Spear of Destiny: Chapter 6

I had to flatten down so Karalti could crawl through the hole in the cave wall. She got down on her belly, using her front claws to pull herself forward, and paddling the dirt with her back 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 a larger dragon had brute-forced their way inside, cutting a route through the crystals. The air was humid, laced with an unpleasant odor like burning plastic and sugar mixed together... the stench of spoiled mana that had been exposed to the air and was decaying.

“I don't like this,” I muttered, ducking a crystal spire that lanced from the ceiling. The scent of decay 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 90.

“Me either. I want to see my grandma and claim my birthright and everything, but every part of this place gives me the creeps.”Karalti began to pick 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 large, 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 frozen 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. They were a species that had gone extinct during the Aesari Wars some two thousand years go: 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. Their eyes were obscured by bulbous fungal growths, their scales flaking off around huge knotted clusters of mushrooms. But something about them was weird. The Tulaq and humans were barely more than mummified skeletons, preserved by some weird cocktail of aerosolized mana and heat.

“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 down. 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 feels 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 hole was framed by the embossed image of Matir's sigil: 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!”

My question was cut off by something thick and prehensile: 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 I was pulled, 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 begin to comprehend what kind of trouble I was in, I glimpsed movement at the other end of the cavern. The two dragons, lumbering to their misshapen feet like marionettes.

“Behind you!” I shouted.

Karalti whirled as the [Infected Handmaidens] 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 2676 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 managed to slip 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 it 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 was 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. I was reminded of the inside of a Venus Flytrap.

“Aww, shit.” I began to struggle 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. She couldn't use her 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 Sporemother was slowly crushing my spear arm, threatening to break the bone as I strove against it. Growling, I twisted the flaming weapon deeper into the spongy root of the tentacle. “URGH! I hate Chinese Burns! 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 body of the Sporemother. 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 down. 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 Sporemother 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: 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 had been stripped of flesh - but just looking at her horns and the size of her head, I knew this dragon had been a Queen. The massive crowned skull flopped to the side as the fungal mass shrunk back, shriveling under the intense cold. The Rotmother’s digestive tentacles took the brunt of the damage, cracking and shattering. The forward pull of the tentacles halted, leaving me to thrash with sloth-like speed as the Dragonrot fungus began to snap 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 Karalti had been infected. Her shadow copy had lapsed: the yellow dragon was staggering back to her feet, and Karalti was wrestling the blue one. The mutated Sporemaiden was straining toward her, snapping like a pissed off alligator 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 blue. 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.

[You deal 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 free, and no matter how much I strained, I couldn't bring it up high enough to stab the Rotmother 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 shut 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 were capable of turning 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.

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