Aurelian stepped out of a hidden door identical to the one he’d discovered near Tarixi, though this one was in an entirely different sector of the palace and bereft of undead signatures. He had integrated the palace map and compass into his HUD, per Tarixi’s advice and guidance, and now had a permanent bar at the top of his vision which showed him bearing both in cardinal direction and a 360 degree variance, with north as point 0. It was extremely useful.
Bahamut came out of the door at his back with a click of his platinum-hued claws on the marble, the dragon’s wings flexing luxuriously before folding once more against his body. He looked positively miniscule in the colossal scale of the palace’s corridors, but given he was barely up to Aurelian’s sternum on all fours that was to be expected.
We have to try to be cautious. He sent to the dragon over their link. We want to locate the Necromancer with as little warning as possible.
That will be difficult given the fact you are a beacon to the tormented souls of the Godsworn. His bond responded with amusement.
Well I did say try. Aurelian concluded dryly while setting out along the hallway, Bahamut in tow.
The hallway they found themselves in was one of the main thoroughfares of the palace, and led deeper toward where the greatest concentration of necromantic energy radiated. According to the limited intelligence he could glean from the System, combined with Bael’tharax’s weakened but still powerful senses; the most likely source for the undead was the imperial arboretum.
I suppose if they’re right, it’s more likely to be a Vasiri than anything. The green glow to the eyes is apparently consistent with Vasirian death magic. Given the background on them being corrupted Life magic users, I can see the arboretum being a natural draw.
We will find out soon enough. I am interested to see this creature. Bahamut replied with a hint of youthful excitement.
Without further ado Aurelian took off at a measured run, and Bahamut followed.
Their running journey took them through the gargantuan palace hallways almost unimpeded while Aurelian followed the map in his HUD, and tracked their direction with his compass readout. They had first met Tarixi at the far end of the southern wing of the palace, and had re-emerged at the western side closer to its heart based on what Tarixi and Bael’tharax had advised.
While murals, windows, and empty corridors passed them by, Aurelian also noticed the tell-tale signs of battle and siege. Bloodstains, fire-scorched marble, or even the occasional skeleton — the ones in recognisable Godsworn attire were beheaded quickly and efficiently — marking the sights of ancient conflict. The closer they drew to the arboretum, the more pronounced the signs of combat were, as if the fighting had escalated in both regularity and density.
After twenty minutes of steady progress, their swift pace was finally arrested and Aurelian signalled Bahamut to stop when the first signs of greater undead activity came into view. A cluster of some two dozen skeletons stood like hoisted marionettes in front of the only means to pass beyond their current corridor and into the next, and each of them appeared to just be standing there. Waiting. Staring at nothing or directly at walls.
Why do they not attack? Bahamut asked with a perfunctory wing-stretch.
We aren’t in aggro, er, engagement distance. Aurelian corrected halfway through his statement. They probably have a designated range within which they are triggered to fight—
So of course, Bahamut leaped forward and unleashed a resounding roar with every bit of air he could pull into his juvenile lungs.
Aurelian drew his blade with a heavy sigh from its sheath where it rested under the enchanted bulk of his supply pack and advanced to join Bahamut.
Just shy of twenty-four sets of acid-green eyes transfixed themselves on the pair of them, and Aurelian fixed his expression into a grim resolve. He could feel Bahamut’s eagerness humming through the bond like a ramping bass guitar, and while the dragon’s impetuousness rankled him somewhat; he couldn’t fault the hatchling for the accrued style point.
“Get ‘em.” He said with a glance at his companion. The time for stealth was over.
Bahamut snarled in approval and launched himself into the air at the same moment as the skeletons burst into a charge toward them both. Aurelian glanced up at the dragon and stood his ground, waiting for what he could instinctively feel building within his bond. A moment later, when the skeletons crossed the halfway mark, the build-up hit its crescendo.
Bahamut parted his jaws and unleashed a withering blaze of flames at the undead from above. The fire was a narrow stream instead of a wide cone, and that was to be expected given the dragon’s age and size — but the few undead the flames did hit seemed to almost explode after a few seconds’ contact. Bones splintered, bodies deanimated, and the remains were reduced to ash and cinders by the brilliant expulsion of fire.
You have gained Experience!
Bael’tharax had told him that the first element a dragon king learned was fire. It was intrinsic to their identity, so he’d said. Bahamut had proven his father correct. Fully six skeletons had been destroyed by the creature’s breath attack, and though Aurelian could feel savage pride emanating from the dragon; he could also sense how tired the hatchling suddenly was.
It was easy to forget, with Bahamut’s size, that he’d only technically been born hours prior.
“Nice work!” Aurelian said while stepping forward at a quick stride. “Now get some rest while you charge up for the next one. I’ve got this.”
Yes. Very well. I… I shall allow you the glory. Bahamut replied tiredly.
Aurelian suppressed a smile at the implied permission in the statement and allowed his partner the insinuation of benevolence. The little dragon had likely exhausted himself more than he’d thought he would, and Aurelian wasn’t about to pull him up on a little bit of pride. He had done well.
My turn. Aurelian said in the same moment that he accelerated to a sudden and explosive charge.
He met the remaining fifteen — it had been a little less than two dozen after all — skeletons in a flurry of combat. His new armour deflected claws and blunted weapons while he moved through them like a scythe hewing wheat. Bodies were bisected, heads cut away, skulls cleaved, and limbs sliced off in a storm of blade strokes. Where Aurelian had once struggled for his life against and even feared these creatures, he had changed drastically in his short three day stint with Bael’tharax and Tarixi.
His sword was like an extension of himself and deanimated skeletons with lethal purpose wherever Aurelian swung. The occasional “Firebolt!” spilled forth from his lips as well, used as much to give himself room to swing as it was to obliterate a skull or blast back an unsuspecting foe. The chaos of the melee persisted for what seemed like a single extended and exhilarating moment before suddenly the last of the undead had its head cut loose, and its suddenly powerless body fell to the fire-blackened marble beneath.
You have gained Experience!
Aurelian looked around at the carnage he’d wrought with a feeling of surprise. He had not realised how much he’d improved fighting under Tarixi and later Bael’tharax’s strict instruction. Equipped in armour and with Bahamut helping, he was… strong. Really strong. He felt like a character who’d gone and completed a bunch of crazy side quests before coming back to the main storyline, and subsequently finding it far easier than it should have been.
The entire analogy was insane, of course, but it was what made the most sense to him.
Aurelian lifted his gaze from the remnants of the undead to the massive half-open double doors ahead of him, and then turned back toward Bahamut. “Feeling better?” He asked the small dragon.
I will be ready for the next engagement. The dragon sent stubbornly. Worry not for me, Aurelian. We must forge ahead.
Aurelian suppressed a smile at the dragon’s pride and nodded. “Alright then. Let’s go.”
He led the way forward without another word and passed through the gap in the huge doors warily, and with his senses on high alert. What lay beyond was something out of Poison Ivy’s worst nightmare. Desiccated and dying trees, each one once a great and towering symbol of nature, stood like ancient husks drained and with life stolen from their bark and branches. They were situated at different junction points and along massive avenues in what Aurelian could only assume were the pathways of the palace’s ancient arboretum.
Limp and twisted vines hung like predatory serpents from branches that reached for the high, slanted glass ceiling above and seemed to almost shelter away from the sunlight; hiding in the shadow of their parent trees. Corruption fairly stank within the area, and the stench of decay was so pervasive that he felt his Dragon’s Resolve flare brightly across his mind in the same moment as Bahamut retched and growled at his side.
I have never seen a forest, and yet even I know this wrong.
Aurelian silently agreed with the dragon while they moved cautiously forward.
Along the walkways and upon overhangs that had likely once been symbols of beauty; shrubberies that had probably thrived with the wild vigour of curated life instead rotted and dripped with acidic affliction of a kind Aurelian was certain he had no interest in investigating. Their excretions covered small swathes of marble surface in caustic pools of viscous, bubbling, and sludge-like green liquid that wafted with rancid fumes.
“This entire area is saturated in corruption…” Aurelian muttered to his companion while warily moving forward along the green, black, and brown-stained once-white marble pathway. “It’s not just by coincidence or proximity, this was done with malice. With rage.”
Bahamut growled a wordless agreement while Aurelian’s eyes travelled over the trunks of the nearest trees and his gaze angled up toward where their tortured limbs hung like sentinels of death in the air above. The tallest of them had to be close to twenty metres high, and dwarfed anything he’d ever conceived of in a greenhouse-like space.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
The term arboretum didn’t even really do the area justice.
The sheer scale of what he was seeing beggared belief, and it was not insane to think that an entire village or more of people could have lived and worked among the greenery with space to spare. The entire undertaking had likely been one of decades, if not centuries, given the magnitude and age of the trees in question. It only made the rife and rampant level of corruption and decay so much more horrible.
One didn’t have to be a plant person to feel horror and grief at the sight before them.
Aurelian moved ceaselessly throughout the space and he pushed his perception attribute to its maximum while scanning the area. His grip on his runesword was tight beneath his gloved fingers, and he felt a growing sense of unease or wrongness the deeper he stepped into the arboretum. It was almost like a faint awareness of something, tugging at him insistently in a way he couldn’t quite identify.
His Calamity Core was riled in a manner he could feel and he had started cycling mana almost reflexively, pushing it through his root chakra and across his body in preparation for use while keeping a wary eye on his surroundings. With a start he realised he hadn’t been using one of his best tools, and immediately set to correcting the oversight.
Revelate!
Name: Corrupted Ancient Manawood Tree
Type: Flora
Rarity: Epic
Description: Manawood trees are the lifeblood of great forests, and yield both treasured material for crafting, and powerful fruit which can be used to accelerate mana cycling, the opening of chakras, and regeneration of mana. This manawood tree has been corrupted and twisted beyond imagining, and though part of its true nature lingers within, it is almost entirely lost beneath the layers of malaise clinging to its every fibre.
Name: Corrupted Nature Mana
Type: Essence
Rarity: Rare
Description: Distilled nature mana can be found with some level of success in forests where manawood trees are dense and populous, forming from their passive fruit disgorgement and subsequent saturation upon forest floors. This nature mana has been corrupted and twisted by tainted Life magic, and is as acidic as it is diseased and virulent. It is antithetical to the well-being of living creatures nearby, and highly combustible.
Revelate is now Level 10!
Revelate is now Level 11!
Congratulations, Revelate has reached Novitiate tier!
You have gained Experience!
Sadness, pity, and no small amount of anger kindled in his gut at the information his Revelate skill revealed. The earlier thoughts of malicious and deliberate intent behind the corruption only surged higher at what he saw, and Aurelian felt his features twist into a grim scowl. “This shit has to end. This is wrong. Very wrong.”
I feel an itch between my wings. Something is aware of us, Aurelian.
Aurelian glanced at his companion in momentary surprise, and then snapped his head up at the sudden sound of a wheezing laugh.
“What have we heeeeeere…?” A voice called from somewhere unseen. It sounded like sandpaper rubbing together. Like a dissonant attempt at a melody that had been too badly corroded to create pleasant music. “A little snack and… a dragon? How fascinating!” It was a twisted thing, Aurelian knew instinctively. Wrong. Unnatural. Dragon’s Resolve flared to life and what momentary fear he had felt was immediately replaced by something more potent: revulsion, and rage.
“Why don’t you come and find out, fuckhead!” Aurelian shouted back viciously while cycling his mana, and scanning the boughs of the corrupted manawood trees rapidly.
“Oh but where is the fun is so simplistic an approach?” The sickening voice crooned in question. “Where is the pleasure in so easy and swift a meal? The flavour must be… enjoyed.”
“I’ve got your fucking enjoyment right here!” He shouted back while lifting his crest with an emotive shake of the blade. “Come and get it you piece of shit!”
“Such bold vitriol from so young a creature. We shall have our fun, little morsel, but first you must prove your mettle against my puppets.”
Aurelian’s jaw locked at the words and he glanced at Bahamut at the same moment as a plethora of shrieking, supernaturally projected wails of hatred erupted throughout the area and skeletons began to appear among the corrupted manawood trees.
“Go high and stay out of reach,” he instructed the dragon quickly, “and no heroics. I know you’re strong, but you know what Bael’tharax said; your scales aren’t strong enough to resist them yet.”
I am not a coward, Aurelian!
“It’s not about being a coward, Bahamut, it’s about being smarter than your enemy!” He shot back while taking up a defensive stance. “Go!”
The dragon growled but did as instructed after throwing him a narrow-eyed glance of disgruntlement. His legs bent and with a flap of his already-impressive wings Bahamut launched himself upward and into the air, flapping twice before finding claw-assisted purchase upon the branches of a nearby manawood.
Aurelian’s attention shifted from Bahamut after he confirmed the dragon’s position in the tree nearby and instead he turned to face the imminent threat of the massing skeletons. The first thing he noticed was that they were not the same as the previous iterations. These were more properly armoured, fully armed, and were coated in the corrupted mana essence littering the arboretum’s floor. It seemed to pulse on them like a twisted imitation of life-giving energy, and he could tell immediately that these foes were a level above anything he’d faced.
The glowy shit was a pretty good indicator of that, usually.
Aurelian’s eyes tracked rapidly between the approaching enemies and he counted quickly. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five… His eyes narrowed when he reached close to forty and he realised quite quickly that there was no conceivable way for him to emerge victorious when swarmed by so many at once. He had to do something to change the landscape and allow him to make use of his stamina efficiently, while also filtering how many he would need to fight at once.
He turned and ran.
The sound of hateful wailing followed behind him and Aurelian communicated quickly to Bahamut while rapidly encroaching upon the husk of a medium-sized manawood. There was a slim, almost insane idea brewing in his hand and it depended on so many variables that it was almost pointless to consider… and yet he had few better options. He could simply play a lethal game of hide and seek among the trees, but he had no idea how long that would work and what manner of abilities the new skeletons might possess that could hinder him.
So instead he decided to go with something more… direct.
Insane, perhaps, but direct.
The sound of Bahamut’s roar met his ears and Aurelian glanced up at the same moment as when he arrived at the blackened trunk of the manawood. The runes upon his bond’s scaled body shimmered and flared with power when the young dragon took in a deep breath, and then unleashed a torrent of flames along the front line of the encroaching horde.
As Aurelian had hoped, and in confirmation of his greater plan; the substance clinging to the shambling creatures exploded upon contact with the flames. Skeletons were torn apart and savaged in a chain reaction of combusting mana while those behind attempted to halt their awkward momentum. Another line of skeletons fell victim to the spreading flames in explosions of volatile essence before the entire line halted, and Aurelian couldn’t help but grin viciously.
You have gained Experience!
Great work bud!
I approve of this plan! Bahamut sent back with a sense of savage glee, though weariness laid itself over it like a light blanket. The dragon had been more conservative with his fire in his strike, but he was still young. The magic took its toll.
Get to a high point. I’ve got this. Aurelian sent to him while turning and looking up at the manawood. He only had moments before the skeletons circumvented the flames, and he needed to act. Without a moment’s more thought as to the efficacy of what he planned, Aurelian hefted his runesword with the flat of the blade facing upward and rammed it with every ounce of his strength into the dying bark of the manawood.
A glance behind him told him that the undead were beginning to find their way toward him again, and he redoubled his efforts. His hands pulled his runesword, and he worked against the density of the corrupted tree to scythe the blade sideways with as much force as he could muster. I am sorry for this. He said to the suffering tree while he worked.
When he could hear the approach of the first of the undead, Aurelian finally tore his sword free of the manawood and spun around. His left hand left his blade and he held it hovering over the wound in the manawood. The nearest undead was barely four metres away when he surged all of his cycled mana toward his left palm.
“Firebolt.”
Aurelian turned and sprint-dived for cover at the same moment as a keening noise momentarily cut through the air, and with a sigh like a cancer patient’s final breath, the manawood tree exploded. Shards of burning wood and blazing gouts of napalm-like ignited sap erupted in a cacophonous BOOM that smashed the skeletons into the ground in the same moment as it ignited the empowering globules of corrupted essence on their bodies.
Fire Resistance is now Level 12!
. . .
Fire Resistance is now Level 15!
Undead burned in a tidal wave of fire and concussive force that charred their bonds and scorched their armour while Aurelian rolled around to rid himself of the flames that clung to his armour. He had protected his head and backpack, but the rest of him had not been so lucky. Cursing at the sheer heat of the flames, he scrambled to his feet and put distance between himself and what was rapidly becoming a building inferno within an entire section of the arboretum.
You have gained Experience!
Unnatural shrieks assailed his ears and Aurelian spun to face where he’d unleashed the firestorm, only to feel Dragon’s Resolve immediately surge to the fore at the sight that greeted him. Massive creatures that looked like the nightmare hybrid between a black widow spider and desert scorpion tumbled from the formerly hidden depths and boughs of now-inflamed manawoods, and screeched in horrible agony and pain at the flames tearing apart their chitinous bodies. With a mix of revulsion and horrified fascination, he used Revelate.
Name: Corrupted Skarnid
Race: Blight Arachnid
Level: 33
Tier: Aspirant
Health: 389/1766
Description: Skarnids are twisted predators that thrive in the Desolation, and stalk its corrupted lands for prey with which to sate their consuming hunger. This Skarnid’s already vile form has been further corrupted by foul uses of twisted Life and Nature mana, creating a foetid abomination.
Even with Dragon’s Resolve blazing in his mind and his grip on his runesword secure, Aurelian felt himself physically force his hands to steadiness while staring down the burning, but still-alive forms of the hulking creatures. With a deep breath he brought his blade up before him, lifted it, and pointed it out at the Skarnids in what he hoped was a heroic, challenging pose.
Judging from the enraged shrieks, he succeeded.
Aurelian smiled grimly. Part of him was almost excited when they charged forward.
He had always fucking hated spiders.