That was a good idea. And something Hal was going to ask of them anyway. “Since the others aren’t going to need you, do you think the rest of your brothers and sisters could keep a watch overhead? And if necessary, relay any messages I might have back to Noth at the Settlement?”
Steve looked at Hal for a moment, and took the clawed tip of his batwing to scratch at his furry fox-like muzzle. “Shimmerscales said help Hal. We help Hal. What you look for boss man? Want good snackos?”
Hal shook his head, opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it with a click. He looked questioningly at Besal.
Besal looked over at the keinse, who seemed to notice him for the first time and fluttered his wings in surprise. “We’re looking for somewhere that other monsters would fear,” Besal said. “Dark places full of ancient animosity. The darker and more brutal, the better.”
Shifting his gaze from Hal to Besal, Steve shrugged and said,“Saw spooky place across water to west and south.”
“Looks like we have our heading,” Besal said. He set off immediately, going southward more than west.
“Keep us on track,” Hal said to Steve.
The keinse let go of the branch, spread its black wings wide, and flapped madly to catch the air before ascending into the canopy and disappearing somewhere above the tangle.
Hal did his best to keep up with Besal, but the man seemed driven now that they had a potential course. If Hal had been a normal human, he would have been exhausted by then. Not the debuff Exhausted, just the simple physical strain version.
After all, it was getting late. Shifting dappled shadows spread out before them, illuminated by the silvery glow of the bandlight high above.
The Shiverglades had come fully alive by that point, and any creatures that weren’t too busy chasing their fleeing prey had set their sights on the unlikely pair traipsing through the dark woods.
As they progressed, the roots grew thicker. The soft loamy earth interspersed the hard gnarled roots that wove through the land. Underbrush became less of an issue as the roots took hold.
Hal found himself stepping on solid root more often than the dark, soggy earth. Ahead, pits of black tarry substance glistened in what little bandlight and moonlight broke through the canopy above.
Long snaking tendrils - easily mistaken for roots without Shadesight - stretched out of those pools, questing for prey. More often than not, they found some oversized scurrying insect and with surprising alacrity wrapped about the bug, dragging it down into the tarry pit.
“Stay close,” Hal whispered to the Rhino Beetle that scuttled quietly behind Hal.
They gave the pools a wide berth, that is until the wind shifted and blew their fetid stench over the trio.
“Do you smell that?” Hal asked Besal.
Besal shrugged, not quite grasping his meaning.
An evil grin slowly spread its way across Hal’s features. Aside from the rotten stench, there was a strong and familiar chemical smell beneath it. Kerosene, Hal guessed, or something very close to it.
It would take them quite a while to circumnavigate the pools. But if they could walk straight through, it would save a significant amount of time. Not to mention, Hal didn’t quite like those black oily tentacles that snaked over the root-strewn area.
Picking his way carefully, Hal climbed up a large root that arced into the air nearly twenty feet. Besal and the beetle followed him without issue. Once Hal found a perfect spot, he motioned for the others to get up higher on the root.
Deciding that this would be the perfect time to test the effects of Splicing the same essence as a spell he was going to cast, Hal swapped insect for goblin essence.
The beetle, by now used to Hal constantly swapping essences, hardly seemed fazed by the shift. Instead, it began to idly chew on a small green shoot coming off the root.
Hal had a rough idea of how much his Bomb Toss could do. Provided the creatures below weren’t weak to goblin, which he doubted since beastmen didn’t seem to have a predator or prey relationship.
“Technically, that’s not true,” Besal added, hearing Hal’s thoughts clearly. “Beastmen are in opposition to humanoids, people such as yourself. Like the other oppositions, people and beastmen are weak to one another’s magic. Too bad humans don’t tend to have innate magical powers.”
Hal filed that tidbit away for later. If Rinbast persisted in his desire to fight Hal, he would do well to have a stockpile of beastmen spells to deal with the approaching army.
Easier said than done, but that was a problem for future Hal.
Right now, he focused on conjuring a sizzling goblin bomb. All patchworked metal plates haphazardly bolted and curved into the shape of a rough sphere and topped with a burning wick.
It was all for show, the bomb wasn’t going to explode if Hal didn’t will it to. He could hold it in his hand and let the wick continue to burn down if he pleased with no harm done.
He had never Spliced goblin essence before. And the first thing he noticed was how much larger the bomb was in his hand. He could feel a deeper connection to it. As if it was a part of him instead of a simple spell.
Feeling the power behind that spell, Hal grinned and let it fly through the air. It sailed end over end, straight for the central pool of oily substance.
127
As soon as his Bomb Toss hit the oily mass, Hal detonated the spell.
Nothing he could have expected would have prepared him for the fiery conflagration that followed.
The Shiverglades lit up as if it were bright day. A wave of explosive, superheated air rushed over the trio and knocked each of them from the root.
Hal tumbled to the ground, slamming his back painfully against an upraised iron-hard root. Bursts of white light flashed at the sharp jolts of agony.
To his side, Besal groaned, having found the discomfort of landing on the same root Hal had. Farther still, the beetle kicked and flailed as it fell on its back, largely unscathed.
Waves of heat still assaulted him, and it took Hal a moment to reorient himself. There was bright light everywhere. Blooms of crimson and orange surrounded him.
Getting to his feet quickly, Hal pulled free [Emissary], ready to face whatever was coming out at him in full force. Likewise, Besal got up and held out his [Bone Longsword].
Nothing came at them.
Cautiously, Hal inched around the large root they had fallen from. It had subsequently blocked their view of the pits. And as Hal squinted against the brightness of the scene before him, he understood that there would be no enemy coming against him.
Black oily smoke lifted toward the sky in great noisome clouds.
Flaming tendrils flailed and writhed through the air, flinging gobs of burning goo all over the area. Trees splattered with the stuff began to burn and catch fire.
Hal’s eyes widened at the sudden change. It was as if the immediate area had been plunged into a fiery pit.
Besal chuckled once he caught sight of the area. “It’s like one of the planes of fire.”
One by one, the creatures within the burning oil pits perished. As it turned out, a lot of things in the Shiverglades were incredibly flammable. Several coiling tendrils of purple-black smoke threaded through the ground and absorbed into Hal.
He was inundated with a deluge of notifications.
Your Bomb Toss II hits the [Pit Slug | Lv. 41] for 772 points of fire damage.
Your Bomb Toss II hits the [Pit Slug | Lv. 40] for 796 points of fire damage.
Your Bomb Toss II hits the [Pit Slug | Lv. 44] for 688 points of fire damage.
…
The [Pit Slug | Lv.41] suffers 189 points of fire damage.
The [Pit Slug | Lv.40] suffers 212 points of fire damage.
The [Pit Slug | Lv.44] suffers 189 points of fire damage.
…
You gain 8,780 Experience Points.
You earn 878 Sparks.
You absorb 78 points of Slug Essence.
You obtain:
12
[Slug Oil Vials]
7 [Slug Eye Stalks]
The fire was out of control.
Everything the flaming goo touched, burned.
Smoke began to fill the area, and despite his earlier intentions, Hal fled the area and gave it an even wider berth. His attempt to make their crossing easier and faster only ended up adding more time to their travel.
By the time they were far enough that the roaring crackle of flame was a distant memory, they could still see the faint glow of brilliant light. Hal had no idea how long it would burn for.
Though he was glad to be rid of whatever horrendous creature a Pit Slug was, he didn’t exactly want to burn down the whole Shiverglades to do it.
Whether it was because Hal’s clothes were saturated with the reek of oily fumes, or it was the blazing forest fire that would have made Smokey the Bear weep, no beasts rose up to greet them.
In fact, as Hal switched from goblin essence back to insect essence, he noted the scattering creatures in the distance.
“That is one way to clear the way forward,” Besal said. “The Shiverglades has a strange affinity toward fire, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Definitely, but it is odd, isn’t it? The Shiverglades is cold, but green. It’s lush, but succumbs to fire easily as any dried and seasoned wood. Twice now, I’ve met two different types of monsters, both went up in flames as if doused in gasoline.”
“True,” Besal agreed. “However, the Morbolgers seem largely resistant to fire. While those Pit Slugs were, obviously, very weak to it. Not that I imagine any creature would last long being boiled alive in burning oil.”
“They were Amorphous, does that mean the oil was their body?”
“Could be,” Besal hedged. “But I doubt it. In the instant of the explosion, I bore witness to an amazing spectacle. The many tentacles that lined the forest floor like a network of roots shriveled and turned to ash. That one Bomb Toss lit many of the pools of oil on fire.
“And those nearby soon succumbed to the flailing and thrashing as whatever was within the pool tried to escape and failed. All the creatures managed to do was splash its fellows with burning oil.”
Hal hadn’t seen any such thing. He was so alarmed and taken by surprise that he barely had time to throw up his arms in defense as the wave of heat and force threw him from the root.
They walked in silence for a time. Despite the detour, their path was relatively easy. There were no more pools of oil, and even if they had run into them again, Hal would have elected to avoid them.
Not that he didn’t want the EXP, but the harm to the Shiverglades seemed catastrophic. Even though they had been walking for an hour, Hal could still smell the scent of smoke on the wind as it filtered through the trees.
The fire was no longer visible, but Hal heard several reports from the keinse above that it was still spreading. They kept clear of the pillars of smoke. Hal couldn’t help but wonder if it would still be burning as they made their way back.
His thoughts turned away from the flames and what changes they might bring to the Shiverglades as they pressed on southward. The land rose and fell in great rolling hills of soft earth and towering trees festooned with curtains of black moss.
Reaching his hand forward, Hal parted the moss and immediately snapped his hands back with a hiss of pain. All along the backs of his hand were tiny angry red welts.
Unsheathing [Emissary], Hal cut through the curtain instead. The lumps of moss that fell to the ground shriveled into tiny little tumbleweeds.
The welts on the back of his hand pulsed painfully, despite the fact that it had only taken a couple points of HP away.
The [Razormoss | Lv.12] hits you for 2 points of damage.
Additional Effect: Poison.
Stalwart Soul Activation.
You resist the effect of Poison.
It reminded him vaguely of a jellyfish sting. He could see no spines on the moss, but he wasn’t about to get his face close enough to be absolutely sure. Any further curtains of the black stuff were sliced down with care.
The last thing he needed was to get poisoned.
Your Survival has risen to Level 6.
+5% Camping regeneration (230%).
+5% Flora & Fauna identification. (+30%).
+1% Well Rested bonus (+6%).
At times, the bandlight was so strong and the canopy above so thin, that Hal could have easily seen without the aid of Shadesight.
The forest began to thin, the trees growing sparser and farther apart, blessedly barren of Razormoss. The ground grew marshy and soft in places with thin icy patches that gleamed in the bandlight.
Besal threw out an arm to stop Hal as they exited the forest and came into the marshland proper. To the south was a large expanse of half-frozen brackish water.
“Our path lies ahead,” Besal said, looking to the distant shore.
Hal looked out over the bandlit water as icy patches caught the silvery light like fragments of a broken mirror strewn atop a black velvet cloth. He could just barely make out tall trees in the distance.
In the dark, distance was easily distorted. It could have been a few hundred feet away or a mile as far as Hal knew. He said as much to Besal.
Red fuming eyes turned back to him. “And it would take many hours trekking through wild terrain to curve around to the west, then south, then back east toward our destination,” he pointed out. “The keinse say our path is south. We go south.”
“Unlike you,” Hal subvocalized. “I am still made of flesh and bone. Those waters will freeze me to the bone, if I can even swim in them. And, unless you know how, I cannot fly over the water. That doesn’t leave many options.”
Besal seemed taken aback by the rather obvious logic. Did he really think that Hal would be able to wade into freezing cold water and swim hundreds of feet, perhaps a mile without any issue?
“I can help with that,” Besal said after a long pause. “But you will need to trust in me.”
Hal looked out over the dark waters, then back at Besal. With a grin, he said, “What choice do I have?”
128
“I would just like to say that this is a terrible idea, and I hate it,” Hal said.
“Do you have another way across?” Besal asked. “Perhaps you would like to spend another half-day constructing a bone canoe?”
“I get it,” Hal said, putting up his hands in surrender. “But I don’t have to like it.”
As Besal came up behind Hal, he said, “So long as you accept it.”
Hal nodded, and Besal stepped into Hal’s back. It was a surreal and deeply discomfiting sensation the likes of which Hal had no words for.
Besal was somewhere in between joining Hal and being separate. His large shadow and stardusted wings spread from Hal’s back and arced wide overhead.
“Do you want to come or stay here?” Hal asked the Rhino Beetle.
It clicked its mandibles and scurried in front of Hal. It was roughly equivalent to a decent-sized golden retriever in terms of height. Though it was many times wider.
“Are you seriously going to take the beetle?” Besal asked.
“He wants to come along.”
“Humans.”
Hal bent over and picked up the beetle, careful to keep its relatively smooth back to his chest. Being twice the strength of a normal human made it surprisingly easy to lift and carry the creature.
It helped that, unlike a dog, the Rhino Beetle wasn’t scrambling about. In fact, it went preternaturally still, trusting in Hal.
As Hal trusted in Besal.
Aided by a Convergence jump, Besal’s great shadowy wings lifted and flapped once, twice, three times, and they were airborne.
The sensation left Hal feeling like his stomach was somewhere on the marshy shoreline behind. And it wasn’t real flight. There was no way Besal could keep Hal aloft, especially not with the Rhino Beetle as cargo.
But with Besal’s wings gifted to Hal, they could control their descent. And so the pair picked out
the shiny fragments of ice along the dark water, leaping and flapping to slow their descent as they went.
For all of Hal’s experience with essence limbs, he never managed to make functional wings. He still wasn’t sure how Besal did it. The closest he ever came was that disgusting parachute he made.
They were roughly halfway across, where either shore seemed a distant, indistinct smudge ahead and behind, when Hal landed harder than he would have liked on the floe.
He went down on one knee, the ice cracked as a jolt of pain lanced its way up his thigh. The Rhino Beetle went skittering from Hal’s grip and slid in a lazy circle with all four of its legs akimbo.
“Easy with the landing,” Hal complained.
“It is a good thing you improved your armor,” Besal replied.
Hal was about to grumble some retort when the ice floe he was on shifted suddenly to the side. Dark brackish water lapped over the sides as it dunked into the water and then leveled out.
Something green and scaley broke the surface of the water to Hal’s left. The sheet of ice they were atop was roughly twenty feet across, but Hal didn’t like his options if he had to fight atop the floating platform.
Not only was it slippery, even more so now that some of the water lapped over its slick surface. But it was far away from any land, and any damage to the ice meant Hal was one step closer to swimming in the freezing black water.
Where that creature - and whatever else lived in the water - lurked.
Summoning spiked essence limbs, Hal drove the sharp tips into the ice to give himself a foothold. Driving himself to his feet, he hurried forward with the aid of his essence limbs.
He scooped up the beetle just as the ice listed sharply to the side. If not for his essence limbs jabbed into the ice, he would have spilled down into the dark waters.
When it became clear that its prey didn’t behave the way the creature wanted, it emerged from the dark depths and crawled atop the slanted ice. Its bulk easily tilted the sheet of ice further toward it.
Beastborne Page 72