Waverly had felt the pull as Swarm magic and faith concentrated themselves within the golem body and as an adventurer she knew better than doubting the offered miracle when it was there. The first true miracle of the Sovereign Swarm had been created and it would change everything. She was not quite a true Avatar, but it was a copy of that power.
Waverly stepped into battle with the consummate ease that came with all the collected experiences within her.
"First there."
She gestured and from her clay hand and a gout of heat and flame exploded out to evaporate the remaining incorporeal wraiths. The Collective dodged an incoming flesh abomination and casually jabbed her hand through it's body. Drawing on the power of the elysian flesh mistresses she had to manipulate the body, her hand parted through sinew, bones, and meat to casually rip out the heart from the thing.
"I need...more durability."
Her clay hands were already starting to flake from the physical strain and she focused on adapting her frame to harden be more battle ready. Next, she pulled a scythe arm off the body of a dead Soldier and swung it testingly.
"This will do, I can't be without a sword after all."
Waverly grinned before she rushed into battle again, drawing on all of her Fragments to guide her as she tried to be the hero of the moment.
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Ysandra was winning her magical duel, her opponent was powerful but ultimately a bestial creature wielding the magic it possessed crudely and with instinct alone. It was not true magic as she understood it, working on principles that frankly didn't belong to this world, but she fought it with all her skill all the same.
The first adjustment she had to make after their initial exchanges of attacks was not allowing anyone else to support her in the effort. Every Soldiers or Fungal Zombie that came to her aid were used as fuel as it ate their futures and turned them into energy for his own magic. Assistance from the other Mages was not helpful either.
Flames were snuffed out, blasts of heat evaporated, and magma cooled back to stone as the creature actively destroyed the presents of the spells and rendered the attempted aid less than useless for Ysandra. It withered her summoned blood roots and Ysandra replied by hurling concentrated orbs of mud at it.
"You think time can break nature? Let me show you. From life comes death and from death comes life. All that has withered make way for new growth, I call on you the Wooden Guardians of the Gallow Glen. Grow up and come to my aid!"
Ysandra poured mana into the withered plants and corpses around her, transmuting them into soil and wood that would rise into blackened trees. She felt it reply by trying to destroy time around the growing trees and the hostile magic was sucked into their trunks. Withered wood restored itself to a pristine state as two large trees stood as guardian totems around Ysandra. Sucking up destructive magic and feeding her own spells with the refuse.
Next, she unleashed a barrage of soil at the creature who in turn deflected it a burst of grey energy. Two blackened roots suddenly burst out of the soil behind the dryad and tried to dive into her, but she merely spun around and said.
"Stop."
The two roots landed back in the soil and Ysandra casually snapped her fingers and pointed away.
"Begone."
Her power as the dominion tree was to command lesser plants and foreign as the abyssal plants might be, they were still her lessers. The distraction cost her as she felt a spike of magic pierce her back and her dryad projection started to wither and grow weak despite her agelessness.
The attack had pierced her protective barrier and despite feeling the magic eat at her insides Ysandra still had the strength to spin around and conjure a root to wrap around and squeeze her foe. She collapsed to her knees and began focusing on the invasive curse turning her body to brittle wood and rot.
"Life everlasting is my due, but come to me my darling few. Give me life so I can grow, the grove guardian restored again."
She chanted softly as she began pulling life force out of the soil and nearby plant matter to attempt to restore her body and break the curse placed on her. As she pushed the power of plant and soil against warped time, she felt her foe doing the opposite against her root spell before it could crush him.
"Oh no you don't."
Ysandra breathed out and focused on holding the root together as he tried to wither it away and he felt him redoubling his efforts while also power into the curse. The two of them wrestled over their respective attacks and afflictions while letting the power clash in the air. The quiet magical struggle caused warbling and warping in the area around them as their respective powers clashed in the air. Soil moved and grew richer while strange fluctuations in time caused the air to shimmer and change as different particles moved at different speeds through time.
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It came down to reservoirs at the end of it all, while Ysandra was far from her tree she still had the entire Swarm within the Dungeon to call upon while her mysterious opponent was a slavering and starving beast. Without timelines to feast on it could not keep up with her power and it could not divert it's focus further to try and feast on any nearby victims unless it wanted to abdicate the struggle.
Then Nasi died and the shock of losing the Avatar's comforting presence was enough to shake her focus utterly loose and the lapse in focus was enough for the magical clash to end in a burst of force that sent both magicians flying through the air and crashing into the walls. Ultimately, neither won the struggle as the strangling root and the curse were both broken.
She lay dazed on the ground and saw that her foe was getting to his feet. Her mind was dazed from the combination of the loss, and the explosion of magic but she still was aware enough to cast a final spell.
"Spore of the Swarm...claim your foe."
And an explosion of fungal spores filled the room infesting and choking foes alike while the dryad drifted out of consciousness.
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Waverly dodged the rust breath attack from the giant guardian and rushed over to slice at it's exposed leg. Her improvised blade bounced of, but she had not expected it do much damage to such a powerful creature.
"So much for trying, ey."
Her grin radiated out and filled the entire Collective before she drew on her energy to burst up. An explosion of magma and fire sent her up to drive the blade between the chittering beaks and into the neck of her foe. Next she flipped over to land on the back of her foe, so that she could start digging into it's flesh.
Creatures burst out from beneath the skin to attack her, and Waverly deftly retreated away while unleashing flames once more. As she reached the ground she sensed that Ysandra was knocked out by a burst of magic. Time was running out for the Dungeon, but she would still have to safeguard her Fragments if she wished to come out of this.
"I need a blade, Lysander create one for me."
"But I'm not a smith-"
"I know that, but you can harden clay enough to make a golem, you should be able to shape me a blade. I am only partially composed of Mariam, the rest of me uses blades."
Waverly interrupted Lysander after having given him a command through the network, before she drew on all of her collective knowledge of magic to begin a working. The Lucky Goat was long since left to his own devices as the mages were too busy to keep up his ritual, but Waverly knew all that they knew and more besides. So, she stomped her foot and let plants grow around her into a pentagram, while flinging fire to hover around her in an increasingly complicated "machine" of interconnected flames.
As she worked Soldiers rushed to give her cover, either by literally interposing themselves between her and incoming attacks. Or by attacking large threats like the final guardian of the dungeon. The child bombarded the crack in space with rocks, with little effect beyond distracting it.
"I open the way, through life burned I call on you. Primordial flame made manifest, erase all before me. In death create the ashes of rebirth, flames of creation unleash yourself upon reality remade."
Waverly could feel her mages gape as she relatively casually imitated one of the greatest rituals that their order had learned from their deposed patron.
"Of course I know, I am all of you and while you might not be able to use it. Collectively and with an ancient dryad behind you, you would be able to do such things."
She gloated through the link before she focused on the ritual and let strings of heat connect the various floating glyphs of fire and then the flames drew themselves down into the plant pentagram.
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Mariam stared as a sudden burst of fire exploded out like a tidal wave. Her eyes closed shut and even so she felt them become blinded due to the intensity of the light and heat. She collapsed due to the pain the roaring fire drowned out all other sounds. Her consciousness returned as she felt a single word pulsate through the link.
"Ooops...maybe I should have not done that."
She felt the Adventure-, no Waverly, think as energy flooded into Mariam's eyes to help enhance the recovery of her eyes. When she opened her sore eyeballs she saw the problem. The magical ritual that Waverly had called upon had annihilated....everything, drawing on the spores in the air as fuel they had become a huge dust explosion which not only burned away the attackers and dungeon creatures, the flames removed several meters worth of soil and space.
In the center of the destruction stood the clay body that Waverly had inhabited. It looked no different yet Mariam instantly felt that it was an empty husk. A conclusion that was quickly confirmed as the body collapsed into dust shortly after her thinking it.
"Clearly a single vessel can't sustain a Collective for long...especially if I channel so much power through it."
Waverly seemed lost in speculation as the remnants of her forces recovered in the annihilated Dungeon. And then the glowing silicate orb floated into the room.