"How's your mana faring, guys? Up for support?" One glance back and I could answer the question myself.
They obviously weren't lively enough to float properly, much less support me against these damn tentacles oddly squirming my way.
"Intruders. Insultors. Wretches..." The darn Central Node was repeating itself yet again, cranking the few words in its monotone vocabulary deprived of anything expressive.
"As much as I disliketh, I canst not and wilt not int'rf're. Alow art thine square, anon art our. Thee art on thine lonesome."
Opal Woodpuff sounded as strained as I expected her to be given the unhealthy dosage of ambient mana down here. "Can't breathe... cough, cough."
Nova Twinkleflame, on the other hand, just exaggerated, screwing up in even keeping its form intangible. Ancient fairies didn't need to breathe for once...
The compressed ball of conceptual properties making up the ancient fairy's entirety shuddered, stuttered, whined and wheezed...
Maybe it wasn't as much of an excuse as it was a serious issue? All the more reason to shut down that bundle of menace as soon as possible.
Especially since my resistance wasn't what it had once been. I felt the wear and tear on my very core, mistreating that leaky soul of mine.
Which led me to realise that another kind of clock was running. One way too harsh for my taste to boot.
"Darnation. [Lesser Darkness' Grace I]," a sudden explosion of pain wracked my body, leading me to immediately terminate the spell.
To add insult to injury, the backlash of preemptive abortion soon added up to the petty evil, growing it out of safe proportions.
"Beware, mana's branded! That shitty piece of malice is in control of every ounce of mana here! Do not ingest any..."
Lucky they where since I was the guinea pig trying out the few tools at hand. Therefore, my warning spared them much harm.
Just as it reduced the time they could persist here drastically. As conceptual existences, elder fairies were mostly made up of consciousness bound to a concept and mana, which in practical terms meant but one thing.
Given time, the Central Node could take them over... "Pewwhh," I slowly exhaled, calming my taut nerves. "Think you trapped me?" My fighting spirit rose.
"Intruders. Insultors. Pipsqueaks." Of course, what kind of response did I expect? The mana in the room had finally finished coalescing into tentacles, leaving none for fuelling spells.
"En garde!" Digging deep into my own reserves for the joker I was about to play, I tore a halberd from my inventory.
"Rahhh!!" My warcry made the walls tremble and the nearest decorations burst from the shockwave alone.
Even the elder fairies looked at me aghast as far as I could tell. Not that I cared for any of that while running straight into demise's open tentacles.
With bulging muscles easing up my movements and my heart kicking into overdrive, I felt the pressure augment manifolds.
The halberd clashed against the first translucent cluster of tentacles, dispersing some mana while tiny cracks conquered the mighty weapon.
Five clashes in, and the tip was no more. Another two and the masterly crafted aide of battle crumbled down to the hilt.
I had no time to care about the loss, exchanging the hilt with a hammer thrice my weight. Then I spun around myself, brute-forcing my way through the rabid tentacles.
"Intruders. Insultors. Clown." The Central Node still didn't take me seriously. Except for the scathing insult my pride suffered, that belittlement was only to my advantage.
I spun around even faster, reducing the distance between us bit by precious bit. Yet it didn't take long for the hammer to literally disintegrate, leaving me with a smoking handle yet again.
But I wasn't at the end of my rope! The next weapon to take its place was a cannon trice as big as myself.
Even with my enhanced physical might, I barely kept the bulky thing from toppling over. Thanks to the spinning earlier, the tentacles had focused on one point.
This was so they had an easier time breaking my hammer, but that also meant almost no one was anywhere else other than in front of me.
"Fireeeeee!" With feverish anger tainting my voice, I scraped against the ignition chamber, bringing that failed product to roaring life.
Brat-Pa-Booommm!! As a consequence, I lost the ground under my feet, shooting back at break-neck speed together with the cannon's countless shards.
Unfurling my leathery wings, I almost failed to break the shockwave. In other words, the landing on the wall was... rough to say the least.
But it didn't take me out of commission, merely the air in my lungs vanished. That was not all. My arms felt like they were about to break off while the rear claws...
I refused to think about them. It had been necessary to dig deep into the tiled floor for this crazy operation, but that was not the best solution there was.
"May you rest in peace..." Squeezing out a tear, it didn't take me long to transform unneeded feelings into blazing fury fuelling my wings.
I had to admit, that day my avian skills were those of a drunken bee suffering from obesity... but they brought me to my goal.
That was all that counted. The Central Node didn't even take a scratch from all that, but the same couldn't be said about its means of defence.
"Intruders. Insultors. Fools." Probably no speck of hardcoded logic contained within came to the unlogic conclusion of me being an enemy to take seriously.
Not even after all that. Because in a place as charged with ambient mana as this one, the onslaught of the next horde of loose tentacles wasn't all that far in the future.
Nonetheless, I was given a chance by the very item that got the gardener so riled up, that had kickstarted this whole damn event. Grinning evilly, my fingers reached for the Central Node.
The moment I touched it, the booklet affixed to my waistbelt exploded in myriad letters, each a mighty rune of immemorial power creeping up my scales and latching onto it.
Stutters went through the Central Node as the invasion began. Spasms and grotesque squeaks rattled the thing, me following with at least double the intensity.
Because while the runes gradually overwrote it, I was exposed to intolerable levels of electricity generated within and flowing into me upon touch.
Then with my endurance kicking the bucket, the world turned white, vesting me in soft cotton as everything disappeared from my perception.