Crowned in Black: Chapter 37

"Eternally...?" I was seriously hoping Matir meant 'because of the Drachan' and not because of 'big bad boss capable of PKing Starborn', but before I had a chance to figure that out, the ceiling cracked apart, showering us and the ground with snow and dirt. The mechanisms sounded ancient, grinding as two halves of a dome - like an observatory dome - split over our heads to let in the moonlight. After so much darkness, Erruku's golden light felt as bright as the sun - and clearly revealed the hulking, slumped, branching figure of an ancient oak tree in the center of the chamber. It was blackened and leafless, its branches posed like contorted fingers in the air.

“Wait a second. You tellin’ me we have to fight a damn tree?” Gar scowled at it.

“Tree or not, this thing is a Level 50 boss.” I drew a deep breath, and looked at the others. “Everyone buff everything you can. Speed, reflexes, defense. Because this thing is stationary, I’m expecting it’s multistage. Expect at least two stages, probably three. First stage will be a lot of single-target attacks. Second stage, it will probably buff itself and get faster, maybe pull out some minions. Third stage will be the really heavy-hitting AoEs. Suri tanks. Ranged DPS hangs back. Karalti, I want you to close in with me as melee DPS in that triangle formation we’ve practiced, but get ready to move back and take your real form for the second stage if it gets really hard. Everyone do pots at 55%. Got it?”

“Got it.” Suri pulled her greatsword, concentrating on her HUD for a few moments.

“Got it!” Karalti punched the air.

“Me and Lovelace can pump fire into it!” Rin nodded.

“Sure thing… I guess.” Gar gave me a curious look. “How the hell d’you know all that, anyway?”

I snapped my visor down, and made sure I had adrenaline refill and stamina potions in my hotbar, as well as healing pots. “I never went to college, but I sure as fuck played a LOT of JRPGs.”

Suri stepped ahead of me, buffing herself with one of her passive defensive abilities, Bulwark. Rin and Karalti began to cast, hands weaving in arcane gestures. I got hit with Haste, then Dark Shield, and then summoned Dancing Fly on myself. Gar did something that made his hands and pistol glow. Suri led the charge, Karalti flitting in after her to flank. I came in last, forming the last point of the triangle... and was the first to get hit as a huge spiked black thing nearly a foot around punched through the stone under my feet.

"Fuck!" I Jumped straight into the air. It wasn't enough: before I'd barely cleared my own height, the thing swatted me like a baseball bat and sent me flying. My innate dragonrider's ability to orient in the air kicked in just before I hit the ground. I saved it, tumbling and rolling across the soft soil of the arena, but before I'd gained enough breath to cry a warning, the entire dome vibrated with a mournful keening cry.

[You have awoken the Screaming Tree.]

The Screaming Tree's keen built to an agonizing shriek as its crown of black branches furled in toward the trunk, traceries of sick violet energy racing up and down between the cracks in its bark. Suri threw herself in front of Karalti as a blast of aetheric gas billowed from it, swamping the arena in the mingled stench of rotten flesh and ozone. As it swept over me, I felt the enhanced speed and strength fade from my body as my buffs were stripped - every single one of them.

[Screaming Tree uses Purging of the Light.]

“Fuck!” I swore as cries of dismay rang from around me - everyone had just had their spells and potions completely nullified. But there was no time to regather: the rumbling under the ground had turned to a shaking earthquake. Rocks tumbled from overhead, dinging off my head as I stumbled up and Shadowdanced back into the fight. "Watch the ground!"

No sooner had I yelled than six thick, barbed black tentacles erupted through the floor, lashing like the limbs of the Kraken. Four of them formed a ring within melee range; the other two appeared at the back, behind Rin and Gar. Rin screamed in alarm, and she and Gar both turned and opened fire on the nearest one with guns and turrets, sending chunks of fleshy plant matter and black sap spraying into the air. A pair of tentacles crashed down on top of Suri, who roared with effort as she caught them against the edge of her burning greatsword. Karalti flanked one and began to lay into it with fists and feet. The last one oriented on me.

"Seriously, what was I saying about tentacles before? Every fucking time we tangle with Darkness, it’s something out of a hentai trying to fuck my day." This time, I got out of the way: dashing through the mutated root as it smashed into the floor, sending a plume of dirt and debris into the air. "Karalti! What the fuck is this thing weak against!?"

My dragon broke away from sparring the lashing tentacle ahead of her, briefly surrounded by a glowing indigo nimbus as she burned a little of her mana.

[Karalti uses Bioscan!]

The Grieving Tree

Stranged Boss Creature

Sex: ????

Level: 50

HP: 71,350/71,350

Weak against Fire and Light

Strong against Earth and Water

Absorbs Darkness

Resistances to Bludgeoning and Piercing damage

Grieving Tree Roots

Stranged Boss Creature (sub-type)

Sex: ????

Level: 39

HP: 10,522/11,800

Weak against Fire and Light

Strong against Earth and Water

Absorbs Darkness

Resistant to Bludgeoning damage

Seventy-one thousand. This thing had 71,000 HP. And that wasn’t including the roots. And it absorbed Darkness? Even though I could change the elemental polarity of the Spear, there were only certain abilities I could use that didn’t include Darkness as well. Black Lotus, for instance, could be Fire and Darkness, but not just Fire. My selection of non-elemental attacks was small.

“Light it up! Light and Fire!” I switched the Spear's polarity to Fire and changed course, Jumping back toward the coiling tentacle and sinking the burning blade into the hard black flesh. It ignited with a satisfying WHOOMPH, flames rushing over its skin. “No Darkness anything!”

"Spera, Cil, Kain!" Rin cried.

A dim blue light suffused my body, and suddenly I felt lighter, faster. Half again as fast under the effect of Haste, I bounded back into the air as the root snatched at me, kicked off one of the crumbling walls, and launched at it with the Blood Sprint, Blood Storm, Death by a Thousand cuts combo. It felt like hitting a solid wall, the blows ringing through my arms each time I hit… but each time I landed, my heart grew faster, body thrilling with power as my attack speed and damage reduction rose. And as I grew stronger, the [Screaming Tree Root]’s attacks grew weaker.

[You deal 4468 damage to Screaming Tree! Fire is effective! X1.5 damage!]

Just ‘effective’? This was the first time an elemental weakness had been anything less than 200%.

From behind us, there was a 'WHOMPH' and a scream - Rin's, as the root she and Gar were battling broke through their fire and crashed down on Lovelaces's back. The turret's bullets went wide, firing crazily into the air as the tree smashed the automaton flat against the ground.

[The Screaming Tree uses Crushing Blow! Lovelace's Armor is negated!]

Dodging another Crushing Blow from the root writhing in front of me, I took stock of the thing's HP. It was almost dead, but we hadn't been able to strike at the actual tree yet. The tentacles weren't doing so good, though. Suri was hacking at her two like a butcher, cleaving into them with powerful, rage-fueled blows that sent the things into writhing spasms of agony. Despite its resistance to bludgeoning damage, Karalti had hers down to just over fifty percent health between attrition and magic. Rin and Gar's first tentacle was shredded - the main tree had resistance to piercing, but the roots did not. Mine reared up over me like a cobra ready to strike. I waited until it came down, dashed to the side, then rushed in with a flurry of burning strikes.

The tentacle jerked as each one connected, then lashed like a coiling whip around me, trying to grab and crush. I sprung straight into the air and landed with Jump. The blade of the Spear of Creation pierced the root at the base, and the giant black slithering thing thrashed itself apart, tearing off to writhe on the ground.

"Batter up!" I left the root to die and ran over to back up our tank. Suri had one down, and was holding off one of the tentacles with her sword, arms shaking with strain as it tried - and failed - to overcome her raw strength. I burned AP and charged in, Jumping onto it, stabbing and twisting, then springing up to do it again, and again until the root collapsed.

"Two down, three to go!" I called out, turning to the next. "This tree ain't shit!"

As I said that, the remaining three roots stiffened, briefly soaking whatever damage was being given to them, and as they did, the Tree itself swelled with a dark, sick aura. The corpse smell suddenly got more intense: and then two things happened. Every root, including the fallen ones, pushed out and ejected a cloud of spiked flechettes into the air.

[You have taken 2799 damage! You are slowed! HP: 793/3592]

Jesus Christ: two-thirds of my HP had been crushed by that one attack. I was racing for Rin and Gar when it fired. I desperately Shadow Danced,a second too late. When I reappeared, flechettes skewered me in half a dozen places: legs, torso, one perilously close to the Family Jewels through my pelvis on that side. Karalti took almost as many. Suri, in her heavy steel armor, fared the best.

"Gar!" Rin cried from behind us. "Help! Gar's bleeding out!"

I stumbled to the ground, leg crumpling, suddenly torn between too many things. The spikes in my body weren't vanishing, sending waves of nauseating pain and making it nearly impossible to walk, let alone fight. I yanked one of the barbed things out and took my first potion, just as the tree once again furled its branches in, like some weird black coral, and exhaled a forceful cloud of gas that blasted through the room. It leaked in through the seams of my helmet - and the world went dark as my lungs seared.

[The Screaming Tree uses Doom Spore!]

[You are immune to Poison. You are Muted! You are Slowed! You are immune to Berserk! You are Cursed with Petrification! You take 321 Acid damage!]

A forest of status effects leaped into view, including a sixty-second Doom-style countdown. Coughing, I tried croaking Karalti’s name aloud, but the Mute status was real, and I could only rasp. Red flashing warnings were everywhere as I spammed health potions, trying to recover. Gar and Suri roared with rage-filled, garbled cries as the Beserk status took - and Gar, still bleeding out, threw his pistol aside and lunged for Rin, madness in his eyes. The Mercurion was immune to almost all the status effects, except for Mute. She shoved him back with a weird honking cry, and ran for the entry to the arena.

“Karalti! Get out!” I shouted telepathically, suddenly terrified for her. She wasn’t immune to Petrification, as far as I knew, and I didn’t know what that would do to her. I saw Karalti fleeing, gaining on Rin in leaps and bounds, but had no time to look at her statuses before one of the surviving roots whomped me right across the gut and sent me flying - into the trunk of the Screaming Tree. I hit it and groaned, only to see Suri whirl and rush me and the boss with her sword. There was no recognition in her eyes as she closed in.

“Fucking ASS!” Still wheezing, I dodged to the side - then ran, leaving Suri to hack madly at the tree. It began to… well… scream. Suri didn’t even notice one of the surviving roots coming toward her, shrugging it off in her rage.

[Suri deals 5221 damage! Suri deals 5399 damage!]

“Jesus Christ,” I gasped, running after Karalti and Rin. Suri was hitting it at four times her usual strength, but to no avail. The tentacle was coming after her, and even as she hacked a piece out of it with her burning sword, the Tree spewed acid over her and the surrounding floor.

[Suri takes 2761 damage! Armor reduced by 30% for 30 seconds!]

Ahead of me, Gar - moving like a zombie - lurched in my direction and then crumpled to the floor, succumbing to his bleedout. I vaulted over his body, and kept running.

[Garcia Martinez has died!]

[Suri takes 2110 damage! Suri takes 2749 damage!]

“Fucking fucking FUCK!” I dashed back into the mouth of the maze, where Karalti stood in front of Rin. Her eyes were wide, pupils barely pinpoints. She was panting like a stressed bird, her HP throbbing in the red. I went to her in terror. “Karalti! Are you okay?”

“I think so?” Her hair was plastered to her face with sweat. I handed her a potion, searching her for negative status effects. She was poisoned, muted - rendering her unable to cast spells - but thankfully not petrified. But even as I thought that, I realized my counter was at two seconds.

“Aww shi-” I was vaguely aware of my body stiffening, the girls crying out, and then… nothing. Again.