Chapter 63 – A Core of Infestation

Adam almost felt his muscles tear in the struggle to stop this monster, Oliver, from getting closer to Emily. With his greedy, hungry eyes fixed on Emily, Oliver slowly walked towards her. Ready to apply the Taint.

Emily tried to tear free with all her might; tendons stuck out in her neck in the effort. “NO! You Fell-handed swine, let me go! You can burn with your twisted—”

“The Roots and Overgrowth are the Taint!” Adam screamed.

“The Thalers in your Realm can share your knowledge!” Caine yelled. “Make them find the—hmpf…” Vines and leaves slapped around the mouths of Adam and Caine.

“Silence,” Oliver hissed. “You can’t ruin this for me. This one beautiful moment in my life.”

Emily clenched her eyes shut and bared her teeth in desperate concentration.

Oliver swallowed. His lips shivered as his eyes were fixed on Emily. “You never let me touch you, not even a handshake, so I could never Taint you. I could’ve done it in your sleep, of course. But that wouldn’t have been right for a decent man. Now, however…” Slowly, he brushed the back of his clammy fingers against her cheek. On one of his silver rings, supposed to honour Aves, a new symbol lit up in green: a hieroglyph of Reminiscence. A symbol Adam had never noticed as he never expected anything new or different to be there on the traditional rings.

Feeling his face redden in the effort, Adam tried everything he could to rip loose. He ignored the strange, hot pain and the nauseous feeling in his stomach from eating the leaves. Beside him, Caine’s purple face was scrunched up in sheer effort as he struggled, but his fingers were bound so he was unable to use Invocations.

Emily’s face shivered in her silent scream. Oliver watched her, patiently, as the seconds turned into minutes. The minutes turned into an eternity while Adam tried to pry himself loose.

Gradually, Emily seemed to relax, although she was still red-faced. She panted and blinked a couple of times. Her hazy eyes seemed to look at the world in a whole different way.

Memories came back to Adam, how Oliver had embraced him in Gotterburg. How his heart reacted and how foggy his mind used to be afterwards. You bastard! That was when you did it to me! You brainwashed me with a hug?

“There you are,” Oliver whispered. “How do you feel… my beloved?”

Emily blinked and opened her eyes wide at him. She panted softly, seemingly mesmerised as if Oliver’s creepy smile was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. Adam’s heart ached and his shoulders slumped in disappointment. He’s got Emily. How… how can we still make it out of here?

Emily cocked her head a bit and wriggled her shoulders. Not trying to get out, but trying to get closer. The vines and leaves left her mouth.

“You’re right,” she said, her smouldering eyes never leaving his. “You always have been, how couldn’t I see it?” She laughed, shaking her head incredulously. “You’ve always… kept an eye on me,” she whispered with a hazy edge in her voice.

Oliver smiled, squeezing his eyes shut. He sighed in utter bliss. “I did, I… wow.” Oliver wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “That’s all I wanted to hear, really,” he laughed. With a wave of his hand, the Root monster unleashed Emily.

She stepped onto the petals on top of the Root Behemoth and rubbed her wrists. “Thanks, you’ve always been so kind to me, so… helpful.” She swayed her hips ever so slightly. “Why don’t you come a bit closer?” she whispered, beckoning him with a finger.

Eagerly, Oliver stepped forward with a radiant smile on his face, like a boy whose dreams were coming true. “Finally…” he sighed.

The corner of Emily’s smile quivered at that. There was the slightest twitch beneath her eyes.

Mere feet away from her, Oliver suddenly halted and warily narrowed his eyes. Emily’s veil of desire evaporated in an instant as she leapt forward with a furious screech. Oliver raised his arms, causing the Overgrowth to form a shield in front of him. Branches and trunks splintered under Emily’s downward axe kick, but they allowed Oliver to slip away. “DAMN YOU!” Emily screamed at the top of her lungs as she fired an unrelenting blast of Shrike, which Oliver blocked with a shield of Ironglass.

Although Adam’s voice was muffled by the leaves and vines, he roared with endless relief and fury. YES! Get him! Give that twisted maggot what he deserves!

Tied up like sausages, their voices cut off by the gags, Adam and Caine screamed in encouragement the best they could. Emily’s hoarse voice screeched in blind fury as she unleashed her relentless assault on Oliver. Despite all his plots, he was on the back foot now, hastily defending himself with shields of Ironglass and thick trunks of Overgrowth.

Caine’s face was almost purple as he cheered for his sister. Adam felt the tendons in his neck bulge as he struggled against his own bindings. To his surprise, his body felt less hurt than it used to; he even felt Inner Fire flow through him again. It wasn’t much, but he was no longer totally depleted. It’s the leaves! I just ate them and my body digested them for Inner Fire!

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Oliver gestured downwards, causing the petals to open up beneath him, and he dropped into the gnarly depths. The Marrow blades at the end of Emily’s Ironglass chains missed him by a hair’s breadth. “Grab her!” he sneered from deep inside the Root monster as the petals closed the small hole above him.

The great monster roared like a volcano. Vines and tentacles made of grasping Roots shot out towards Emily. Hissing in fury, she jumped over the first attacks. Twirling in mid-air, she lashed out with her Marrow chain blades and shredded through lianas that tried to take her.

Her feet touched the surface and she jumped again, right before a mass of thorns shaped like a maw could bite her. With a wave of her arm, she sent one of her blades in Adam’s direction.

For a moment, he held his breath. However, the blade wasn’t aimed at him; it sliced clean through the trunk that formed the base of all the vines that held him. Adam felt his restraints loosen and he roared like a lion freed from his cage. “You’re amazing!” He laughed as he tore his crumbling bindings apart.

“Preaching to the choir,” she said absent-mindedly as she ducked beneath a lashing thorn that could’ve taken her head off.

Adam rolled beneath a gnarled scythe and dashed towards Caine. With a sideways kick, Adam splintered the trunk of the vines that were holding Caine. The vegetation crumbled away from Adam’s old friend. They quickly bumped their left elbows, in the old inside joke they’d once started in the Badger, before Adam pulled him out. “Get over here, you old bastard!” Adam laughed. Finally, after all this time, he had his buddy back again.

“Can’t wait!” Caine answered with a wide grin, despite all his abrasions and the swelling on his jaw. He aimed his other hand over Adam’s shoulder and blasted a Root soldier to pieces. “Seriously, how are you still alive after getting distracted so often?”

Emily landed near them. She swung her chain blades and sliced clean through the base of a massive tentacle that itched towards them. “Where’s the traitor?” she hissed. “Damn it, we’ll never reach him with this monster and all the Roots still alive!”

Caine squinted in concentration as he gathered Oquira. “To kill them we must destroy the core of my Taint. It’s something that Oliver created when he cast the Invocation on me!”

Adam’s eyes widened as he jumped to dodge thorned vines. “The monster we’re standing on! It’s connected to the Overgrowth in all the tunnels around here, so the core should be—”

“Somewhere inside this heap of garden waste!” Caine exclaimed, effortlessly finishing Adam’s sentence.

Adam roared as he tore vines apart with his bare hands. “Let’s gooo!”

All of the Root monster’s tentacles reached up as the group ran towards the centre of the massive purple flower. Then, the monstrosity froze in its tracks and uttered a high-pitched, disturbing screech.

On the ground, masses of Thaler soldiers were charging the Root abomination. Units of infantry ran down the pyramid while terror-bird cavalry and swift chariots swarmed towards it from the tunnels.

“FOR LORD CAINE!” the Thalers cried out as one while they hacked into the vines and tree trunks that formed the Root monster’s base. Powerful and huge as it may be, it was forced to direct part of its might to the Thalers as it was attacked from all directions.

Caine grinned between his panting. “Thought I’d get some reinforcements over here. Now, cover me!” He jumped up with his eyes fixed on the central point between the flower petals. Hissing in fury, he fired a two-handed blast of Shrike that left a deep hole in the Behemoth’s malignant body mass.

Root soldiers, which used to form parts of the Behemoth’s body, rushed towards Caine from the sides. Adam raised his fists and bulled straight towards them. To Adam’s left, Emily panted as she cut through lashing tentacles and thorned vines with her blades of Marrow.

Caine wobbled on his feet, seeming ready to collapse of exhaustion near the edge of the hole he’d made. “There’s some sort of enchanted shell in there, it probably protects the core!” he wheezed with a weak voice. “Could use some help!”

Adam ducked beneath a sideways swipe of a Root before he hurled the stumbling creep over his shoulder. “Emily! Remember the pyramid wall?”

Emily bound several deformed tree trunks together with chains of Ironglass. “Gotcha! Through the hole on three! One!”

Caine squinted as he pushed himself to gather some Oquira again. “What did you do to my pyramid?! Those are important, you know!”

“Two!” Adam said as he neared the seared hole. About twenty feet down, a giant nutshell, covered in familiar green symbols, was visible. He gathered the Inner Fire he had left in his left arm.

Emily leapt towards them, around one hand she’d conjured her fist weapon of Ironglass, covered in shimmering Shrike. “THREE!”

The three friends jumped into the hole before the Behemoth was able to close it.

Caine fired a two-handed blast of Shrike that struck the nutshell. Adam screamed, raising his white-hot fist just as Emily readied the cold fist weapon with her right hand.

Right before they landed on the nutshell, Adam and Emily punched down with a deafening crunch. For a split second, the enchanted barrier held. With a metallic groan, the symbols glowed even brighter, but tiny cracks grew between them. The cracks soon turned into a network of fissures throughout the surface. Overwhelmed by the impact, the symbols gave up and dissipated. The broken nutshell crumbled, allowing the three friends to fall through.

Adam rolled as soon as he hit the bottom of what seemed like a small round room. Wild-eyed and panting, he stared around him. Familiar banners with green symbols stood all around, undoubtedly used to send Commands to Roots. In the centre of it all was a foot-wide symbol made of driftwood, which stood atop a stem that connected it to the Root monster’s body. It was a hooked spiral: the same symbol that adorned both Oliver’s ring and the masks of the Roots.

Caine groaned and turned over on the ground. With difficulty, Emily pushed herself up with her elbows. Above them, thorned vines reached into the hole and wrapped themselves around Caine.

Without a thought, Adam bolted towards the symbol, unceremoniously elbowing banners out of the way left and right. As Caine screeched in pain, Adam jumped up and kicked sideways. With a sweet, utterly satisfying crunch, his leg shattered the symbol of the hooked spiral into hundreds of pieces. Bolts of unleashed Origin spread out in all directions and jolted painfully across Adam’s body.

The vines that held Caine froze in their tracks. In what felt like an earthquake, rumbling shivers seemed to emanate through the Behemoth’s body. The stem that connected the symbol to the rest of the Behemoth died off and crumbled.

“Get over here before we get buried in the rubble!” Emily yelled.