The ta’alaki slithered forward, then miraculously, they extended a hand. Elijah took it, and the native of Ka’arath helped him to his feet.

“What is going on?” Elijah asked.

The snake-tailed creature looked away and sighed. That gave Elijah a moment to truly inspect the creature, and he found himself more than a little intimidated. Like all the other ta’alaki, this one had thick, white skin and four arms. But unlike the others, they wore an elaborate headdress that looked so decayed that it was barely holding itself together. Vaguely, Elijah recognized it as belonging to some sort of animal with golden fur, but beyond that, it was unidentifiable. Otherwise, the ta’alaki wore a golden pendant so large that it covered half of their chest. The gold was dull, though, and if it had been silver, Elijah would have said it looked tarnished. The degradation was so complete that he could barely see the symbol etched on the golden surface.

Finally, the creature carried a staff topped with a carving meant to represent a magnificent bird with its wings outstretched. Like everything else the ta’alaki wore, it was worn and degraded, though not so much that Elijah couldn’t recognize it for what it was meant to portray.

“I was once like you,” they said with a tinge of regret. “I was idealistic. I thought I could save my world. I was wrong, and in my hubris, I set myself against the encroaching taint. I lost that struggle, and because of my actions, my entire grove was corrupted right alongside me. It started with the eggs, but it spread so quickly that the other Druids could not hope to resist. I was the last to fall, though even as I struggled against it, I knew my fate was inevitable.”

“You’re a Druid.”

“Archdruid. My grove once stretched for thousands of miles in every direction. Tens of thousands of other Druids followed me. Powerful Wardens protected us as we endeavored to maintain the balance. We were more than just a community. We were a nation unto ourselves, as powerful as the empire Yloa would go on to build.”

“What happened?” Elijah asked. He could see the tendrils of corruption flowing up the archdruid’s arms and spreading across their torso. But like the one he’d encountered in the Ice Fortress, it seemed this ta’alaki wanted to talk, to explain themselves. “What is your name?”

“Takina,” the archdruid stated. “My duty tells me that I should mourn them all equally, but I am not strong enough to do so. They were all my children, but there was a special place in my heart for those hatched from my own eggs. Perhaps that is normal for any mother.”

“I think that’s natural,” Elijah said.

“There is nothing natural about this planet,” she responded sadly.

“From what I’ve seen –”

“You have seen a mirage,” she interrupted with no small amount of venom in her voice. “A single continent that has managed to remain mostly untainted by the Ravener’s hunger. If you saw the world outside of this little bubble, you would be horrified. I was. I am.”

“Did the system preserve this…continent, then?”

She shook her head. “For that, we can thank Yloa. The Lightning Emperor. The author of our doom and our lone hope for salvation,” she said. “At times, I wonder if I made the right choice of neutrality. We thought we were above it, the petty squabbles that wracked the rest of the world. But we felt the consequences even more keenly than anyone else. We…we who were closer to the World Tree than any other…we were uniquely vulnerable to the lack of its touch. Excisement. It was a death sentence. We served nature, and yet…and yet, we were tossed aside and left to rot, all because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I could have escaped. I had the opportunity to flee to another world,” she said, the taint writhing under her pale skin. “I could have taken my eggs and started over. But I could not abandon my grove. I could not leave my people. Is that a sin, do you think? To love one’s family more than her purpose, than her calling?”

“I don’t know,” Elijah admitted.

“Of course not,” she said with a tired sigh. The tendrils of corruption bulged, trying to escape. “You are a child. A mere infant having been thrust into a world you are incapable of understanding. You do not have the capacity to see the truth.”

“Then tell me.”

“The touch of the Ravener is inevitable. You fight against it. You just won a battle,” she said. “But it will return, and it will consume you. Perhaps it will not be as overt as all of this.” She gestured to the wet and fleshy tentacles creeping across the wall. “But it will take you, all the same. Greed. Hunger. Pride. Rage. Every time you make a choice that leads to more power, you will wonder if that was your decision or if it was thrust upon you by the Ravener. She is always out there. Her influence spreads, just like that of the World Tree. It will infect you just as it has infected me.”

“You seem like you’ve resisted it.”

“I have thousands of years of practice. I may have been reduced by the Shackles, but my mental discipline is no less developed. Yet, here I am, on the verge of losing control. What chance do you have, then? You can only flee. Run away to the center of the multi-verse so that you may have more time, and when the Ravener comes for you – and she will, make no mistake – take your own life so that you will not be used against those you love,” she said. “That is my advice to you, should you survive this encounter. I pray you have a chance to heed it.”

“What –”

Even as Elijah uttered that single word, Takina backed away. A second later, the corruption that had been writhing beneath her skin burst forth into a thousand rust-red tentacles. Blood splattered upon the floor and onto the tendrils coating the walls. They wriggled in glee, coming alive and reaching for Elijah.

He leaped backward just in time to avoid those grasping tendrils of corruption. At the same time, the archdruid let loose a blood-curdling scream, though Elijah could only make out two words. “Kill me!” she screeched, her entire body rigid as she tried to hold the tentacles sprouting from her body at bay. Her staff snapped in two under the immense pressure of her grip, and her words were drowned out when a more primal sound escaped her throat.

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Then, like a striking snake, she launched herself at him. There was nothing of the serene archdruid left. Just a vicious and corrupted beast who only knew hunger. Elijah sprang to the side, casting Storm’s Fury mid-leap. The spell activated almost instantly, then slammed into the corrupted archdruid. Her muscles twitched, but her momentum was unchanged. Thankfully, Elijah kicked off the wall, narrowly avoiding her reckless charge. Then, he used Snaring Roots.

A thousand corrupted tentacles sprang from the stone floor, wrapping themselves around Takina’s tail. She tried to rip free, but they latched onto her with undeniable strength. Still, Elijah felt nauseous, knowing that his spell had taken control of those tentacles. He couldn’t allow it to impede the fight, though, so he pushed that discomfort aside and summoned Swarm. Before the insects even manifested, he was already casting Calamity.

They both hit at the same time, with hundreds of unfamiliar, fly-like creatures descended upon the archdruid while hurricane-force winds tore through the corridor. The archdruid ripped away from the effects of Snaring Roots, but she was incapable of pushing through the winds. Instead, she was shoved backward, those thousands of waving tendrils sprouting from her skin acting as an impromptu sail.

Then, she leveled her broken staff at Elijah and cast a familiar spell.

Black lightning tore across the corridor and slammed into Elijah’s chest. The moment it made impact, his heart seized, and he was thrown backward. He skidded across the floor, stopping only when he hit a wall and caromed a few more feet before coming to a rest.

Tendrils snaked up out of the ground, ready to consume him, but he fended them off with a series of panicked kicks as he initiated a transformation into the Shape of the Guardian. It couldn’t come too soon, though, because the corrupted archdruid was already casting another spell. This time, it was her tainted version of Calamity. Black winds blew, colliding with Elijah’s spell and creating a whirlwind where both spells fed off one another.

Even as a lamellar ape, Elijah struggled to fight through it. The archdruid, whose power was subject to the Shackles of the Trial of Primacy, had an even more difficult time with it. She was not a creature of Strength, and she clearly hadn’t chosen a combat path like Elijah. So, she was at a slight disadvantage that he was more than willing to exploit.

For the second time in recent memory, he used Bestial Charge, throwing himself across the corridor with renewed fury. His spell took hold just in time to shield him from another bolt of black lightning, and he hit the archdruid with a form tackle that would have made any football coach proud. He drove her to the ground, burying his shoulder in her torso, and he was rewarded by the sound of cracking bone.

Then, he ripped into her with his claws. Once, then twice. Three times before she managed to slither out from under him. That’s when her tentacles came into play, striking at him like a thousand venomous snakes. Elijah felt the injection of corruption with every bite, and if it had happened even ten minutes before, he would have succumbed to the sheer volume.

However, the triumvirate of his identity – dragon, human, and beast – had honed its edge against much more potent corruption than what those tiny tentacles could produce. They ripped through it with ease, allowing Elijah to focus on his enemy.

He grabbed a handful of tentacles and ripped. They came loose in a shower of mucus and blood, and the archdruid screamed. She also lashed out, biting his shoulder with surprising force. He reared back in pain as he felt his collarbone snap, and she used that opportunity to cast a spell.

Elijah knew what it was, just by virtue of the way the ethera – and corruption – swirled around her, but as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t stop it. Green light, laced with black and red, fell upon her, and the damage he’d inflicted mended in only a moment. Clearly, she’d taken a more healing-focused path than he had.

Renewed by the spell, she attacked again, and with enough ferocity that he couldn’t dodge when she buried the shards of her broken staff in his stomach. He bounded backward, yanking it out and tossing it aside.

“Are you in there?” he growled. “Please…if you’re in there –”

The archdruid had clearly succumbed to the corruption, though, and she responded to his plea by casting another spell, and it was one with which Elijah had no experience. All around him, the mucus-covered vines twisted together, rising from the ground and extending from the floor until a half-dozen humanoid creatures stood before him. Elijah had no time to wonder what they actually were before they collapsed onto him with surprising strength.

Alone, none of them could have threatened him. But together, they were more than enough to overpower him. Elijah fought back. He struggled against them. But over the next few seconds, they latched onto his arms and legs, immobilizing him.

Takina attacked again with the corrupted version of Storm’s Fury. More, she conjured a thousand insects – each one sprouting hundreds of tiny cilia and reeking of corruption – that fell upon him to deliver their tainted afflictions. Thankfully, Elijah still had his buffs active, and each of those insects could only deliver one bite before they were speared through by retaliatory thorns.

Still, that did nothing to combat their afflictions, and in the space of a few seconds, Elijah felt his strength drifting away. He used Guardian’s Renewal, and to his surprise, when it went to war against the causes of his ravaged body, it was pushed to new heights by his unified spirit.

Even so, it did not heal him – not completely, at least. Instead, it only managed to banish the afflictions and mend the worst of his injuries. Some still lingered, but that was much better than dying. So, his strength renewed, Elijah continued to struggle against the vine-creatures. Takina threw more lightning his way – perhaps that was the extent of her offensive capabilities – but it did no more damage than the first casts.

Then, the vine-monsters started to lose their strength as the spell that had animated them ran its course. Elijah broke free, but he didn’t immediately attack the archdruid. Instead, he took a gamble and shifted into the Shape of Venom.

His reasoning was simple. He needed more damage, and his newly evolved form of the blight dragon was the best he could do. So, the moment he’d shifted into the much smaller shape, he raced forward, dodging more arcs of lightning. He leaped upon the wall, using his sticky feet to climb to the ceiling. That surprised the corrupted archdruid, delaying her reactions enough to allow him to drop down and deliver an Envenomed bite.

Then, he did it again.

And again after that.

With his high Strength and Dexterity, he could strike incredibly quickly, and before she managed to knock him away, he’d bitten her more than half a dozen times. Each one was laced with powerful venom as well as Insidious Malady, which he hoped would be enough.

She stumbled, then lashed out, backhanding him hard enough to send him flying across the room. Elijah used Flicker Step while in mid-air and crashed into her back, fangs-first.

Still, she would not fall. A second later, she used another healing spell, and Elijah knew he needed to pile on the damage even more. Now that she was under the effects of his potent venom, he shifted back into the lamellar ape form and threw himself at her. She tried to fend him off, but as he’d discovered before, she had never been a creature of great Strength or Constitution.

Since then, she’d been weakened by his venom, and because of his continued assault, she was incapable of healing enough to banish that affliction.

The writing was already on the wall. Elijah knew it, and if the archdruid had been capable of rational thinking, she would have recognized it as well. Yet, the fight continued, and Elijah’s advantage grew with every passing second. Still, she fought, casting heals that mended her broken bones almost as quickly as he could administer the beating.

In the end, it took nearly half an hour before she finally succumbed, but rather than feeling elated at another victory, Elijah only felt exhausted – mentally and physically. So, for a long time, he just sat there, surrounded by corruption and with a broken ta’alaki beneath him.

Then, he sighed, shifted back into his human form, and finally remembered the notification he’d had no chance to read before being attacked by the archdruid.