Within the world of spellcraft, two tribes of opinions were known to emerge upon witnessing a sorcerer's miracles: Those who imagined it to be more complicated than they could ever understand, and those who were set on there being some sort of 'trick' that made the process remarkably simple. Scholars had debated for centuries as to which partisans were in the right, but the truth was only known to those who practised magic themselves.
It was neither simple nor difficult. Communion was an act dominated by faith - but not, as most sorcerers knew, by the faith in Gods responsible for such miracles. Lieze and her fold were perhaps the only magicians who understood this truth - after all, if the Blackbriar could have restrained its gifts of magic unto Lieze, she was certain it would have done so by that point. All she knew was that the Gods' incorporeal, cosmic forms acted as a conduit for the latent weave of magic responsible for filling her world with so much wonder. And no matter the devotee, it was free for the taking. So she took.
"A force worth manipulating… worth controlling." She muttered, "Once you understand that, changing the properties of one spell is simple. You were never pleading for rituals from a divine being, but tapping its power and using it to carve your own path. Spells can be morphed into whatever you please - it's just a matter of demanding something different."
"That's nice, Lieze. Very poetic." Drayya might have been smiling, but her arms were in the way, folded over her head, "-But please keep the philosophical ramblings for after we've gotten out of this situation!"
As if to illustrate the point, a shred of torn, smouldering barkskin landed just a few feet away from them. The Flesh Golem was already under duress by the Titans, struggling against their collective grip while the giants' searing touch left brands on the Golem's exposed musculature. Lieze and Drayya were hovering beneath the chaos, trying their best to avoid being crushed by any falling debris.
"It's not rambling!" Lieze shouted, "I'm telling you that this is how it's done! If you demand an alteration to the spell, the Blackbriar has no choice but to obey! Don't give yourself over to communion - control it! You are the conduit responsible for channelling the spell, not some dead God!"
Drayya lowered her arms tentatively and placed them on the Flesh Golem's heel, half-convinced that an imperfect communion would spell the end for them right then and there. The fear must have been written on her face, because it wasn't a second later when Lieze's palm came to rest on the back of her right hand.
"Don't think. Just do it." She encouraged, "Parse the spell's intention from the haze of communion. Don't allow the Blackbriar to dictate its strength - there's nothing it can do to refuse you! You already know that the Gods are weak, mindless beings!"
There was no time to hesitate. A second longer, and the Flesh Golem would have been ripped apart. Drayya closed her mind to all but the connection between herself and the Blackbriar, seeking logic within the terror of its hallucinations. She knew the foundation of the spell - all she had to do was tweak it ever-so-slightly. Her intentions coursed through that internal world of delusion, taking shape as a brightness at the tips of her fingers transmuting thoughts to miracles.
Drayya's MP - 822 / 982
Lieze used the ticking values above her head to determine the right moment to add the Mercuria. A [Delayed Corpse Explosion] cost twice a thrall's level in MP. As soon as Drayya's reservoir of mana thinned to the requisite amount, Lieze used [Blood Manipulation] to hover a few litres of Mercuria towards the girl's hands, allowing the tar-like solution to seep into the Flesh Golem's body.
"That's it!" She tore Drayya's arms away and led her on a rabid retreat, "Run!"
Five spectral seconds were all they had to escape. For the first time since her crisis of faith, Lieze found herself praying, not to anyone or anything in particular, that her ankles wouldn't be swept up or caught in some exposed roots beneath the grass. Behind them, the Golem's flesh bubbled and strained under the spell's effects, still desperately struggling to free itself from the Titans' grasping hands.
Lieze counted the seconds in her head - 1, 2, 3, 4, - yanked Drayya into a clumsy, frenzied hug, and sent them hurtling towards the ground. She tasted soil before the forest brightened around them, before her back felt like it was about to catch fire, before something sharp and alabaster was lodged into her flank.
Lieze's HP - 110 / 394
A bone fragment, most likely. Only a shard, but more than enough to kill her had it been any larger. The scream of pain struggling to reach up through her gullet was subdued by the sight - the smell - of something else. A hideous stew of effluvium was coating their surroundings, wrapping the tall grasses with flaps of rotting skin and embedding the Great Oaks with gargantuan, shattered vertebrae. To say nothing of the blood, which Lieze was convinced had coated every inch of the forest.
Then, silence. Nothing but a song of fire and embers on the wind. All Lieze had to distract from the darkness and the ringing in her ears was the terrible pain running through her midsection. Drayya was squirming beneath her, aware enough of the injury to refrain from pushing the girl off. "Lieze." she said, "Are you alright?"
"Mm… define 'alright'." She answered, "It feels like someone is twisting a knife through my guts. Do me a favour and yank whatever it is out so I can regenerate…"
Without any hesitation, Drayya wrapped her arm around Lieze's waist and took hold of the jagged bone. As she wrenched it free, fresh blood spurted from the gash, beneath which lurked the foul, Briar-corrupted organs imposed by Lieze's constant use of [Supreme Regeneration].
"The Titans are falling…" Drayya offered a few words of solace while she yanked the foreign object out, "I can smell blood… blood and fire. Just like when we assaulted the Royal Delve."
[Supreme Regeneration] Activated
Remaining Heavenly Favours - 1
The pain was anaesthetised by the Blackbriar's touch, all the uglier (and thornier) for it. Lieze rolled off Drayya with a sigh, basking in the dancing embers of the night as hazy silhouettes lay enveloped by flame in the distance. The Flesh Golem was nowhere to be seen - provided one didn't count the mounds of steaming viscera littering the forest floor.
"That wasn't very smart." Drayya said, more than content to remain on the ground, "-But it did work. Maybe that's the most frustrating thing. And we're still alive, by some miracle."
"I told you it was simple." Lieze ran a hand over the back of her robe and found it soaked by fresh blood on the return, "I didn't doubt you could pull it off."
"Praise me all you like - there's no chance I'll ever do something that stupid again." She replied, "...But thank you for pulling me down at the end. I'm not sure I would have survived the explosion otherwise."
"This wasn't our last fight." Lieze stood up, "I can't have you dying on me until the end. You're too useful of an ally to sacrifice."
"What a roundabout way of admitting that you're obsessed with me." Drayya smiled, "I'd like to hear you speak without so much fabricated hatred in your voice for once. Are you keeping that for the climactic moment when we're forced to part at the finale of creation?"
"What are you going on about…?"
"We'll have a nice, long kiss - promise one-another ridiculous things like 'I'm sure we'll meet again, in some strange place between the stars, or in the distant reality awaiting this cursed world, free from divine intervention'..." She trailed off, "-Or something like that. Maybe I'll even get to see you smile. Or cry. Can you imagine that? Someone like you shedding tears?"
"I can't." Lieze didn't bother with hiding the truth, "But that's not to say the idea doesn't upset me."
That was enough, Drayya thought. She needed no other confirmation. Lieze pulled the girl to her feet, who looked back to see a perfect outline of her body surrounded by blood. Broken clumps of roots, plant fibre, and bark were aflame across the meadow - all that remained of the Titans.
Battle Report:
Rootborne Titan (x30) (Boss - Medium)
Boss Threat Level - Medium (x50 xp)
Total XP Earned - 102,000
Level Up!
You are now level [60]
HP+5 MP+50
MIND + 1
Specialisation Available!
Level Up!
You are now level [61]
HP+0 MP+55
MIND + 1
Level Up!
You are now level [62]
HP+0 MP+55
MIND + 1
Level Up!
You are now level [63]
HP+5 MP+50
MIND + 1
A worthy reward for Lieze's trouble. Another specialisation was exactly the kind of killer edge she would need for the upcoming attack on the Black City. Having witnessed the Titans' deaths from afar, the army was soon marching back to their position, unbelieving of the possibility that two mere necromancers had felled an enemy of such incontestable strength.
"I thought we were done for there…" Roland crossed both arms behind his head, "What else could the Elves throw at us? I'm almost disappointed we haven't encountered many of their famed assassins."
"Don't jinx it." Marché elbowed him in the hut, "They're throwing the Rootborne at us to thin our numbers before moving in for the kill. You'd better sleep with one eye open from now on."
"-That is, if we get any sleep to begin with." He finished.
A chaotic ripple through the sap darkened its tone from orange to sickly brown. Somewhere - somehow - a great defeat had been suffered.
The Head Shaman was alone now in that gargantuan ritual chamber. It was his final responsibility to halt the undying tide spreading across the land, unwilling to place the lives of his beloved kin on the line for a desperate final bid at victory.
"The time has come…" He muttered, "I must face the harbinger of the world's end."
With echoing steps, he wandered out of the chamber, down an arm of the unfeeling stone staircase, feeling the cool forest air seeping beneath his hood as the Black City expanded before him. The streets, he found - and was delighted to know - were empty. There was a certain freedom to the knowledge that his people would be spared from the cursed one's wrath.
Or so he thought.
They were gathered at the gates; assassins from the most hidden and auspicious guilds, Shamans from the distant enclaves - even the humble craftsmen and gemcutters hadn't abandoned their home. It was rare to see more than one Elv in a single place, much less a hundred - a thousand, all facing his way, expectant of his arrival.
"...What is this?" He received no answer, "I gave the order to evacuate. The cursed one will be here in a matter of days."
His subordinate from the council was at their head, accompanied by the remaining members of the ritual chamber's audience.
"That's true. That's very true." He nodded, "-And on your orders, I demanded that every guard, assassin, Shaman, craftsmen, forester, cook, herbalist, and diplomat leave the city immediately."
His arms extended, unfurling his shawl like the wings of a butterfly, "-But as you can see, I was unsuccessful. Not one Elv took to my suggestion. Their reasons were not all the same. Not all just, even. But for one reason or another, they refuse to leave."
"The cursed one takes no prisoners." The Head Shaman replied, "Those who perish will only serve the whims of our enemy. My intention was to protect these people from that fate - whatever the future holds for our world."
"-And yet still, they remain." He finished, "You needn't demand a sacrifice, Kesset. These are your people, and they have chosen to follow you of their own volition."