to try some double cost abilities. Deacon used Nether Beam with the energy of The Black. A beam shot forward at the queen but just like before the other soldier interposed itself between the beam and the Queen. The difference this time is it removed a chunk of the creatures body but didn’t spread. It was now focused on Deacon as the greater threat and used its Rush ability to close the distance. It slammed into Deacon knocking him on his back and dropping his health down to half. Deacon coughed and looked up in time to see incoming stinger. Deacon used spectral dash to get around the soldier without getting up. The difference shocked Deacon. He winked out of existence into a circle of black and appeared behind the soldier from a circle of black. The stinger was buried deep in the ground where he was. He then rapidly punched the creature in its side activating Touch of the Void, this time instead of a cold slowing effect, hunks of the creature started to rot and disintegrate from the spot he was attacking. That plus the blast from earlier must have overwhelmed it because it just slumped in place. It’s breathing was a sad wheeze. Deacon thought he must have hit something vital before he was slammed away from the creature by the Queen jumping straight into the air and landing hard next them.
There was even more cracking and shaking of the ground after that. Deacon landed hard checking his health bar. It was at seventy percent and rising. Just as he got to his feet staring at the two tailed monstrosity before him it pointed its green stinger at him. A noxious green cloud centered on Deacon and expanded out in all directions. Armand landed on the Queens back lopping off the tail with the green stinger and interrupting the attack. There was a ten-foot area around Deacon of pure gaseous poison. All Deacon did was smile at the boss monster that was stamping around from the pain causing fissures in the ground knocking down all the combatants around her. Deacon inhaled sharply and pointed his open palms at the monster. He could see several broken arrow shafts on its back and but other than that its hide was thick and relatively unharmed. Deacon ignored the poison notifications and spammed Toxic Waste. Ball after ball of black energy slammed into the now undefended boss creature. Chitinous plates started rotting away and falling off displaying thick coarse hair between them and the body. Plate after plate disincorporated allowing the arrows to find purchase. When the creature realized that Deacon wasn’t dying it slapped at him with its remaining tail, crushing him to the ground. Deacon was down to his last ten percent of life after that, but he wasn’t alone. The creature was bleeding from everywhere that was no longer protected. Deacon had one more ball and shot it right at its nightmare face before the ground beneath them gave way causing his shot to miss. All the fighters and the monster fell down at least two stories in distance into an underground cavern. Most of the adventures landed on the injured Queen crushing the last bit of life out of her. Deacon landed hard coughing up blood. He thought he was about to die when five percent of his health filled into his health bar. Chimera bless that legendary perk of his. He was never happier to hear Typhus yelling from somewhere else in the cavern.
“What did I tell ya, Armand? Full blown Deactastrophe.” Typhus said. Deacon groaned.