Upon having properly tested out my new curseflame, we set out to actually complete our quest, which was to find and kill a Woremvor that had been spotted nearby. Woremvors were very fat, chunky, and outright massive snakes, known for their strong regeneration factor that could be made even stronger by actively eating a lot. It was a rare monster that naturally matured to level 40, and the patrol that had spotted it confirmed that the creature was well into adulthood.
Subjugation quests for strong monsters like this weren’t rare, as most settlements preferred to not have high-level threats nearby. They typically went unresolved, however, because few parties were willing to take that risk. A larger raid would be sent, or they would be lured into the walls and defenses of the town, if the monster became too much of a problem.
Latarus had it better than other places because they actually had people who could take on elite monsters, like my parents and their highly acclaimed Piss Hunters party. But this time, we were the ones on the job because we had negotiated with these top-tier adventurers, and they just allowed us to take their quests without a fuss!
We were just that convincing.
Curseflame.
The spell formed in my hand after a short time spent focusing, and I tossed it at a nearby bushpider who had thought it was well-hidden. I watched the monster burn and writhe impassionately, and then I tried to take away the flames once it was but a husk, but the fire rapidly went out before I could. The corpse that remained briefly lit up in normal orange flames because of the residual heat.
This happened because the curseflame was strict. It only worked on living targets, therefore the spell went out the moment my enemy died.
I tossed another blob of black flame, this time to a nearby deer, but it ran away before I could form the combination magic I needed to rip the fire away. It died for its lack of cooperation.
My next target was forestmander(forest salamander) and it dodged my curseflame fireball! The turtle that was hit instead was briefly charred, but the black flame quickly went out without a proper target for its ire.
“Huh. That’s a great dummy to use, actually.”
“That’s a wild first thought,” Therick commented.
“I feel bad…” Berry made a comically sad expression.
“Oh come on!” I complained. “I need to know how my new spell works! We kill them all the time!”
I grabbed the animal. It tried to bite me, and it actually scratched my finger armor, but that was fine. It was faster than the turtles of my previous world, but it was still a turtle.
With Moonwash holding it down with nature magic, I formed another wisp of curseflame with the trapped animal as its sole target. I then set the turtle aflame, it shrieked and cried as its shell burned, and then parts of its limbs and head were also charred. I weaved my wrath and infernal mana together for a second time, and I used that to pick up the fire on the poor turtle’s shell, thereby confirming that it was possible to neutralize it like this.
I dumped the crackling black flames on some twigs on the ground, but just like before when I missed, it very quickly went out. A normal orange flame was left behind because all that heat still had to go somewhere, and it had no creature to direct it all into anymore.
The same phenomenon happened when I used curseflame without a target in mind. It just burned itself out.
I learned more about my combination element as we continued to search for our woremvor prey. I could target trees with my fire, but they couldn’t really penetrate into the roots. The flames would then go out when it considered the plants dead at some point, but Granuel and Moonwash informed me that those trees may yet rise again. Life and death were complicated, and how they were defined by magic was not absolute.
I practiced the process of creating curseflame mana a lot during this time, because combining infernal and wrath mana still required quite some time and focus. The sheer power of the magic also left quite a lot to be desired, because it was only dealing… adequately more damage than my infernal flames to a given target. This meant that my infernal flames were generating significantly more heat, because it was wasting much of that heat elsewhere. Additionally, my curseflames naturally weakened a target’s resistance to heat upon contact, much like how infernal flames did the same for all organics.
~~~
We finally found the woremvor in between some trees, and it was curled around a semi-scattered rotting pile of corpses that served as its nest. The snake was thicker than the trunks it had wound around, though it was a lot shorter than its bulk would suggest, and its body was weirdly uneven, almost as if it was truly segmented like a worm. The head looked uglier than a normal snake’s, but I was aware that one of the things it was most well-known for was the size of its open maw. It might even be able to swallow Angerly whole.
It hissed.
The monster had noticed us too.
Its eyes were trained on our position and our movement, and we tensed as we readied ourselves for a difficult fight.
But it never came.
We just stared at each other. The snake’s head had risen to a hostile and guarded posture, but it did not attack. It was wary, it was proud, it did not care to actually chase after us. We concluded that it was more interested in guarding its territory, and we had not yet reached that invisible line in the sand.
Since our opponent was kind enough to give us the grace, I and my friends fell back to make a proper plan. This monster was well-regarded as being stronger than the common level 40, so our opening move could really make a big difference, and I too was sorta interested in what we could come up with if it would just let us.
~~~
I intended to just talk about our positioning, and maybe open with a big infernal ritual, but then Moonwash had the bright idea of making a curseflame ritual.
“I just got this,” I mentioned. “It’s new. I don’t know if it's even possible to do combination element rituals…”
“Do you not want to try?”
“Oh, no. I absolutely want to try!
And so I opened cuts on my wrists to drain myself of blood. I made sure that it contained near equal parts wrath and infernal mana by using up the wrath, and Moonwash drew a sinister ritual according to my recounting of what using curseflame magic was like.
“Curseflame,” she said.
It did not work.
I felt the greater magic’s gaze upon us as Moonwash painted the ground a horrifying red, but the blood only evaporated into the air along with all the mana it contained.
“Oh.” Moonwash stared at her failed ritual. “That didn’t work. But I should’ve expected as much. I can’t even use normal curseflame yet.”
“Yeah,” I received her wrath and infernal wands, which she had made, and filled them with blood of the appropriate mana content. My girlfriend then tried to create curseflame, and I coached her on my own experiences as she did… but she failed. Again.
I remembered for a moment how I had sometimes been jealous of Moonwash’s talent in my youth, but now I only wanted for her to be able to do everything.
And maybe she would. Failing on her first try did not mean that she would never succeed.
“Let’s try it again,” I encouraged. “Together this time!”
“I can’t use the ‘element,’ but you can.” She paused and pondered. “I don’t actually know if that would work.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out!”
I went to find Angerly as our friends were making camp while I and Moonwash experimented, and my ogre friend handed me what I needed.
I ran back to Moonwash, and we began to draw a ritual together. My partner made sure that her own drawings… accommodated for and synergized with my own… raw and… emotional illustrations. I felt a pressure upon me as we continued the creation of our ritual, but it waxed and waned until in the end, it only made a similar whimper as before.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Curseflame!”
A fart of inactive mana that did nothing.
“That didn’t work either.”
“I can see that,” I deflated. “Should we just go with the infernal magic?”
“No. Not yet.” She handed me her own brush. “You’re the only one here who can actually use curseflame, so you just have to make the ritual by yourself.”
“Oh yeah. That makes total sense” I eyed the two big brushes in my hand. “But why do I need two brushes? I’m already not the best with only one!”
“Because: Double the brush. Double the efficiency.”
I searched her expression, but knew she had a perfect poker face.
“Ugh. You’re fucking with me!”
“Not right now. Later.”
I narrowed my eyes, handed her back the other paintbrush, and got to making the ritual. The world responded positively, its interest did not dip, and I too grew more excited as I reached the end.
“Curseflame!”
The blood evaporated, the mana it contained crackled in the air, and then it all manifested into a big cluster of dark-purple curses and infernal flames that rapidly fell apart, consumed itself, and exploded outward.
My ritual was judged, and it was found wanting.
I swiftly stepped in front of Moonwash, to weather whatever blasts came our way. We had armor of a similar quality, but I had a lot more resistance to at least one of the elements coming our way. The infernal fire splashed against me, but thankfully wasn’t able to damage my armor any more than normal flames would. The curses were likewise unable to deal significant damage to my mythril, although it was once again a bit scratched up, and after Moonwash had just fixed it too...
Only some of the wrath damage was able to seep into my insides, and while painful, it didn’t even warrant any urgent medical attention. My regen heart would take care of it in time.
“Is a ritual of a combination element really not possible?” Moonwash asked.
“On the contrary, I think I was definitely on the right track there!” I grinned. “The greater magic was unsatisfied, but it at least gave me something. This was only my first try, but with a better ritual, I’m sure that I can do it!”
This was a skill that I had admittedly outright neglected.
I needed to get good,
~~~
A few days later, I found myself drawing a ritual that Moonwash had helped me conceptualize. My hooves were uncovered, and so were my eyes. The snake was within sight, and its body exuded hostility as it curled around its pile of dead bodies. We had made sure not to cross into its territory, but the woremvor hissed a warning anyway as it could somehow tell that we were up to something. It intimidated my friends, but certainly not me. I was almost tempted to hiss back.
I finished the last massive brush stroke, creating a ritual with the shell of a sinister flame, various illustrations of wrath and infernal in unity, and the woremvor writhing painfully in the middle, beset by the furnace that was my spell.
I took a deep breath, and felt the embrace of magic itself. It wanted me to say the words now, or forever hold my piece. I looked at the woremvor from across the trees, and it glared back. It was a downright miracle that it hadn’t yet struck.
That would be the last mistake it ever made.
“Curseflame Shot.”
The world shuddered upon my words. The woremvor had finally made a move just before the utterance left my mouth, but it was too little too late. The short but stout snake rocketed through the air with unbelievable speed, only to collide with a dark flame that had met its charge. The fire that did not glow raced through its body at record speeds, clinging unto scales and visibly deteriorating skin, only to be visibly counteracted by the creature’s monstrous regeneration.
The snake hissed. It was a terrible sound that pierced right into our bones. It kept sailing through the air in a straight course towards me, and Berry met its open mouth with her shell at just the right angle. The monster’s strike never reached its target, my friend was knocked away with a deep gouge through her carapace, and Angerly struck the reptile’s head before it could follow up on anything. Therick and Granuel aimed for the eyes during this opening, obstructing the wormevor’s senses, until Moonwash’s own wind-propelled earth canon smashed against its skull near the same spot that Angerly had just smashed her mace into. Scales cracked and fell from that massive impact, and blood dripped from our enemy’s eyes as it glared banefully at us with tears of red.
And then those very wounds began to heal.
It was a struggle between that and the black flames that had now covered the entire body of our enemy.
The snake opened its massive maw filled with bulky fangs meant to rip and tear instead of poison.
This was when I struck for the second time.
I charged from the side with my cursed greatsword held high, and I swung the weapon down with all the force I could muster. The blade bit deeply into my opponent’s neck, through the scales and through the flesh, and then the wrath flowing through my weapon flared, dealing additional damage and rotting my enemy from the inside.
My enemy hissed. It swiftly turned around to behold me, and it lunged for a massive bite that could swallow me whole. I swatted its head away with a blow that sent both me and it reeling, and in the short instant where I winced from the broken numbness in my arms, the monster suddenly slithered wildly, hitting some of us with the massive flaming bulk of its body.
I got hit square on, and I rolled on the ground with all the wind knocked out of me. A groan escaped my lips, and I took Therick’s hand as he helped me to my feet. The burning monster had turned around and was now crawling back to its nest.
It was a good thing that my curseflame was really good for not doing any friendly fire, as while direct contact with the monster’s body was very uncomfortable due to how hot it had gotten, it was still a lot milder than what we would’ve otherwise experienced.
Moonwash came up to me, and I felt a surge of rage at how she limped from having been hit by that creature’s clumsy movements too. I used the time wherein she healed me to regain my calm and observe my opponent as it gorged on the piles of carrion, thereby hastening the healing of all its wounds.
The snake was fully on fire now, but its regeneration was still able to slow the burning of all its scales. Most of the other wounds we had inflicted on it were already healed save for some missing scales on its head, and one other.
A remnant of my slash through its neck remained, and I reasoned it was likely due to me just having dealt the most damage, or perhaps even due to some of the rotting aspects of my wrath magic. But as I stared at the open wound, and back at the greatsword that had not left my hand, a different idea began to form in my mind. Wrath magic flowed from it, to me, and then back… but the weapon was already cursed. It had long been cursed. And that foundation stemmed not from wrath, but from menace.
I didn’t have much time to think about this at the moment, so instead I just had a short planning session with my friends. Angerly then brought out the infernal gallons of my blood and the big paintbrushes, whereafter I and Moonwash worked together on the ritual that was needed.
“Infernal Fireworks!”
We shouted in unison, and the world acknowledged us. A massive fireball formed, and it shot towards where the snake was. The monster hissed and squirmed around to put its body out of the blast zone, but that was exactly what we were hoping for because our target was its food!
Extremely cruel, I know.
The fireball unraveled, and split into many smaller copies of itself. The pale-orange fire landed on the corpses that had been attracting flies, and the woremvor’s food began to burn away. The snake stared in disbelief, and the hiss that came out of its mouth was full of distress.
I capitalized on its grief.
I had charged towards my prey the moment the ritual had finished, and I even briefly made use of my wings for one flap of speed, before immediately folding them back into my body. The result was me achieving the fastest dash I’d ever done, and all that force was transmitted into my mini-ritual-enhanced sword swing.
The level 40 monster could not see it coming, and I sheared right through where damage still lingered on its neck, but this time my sword buried itself so deep that my enemy’s spine audibly cracked.
The woremvor screamed sharply, suddenly undulating its long body to crush me under its bulk. I managed to jump up, and unfurl my slightly frayed wings, in order to get out of range. I was still hit by the large and long mass, sending a crushing pain through my legs, but I was able to remain afloat despite it.
I saw the woremvor quickly aiming for what remained of its food stash, only to find that not only was its collection burning, but someone had actively tried to scatter them around. The monster saw the culprits, and it immediately lunged for my friends in rage, causing Berry to once again take the blow with her carapace and a big shield held by her two arms. The shield did not survive, and she was knocked far away, but she had bought just enough time for me to do another dive.
My sword crashed against the monster’s flank, causing great pain upon my target. I quickly ran away to avoid its retaliation while shooting waves of wrath unto my enemy. But my spells did not appear to do any damage, for I had not intended to harm the woremvor’s body, but rather its mind. I had used my taunt, and it was even more effective than my common enrage.
The snake chased after me.
I charged away from its weirdly undulating body, weaving through trees with a flood of wrath coursing through my legs, until I eventually exited out into a wide and open clearing. That monster had all the advantage in maneuvering with all the trees around, and it would’ve caught me soon if I had not switched terrains.
I glanced back to find that the curseflame on my enemy was beginning to die out. They did begin to expire after a short while, otherwise I might as well just wait for any foe to die after a single kiss of this magic. That was fine, I only had to refresh and replenish the effect.
Wrath and Infernal mana were dragged out of my body and seized by my horns, made to swirl around each other as they combined while I continued to run away from the massive animal for a little while longer. I occasionally had to dodge and parry the bites of the woremvor, until finally, I had more of the black fire that I needed.
I shot the massive dark fireball upon my enemy, and it was almost able to dodge but I made it twitch just enough with my evil eyes and aura. The dying black flames flared back up upon being fed by its kin, and the snake’s scales now began to be ripped off. The exposed skin then burned and charred much more quickly, and my enemy hissed in pain as its way of movement only aggravated all its wounds further. My friends then caught up with us and attacked the monster from the flank, only striking where flesh was the most raw and vulnerable. The woremvor hissed, turned around, and inadvertently exposed the throbbing wound on its neck.
I pounced upon the opportunity its mistake had given me. My sword swung near where it was already bleeding out, and my arms suffered from the force of my own power, but my enemy suffered more. The blade of my sword swam through flesh and gore, found where I had already cracked crucial bone, and it did not stop until the scourge’s spine had snapped in half and the monster’s head lolled to one side.
I took one step forward and slashed again, to cut off the head of the snake.