His name was Wildflower, not exactly the most evocative name for a vampire, but it suited him. When he had been created his powers had been confined to conjuring a buckler and a pseudo-sword. A rose and it's thorn a distant voice had echoed in his fragment as he took his first steps as a newborn. Blood-Thorn Vampires gained more than their natural auras and power to enhance their bodies and that of their minions. Each of the three first had discovered that they could summon more esoteric abilities. Wildflower fought now for the second time and he loved it. He feasted on the blood of the mortals around him as his thorn drained and fed him with each thrust and slash. The shield in his hand would soon bloom and then the true massacre could begin.
To those observing him the fight against the human Soldiers and Adventurers would come of as strange. Wildflower moved quickly and with some skill, but he was by far no great blade master. It was almost as if his style had been developed by a crude swordsman who supplemented his standard swordsmanship by watching and imitating a skilled fencer. An echo of true skill, and yet, somehow the echo was enough. Wildflower cut and stabbed his way through fifteen opponents in seconds as he whirled around and dealt with Militiamen and Gold-Rank Adventurers alike.
It was a question of nature. While Wildflower was only a competent warrior in his own right, he was simply so fast, so strong, and so intimidating that it didn't matter that he faced experts. His superior nature carried him through the battle and every cut they dealt him was simply healed by the constant stream of blood flowing through his blade and into him before being deposited into the shield. The buckler had been a light shade of pink when it had been conjured, with each kill it grew more and more red. A beautiful radiant flower that was yet to bloom on the battlefield.
Wildflower faced off against an Adventurer wielding a Mace coated in acid and bile. He swung faster than any normal human warrior and with a strength that would make even an Ogre wary of taking a hit from him, his armor was designed to shrug off enchanted blades and magical attacks to the point that he had almost waltzed through the lesser Units of the Swarm without taking a scratch from them. Yet it was for naught as Wildflower deflected his swings with a speed that eclipsed his and then he ran him through the chest, the thorn forged out of the very essence of Swarm Magic and Vampiric Blood Magic co-mingled, piercing the armor and sending the brave warrior sprawling to the ground.
Two arrows flew towards Wildflower, one physical which he easily deflected. The other one of intent, of magic, which struck the very core of his soul like a hammerblow and sent him staggering back. Down in the streets, Michel flicked another arrow into his hand and onto the bowstring preparing to deliver another shot. The first human to ever steal Swarm Magic and he wielded it like a Woodsman, like an axe to infected bramble or an arrow to finish off a wounded beast.
Wildflower touched his face which somehow had started to leak blood through his nostrils before staring down at his attacker. A disheveled and tired-looking middle-aged man stood there with his bow trained on him. He could feel the man of a Dryad's get gathering the energy needed to repeat the attack and launched himself off the wall to face him, his reflexes fast enough for him to dodge the arrow in mid-air before he landed and lash out with his thorn which slapped the bow out of Michel's hands.
Two short seaxes flashed into Michel's hands as he barely managed to bring them up in time to block the follow-up thrust delivered by Wildflower. He wildly tossed his crude Swarm Magic against the vampire, pressing a proverbial dagger against the Fragment of the Swarm inside of him and twisting it while the two fought a battle of blades in the physical world.
A seed bloomed.
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Hans Reclis stumbled up the final staircase to see the mages protecting Argoush being flattened by a marauding woman the color of a blood-spattered oak tree. She was acting more like a heavily-muscled berserker in spite of her petite frame, as she shrugged off lighting bolts and even fire being tossed at her. When encountering magical shields or conjured walls, she smashed through them. And when the mages tried to flee she simply seemed content to follow them. It was in following a flying Aeromancer that the Vampire encountered the Sorcerer.
She had barely paid the pudgy man any mind as she pursued her quarry and for her conceit, she got a blast of all-purpose pest-killing gas right in her face. The vampire stumbled and coughed while Hans decided to douse her in his patented magic. A sorcerer might barely be able to cast spells as far as "academic" Magic Users were concerned, they did make up for it by being naturally good at enhancing and expanding simple effects.
The almost juggernaut-like Vampire tried to rise up to fight him, her armor was useless against his magic and he could sense it eating at the bramble growing within the veins of the human body of the Vampire. The Swarm was immune to magic only targeting one aspect of its being, a fungal removal or anti-plant spell would have been shrugged off as easily as the Vampire had ignored the conventional spells being flung at her. A spell designed to destroy all forms of pests, be they plants, animals, or fungi? Now, that could work just fine.
Unoccupied Soldiers rushed forward to start stabbing into the beige gas cloud with their spears and halberds, while the wheezing vampire was writhing on the stone floor as her very nature was torn apart along with the flesh of her host. Hans turned to look out over the city and he despaired at what he saw. Thousands of monsters were spreading out in all directions through the city, and he could hear the screams of those who got caught. No reinforcements could be sent from the walls as the climbing Soldiers and other monsters made it impossible to divert resources away to that effect.
The foppish Sorcerer of Hor stood helplessly and stared as Argoush was put to the sword, without a single clue as to how he could save them all.
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He had not chosen a name yet, he was simply...the Primarch. A title conferred on him on the dint of power. He held primacy among the first Blood-Thorn Vampires. His powers were greater than his siblings, and he alone had learned to develop them further than the base initial abilities that they had all been granted. The Primarch was displeased and dismayed by the lack of the Sovereign, it was an aching wound in his soul and it had almost driven him mad within moments as he had mindlessly rushed at the city that had dared to defy the Swarm.
It had taken him minutes to regain control over his faculties, and while he could not direct the army assailing Argoush, he could nudge it at least and so he had. When the sacking of the city had been secured, he had planted the idea of having Workers self-detonate as they tried to tunnel through the ground beneath the city to smash through the magically enhanced dirt.
Now with the rampaging Units inside of the walls combined with the overlapping auras of himself and his contemporaries, panic, and chaos spread out like ripples in a pond. The Primarch was confident that the city would fall within the hour and while it would probably not be salvageable, the thousands of new Units would make the expense worthwhile in his opinion. He casually killed a few isolated Clerics trying to unleash holy magic on him with a shower of conjured thorns and needles, when he suddenly felt a jerk in both of his "leg tendrils" that kept him up in the air.
Two...Soldier Units were pulling at them with their mandibles, he could not sense their Fragments and before he could really ponder or even react to the disturbance he heard a voice call out to him.
"Hey Doc Oc, catch!"
A flying red disk came towards him at what from his perspective was a languid pace, and he effortlessly caught the item. Was that a frisbee? On the red disk, a big D was engraved on the top...and before he could determine how he knew what the object was it exploded in his hands with enough force to send him tumbling off the wall and down to the ground.
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"Hey, Listig I only think that pissed him off!"
Tim yelled through the party chat, as the scary vampire came bounding up over the wall again. Listig had the enviable ability to link their interface with other people forming parties that among other things shared experience. All the Necromancer class experience that Tim gained form raising scores of the dead monsters with spells meant to raise singular undead, also was shared by Listig.
"I thought the dynamite frisbee would have done more, damnit. Acid Supersoaker coming out, cover for me!"
Listig replied as Tim ordered several of the undead zombie birds to suicide dive into the vampire as Listig jumped from one roof to the next down at the ground level. Time himself had a vanguard of undead protecting him as he moved up to help people on the walls, he had also sent undead to try and attack the monsters that had burst up through the ground and into the city itself.
The Catkin was so fast that even the vampire had problems with pinning them down as he unleashed showers of conjured needles down at them. Tim pointed his staff over at Listig and used one of the first spells.
"Aegis of the Tombstone!"
A spectral gravestone appeared between Listig and the vampire, and while the conjured shield did not last for more than mere moments it was enough as Listig brought up a giant plastic "rifle" and pointed it up at the vampire.
"This better do more than tickle. Party Skill: Substance Infusion: Undeath."
Listig growled under their breath as they unleashed all of the acids inside of their super soaker right up at the Vampire.
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Michel was overmatched and he knew it within moments of locking blades with Wildflower. The name was whispered in the Fragment of the Thrall-King that he could sense within the vampire. Wildflower was not a greater fighter than Michel at this point, but his nature was simply superior so it didn't matter. It was the only thing that kept the battle from ending in moments.
He was descended from a dryad, the gift to hear the natural whispers of the trees had been strengthened and mixed with a nugget of the Thrall-King's own power. It had been enhanced in the dungeon and he wielded that power liberally to try and disrupt and unbalance the vampire by striking at his core. Unfortunately, Michel was too hard pressed to try out anything more complicated than sending spikes of pain through the Vampire.
Anything more and he would be cut open from chin to navel by the glistening thorn held in the hand of his foe. And while the spikes of pain he launched into the vampire were at times enough to send him stumbling, he was never left open long enough for Michel to actually strike him with his enchanted weapons. Every time the buckler came up or he managed to dodge or deflect his strikes with his thorn-blade. As it was he could only barely keep himself from being cut down, even with the quick respites offered him by his power.
Wildflower also seemed to realize that they were in a stalemate so after having slapped both of the machetes away he raised his buckler and the crimson rose suddenly blossomed in seconds. It opened an intoxicating iron-tinted aroma filled the streets and Michel gazed into the center of the rose shield, the petals forming a beautiful eye in the center of the bloom and he could sense the magic reaching out to paralyze him.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Chicken Kick!"
Michel launched into one of the powers he had developed in the dungeon and the surprised vampire was struck in the chest by a high as Michel kicked himself off of Wildflower and stumbling over a root. The swarm/blood magic would have had him completely in the thrall of the vampire if it had not been for the innate resistance Michel had developed to the thrall-king's powers. As it was it had been barely sufficient for him to launch a counterattack to disrupt the vampire.
Wildflower had not been hurt by the kick and his rose had once again closed due to insufficient amounts of blood to feed it. He was not bothered, he could see the man laying in a heap on the ground where had stumbled over a tree root in the street. The vampire strode towards his prey, savoring the sweet taste of victory as raised his thorn to stab down into the woodsman.
Two things happened. First, the vampire stumbled as the tree root suddenly curled around his left ankle as he stepped over it. Second, an overwhelming spike of pain struck his fragment and Michel kicked himself up off the ground and swung his right machete into the neck of Wildflower. The vampire gurgled as the enchanted blade cut through the bramble growing through the human body it inhabited, and before he could counter strike the second blade bit into his arm, cutting all the way into the bone.
A root and some misdirection had brought him down. Wildflower did not have time to bemoan the indignity of such a defeat before his head was severed by the third strike Michel launched at him.
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The Primarch was...annoyed. He sensed his subordinate vampires dying as their auras winked out, and while that happened he was unable to aid them as the two pests assailed him. Undead were carrying him in the sky and on the ground as reanimated Fungal Zombies and Soldiers attacked him, disrupting his own efforts to hunt down the elusive catkin who was fast enough to dodge his whip-like plant tendrils and the conjured thorns blasted after him.
If he tried to deal with the Necromancer then his minions threw themselves in the way and his toxins were unable to harm the undead as his seaweed-tentacles whipped into them. If he concentrated solely on the catkin then the Necromancer would send his minions at him and occupy him enough that Listig could get away. His attention slipped as he tried to fight four battles at once. Stalking the nimble trickster, countering the Necromancer, bolstering the Units, and harrying the defenders on the walls.
He could do two or perhaps three of those things, but all four was just difficult enough to seemingly be beyond the Primarch. As the battle raged he was spinning like a whirling dervish, being on the walls in one moment to smash through clusters of defenders, elevated up in the sky by his tentacles the next to unleash bursts of needles down at Tim, jumping after Listig while dodging the unpredictable and eclectic arsenal of strange weapons being sent his way.
The acids they had blasted him with were still biting into his flesh with more than just the sting of regular acid. A kind of energy was laced into the liquids that had struck his chest and face, rot and twisted decay bubbling his skin as the acid ate away at it. But soon, soon that little Adventurer would run out of tricks and with them dead he could turn to deal with the Necromancer who somehow raised scores of dead Units in clusters of his own.
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Listig's class restricted them from using conventional weaponry, the closest they could come was lawn darts and bricks. Anything more "traditional" than that would render them unable to so much as lift the weapon in defense. Listig had spent hours tinkering within the limitations of their class, and they were reasonably confident in their bag of tricks.
Lawn darts infused with undeath and filled with tiny explosives, tennis balls packed with flour that would explode into dust clouds, water guns filled with acids, even bricks hardened with magic. They unleashed it all on the vampire pursuing them, their hands a blur as they threw dozens of projectilees at the vampire, as it chased them along the rooftops of Argoush.
One of their other class abilities was called "Swiftness of the Trickster", it gave them speed and nimbleness that could rival an Olympic gymnast. And Listig used this power liberally as the vampire chased them across the rooftops. They dodged behind chimneys, slid down slopes, jumped between the gaps of houses and sometimes they would use their momentum to suddenly turn the change around.
"Be unpredictable."
Listig reminded themselves as they were almost struck by a whipping tendril connected to the vampire. Listig had not been able to kill the powerful vampire despite launching all but their most powerful weapons at him. Their arsenal was running dry and the vampire was learning far too quickly for their liking. It was somehow able to balance three different fronts in the fight at the same time. Every time Listig thought that they had enough of an opening to kill him, the vampire managed to turn enough of his attention on them that the attack was futile.
Explosive darts were wrapped in the plant tentacles to halt the explosions, the hardened bricks were dodged, and after having been caught in the first dust explosion he never fell for it again. It had come to the point that Listig considered pulling out their dart filled with plutonium when it happened. A sneaking tendril darted up along the wall of a house and slapped their ankle as they leaped over to the next house to dodge a shower of needles.
Paralyzing venom sent Listig stumbling into a heap within seconds as they almost slid off the roof with the speed of their momentum. The Primarch rose up over Listig readying to kill them, a lance of death magic from Tim was shattered by a burst of conjured needles that the vampire sent lazily his way. But before Listig could be slain two things struck the Primarch.
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In reality, it was three things. Tim saw an archer on the ground launch an arrow at the vampire along with what felt like some kind of spell. And he saw a pudgy man gesture and unleash what look like a cloud of beige pesticide right at the vampire from the wall. Tim had tried to save Listig who lay paralyzed on a roof, but the vampire had not even bothered to look at his attack spell before countering it.
Tim did not question the luck of his friend and instead just commanded the undead on the ground to swarm over the vampire that had fallen down onto the street. In the cloud of pesticide and with another arrow being sent at him, ten reanimated Soldiers swarmed over him and started biting into the vampire. He perished screaming as Tim finally managed to get fully up on the wall and he walked over to the pesticide-man while his undead started helping out the decimated defenders.
"Nice save, thank you."
"I am afraid that my..."nice save" will not be enough. Look"
Hans Reclis pointed out at the chaos unfolding in Argoush, the walls were practically deserted as the Swarm simply used the tunnels into the city rather than bothering to scale the walls. Naked despair was filling his face as he desperately glanced around, clearly searching for an answer. Tim on his end looked out, he had been more terrified than this man at the start of the battle. But when he discovered that he could raise ten undead for the price of one, he had grown confident. The costs of the battle were more apparent now that he had...perspective on the situation.
"Could, you perhaps do more of that cloud spell."
Tim felt his mouth drying out as he lamely asked the Sorcerer who only turned to look at him with a sad grimace on his face. It took him a few moments to reply, moments in which Michel and Listig joined them on the wall. The latter having imbibed a cure potion to get themselves up and running and then Hans finally replied.
"Not to any degree that would matter, not unless I had some kind of spell circle to ma-"
He stopped in the middle of his bitter reply and Tim turned to see his eyes widen as the man looked at the wall and mumbled thoughtfully to himself.
"It is enchanted and mostly intact...I have never tried it, but perhaps."
Hans Reclis spun away from his musings to pace along the edge of the wall before looking at Tim.
"Necromancer! Have you learned how to link with others as they cast their spells?!"
"Er- yes sir."
"Do you know how to sacrifice your undead to empower your magic?"
An eager grin appeared on the face of the Sorcerer as he strode over to grip the shoulders of Tim and he almost winced in pain as the jubilant grip of the Sorcerer almost drew blood from his shoulders as his fingers dug into his flesh through his robes.
"Yes, I just unl---learned how to do that."
"Fantastic!"
Hans Reclis spun around to gesture out over the city and the Sorcerer cackled with glee as he said.
"I have a focusing circle right here, an enchanted wall surrounding the entire city."
"I-I am not sure that is how that works, sir."
Tim spoke up and Hans waved him off with a confident sneer on his face. The gesture somehow both conveying excitement and contempt at the same time as he replied.
"I am a Sorcerer, I don't care about the rules of Mages. I only need a circle and with enough power I can do whatever I want as long as it is within my purview. Michel you have to join us as well, your...unique gifts will only enhance my spell."
"Your cloud spell is an actual cloud, right? It is not just a visual component of your spell?"
Listig spoke up as their feline face also turned into a grin as they promptly added two "npcs" to their party. People without an interface didn't notice the change but they did receive the same benefits as regular party members. Listig stepped up to join the trio and they said confidently.
"Because if it is an actual cloud then even I have a trick that can help you."
Hans looked puzzled at that but he nodded in response to the question and he turned to look back out over the city. His hands reached out to clasp Tim and Michel, while Listig placed their hands on his shoulders.
"Then we must act quickly."
Hans began mumbling a string of nonsensical focusing words into a chant as he looked out over the city. The dungeon had given him the ability to cast spells with amazing speed compared to the minutes or hours with usually take to even attempt an undertaking of the magnitude that he was now attempting at.
"Linked Casting: Conjoined Ritual. Sacrifice the Pawns to Empower the King"
Tim strangely enough just said the name of his spells as he joined his efforts to Hans, a paradigm unlike any that he had heard of before, but he did not have time to dwell on the idea. A vast reservoir of power added itself to the ritual spell as the staff of Tim the Necromancer glowed with a sickly purple light. Michel had joined with Hans before and they fell into that familiar dance as the vast bulwark of undeath was joined with a strange combination of plant and dominion. The Woodsman helped focus the intent and target the spell precisely to harm the servants of the Thrall-King. Hans could taste the flavors of the three spell-schools joining together with his own unique Hans-branded form of innate pesticide magic.
"Party Skill: Substance Infusion: Undeath. Party Skill: Gust of the Aeromancer."
Listig whispered with a voice full of mischief and humor, and Hans felt his spell change as the four seeds bloomed together and out from every root in the city and from the very walls of Argoush themselves their magic was unleashed. Like a gust of wind conjured by an aeromancer but on the scale of a city, a beige pesticide gas laced with the power of undeath erupted out over the entire city.
A penitent coward.
A cosplaying child.
A vengeful father.
And a silly Sorcerer.
Before them, the wrath of the Sovereign Swarm... broke.