“Are you okay, Lyr?” Halcyon asked out as the first stage of the ritual completed itself and we began to pour mana into the spell.
“I’m fine,” I replied, the hunger having faded to a manageable level. “It was just a little bit intense going that low on mana all at once.”
“Shit, Lyr, I’m sorry!” Halcyon exclaimed. “I completely forgot about that!”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, shaking my head as I increased the flow of mana into the ritual to match the regeneration rate that the Æther infused area was providing. “I’m okay—”
“Heads up, guys!” Lazarus suddenly called out. “Looks like we have one that got through!”
Spinning my head towards the sound of Lazarus’s voice, I saw that one of the Shoggoth’s spawn had managed to somehow find a way through the raid and was now bearing down towards us. Staring at the creature as it moved, I saw an identifying tag appear and point towards it.
[Ætherbound Shoggoth Broodling] – Level 19
“It doesn’t look too tough,” Constantine replied as he rushed over towards Lazarus’s side. “Lazarus and I should be able to take it easily together. Amaranth, watch Lyr and Hal while we go sort this out.”
Hearing Amaranth give him a raspy growl in acknowledgment the pair sprinted towards the oncoming Broodling, leaving Halcyon and me to watch from afar as we continued to fuel the ritual. Working in tandem, I saw Constantine and Lazarus rush the creature without any hesitation, their weapons flashing in the distance as they set about their deadly work, the details of battle lost in the distance between us. But no sooner did the Broodling fall, did I notice that another one had managed to make its way past the raid, prompting them to move once more to intercept it.
“We’re half-way there, Lyr,” Halcyon told me as the two of us waited in our relative pocket of safety, able to do nothing but stare helplessly onwards at the moment. “Just a little bit longer.”
“Yeah,” I acknowledged, feeling my jaw tighten as I saw a third Broodling break free of the distant raid. “Hopefully—”
Amaranth suddenly announced, letting out a low growl as he sped past me and rushed towards the side of the outcropping, his body pressed against the ground.
“Oh shit,” I cursed, glancing at my familiar before looking back towards Lazarus and Constantine. “Amaranth says we have something coming up the side of the outcropping.”
“‘Oh shit’ is right, Lyr!” Halcyon exclaimed, his eyes growing wide as I looked towards him. “I need to worry about keeping the Ritual up, and I can’t cast any spells while doing that! What are we going to do?!”
“Whatever we have to!” I replied to the mage as I drew Splinter, only needing one freehand to continuing fueling the ritual. “If things get close enough, I can at least still use this!”
Waiting with our hearts in our mouths as we stared at the edge of the outcropping it didn’t take long before three tentacles shot upwards and crashed down into the stone, their clawed tips biting deep for purchase. Feeling my breath catch in my throat as the tentacles then began to pull their bearers up, I saw Amaranth’s body tense in preparation to pounce, launching himself forward the moment that the first Broodling’s body appeared with his claws outstretched.
Slamming into the leading creature with over eight-hundred pounds of angry cat behind it, Amaranth’s ambush took the lead Broodling completely by surprise and knocked it straight off the outcropping, its lone tentacle scraping across the ground before vanishing over the edge. Without pausing to celebrate his victory, my familiar then immediately leaped to bite down onto the next closest tentacle, his teeth and claws sinking deep into the ooze-like ectoplasm that it was made of. Thrashing once in surprise from the attack, it didn’t take long for the appendage to come apart under the cat’s savage mauling and for the second Broodling to lose its grip on the stone, falling away before it could even come into sight.
But despite Amaranth’s heroic delaying efforts, the third Broodling managed to finish its climb, pulling its amorphous body over the outcropping’s edge, whipping its tentacles through the air angrily.
“Lyr! We have one climbing up on the other side!” Halcyon exclaimed. “Its tentacle just hit the ground!
“Constantine! Lazarus!” I wasted no time in shouting for the other two group members, seeing my familiar throw himself directly at the Broodling before him, the big cat snarling and hissing wildly as he laid into the creature with his teeth and claws. “We need help back here! They’re climbing up the sides!”
Turning my head away from the nearby conflict as I continued to shout, I looked towards where I’d last seen the pair, seeing that their situation didn’t look any better than ours. In the short time that I’d looked away, the two had killed three more Broodlings that had managed to evade the raid and were currently in the process of dealing with another two.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t matter right now, I thought as I repeated my shout a third time, finally seeing one of the two figures look back towards us, the fighting making it impossible to tell who it was. If we can’t get this spell off in time to seal the Ley Line, none of this is going to matter!
“Heads up, Lyr!” Halcyon’s shout brought me back into the moment and caused me to spin towards the Broodling that he had warned about earlier, the creature having completed its climb up the side of the outcropping and was now surging towards us.
“Oh, this is going to suck!” I shouted as the Broodling charged forward, one of its claw-tipped tentacles slashing through the air towards me and forcing me to catch the attack across Splinter’s entire edge, lest I end up being sliced to ribbons.
Grunting from the impact, I felt my feet slide across the ground a short distance before the clawed tentacle pulled itself away from me and another lashed out to take its place. Shifting desperately to catch the claws of the second tentacle I just barely managed to get enough of Splinter into position to avoid a fatal hit, but still found myself gasping in pain as something sharp tore into my right hip and leg. Hissing from the blow, I slashed out at the offending appendage, slicing a deep gash through and prompting a spurt of emerald-colored liquid to spray across the ground.
Reeling back from the attack, the tentacle quickly vanished as the Broodling finally lumbered into range, leaving me staring at its nightmarish body, with countless eyes and mouths open and closing across its body. Feeling a sense of hesitation come over me as I looked at the large creature, I felt myself at a complete loss of what to do next. I couldn’t leave my place in the ritual circle, lest I disrupt the spell, but if I stayed where I was, it was only a matter of seconds until the creature overwhelmed me, causing the spell to fail anyway.
We’re fucked, I thought, a sense of crushing defeat falling over me, the world suddenly going into slow motion, giving me a perfect view of the Broodling’s massive maw as it lunged forward towards me. We came this far…but it wasn’t enough. Aldford is going—
A bright red object suddenly flew past the corner of my eye and slammed heavily into the Broodling without warning, causing it to abort its attack and scream in pain, its body writhing as it recoiled away from me. Looking on in surprise I wondered at what could have possibly stopped the creature in its tracks, only to find my eyes widen as they saw a flaming greatsword imbedded in its side.
A Flaming Glass-Steel greatsword.
“I’m coming, Lyrian!” I heard Lazarus’s voice shout, my head twisting to see the half-giant barely a dozen strides away, running at full sprint towards me. “Hold on!”
Crossing the distance remaining in the blink of an eye, the half-giant slammed into the Broodling at full speed, the impact sending the creature rolling backward with Lazarus on top of it, his hands already around the hilt of his burning greatsword.
“Finish the Ritual, Lyrian!” Lazarus shouted to me as he pulled the blade free and thrust it back into the Broodling, prompting another pained scream from the creature.
“Halcyon! How much time do we have left?” I shouted, turning to look back towards the mage as a spark of hope kindled in my chest.
“Less than a minute!” the mage answered. “Sooner if you can put more mana into it!”
“I’m on it!” I replied, choosing to drop Splinter to the ground as I thrust both hands towards the massive spell forming above us and send every bit of mana that I could spare into it, feeling the hunger return with a vengeance. “What do we do when it’s finished?!”
“We cast it onto an anchor point!” Halcyon told me. “I was thinking to use the Tree!”
“What?” I shouted back at the mage in confusion. “What you mean a tree?!”
“Not a tree, Lyr!” Halcyon exclaimed as he thrust his head upwards. “The Tree!”
Eyes widening as I glanced upwards, I suddenly remembered that the roots belonging to the Ætherwarped Oak in Aldford were right above us. Right where we had first seen them a week ago, protruding through the cavern’s ceiling when we had first entered the Grove.
Right where we needed it to be.
“The Tree!” I exclaimed as a wave of comprehension shot through me. “That’s brilliant, Hal!”
“Thank me if it works!” Halcyon replied as the ritual neared its completion, the spell having absorbed all the mana that it needed to be cast. “Are you ready, Lyr?”
“Do it!” I shouted, seeing the crackling orb of power above us shift itself into a complicated and constantly changing spell matrix that my eye could barely follow.
“Here it goes!” Halcyon shouted as the two of us triggered the final step of ritual and sent the swirling matrix speeding upwards into the air and towards the Ætherwarped Oak’s roots high above.
Craning my head upwards, I looked up just in time to see the spell begin to rapidly unfold as it spread out to encompass the entirety of the exposed root system. At first, there was no sign of anything happening, the magic continuing to grow until the very air began to shimmer with a bright azure light. But then slowly, I began to see one of the larger root fragments begin to grow, its glowing body lengthening and twisting as it started to quest towards the exposed Ley Line, gradually gaining speed the closer that it approached.
Until it suddenly shot forward like an uncoiled snake and plunged itself directly into the Ruptured Ley Line.
“Whoa!” I exclaimed, both in surprise at the root’s unexpected movement and the bright azure light that shot up its length. In an instant, all the other roots protruding from the Cavern’s ceiling flared with a similar energy and began to push their way out of the rock, rapidly growing in size. “Look at that!”
“It’s working!” Halcyon shouted as the root system began to splinter, some of them heading towards the Ley Line, while others continued straight down towards us. “It’s sealing the rupture!”
Turning my eyes towards the Ley Line, I saw another root thrust itself into the breach, followed by another and another, their combined onrush crushing one of the Shoggoth’s flailing tentacles as they filled the breach. Slowly as the tree continued to twist and grow, the Æther leaking free from the Ley Line began to diminish until it slowly came to a stop, the now bright azure roots basking the cavern in its cool glow.
“We did it, Hal!” I shouted as I saw the final drop of Æther spilling from the Ley Line fall out of sight, feeling a near overwhelming torrent of relief come over me, followed by a wave of sheer exhaustion. “We sealed it! We—wait! What is it doing now?!”
Instead of stopping now that the Ley Line was sealed, the other Ætherwarped roots continued to twist and spiral through the air, until they reached the canyon of tainted Æther surrounding us, plunging themselves into the roiling surface.
Where they then exploded with sheer uncontrolled growth.
Moving faster than our eyes could follow, countless more of the Ætherwarped roots shot downwards from the cavern’s ceiling above as they hungrily dove into the Æther. Within seconds, all we could see was a thick glowing nest of intertwined roots as they began to absorb all of the Æther within the massive reservoir.
“Lyr, look!” Halcyon called out, grabbing my shoulder as he pointed straight down the outcropping. “The Shoggoth!”
Flinching at the urgency in his tone, I turned my head to follow his hand, just in time to see a pair of large roots shoot down from above and pierce straight through the colossal entity, causing it to scream in pain as it shook. Thrashing its tentacles uselessly through the air, the creature tried to slap away a second wave of roots that snaked out towards it, only to have the ooze-like appendage bounce harmlessly off the Ætherwarped wood before they all thrust itself into its body.
Twisting and wailing wildly, the Shoggoth attempted to escape from the roots now binding it, but to no avail, its form beginning to rapidly shrink and lose substance. Staring onwards with my mouth open, I saw the creature fall forward onto the outcropping before it, its body and tentacles losing all shape and coming apart in a spray of Æther, the few Broodlings that were still standing following a heartbeat afterward. Then finally, with one last mournful cry passing through our minds, the Grove fell silent once more as all the emerald green light that was the tainted Æther and Nafarrian spirits faded away.
Staring onwards in numb shock, I looked up towards the now impenetrable network of glowing azure roots that covered the Ley Line before us, realizing all too well how close to defeat we’d managed to come.
“It’s over,” I whispered, breathing out a deep sigh, feeling my hands shake as I began to come down from what had been a truly epic battle. “We did it.”
“We did,” Halcyon replied, his voice sounding hoarse and tired. “But what is that light at the end of the outcropping there?”
“Hmm?” I asked, shifting my gaze I caught a faint gleam of emerald light at the very edge of the outcropping where the Shoggoth had fallen. “I don’t know. Let’s take a look.”
Turning to see that both Amaranth and Lazarus had both survived our side of the battle, the four of us then began walking forward, at first turning our attention to the remnants of the raid. Numbering nearly a hundred Adventurers when we had left the camp, there were now barely two dozen of us left, the near constant fighting over the last few hours having reduced our ranks to a small shadow of what we’d started with.
But for all the casualties that we had suffered, I still found myself seeing a handful of familiar faces as we approached and felt a knot in my heart unwind as I spotted an exhausted-looking Aldwin standing next to an equally tired looking Veronia, the two having managed to survive the deadly battle. Continuing to walk through the raid, I saw several other faces belonging to both my friends and others from the guild, including Freya, who rushed towards me the moment that she saw me.
Enjoying a short reunion as we all exchanged notes from the battle, we all then pressed onwards in search of the strange light that Halcyon and I had seen earlier, curious to find out what it was, in case it was something that we had to be worried about. But as we approached the edge of the outcropping, I saw that the light was coming from a glowing emerald crystal lying on the stone, roughly the size and length of my forearm. Wondering what it could possibly be, I stepped forward to inspect the object, seeing a tag appear in my vision and point towards it.
Cocking my head curiously at the tag, I then reached out to pick it up, seeing the rest of its description appear in my vision. Reading it, I felt my eyes widen as I realized what I was holding, barely hearing the chime that signaled a new level, or all the other notifications that suddenly began clamoring for my attention as I turned around and looked back at the raid with awe.
We did it, I thought as I raised the crystal over my head, hearing the raid break out in cheer. Against all odds, we’d somehow managed to find a way to persevere. The Beast had been killed, Carver had been stopped, the Spirits had been put to rest, and most importantly, the Ley Line had been sealed.
We had won.
Chapter 56
Saturday, March 30th, 2
047 - 10:12 am
Aldford
I awoke slowly as I felt the sunbeam crawl across my face, its warmth causing me to slowly drift out of a deep dreamless sleep until I found myself looking up at a wooden ceiling. Staring blankly for a moment, it took a minute for my brain to wake up, leaving me in a halfway state of total peace. Yet as full awareness began to dawn on me, broken and random memories started to surface, causing my heart to beat faster.
Did all of that really happen yesterday? I thought as the previous day’s events came floating to the forefront of my mind, leaving me almost doubting that they had ever happened in the first place. Is it all really over? Are we safe now?
Closing my eyes for a moment, I exhaled a slow breath in an attempt to clear the rapid thoughts that had flooded into me, eventually feeling my body relax. Reopening my eyes, I stared back up at the ceiling again, this time noticing a trio of notifications that I hadn’t bothered to fully read or dismiss before I’d gone to bed. Realizing that I was fully awake by this point, I decided to get a start on with my day, picking the first item in my list and watching it fill my vision.
Quest Complete! The Ruptured Ley Line!
Congratulations! After spending days exploring The Twilight Grove and unraveling the mystery of the Runestone, you and your companions have managed to successfully piece together a Nafarrian ritual spell and used it to seal the Ley Line beneath Aldford, thereby preventing a catastrophe that would have spelled doom for the region, and quite possibly the world beyond.
It is still too early to tell what the long-term consequences of your actions might be, but you have ensured that Aldford will at least live long enough to see it!
Legacy of the Fallen Page 78