Bel cringed as Cress unleashed a small shriek to get everyone’s attention. “Incoming!” she shouted, pointing to the breach in the Pillar’s wall.
The scrattes looked around, scratching their heads in confusion, until the gorgons dropped their bags and drew their weapons. Then the little green plant-people screeched and chattered with agitation before dropping their burdens and arming themselves with rocks and bits of twisted metal.
Bel watched as a helmet stuffed full of a growing scratte rolled carelessly over the ground, momentarily forgotten. It looked like a succulent from the Golden Plains, a thick green stalk with four narrow tendrils branching from the main body. The tendrils had small splits on their ends, hinting at the possibility of fingers and toes.
One of the limbs twitched and Bel felt a pang of sorrow for the little creature. She quickly stooped to turn it upright; or upside-down, since they seemed to grown head down and feet up. Manipule smiled broadly at Bel’s charity, but Orseis only rolled her eyes as she hurried closer to the edge.
“Don’t get too close, Ori,” Bel called out. “I sense a lot of hearts closing in on us.”
Orseis jabbed her spear through the air. “I’ve gotta be up front if I want to get something to eat before the scrattes make a mess of everything.”
Bel shook her head, but she didn’t bother arguing with the walking, talking stomach. Instead she strode forward so she would be close enough to do something if the young girl was threatened.
A few scrattes milled around them, still agitated, but increasingly confused since nothing had shown up.
“There!” Bel shouted, just as the first heartbeats slipped over the edge.
She could feel the hearts thumping, but all she saw was a slight rustling of leaves.
“They’re under the roots,” she cursed.
With a flap of wings, several gorgons took to the air. Their timing was excellent: a moment later, a knee-high shadow burst from the ground and swatted a scratte over the edge with a swing of its tail. The little green person wailed piteously as it plummeted to its death.
“Tree rats! I hate these things!” Bel stomped her foot onto the ground and sent a shockwave through the nearest roots and underbrush. The air in front of her was filled with wood chips and a mist of shredded green as her power rippled through the growth down to the floor of the Pillar. One of the thick-tailed creatures burst into the open space and squeaked in surprise, but Orseis quickly ended it with a jab of her spear.
Bel formed some of her armor into a small shield as she protectively covered Orseis. She risked a quick look around and saw a chaotic battle of tooth, nail, and tail as the tree rats and scrattes swarmed over one another. The gorgons were trying to use their powers against the troublesome rodents, but they refused to stay still long enough to make easy targets.
Bel swept her hand out and liberated essence from any nearby threats. The powerful ability drained nearly half of her upheaval core, but it gave her an instant influx of energy and enough time to prepare her next move.
“I’ve got just the solution to this,” Bel said. She reached up to her head, batted her plague serpent out of the way, and ran her hand along Flora’s leafy body. “It’s your time to shine,” she told her mild-tempered spirit.
Flora’s flowers bloomed extravagantly as the serpent’s body became liquid and melted into Bel’s form. Their skin grew thick and woody as she was encased in bark, and she quickly shifted her armor into a narrow band that expanded with her trunk. Her feet burrowed into the root system around her, finding purchase in the loose soil that had been trapped in the chamber. It was a dark, nourishing soil formed from the gradual accumulation of organic matter over hundreds of years; her root’s thirstily absorbed the nutrition to fuel her growth and soon her roots occupied an area five strides distant from her body.
As the rodents burrowed past her, her roots struck, squeezing their furry bodies until they cracked and broke. Her roots expanded as she drank their essence and absorbed their bodies, and in just a minute the space around her was free of the furry attackers. She turned her attention to the rest of the chamber and realized that the rodents were in full retreat. Most of them scurried back over the edge, gripping onto the trailing roots as they rushed away from the sudden massacre. The scrattes howled in victory while the gorgons whooped and slammed their hands into their chests.
The Belemental could still feel a few hearts though: a trio of larger rodents glared at her with hate-filled eyes.
“Who do they think they are?” Orseis asked from Bel’s side. The cuttle-girl’s body spun like a whirlpool as she hurled her spear with all her might.
The creatures lifted their tails in a threatening display before their forms darkened and they shrank into the floor. The three of them disappeared, like shadows at night. Even the sounds of their heartbeats waned, muffled under a heavy cloak of darkness.
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With her line of sight broken and all sense of her targets gone, Orseis’ spear plunged uselessly into the ground.
Orseis began recalling her spear, but before the weapon could fully disintegrate into a cloud of dust one of the rodents burst out of the ground just a few strides away. Orseis held her tentacles protectively in front of her face and began shifting her colors to blend into the chaos of roots and leaves around her.
The Belemental wove a shield of roots in front of her young friend, catching the oversized rodent before it could reach its target. The rodent screeched in rage and swung its heavy tail at the sudden impediment. Its tail struck like a heavy anchor, tearing through her roots as if they were straw, but she summoned more roots to slow it down before it could attack again.
At that moment, two heartbeats sprang into existence from her sides. I’m being ambushed, she realized.
She swung her long wooden limbs in a frantic circle, warding off the biting terrors with her sharp, metallic claws, but one of the agile creatures ducked under her aimless strike and dove straight for her body. She shifted the metal of her armor to absorb the attack, and there was a terrible noise as incisors scraped over her impervious protection.
The scrabbling claws of the nearest threat took too much attention for her to pay attention to the other two. With squeaks of triumph, they dodged around her roots and rushed at her exposed head and back.
The Belemental saw them move in the corner of her vision, but she was busy grasping at the agile creature who had aborted its attack on her armored midsection to dance around her legs and gnaw through her unarmored roots with its razor sharp incisors.
She feared that she would soon have her branches full of the beasts, but Cress swooped low and slammed her hammer into one of their skulls with a heavy thud. It hit the ground and bounced, kicking its legs frantically as it moved to right itself. Before it could find its balance though, Orseis dropped her camouflage and appeared next to it, jabbing her spear through its spine before it could react.
The third rodent ducked low, dodging another flying gorgon. Its body bunched up as its muscles tensed for a powerful leap, and the Belemental tensed as well, ready for the attack. Before the rodent leaped, the scratte shaman threw its body onto the monster.
The angry creature opened it’s mouth and casually severed the shaman’s arm, but rather than reacting with pain the shaman waved his other arm around and jabbered madly at the rodent. He appeared mad at first, but the rodent’s eyes quickly swelled and pooled with blood. Its stomach ballooned grotesquely as it writhed in pain, and the Belemental wrapped a root around its neck to quickly guarantee its death. Then she turned her attention back to her remaining opponent.
She didn’t have to worry about any more distractions, so she swung her limbs at the last rodent with wild abandon, forcing it to keep moving as she wove a net of roots beneath its agile body. The creature must have sensed its impending doom: with a final defiant shriek, it launched itself at her face. She swatted it with a limb. Her nails tore into its flesh and she channeled a liquid shockwave through the hateful beast, crushing its spine and vital organs and killing it instantly. As she ripped the essence from its body she felt her cores swell to another threshold, the sense of growing chaotic beauty within her adding to her sense of satisfaction at the conclusion of the fight.
In the moment of sudden calm after the frantic action, she spent a moment examining herself. Her leaves were torn and covered in ichor, and a good number of her roots were oozing sap, but otherwise she was in a nice spot. There was plenty of warm sunlight flowing in through the hole in the wall and the ground was rich with nutrients.
The soil was a bit dry, yes, but the thick blood from the nearby corpses was helping with that.
A bit salty, but it’s not so bad.
“You planning to change back?” Orseis asked from her side.
She looked down to see her small friend staring at her.
“What’s the rush?” she asked. “It’s not so bad here.”
Orseis threw up her tentacles with frustration. “You’re always like this when you turn into a tree! We’re not here to relax!”
She smiled and gently patted the little girl on the head. “What’s wrong with relaxing?”
“See! That’s what’s wrong! Look at this mess!”
The Belemental looked around her. The scrattes had lost a few of their numbers, but were more focused upon the bodies of the rodents. They were picking through them, replanting some of their larger sprouts into the rodent corpses. That reminded her of the shaman, who had given an arm defending her.
She spun her head, scanning for the helpful scratte. When she found him, she saw that he was detaching the limb of a headless scratte and grafting it onto his missing arm.
“Clever,” she grinned. “I wonder if that gave Technis any ideas.”
“How long will she stay like this?” Manipule asked.
The Belemental looked down at her friends, surprised to see that they had all gathered around her. Actually, she was surrounded by scrattes too: the little plant people had queued up to give prayers and offer her small squirts of water from their water gourds.
That’s nice, she thought. I guess we must look a bit like Lempo when we’re like this. Well, it can’t hurt to let them feel a connection to the goddess.
The pleasant feeling of water on her roots wasn’t bad either.
“Hey Manipule,” she asked, “can I have my books? I think I’ll read while the scrattes do their religious stuff. I’m pretty sure that I saw these animals in one of the appendixes, too.”
Orseis wailed with frustration before stomping off to find something to stress eat.
The Belemental shrugged and turned her attention back to her books. She rustled her leaves in delight as Manipule offered one up to her. She thanked the gorgon as she happily flipped through the pages.
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “Here they are! Shadow tails!”
She carefully traced a drawing with one of her leaves. “I wonder if Beth would be interested in them,” she mused.
She nodded her head as she continued to read. “Oh, apparently Technis tried to use them for rapid transportation when the king died and their portals stopped working. They weren’t durable enough for the job, though, and they kept being eaten by some giant snakes or freezing in the snowy layer. Interesting.”
She looked up and realized that no one was listening to her rambling. Manipule was at her side, but the gorgon was asleep. The only conscious people near her were the scrattes, and they were busy tending to their sprouts.
“Oh,” she said, disappointed. “I suppose it’s easy to lose track of time as a tree.”