B4 – Chapter 42: Abyssal Consumption

The fairy dragon scouts returned and one of them pulled out a large, strandvine-canvas map. They began adding, squabbling, and arguing; but after two minutes had produced a map of labyrinthine passages. One of them spoke. “When you get to the end of this tunnel,” he tapped one of the farthest branching paths that suddenly ended. “You get to the edge of the realm. Really pretty beyond that, but scary, too.”

“Like an ocean of stars!” another one added.

Tristan nodded. “And you’re sure of the forces coming our way.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Mhmm!”

“It’s scary how many husks are left.”

Tristan couldn’t help but agree. Rough numbers were sketched in the different tunnels, and the hostile force came out to around fifteen-thousand combatants. They did not have ranged combatants, from what the fairy dragons could gather. But, there were dragon-like creatures amongst them. I wonder if I’ll be able to consume their blood and crucible if they’re husks? Tristan thought.

“Krik. What insights do you have?”

The spriggan Warmaster was silent for a few moments, then his deep voice rumbled out of his enlarged form. “We should maintain our position, but fortify with fallback points.” He glanced back and began barking orders to spriggan, who headed across the large cavern and through the rift. “Go get rocks and wood!” he turned back to Tristan. “I think we should make a bunch of fallback positions; archer towers. Fairy dragons can fly from one to the other to retreat. The rocks and wood can make funnels for the mindless husks. And you can flood and freeze the pathways to make them hazardous.”

“I approve of this plan.” Tristan looked back to the fairy dragons who were in their cute, deer-fox forms. “Go and keep an eye on the approaching forces. Regular updates, send someone back to tell us about progress.”

The group of scouts shot off, and Tristan set to work help to fortify the enormous cavern.

Thirty minutes passed before the scouts returned for the last time. “They’re almost in range!”

Tristan ran down the line of archers and began empowering their weapons with Elemental Imbuement. A mix of water and lightning elementalism, in pairs. The plan was that the one with a water-imbued weapon would shoot first, followed by their fellow using lightning. Then, they could rotate. He looked back across the cavern. Thanks to the efforts of the spriggan and their ability to change size with the item in Krik’s possession, they had created a maze. Rocks that went up to chest height and formed an intricate series of corridors that led in a confusing loop. A full-on maze, that Tristan had flooded and frozen over; complete with frozen spikes that would hamper movement and cause injury. Additionally, large towers had been erected and shaped with flora spells.

As fairy dragons could fly, and Tristan could be carried by a few of them working in tandem, they would be able to fall back once a position was overrun and keep firing. To that end, every tower was stocked with more quivers of arrows.

“Knock and loose at will!” Tristan shouted as he activated Elemental Imbuement – Multi in one of the scales on his cloak, nocked an arrow, and let loose. The tingling of lightning against his cheek from the shot faded rapidly, and his bolt slammed into one of the creatures, driving deep before gushing with water and jolting with lightning. The creature locked up and let out a silent scream. And yet, it was only one of thousands. A huge, shambling horde that moved forward in a conglomerated mess.

Fairy dragons in their tandem groups nocked and loosed, over and over, in perfect synchronization with their partner but dissonant from the other pairs. Rows of hostile husks fell, and yet more kept coming. Closer and closer. Tristan saw a glint of something deep and red, and Lucky Instinct screamed at him to duck. He did so, and watched as a black and red bolt of light shot right through where he had been standing. “They have ranged capabilities!” he shouted.

The round impacted the still-enormous Krik, who was standing behind the fortification. It blasted a hole through his shoulder pauldron; instantly disintegrating what was touched before stopping – the beam did not go past him. He shrank immediately to his normal size.

“Are you okay?” Tristan shouted over his shoulder as he tried to find where the round came from.

“I’ll be fine!” Krik shouted back, his deep voice rumbling with anger. “We didn’t account for this. Prepare to retreat!”

Tristan partly agreed, but then an idea hit him. He ducked down behind the parapet and looked at the inside of his cloak. “Perfect! Everyone, get ready!” He spun his crucible, pouring essence into one of the scales that was marked with the smoke elementalism spell Smoke Sight. Standing up, Tristan ran down the line and repeated the First Order spell over and over, tapping the shoulders of fairy dragons as he drained his essence to imbue each of them. The whole while, he was dodging that black and red beam that kept firing, seemingly focused on him, and not aiming at the archers. But, he could not see what was firing it.

Then, Tristan stopped at the end of the line. He held his hand up to the front of his helmet, index finger and thumb formed into a ring, with the others in line with his index finger. He pushed essence into his mouth as he spoke. “The power I took from you is now mine to wield, and it response to my call! Feel its wrath fall upon you!” A massive cone of smoke billowed forth and hung in place, completely blocking off sight of the parapet top. The black-red beam fired up, over Tristan’s head.

The fairy dragon archers were unaffected, and they continued their assault. Tristan joined them, letting loose arrow after arrow. After ten seconds, the smoke cloud dissipated, and Tristan ducked once more as that black and red glow lit up in the distance. But, he saw what it was that originated it, and his blood raced through his veins. He felt the hunt-urge as the husk he had seen was a dragon. A slimy one, to be sure, that looked just as horrible as the mind dragon he had slain. But this one was covered in deep, black scales with crimson in between the lines. It had no wings, and instead crawled along the ground like a snake with legs.