“Yeah! So blast them with fire, then with Shadow Wave, then pow!” She balled her foreclaws into fists and swung them forward and up. “One, two, right in the kisser! Then bite them!”
“No biting, if it’s a fungus thing.” I walked out along her wing edge with arms full of food. “Here. Chow’s ready.”
My dragon craned her neck back, looking at me coyly. “Feed me?”
I arched an eyebrow, but I held out a pastry I’d looted from somewhere in Taltos. It was perfectly preserved, thanks to the magic of virtual reality logic. Karalti gently nipped it from my fingers, followed by all the rest of it. Meat, vegetables, assorted desserts. She ate the lot, filling her food bar by four percent.
“Better than nothing,” I sighed, as I handed her my last piece of jerky. “At least you won’t starve. But I might.”
Chapter 6
I had to flatten down so Karalti could crawl through the hole in the cave wall. She got down on her belly to commando crawl underneath, using her foreclaws to pull herself forward and paddling the dirt with her legs and tail. We emerged into a narrow geode corridor, bluecrystal spires jutting out crazily in all directions. Broken crystals littered the ground, as if something large had brute-forced their way inside, cutting a route through the geode. The air was humid, laced with an unpleasant odor like burning plastic and sugar mixed together... the stench of decaying mana exposed to the air.
“I don’t like this,” I muttered, ducking a crystal spire that lanced from the ceiling. The scent of decay—flesh and mana both—was getting stronger with every step. It was also getting warmer and wetter. I kept an eye on my HUD, watching the temperature gauge slowly rise from 74F toward 90F.
“You know, I do want to see my grandma and claim my birthright and everything, but every part of this place gives me the creeps.” Karalti picked up her feet like a fussy cat as the earth turned to mud, squishing up between her claws.
“We’re probably almost there. Just think queenly thoughts,” I said. “Dignified. Mature. Elegant.”
“Blow me,” Karalti grumbled back.
There was the grinding, rumbling sound of lava in the walls, getting louder as we broke out into a glowing cavern. Karalti came to an uneasy stop as we took in the sights. It was warm and damp—not a great start. Hairlike Dragonrot grew in clusters between crops of mana crystals, feeding off the luminescent mana that beaded on the walls like dew. It wasn’t a solid blanket of filaments, like it had been in the tunnel. There was evidence that molten rock had erupted from the walls in places over decades or centuries. The fungus hadn’t grown back on the cooled lava, leaving black hills of petrified magma to sit bare. Even as we stood there, a small cavity to our left erupted, belching a ropy, gelatinous stream of magma down the wall.
At the other end of the cavern were piles of bodies. Half a dozen tulaq had met their ends here. Tulaq were a species that had gone extinct during the Aesari Wars some two thousand years ago: slender winged creatures that were equal parts greyhound, falcon, and kudu antelope. They had four long legs, elegant necks, and narrow heads with horns and graceful feathered crests. They were also extremely dead, with frayed leathery skin stretched over their bones, their lips pulled back from their fangs in rictus snarls. Shelves of beautiful white mushrooms grew out from their chests, fringed with blue.
The corpses of the ancient humans who had ridden here with the tulaq were heaped in a pile some distance away, partly entombed by ancient black stone lava flows. And behind those corpses, slumped against a corroded door that hissed and spat sparks of magical energy, were a pair of young dragons. They were about two-thirds Karalti’s size, fifty feet from mutated nose to leathery tail. One was blue, the other a dull mustard yellow—and both of them had been destroyed by Dragonrot. Bulbous fungal growths obscured their eyes, their scales flaking off around huge knotted clusters of mushrooms. But something about them was uncanny. The tulaq and humans were barely more than mummified skeletons, preserved by some weird cocktail of aerosolized mana and heat. The dragons still had most of their flesh intact.
“No!” Karalti let out a mournful cry, pacing forward.
“Wait, wait!” I pulled back on the edge of her saddle. “Look at the damn ground!”
Karalti stopped in her tracks, peering at the floor. There was a rising section of earth where she had just been about to put her foot. Even as we watched, glowing cracks appeared... and then subsided, as the fissures in the small lava dome cooled and resealed into stone.
“Can’t you feel that? There’s lava everywhere around us,” I said. “Watch the walls. This whole place is unstable.”
“Maybe, but these people have been here a long time.” Karalti ducked her head and hunched her shoulders as she carefully stepped forward. “I don’t know if that door’s even going to work. Do you think maybe the Spear will open it?”
I squinted at it. The last time I’d seen a door like this was back in Ilia, in the ruined Aesari city of Cham Garai. It was made of a very hard golden metal—Aurum—with lines of magical channels mapped like veins across its surface. The mana channels came together at a single point, a receptacle for a crystal that was just about the same size as the ones embedded in the blade of the Spear of Nine Spheres. The embossed image of Matir’s sigil framed the hole: a nine-pointed star with a spiral at the center.
“You know, it just might. But we’re going to have to move those dragons,” I said, frowning at the scene ahead. The damp smell of mingled mana and decay was thickest here, burning the inside of my sinuses with a nasty chemical smell. “Do you think maybe- HRRRGH!”
Something thick and prehensile cut my question short: A long pseudopod that snapped around my chest and hauled me up into the air with frightening speed.
“Hector?” Karalti turned, mouth agape, and let out a yelp as it pulled me, kicking and struggling, up into the cavernous dark of the ceiling. “Hector! What the hell!?”
“I don’t know what the hell!” I sputtered. The cavern above was completely dark—and I couldn’t see what had grabbed me. But before I could comprehend what kind of trouble I was in, I glimpsed movement at the back of the cave. The two dragons, lumbering to their misshapen feet like marionettes.
“Behind you!” I shouted.
Karalti whirled as the [Infected Sporemaidens] lurched toward her, stumbling over the cooled lava flows and the bodies on the floor. My dragon shrieked, and any thought of strategy deserted her as she instinctively backed away and blasted the first one with her final gout of Ghost Fire.
[Ghost Fire is super effective!]
[Karalti deals 3676 damage to Sporemaiden!]
[Sporemaiden: 17,963/20,639 HP].
I struggled against the tentacles clasping my arms to my sides. They were reeling me in toward a half-seen mass of glowing pseudopods, a short rubbery mat that oozed a decidedly digesty-looking acidic substance.
“Noooo, no, no. Nope. Nuh-uh.” I slipped one arm out, enough to call the Spear of Nine Spheres to hand. The soul-bound weapon materialized in my palm—cold, at first, until I called the elemental power in it and the haft and blade burst into boiling scarlet flames. The tentacles shriveled away from the heat, lighting up the full length of the monster overhead.
My eyes bugged, and not just from the crushing pressure around my ribs. It was another dragon. A much larger dragon. A much more infected dragon. The [Rotmother]’s ghostly white body had meshed into the ceiling of the cavern, barely recognizable as anything other than a gooey mass of fungus, tentacles, and slime. The mat of dripping blue rhizomes coated both sides of her gaping ribcage.
“Aww, shit.” I struggled harder, giving myself enough room to plunge the Spear into the nearest pad of spongy flesh, one-handed. The blade cut into the corrupted dragon like butter, and the tentacles shuddered and sagged back down ten feet or so—but they didn’t release me.
[Fire is super effective! You deal 960 damage!]
[Rotmother HP: 27,813/28,773]
I cast a frantic look down to the fight below
: Karalti was circling back from the pair of Sporemaidens, who were lunging for her with teeth and claws.
“For the love of... Use Wings of Deception! Split them up!” I shouted telepathically, snarling aloud as another tentacle snapped around my spear arm and tried to force the weapon away.
Karalti yelped as she danced away from one dragon’s slashing front claws. Big as she was, she was fast for her size—and she’d been studying martial arts. She couldn’t use her special Baru abilities in dragon form, but as the yellow Sporemaiden surged toward her, Karalti blocked the dripping claws with one wing and headbutted the dragon right in the head with her own. The soft fungus-riddled tissue caved under the impact, sending the animated corpse staggering back. It tripped awkwardly over the dead tulaq, its HP dropping to 17,615.
The Rotmother was slowly crushing my spear arm, threatening to snap it as I struggled. Growling, I twisted the flaming weapon deeper into the spongy root of the tentacle. “URGH! Please, just eat... shit... and... die!”
I hit one of my most powerful energy attacks; the Mark of Matir ability, Shadow Lance. It turned the fire billowing along the Spear solid black and sent a shockwave of energy rippling through the Rotmother’s body. The undead dragon swayed, some of her fungal tethers snapping as dark energy tore through the Dragonrot growths and sent congealed blood and slime raining to the floor. But even after her dealing a cool 3712 damage, the mutated dragon didn’t drop me. Instead, a cloud of glassy, needle-like darts shot out at me from her undercarriage. Most of them plinked off my armor. A few of them embedded into the meat of my thigh, shredding my pants and puncturing the skin beneath. To my horror, I felt them pump something into me—and then my leg turned numb as a leaden sensation spread through my torso and limbs.
[You have been poisoned! You are afflicted with Slowness!]
[HP: 580/2378]
“Urghh...” I slurred as the feeling spread to the muscles of my face. “Fuck... you... Ryuko.”
“Hang on!” Karalti called to me from the ground. “Hold it off as long as you can!”
My head lolled on my neck as I spared a glance at Karalti. She’d used Wings of Deception, and the chamber was full of brawling dragons. The Sporemaidens had split up, one of them chasing the magical duplicate with gaping jaws. I watched as one of them charged her with a flurry of slashing blows, and shouted in alarm as its claws connected with her forearm and tore a long gash in it. Both copies of Karalti gasped.
“Krralti! Dun let the spores get urrn!” I slurred like a Scottish drunk. Thanks to the poison, the Rotmother now had two combat turns for every one of mine—and she spent her bonus turn pulling me toward the nest of dripping, writhing pseudopods growing out of her abdomen. But as she did so, we passed her soft underbelly. I sluggishly rammed my weapon into her guts and channeled my fear into a second powerful AoE attack: Umbra Blast. Thorny tendrils of pure darkness exploded from the blade of the spear, tearing through the Sporemother’s body.
[You do 1990 Darkness damage!]
[Rotmother: 22,111/28,773]
The spongy body rocked a second time, and the dragon’s head tore free of the fungal net. It was stripped of flesh—but just looking at her horns and the size of her head, I knew this dragon had been a Queen. Her massive crowned skull flopped to the side as the fungal mass shriveled under the intense cold. The Rotmother’s digestive tentacles took the brunt of the damage, cracking and shattering, leaving me to thrash with sloth-like vigor as the Dragonrot fungus snapped over the Sporemother’s body like bands of cartilage. The jaws formed by her ribcage closed, and new blue fruits pushed their way through the dark sticky mess I’d made of the colony’s external stomach. The bitch was sprouting.
I searched the cavern, desperate to see if the Sporemaidens had infected Karalti. Her shadow copy had lapsed: the yellow dragon was staggering back to her feet, and Karalti was wrestling with the blue one. The mutated Sporemaiden was straining toward her, snapping like a rabid dog as Karalti pulled her one way, then the other, and then shoved forward and bodily threw the smaller dragon away from her. The clumsy monster staggered away from her and smashed into the opposite wall. The impact shook the cavern—and opened up one of the small lava domes. It spewed a column of molten rock over the fallen dragon. She squealed, writhing in agony as lava seared over her infected body, eating through its sodden flesh and boiling away the Dragonrot growths that infested it.
[Karalti deals 3200 damage to Sporemaiden! Your enemy is mired!]
The flailing dragon tried to stand up, but Karalti spun around and knocked it right back into the weakened rock with her tail. Fresh lava pulsed out of the wounded lava chamber, and the Sporemaiden wailed, clawing desperately along the floor as her HP disintegrated, three thousand points at a time. The lava did a crazy amount of damage to her—or, more accurately, to the fungus that was puppeteering her corpse.
“That’s it! Do it again!” I groaned as the tentacles around my chest tightened with crushing force. They ripped the Spear out of their flesh, and no matter how much I strained, I couldn’t bring it up high enough to stab it in again.
[You have taken 300 bludgeoning damage!]
“Stop ordering me around!” Karalti backed up as the yellow Sporemaiden let out a rusty shriek and lurched toward her, jaws agape. But this time, it didn’t try to bite: instead, it belched a plume of glowing blue spores, a perversion of a normal dragon’s breath weapon. Karalti squealed, backpedaling with her eyes screwed shut and her nostrils clamped against the parasitic cloud. She beat her wings frantically, gusting the spores back from her.
I focused back on my newest slimy friend, mind racing. The Rotmother’s HP wasn’t regenerating, but she was steadily regrowing the blue glowing mat of rhizomes—rhizomes I was pretty sure could turn me into a Hector-flavored smoothie. I strained against the tentacles still firmly wrapped around my waist and right arm, but they weren’t budging. “Hey, Princess Toadstool! I swear I’m not as delicious as I look, okay?! I taste like ass! Literal ass!”
“I’m coming! Try not to get eaten!” Karalti snarled as the yellow dragon closed in on her, teeth flashing toward her neck.
Chapter 7
The pair clashed chest to chest, foreclaws locked as they strained against each other. Karalti pumped her wings, using the draft generated by the huge membranes to drive her forward. Claws shrieked and sparked against stone as she pushed the slavering, mutated dragon back toward the wall, and bodily rammed her into another of the bulging lava domes.
The stone shattered under the impact, and magma spurted out around the Sporemaiden’s shoulders. The Sporemaiden let out an unearthly scream, like rusted gears grinding against one another, and struggled pitifully as Karalti pushed it back into the spray of lava and held it there like she was trying to drown it. Magma splattered my dragon’s heat-resistant scales. The first droplets bounced away, but as the molten stone kept flowing, the smoldering particles began to stick. She snarled with pain, tanking the damage until she could no longer stand it. But as she let go, the yellow Sporemaiden’s head darted forward, belching another cloud of spores right into Karalti’s face.
“NO!” My pulse pounded in my temples as I slowly, haltingly strained against the Rotmother’s grip. My HP trickled away as my joints popped and my ribs groaned, but I shoved the pain away and fought with everything I had. I felt my fingernails distend, and my sharp teeth grow out into a double row of long fangs... and when my struggles proved futile, I howled and began to bite, rip and tear into anything I could reach. The Mark of Matir turned icy cold.
[You activated Mortal Grudge!]
[Speed increased by 25% for 60 seconds. 2.5 Adrenaline Point regen for 60 seconds!]
[You have been struck with a Death Sentence! Countdown: 60 seconds]
[Sporemaiden has died! Karalti gains 966 EXP!]
Cold power crawled through my limbs, as I shredded the tentacle gripping my arm. The one around my waist slackened, and I pulled myself free and Jumped, boiling with rage, and slammed weapon-first into
the underbelly of the diseased Queen. The bulk of the dragon shuddered as the flaming Spear gouged into it, dealing blow after blow of raw force.
[You deal 8662 Damage to Rotmother! 13,449/28,773]
Tentacles flailed at me as I fell amongst the rain of burning fungus. Fangs bared, I hit Shadow Dance and dashed back up into the air. Once, twice... and then boosted out of it like a black meteor to land another Umbra Burst right in the dragon’s gaping ribcage maw. Shards of black ice burst out of her body like a gruesome flower.
[Umbra Burst deals 1990 damage!]
[Rotmother is Frozen!]
[Death Sentence: 32 seconds.]
Frigid steam erupted from the crackling tissue, letting out a shrill, scream-like whistle... and then the Dragonrot fibers meshing the queen’s corpse to the ceiling started to give way. The Rotmother’s body slumped, then sagged to one side. I caught one of her protruding ribs, hanging on with one arm. “Karalti! Look out!”
Karalti pressed herself to a wall as the hundred-ton corpse pulled away from the ceiling and collapsed. I Shadow Dashed away just before it hit the floor. And boy, did it hit the floor: the Rotmother smashed like a ripe pumpkin, crushing the thin veneer of stone between it and the lava that gurgled underneath. Magma splashed everywhere, and then the dead queen began to sink. Tentacles lashed out, striking everything within reach. Karalti tanked the blows against her back, crying out through gritted jaws. I blew another 20 HP to Shadow Dance out of range. The fungus-infected flesh of the Rotmother shriveled black before catching alight, and soon the cavern was full of choking smoke. All we had to do was avoid the flailing and smashing as the lava disintegrated her, dealing upwards of three thousand damage a second until my HUD’s victory chime rang through the cavern.
[You have defeated Rotmother and Sporemaidens!]
[Your Death Sentence is cured!]
[You gain 2012 EXP! Karalti gains 966 EXP!]
I landed on top of a Sporemaiden’s corpse and bounced. I was not expecting to bounce. The spongy landing pad threw me back up into the air, head over ass, and sent me careening toward the nearest wall. I braced for impact—but Karalti’s head darted out from my right, and she delicately snatched me out of the air in her jaws.
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