Fred screamed in torment as the Tearmaker infesting his gem and soul tore a rift in his very being. It was like someone had actively cut through his arteries and forced the wound wide open with pliers, and let it squirt out blood. Magic and the strange waste from the tearmaker poured out into nothingness and...things answered as he felt them crawl through the wound and into his Dungeon.
Dungeons were effectively ad-hoc realities built within the umbrella of an existing one, and where there were dimensions there were also dimensional boundaries. There were always things in between and on the periphery of such things, half-formed ideas and creatures who just needed a gap to come through. Conquest Seeds and Tearmakers were not the only invaders of realities, and Flkarblik had torn open the gate to let them into the Dungeon.
First came a flaw in space, it did not seem to be truly physical and only Fred's dungeon senses let him spot it as quickly as he did. It was not an absence as such, but more like a living crack in the dimension itself. The spacial flaw had no traditional shape, it was merely a moving scar that dragged itself through space, a two-dimensional mark in the air that pulled itself along the ceiling sucking in magic and mass with each passing moment.
Then came large sacks of flesh that had clearly fed and been shaped by the magic leaking out of the Dungeon, because they shortly burst open to reveal small swarms of chicken-like insects who rapidly grew in size as they rushed down the plains towards the marching army. Abyssal plants flew through the crack and planted themselves in the ground to begin to grow as roots, and wailing half-formed humanoid specters flew in wailing while dragged by living amalgamations of stygian chains.
All the horrors that could intrude upon a vulnerable reality were coming and the pain of their entry was enough to force Fred into quitting his weeping. He was merely silenced as their unnatural natures screamed at his instincts as a Dungeon, and soon enough they fell on the invading army like locusts upon a field.
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It was like horrors from the old stories. Adventurer-Collective felt her first true casualties mere moments after the newest monsters joined the fray. A crack in space danced around her Soldiers and broke them apart by laying over them and fracturing the space they occupied until they exploded, after which it sucked in the remains. Swarms of horrific bugs the size of dogs began engaging with the Fungal Zombies and tearing them to pieces. Blackened roots swam through the earth like dolphins before attacking Units from below and wailing eldritch words tearing at the foundations of reality itself.
She felt that these were not Dungeon creatures, however, so she could unleash spores upon the corporeal threats. But not so for the ephemeral ones. Wailing spirits attacked her vulnerable Soldiers and began possessing their bodies as well as tearing out and consuming their fragments. An entity of blackened chains began binding her Units and trying to wrest them free from her control.
Even here there were pockets of resistance. Nasi ever adaptable changed himself to be able to hit the more elusive threats and the gathered mages could harm these more esoteric foes still, but Adventurer-Collective had to sacrifice her Units to keep them safe. She felt relief once her oldest component entered the fray, the dryad of the dominion tree stepped forward to do battle and finally the flow of casualties started to slow.
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"The Blood Thorns of Ylsmira!"
Ysandra spoke the final chant in her incantation and the ground exploded up as the roots that had been growing below her rose up and started unleashing a barrage of thorns upon the enemy. Incorporal or not they all felt the thorns enter them, and Ysandra smirked as she felt the corrupted nature magic begin it's work.
Red vines and roots rapidly spread through the afflicted, making them into puppets controlled by parasitic plants feasting on their energies and directing their bodies. The launcher roots still remained like grasping tentacles they lashed out to attack for Ysandra and protect her from physical foes as she began launching magical strikes.
Swarm magic was still new to her, but Ysandra had found that it helped her manage controlled puppets and extensions of her will. It took practically no mental effort to direct her puppets and unleash her magic upon the intruding horrors. Blasts of mud and concentrated magic began tearing insects and stranger things apart when she sensed a change near her.
Just before she were to crush the being of chains ten of the human Subjects keeled over almost simultaneously and close to her position. Ysandra felt their Fragments shriek before fading and she spun to look towards them. Each of the former Baron's Guardsmen were laying on the ground, looking like ancient crones and men who had been kept in a cave somewhere. Their skin was blotchy and grey, hair, and nails grown to ridiculous proportions and their bodies practically shriveled up due to age.
Yet, she saw no obvious culprit. No enemy near them or in their midst. Then suddenly she felt an incoming magical attack and it struck her like a mosquito impaling skin and beginning to suck. She felt the spell attempting to eat her future, consuming her lifespan and the dryad smiled as she shattered the spell.
"No. I have no end because I am eternal."
The dryad replied with a small tidal wave of mud to try and catch the enemy spellcaster by surprise. What she saw was a withered old man covered in mud...it had an alien grin and while the spell still kept it technically speaking invisible, Ysandra could feel the potent power in it. And then the true magical battle began.
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Nasi was suddenly hit with a wave of magic and felt his body grow slower and older. His body attempted to adapt to this sudden change, but before he could shrug off the magic he was once again assailed by wailing ghosts trying to tear both at his body and soul. Eldritch warbling and semi-corporeal strikes tore at him as Nasi began to unleash his inbuilt ordinances upon the myriad of attackers. Webbing, bullets, spikes, and bursts of bio-electricity shot out from him to destroy the chained spirits and Nasi rapidly scuttled towards the chain-creature.
He saw that the dryad was engaged in some sort of complex magical struggle against a humanoid entity. Plants aged and withered as quickly as she could conjure them while nature and the earth tore apart whatever unnatural effects that the wizened being attempted to unleash.
"Keep it occupied dryad. Collective, unleash your Soldiers upon the enemy magic wielder."
Nasi ordered imperiously through his connection before he tackled the being of chains and started to cut through its body. His scythe-like limbs sawing through ephemeral chains while his many eyes surveyed the battle. Things had undoubtedly become more complicated, but they were still manageable. The largest threats were the crack on space and the mysterious being dueling with Ysandra.
The remaining creatures of the Dungeon made themselves known just as he made that observation and Nasi suddenly was distracted by yet another major threat entering the battle.
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Fred saw what had once been a slightly larger-than-average chicken step into the open field where the battle took place. It had grown steadily as his Dungeon leveled up, but after he had been usurped it had changed both more and less than all of his other monsters. It was now the size of a house and along it's throat extended hundreds of little beaks, but beyond that the chicken looked more or less the same.
Yet he felt it as one of the three cores of this place, it had grown and changed far more internally than externally and it made itself known by unleashing a grey breath attack covering a large portion of the invaders. Primarily the giant spider and the strange bugs, the metal in their body immediately started to corrode and rust. Soldiers collapsed as their weakened legs could not support their bodies, and his guardian rushed at the spider and began pecking at it's weakened body penetrating it with ease while the crack in space began tearing it apart.
The wailing core was distracted, however, as he suddenly felt a pang of fear. It took him a moment to realize it wasn't his own fear but that of his captor, and that was shortly followed by a flooding of relief as he felt the rift close. His sight immediately focused on the room where the rift appeared and what he saw was a floating semi-spherical...orb. It had ragged edges that did not make it a true sphere and it seemed to radiate an inner light, at first it did not look too dissimilar from his own core gem. Yet it did not seem to be a crystal...but some kind of dirty silicate orb. Power radiated from it and he could feel it forcibly stabilizing and purging the area around it of corruption.
It was like getting a hot bath combined with morphine and Fred would normally have let the feeling flow over him and take him away from the pain, but he sensed that the slime inside of his gem was starting to ooze out.
"Oh no you don't!"
Fred lashed out with his mind and tried to "hold on" to the slime as his captor tried to flee. Pain started radiating through his core gem again as he felt the desperation and fear of the invader along with it nibbling at his mind like a swarm of lampreys. The two struggled as the battle continued to rage without either of them paying attention anymore. They were in fact so distracted that neither of them noticed the single moth flying into the room and settling on the gem.
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The Reality Geomid scanned the dimensional integrity of the Dungeon and concluded it was damaged, but not beyond repair yet. It had arrived before any dimensional ulcers or wounds could have developed if it popped.
"Engaging, multiple reality incursors."
It transmitted the report back before it began unleashing concentrated attacks of dimensional stability and order upon the abyssal plants and intregity consuming swarms. Where it flew, the Dungeon started to return to normal as it actively purged the effects of the waste that had entered it's leylines along with killing the reality parasites that had entered it as a vector.
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When Nasi died it shook the entire Swarm within and outside of the Dungeon, even Mar felt it as busy as they were with examining the deeper underpinnings of their nature. An Avatar had been slain and despite it being in a self-contained dimensional bubble it caused reverbs through the entire network.
Bor shrieked at the sense of pain and loss his Fragment felt and he fell to his knees next to Lysander. Mariam that brave fool did not let the massive shock stop her, she charged at the enormous monster that had smashed through the Avatar and jumped at it with punch...and was promptly smacked down by a massive wing. The flaw in space was busily absorbing the broken body of the Avatar while the battle raged, but now the Swarm was on the defensive as the shock of losing their war leader drove them into chaos.
"We...we have to finish her!"
Lysander yelled at pulled Bor up to his feet but the scribe worriedly glanced around.
"Where is the manuscript! I had it here, but-"
He stopped as he saw the scroll being picked up by a thin hand. Zilla the Acolyte held the manuscript infused with life essence and magic, her amber eyes casually reading the text before reaching for a pen of her own.
"This is what you need? It...seems incomplete, but I think I can help."
She seemed to speak more to herself than to the two craftsmen as she started humming some kind of chant-like tune while staring at the text.
"We need you now, you who are us and yet more. Fragments forged to serve us all, the Swarm's Adventurer made out of thralls. Lesser than Mar you might be, but you know adventure and that's what we need."
Her incantation was followed up by pushing the rolled up manuscript into the mouth of the creation of the two lovers. She casually carved a hammer and a sickle into the forehead of the being before she closed her eyes and started to sing a song without words.
Power unlike magic radiated out from her and into the clay body and all stopped as they felt...a shift in their Fragments.
"A miracle."
Bor whispered as he saw paint and clay reshape itself as their creation rose, a tall woman almost indistinguishable from the genuine article. Paint made to look like human skin covered the clay body and her glowing purple eyes seemed almost fleshy as the golem turned. She looked like she carried a sword on her hip despite having no equipment, a light spring in her step and a readiness to explode into action that only a true adventurer could have. Despite the chaos and death happening all around them she seemed relaxed as she spoke.
"Waverly is not exactly the name that we would have chosen, but I guess it is better than Adventurer-Collective. Now, let's go and save the day...shall we?"