The woman stood up, purple sludge running down her lips and chin, she was wearing full chain mail armour. The woman already stood a head taller than Adam yet she began to grow even larger and taller as purple veins and cracks began to form over her body and face. She twisted and convulsed, looking up at the roof of the dark, damp cavern, pulling her arms back and clenching her fists. She was now a hulking monster, she maintained her feminine facial features and long blonde hair but massive amounts of muscle mass and height were added to her frame, she now stood at the height of Adam with half of his height stacked on top again.

Her voice wavered between what must have been her original voice and a deeper, monstrous voice as she screamed at them “What are you doing here? You aren’t the church, I will defend the transformation base of Oak with my life.” She was holding a large shield in her left hand, tall enough to cover her face from a standing position. In her right hand she carried a flail, a long, thick metal chain ran along the ground, connected to the spiked metal ball on the end, she dipped the ball into the pool of bright purple sludge, creating a low sizzling sound as she began to swing the flail over the top of her head. Splashes of the sludge hit the cavern floor and walls, creating small billows of smoke where they landed.

Matilda ran to the left of Adam, around the ring of cavern that surrounded the large, still pool of sludge. Brian ran to the right, spreading out so they could attack her from different angles. Adam was concerned looking around the cavern as he could not think of an immediate way to utilise his psychokinesis in this environment.

All three of their hiker menus activated popping up with something they had not seen before.

Target: Grace Hazel

Class: Cleric

Level: 7

Quest: Defeat Grace to advance towards saving Oak.

They saw that she had her own hiker menu pop up, it must have been telling her about all three of them Adam figured.

Why had they not seen that with Vincent if the menu was supposed to show them information on other hikers? What was this hiker doing here working with the church like this? Adam had no more time for thoughts as the cleric paced forward and threw her flail directly at his face. Simultaneously dodging to the left and guiding the ball as far as he could to the right with his kinesis he was able to narrowly avoid being smashed to pieces as soon as the fight had just begun, the new agility idol definitely just saved his life. He tried to throw force at her feet to trip her as she continued to pace towards him, she dropped her shield to the ground and pushed through the pushes of force as the chaotic whips of force flew at her feet.

The cavern began to tremble and shake as a few rocks fell down from the cavern walls, through the clearing smoke where Brian was standing, Adam could see he had used his explosive strike to create a distraction, Adam threw the rocks up into her face, buying himself some time as he scrambled back towards Matilda while Grace stumbled at the blow of his stone blast. She twisted on the spot where she stood, throwing her flail into Brian who tried to block it with his axes but still took a strong blow to the stomach. She threw a blast of golden light up at the ceiling, bouncing back down it washed over her and seemed to restore her. It looked like the Radiant Burst that Matilda had but was tinged with streaks of purple and black throughout. The hulking cleric then cast another burst aimed at Brian, Adam quickly threw up a barrier to deflect the burst into the pool, the burst vanished as the pool bubbled. Across the entire room and over the top of the pool Matilda threw her own Radiant bursts, trying to cleave the three, two of them to heal Adam and Brian and one to damage Grace was what she was hoping to achieve though it was too difficult for her to aim all three at once and some went into the pool, others bounced around and dissipated into the air, but a couple of them did manage to help restore the wound Brian had suffered from the sludge tinged flail.

“We need to keep distance from her” Adam yelled across the cavern for his team to hear.

“Easy for you two.” Brian ran at Grace trying to close the gap rather than extend it.

Smashing her flail into the ground, the ground trembled, Brian being knocked back into the wall behind him. A pulsing golden and purple light flashed on the ground beneath the heavily breathing giant crusader, filling up cracks in the ground and radiating light.

“Duck!” Adam yelled at Matilda, he pushed a sweeping gust of kinetic force at her ankles knocking Matilda to the ground as Grace’s extended arm rapid fired out radiant bursts over the top of the sludge pool, there must have been hundreds of bursts travelling through the air and bouncing off of the walls in a matter of seconds. Adam was confused at how she could cast spells at that speed while only being a few levels higher than them.

A loud boom rang throughout the cavern as more of the walls and connective pieces of stone began to crack and fall, Brian hitting another explosive strike, this time much closer to Grace who stumbled back in the dust and confusion. Adam heard a scream followed by clanging metal, the dust clearing revealed one of Brian’s axes sticking out of her left shoulder, her shield now laying on the floor as her and Brian duelled. Brian’s other axe against Grace’s flail. She continued trying to mix her ground flash strikes that had flung Brian away earlier and more radiant bursts to keep herself sustained and add more damage into Brian that he could not readily parry and avoid as he was doing with her flail. As well as Brian was doing keeping up with her, he could see that Grace was steadily gaining an edge through her sheer strength and size as well as her self healing through the ceiling aimed radiant bursts bouncing back down over her. It wouldn’t even be long before she could simply land a deathly blow to his head with her spiked flail.

Matilda had not stood back up yet, well after her machine gun fire of radiant bursts had passed, Adam scurried around the ring of stone surrounding the sludge pool towards the direction he last saw her and found her laying on the ground, bleeding out of her head. She must have hit her head when Adam tripped her. Adam felt guilt at not trusting her to react in time and taking matters into his own hand to shove her down now. But maybe his higher agility was needed for a case like this.

“Help me Adam, what are you doing?” Brian called out in an accusatory tone as he started fighting on his back foot, barely keeping the corrupted blondes blows at bay.

“Shut up, I’ve got this.”

Grace bounced back a few steps away from Brian before turning to Adam “You have nothing and don’t pretend like you do. I’ve no idea what exactly psions do but I could barely feel your little shoves of force before, did you just give up?” She snickered as she blasted radiant bursts at Adam, hopping back again as Brian overextended and blasted another radiant burst into Brian’s face.

Adam poured sweat in concentration at maintaining his current threads of kinetic force that were inside the pools as he cast a truth compulsion at Grace “Who are you working for?”

“High Priest Fargo.” She scowled at Adam. “Get out of my head, you disgust me”. Adam was glad to distract her as Brian lay on the ground, struggling to move and catch his breath after the radiant burst he just took.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Who is Fargo?” He called out in an authoritative voice.

“My gateway to power, my leader that will change Oak forever and actually utilise it for our advantage rather than keep it as a tourist attraction to stare at.”

“Why was Brian kidnapped by the church, why did Fargo question him?” Even if they got out of this alive, it would be useless if Adam didn’t get some information out of her.

“You are hikers, all hikers that make their way here are questioned, strays cannot be trusted, help the church take Oak or die.” She raised her working arm at Adam. “Just because you can make me talk doesn’t mean you can stop me killing you” She blasted radiant bursts towards Adam, Adam could not afford any more concentration into new casts and ducked, receiving blows of burning light and a searing, itching burn from the tinges of dark purple mixed into the blasts. Grace come running around the stone ring clockwise towards Adam who was laying on the warm stone floor.

Adam made his move that he had been building up while watching his team mates struggling to keep Grace at bay. The first radiant burst that had been submerged under the pool was cast by Grace, he had kept mental track of that one and eased his force to let it dissipate into the sludge. The other radiant bursts that he was holding in the sludge pool were cast by Matilda’s triple cleaving Radiant Bursts, he was maintaining at least twelve different holdings of bursts in the sludge pool simultaneously, despite being very easy and simple block spells, the quantity had been taking its toll on Adam the entire time and had prevented him from intervening as much in the fights as he would have liked to. He pulled one out of the water, letting the sludge drip off before releasing it over Matilda’s head, still bleeding out onto the cavern floor which was warm to the touch due to the bubbling sludge pool. She gasped as she had enough recovery to regain consciousness and cried out in pain as a few drops of the sludge remaining on the spell dripped onto her face.

“Brian needs your help, run now.” Adam commanded as he heaved with all of his mental might to pull the other burst spells he had been holding under the surface of the pool, trapping Grace in between two walls of force just steps away from where Adam sat, the sludge covered balls of Matilda’s earlier cast Radiant Bursts fell in from the side near the pool that Adam had left open with no barrier. Many of them missed the mark but he landed at least five or six of them within the space he had created to restrict Grace, she screamed out in pain as her voice shifted to a growling, demonic tone. He closed the side wall loosely, to put much more pressure on the wall facing him directly in case she tried to break through, he could block her off temporarily but he knew that he couldn’t keep the blocking wall up for long if she tried to break through. The sludge dripped down at her feet as the bursts bounced around and through her, searing her as they were intended to harm Grace at the time they were cast. It seemed to be working well Adam thought as Grace smashed her fist into the loose side panel he had made for the bursts to bounce off of, instantly breaking as Grace ran up the stone steps.

“It’s too early but no matter. Now experience the fury of Experiment G, my life for Oak!” She screamed, Adam watched as the hulking cleric, with tinges of purple sludge through her blonde hair and burn marks over her face dived into the pool of sludge.

Hearing the splash, Adam ran over to Matilda who was helping Brian sit up after healing him up as best she could, Adam was suffering himself from some of the purple sludge he had heaved out and onto himself.

“Did she just dive into the pool?” Matilda asked incredulously

“Yeah, I think we run for it now.” Adam said, glancing at the pool which was beginning to bubble more violently, splashing over the sides of the pool, helping Brian onto his feet they headed back towards the side where they had entered this cavern. There wasn’t anything else in this room besides the pool as far as they could see. Suddenly the pool collapsed in on itself, the entire foundation of the cave floor they stood on became unsteady as the sludge contents of the pool fell through the floor. Looking down into the large hole in the floor they saw an even bigger lake of purple sludge at the bottom, what the hell was going on in this place Adam thought to himself?

Grace defeated! 1600 xp granted (2000/4000)

Their menus lit up as Grace’s life must have faded away.

Quest: Investigate the draining of Oak.

They looked further out past the lake of sludge, still peering through the large hole in the floor and standing on the shaky foundation of the stone ring near the entrance of the room. They could see large mechanical pumps, tube shaped attached to the large purple exterior of the great Oak tree itself. Adam had not realised but since they had travelled so far back in the direction of the city through this cave, they were now under the city itself and could see the humongous tree.

“Look carefully, I thought they were pumps but something is off”. Adam told the other two.

“Oh my god, they are living creatures” Brian said in awe. The pumps attached to the tree were more like leeches, they were shaped like tubes and attached to the tree, coming out of the other end of the creatures was the purple sludge they had been fighting in for the last several minutes. More of them swam through the sludge, jumping out of the bright purple lake and attaching onto the tree.

“This was experiment G, the draining of the tree?” Matilda asked.

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t know if those two we saw already attached were there before but there’s clearly way more joining on now, maybe they found a way to mass produce them, I don’t know. This is bad, Oak is going to die and die quickly at this rate.” Adam said.

“We need to tell the others, tell Vincent, tell Cynthia what the church are doing.” Matilda spoke with a fiery passion that he had not seen in a while during their time in the city.

“I don’t know, Vincent barely believed me when I told him Fargo questioned me in the church” Brian added to the conversation.

Adam spoke up “I think he did, he knows something is up and he knows more about that Abbey character as well. We do need to get back to him but it won’t be easy, the church will probably be on higher alert after this as well.”

The ground continued to crumble around them as they made their way back through the cave system back to the surface, back to the forest area. They had decided they would go to Hammy as Vincent instructed them to do as a first step and go from there, maybe he could be of some help to them in getting back to Vincent, they had to act urgently.

Arriving back at the entrance to the cave system they caught their breath and took in the fresh air, they could still feel the sulphuric burn of the sludge pool they had to battle around in their mouths and nostrils.

Vincent had told them it should only be a few hours to Hammy’s place. If they moved through the rest of the night they could make it by dawn, they were utterly exhausted but they figured if any time was safe to move on the main roads it would be in the middle of the night.