Only a few minutes, and a dizzying amount of mana, later the two Dreg Warriors were ready. Samuel had gotten the cycle of the working group memorized as tightly as he could. The main delay, which wasn't a surprise, was the recovery of the two Tendrils he was certain were being worked against their will. The fire one even seemed to need breaks less often than its Death Attuned cellmate, which indicated an unusual amount in the Refinement Attribute or a higher Quotient overall. As soon as the grey colored Tendril went back to the proverbial well his mana provided, it would be time to strike.

However, in the meantime, Sam had put his latest Corporeal Limit Trait through its paces. He didn't want Ron to feel bad about getting behind on advancement so the Druid hadn't mentioned that he'd managed to get his Decentralized Nerves to develop Dendritic Feedback. The advancement, much like his Cranial Myelin, were pretty straight forward; what they did before, they now did better. With one exception... Samuel could use his connections to living things to sense through them so long as his nerve filaments were embedded thoroughly enough.

That change made healing that much easier, since he didn't even have to rely on a physical scan, instead receiving the information of injuries straight to his brain and responding at the speed his instincts could. The other benefit was his use of said Trait on his own Skills, which allowed a level of control that wasn't useful for things beyond crafting, or so he'd thought. The sheer frustration that he was just far enough to not be able to scout the enemy left him salty enough to spend his entire mana pool growing a vine just for an experimental test. Of course, it served a secondary purpose if it failed, but Sam had learned quickly that intent was nine tenths of the law when it came to magic.

He willed his nerves into the connection to his , channeling and through the connection in a similar fashion as he'd seen Ronan do when crafting his Accretion Amulet. It was easy to remember the more mystical side of their magic thanks to Bec's timely intervention with the Status and Skills, but the leveraging of will for his soul felt right. Just like the Amulet, minus the lightshow thankfully, the Skills changed into more amorphous representations. A heart pumped as veins of magic extended into the plant he was trying to connect with.

Samuel's first gut response was to... well, hurl every bit of food that was within himself. Thankfully, his fourth Trait stepped in and kept him from suffering too much under the random cocktail of vertigo and nausea; Iron Gut was good to him like that. It had let him survive his earlier attempts at Health potions and he would be eternally grateful. He cut the reminiscing there.

After the wave of nausea passed, Samuel realized why he'd felt that way. Every inch of the vine he'd grown was screaming for sensory attention in a way he'd never experienced. The sensation of ants crawling over every inch of his body --considering the surface area of the vines was much larger than his own-- left him squirming until the Druid's brain shifted. Sam hadn't heard gears clanking into position, but the effect might as well have been. The line of nerves that had developed in the cambium layer of the vine acted as developing new grey matter at an alarming rate that matched the precipitous dip in Sam's mana. The blonde pushed past the unnerving feeling of dysmorphia the engagement had caused and on to his experiment.

He wasn't sure what sensory input the Implant needed to measure the Quotient of things, but he bet that it was more related to the Soul Hemispheres and their interaction with Attributes than how far his peepers could actually see. Sure enough, as he continued to 'move' his perception along the vine he'd grown blobs of... pressure that differed from the uniform reflections of the cavern sides. When his mana crossed the 50% barrier and a warning flashed, Samuel abandoned any level of finesse he might have wanted and plowed forward to the very tip of his vine. Instantly, the pressure perspective shifted and things grew... brighter. Duh! They are photoreceptors! Not eyes, per se, but different wavelengths my meat sack of a brain doesn't know how to process. With that realization, another gear in his brain fell into place and fuzzy golden outlines appeared in the canvas of pressures. It was notification he'd been eager to receive from the Implant.

Immediately, Sam retracted his entire will from the vine as his mana teetered closer to 40% than he'd have liked. He leaned heavily on April the moment his perspective returned to a human reference, struggling not to hurl despite his Trait. He motioned her away from the cavern, taking a few minutes at the fork to take deep breaths. Sam even went ahead and took a half dose of his healing smoothie, relishing the cooling sensation in his stomach as his Reed Muscles Trait sucked up the concentrated energies. As he recovered in mind, body, and mana he used the comm-plant to update the demoness on the success of his attempt.

"Hmmm. Worrying that they are all Fourth or Fifth Threshold," April said, her face never having left the cavern. "Most Tendrils are only First or Second, and considering your knowledge of how they come about it makes sense that would be the case."

"These have been bumped up," Sam agreed, glancing at the 80% that his mana sat at with a bit of frustration. He was no Daniela or Devon when it came to Refinement; he was starting to suspect that might have something to do with having a Refinement to their Attunement but he didn't have the time to dwell on that. "It doesn't matter in the end for what we need to do."

"Indeed. The reaper's judgement will be swift," the demoness answered, fingers twitching not on the many cuffs on her person but on the batons at her waist.

Samuel and April returned to the mouth of the cavern, watching the main operator bring the Infusion sieve to the slumped Death Tendril prisoner. He hadn't been out of touch long enough to lose track of their plan and there were at most ten more minutes before the same slate colored Tendril approached the Fire Tendril prisoner. The minutes, and his mana, ticked by as Samuel glared holes into the six people ambling through the distillery. He managed to recover almost 90% of his mana before it was go time.

"Let's do this," the Druid said, inhaling deeply of the musty cavern before the two of them dashed the almost two hundred feet it took to round the pool in the center of the cavern. Unsurprisingly, they were spotted quickly. Neither of them were Air Attuned or predisposed to silence like some Death Attuned were and sound carried easily in the enclosed cavern despite the quiet roar of the falling column.

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What they did have was .

The Amplified had distinct pros and cons. The cons involved body aches, nausea, vomiting and even torn ligaments if the person's Strength Attribute wasn't particularly high. The pros involved an almost doubling of reaction speed and muscular performance. It was much longer lasting than the unamplified Skill, but the debuffs would follow quickly after. It made it the best double edged sword the two Dreg Warriors had considering how outnumbered they were. If the fight stalled out, it was likely that the half dozen Tendrils would be able to one up them despite their Level advantage.

Acorns flew from Sam's hand like rain. One of the Air Tendrils sent a gust of wind that scattered the living projectiles before they could get too close, but they'd done their job. April was in range to use . The slight hitch to the Tendrils as the debuff hit was noticeable even if Sam saw a purple-black aura encase the higher level Death Tendril.

He was thankful for his experience in Summerfield even with all the nightmares it brought. Reading the general intent of the magic the Tendrils tried to leverage had been magnitudes easier after the memories of their various inflections had been seared in his mind. Death magic in particular. Mana flowed through him, releasing from every other acorn that had been scattered. The pulse of magic that the lead Tendril released was rebuffed as Samuel maintained the spell chain of his Foundational Skill as an additional shield for his plants. He really needed to write down all his Freeform techniques down for his friends-- and them for him-- but there never seemed to be enough time in the day.

Pushing the idle thought from his accelerated mind, Samuel watched as an impressive barrage of icicles formed in the air above the two Water Tendrils. Hmmm, group casting. They've worked together for a long time. Plus, they read my mana defense so they used a Materialize Gift. Troubling. The analysis was instantaneous, his Traits working in concert with his Skill to take him to even greater heights... and lows, but that was a problem for later.

"!" the Druid shouted, using the ungerminated acorns to hoist his bushes up into the air. He felt a strange tingle behind him, but he ignored it as he focused his arm movements to best deal with the frozen attacks. The mock mitts caught most of the icicles with ease, letting the two Dreg Warriors close the distance to less than fifty feet. The two that made it past his defense got smashed to slush by perfectly aimed strikes from April.

Lightning started to buzz from the lower level Air Tendrils, and they too group casted. Shit. Samuel brought his vines apart, catching the bolts before they could strike April and letting them arc off the vegetable matter he controlled. They only lasted for a few seconds before turning into ash-adjacent sticks, but it left the casters a panting mess. April didn't miss the opening as her mana wrapped around the pair. Sam wasn't sure which Gift or Skill she'd used, but their breathing grew panicked and they started to cough.

Don't mess with the spore lady, got it. Filing away that obvious realization, Sam had enough time to get the afterimage of a lightning strike burned into his cornea before a bolt struck him. Even with his brain juiced to the max, the speed of light was too damn fast. Had it not been for his armor Item, which immediately combusted into fragments of chitin in the face of the Q5 attack, and his vine cloak grounding him he was sure he himself would have been out of the fight. As it was, his thoughts only came at quarter speed and that was after .

"Not your time, Samuel," April's voice drifted through his head, the burning across his body numbing enough for him to recover his senses. ... surged. Man, my brain is scrambled right now. The channeled Skill immediately brought him into an Overhealed Affliction, but he was able to focus back on the moment. The fight had indeed turned.

While April had been able to finish closing the distance, dispatching the lower level Air Tendrils with little resistance, the Water Tendrils had moved to a defensive footing. Spurts of snow escaped them, forcing April to dodge lest she be bogged down as she closed on the distillery the Tendrils were using for cover. The demoness was also channeling a spell chain to combat the debuffs from the Death Tendril and Sam could see the Air Tendril coiling sparks around a fist.

That was a problem. All but one of his limbs felt coherent enough. That thought served like a scratched record. His body was still twitching and mostly useless; what limb? Vertigo hit and he immediately recognized it for what it was-- the vine with nerves in it was somehow still connected to him! He threw it forward with all the coordination his brain could muster for . It didn't move like his vines usually did, instead it was more like a sad snake with a broken spine. Nevertheless, the speed at which it squirmed was leagues above anything he'd managed before. The draw on his mana was also almost nil, unlike when he'd tried to connect his senses with it, but he was certain he was only able to control the vine thanks to the lack of any other body part responding like it was supposed to. Magical biology was weird.

Since he had some leeway with the last quarter of his mana pool, Sam Amplified the tip of the vine with moments before the Q5 Air Tendril could zap April. The connection to the bark covered part of the vine vanished, but it retained enough momentum to impale the Dreg creature right through the abdomen with a lance of charcoal. Samuel could almost hear the snide comment from Daniela about getting another 'hardcore' takedown.

With the distraction that was their backline compatriot getting skewered, April was able to close the last dozen feet. With a leap that would have put some basketball players from the old world to shame, she grabbed hold of the top of the distillery before smashing a heel right into the temple of one of the Water Tendrils. In the same motion, she threw one of her cuffs like a bolas at the Death Tendril and bonked the last water one with her baton. Where each strike landed, the skin bruised more than it had any right to. The Death Tendril recovered, abandoning magic and charging forward in what Samuel presumed was an attempt to gore the peacekeeper.

This has to be a demon thing, Sam couldn't help but gasp as he watched April copy the motion. The two locked horns and despite the momentum advantage the Tendril had, they didn't account for the peacekeeper's disregard of decorum for whatever ritual he'd tried to call on. She clocked him in the jaw even as she slid on the cavern ground. After the second blow, the man dropped like a sack of potatoes, and Sam noticed that she'd gripped one of the cuffs like brass knuckles at some point during the fight. The pitch black blood glistening on their surface told the story of just what had happened to the Tendril's face.

A pulse of purple mana immediately radiated from her, covering the Water Tendrils struggling to their feet. She released her horns and laid into the two of them with baton and cuffs until their teal skin was more eggplant than not. She stood, breathing heavily but astoundingly composed from the violent beatdown she'd just delivered. The demoness certainly had some physical Trait for hyperextension or some of the moves she'd pulled would have been plain impossible.

"Well, that went about as well as expected," Sam groaned.