Spear of Destiny: Chapter 5

Sorry about skipping a day: I was bedridden with a lupus flare for about 48 hours T__T. I'm posting Ch. 5 and 6 as well today to make up for it.
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As we got closer, I revised my opinion. The tunnel wasn’t lined with web. It was way, way grosser than that.

“I am like, 99-percent sure that’s fungus.” The steam that billowed out past the door carried a damp, earthy scent, like mushrooms mixed with burnt plastic: the smell I’d come to recognize as the odor of spent mana. “Whatever the fuck it is, don’t touch it.”

Karalti rumbled, soaring into the humid tunnel - and as we passed the threshold, the door thumped behind us. I glanced over my shoulder to see it rolling back into place. As it did, sticky white strands lashed out over the warm metal, almost as if the tunnel itself was sealing the exit behind us.

[Warning: Mana levels are dangerously high. You are at risk of mana poisoning.]

“Well... it’s magical.” My skin crawled as I looked around. The fibrous strands looked like living cotton candy, a hollow cocoon that undulated as we flew past. The fibrous strands yearned towards Karalti like hairs reacting to static electricity, reaching for her wingtips. “And it really wants to eat us. Can you Bioscan it?”

“Yeah. Hang on.” I felt her gather her mana, then cast it out into the tunnel like an unseen burst of sonar.

[New herb discovered: Dragonrot]

Dragonrot (Parasitic Fungus)

While technically not a monstrous entity, Dragonrot is one of the few lifeforms capable of striking fear into the hearts of Archemi’s apex predators.

Dragonrot is a Stranged, semi-sentient fungus that thrives in moist underground environments populated by magical creatures, as well as mana-poisoned waterways or cavern systems. The fungus is attracted by and targets arcane megafauna like dragons, swamp hags and Stranged leviathans. After infecting a creature’s bloodstream via wound entry, the fungus utilizes the mana in the host’s body to replicate. Within hours, the host is overcome and dominated by the fungus, which compels them to seek out other potential victims and continue the cycle of infection.

Dragonrot is almost never found in active Solonkratsu settlements. Dragons experience an instinctive revulsion toward the fungus and scorch the walls of their cavernous dens to kill spores. The presence of this fungus is strongly associated with damp underground locations containing dead dragons and-or decayed mana.

This fungus is intrinsically harmless to humans and non-magical creatures and cannot infect them, but the spoiled mana it thrives on can cause mana poisoning and rapid death.

“Jeez.” Even after listening to the part where it said that the fungus couldn’t infect humans, I had the urge to scrub at my face and wash my hands. “You know, sometimes, I run across shit in Archemi that makes me wonder what the hell Ryuko was thinking. We’ve had three major pandemics this century, and that’s not even counting HEX. My grandma refused to leave the house without a facemask in her purse. Why the hell did the Devs put something like this in a videogame? Games are supposed to be fun, not traumatizing.”

“I dunno,” Karalti replied, swooping to avoid a waving curtain of fungal strands. “Maybe the Architects didn’t plan for it? I mean, they’re just people, right? Like Rin. Maybe they didn’t make it, and it just... happened?”

“I don’t know if that’s how videogames work, Tidbit.”The walls of the tunnel up ahead narrowed and became bumpier, and I frowned as my eyes snagged on an oddly familiar shape. As we got closer, I saw a long skeletal neck, gaping jaws, and short, stubby horns poking out through the layers of silk: a dragon’s skull and vertebrae, half meshed into the wall. Karalti shuddered beneath me - then yelped aloud. It was all the warning I got. She tipped sharply to the right, almost throwing me off the saddle.

“Oof!” I coughed, slamming down against her back. I clung to Karalti like a baby bat as she desperately winged forward and to the left.“What the-!?”

“Hold on!” The dragon’s voice was as close to a terrified shout as I’d ever heard it.

Oh boy, was I gonna. Then something moved in the corner of my eye.  I whipped my head around just as a long, fleshy stem burst out of the wall like a hookshot, exploding toward my dragon’s wings. The stem pulsed with blue light, swiping at the thin wing membranes before sagging back against the wall. Then there was another one, and another... and it was all I could do to hold on as Karalti dodged, pulling her wings in to drop down, roll, then surge forward as the trap came to life around us. One of the hooks skidded over her wing membrane, catching on the edge. Another shot at me, threatening to catch in my armor and pull me off her back. I kicked at the tough, spongy stems with a boot, breaking them off and sending the clawed ends tumbling away.

“Did it get me? I don’t want to get sick!” Karalti dived as the roof bulged in above us, then exploded in a cloud of spores. Without thinking, I held my breath and screwed my eyes closed, flattening down against her back.

“Whatever you do, don’t stop!” I frantically looked over to her wing, making certain she hadn’t taken any cuts from the hooks. “I’ve played The Last of Us! I know how this goes!”

Karalti belched an oily stream of flames as another cloud of spores ejected from the wall in front of us. They ignited in a puff of sparks, but there was another, and another. More darts shot out at us, skimming over and hooking on the scales of the dragon’s neck. She jerked as they hauled back with surprising strength, pulling out from the walls with long, trailing white roots that crawled with blue embers. I clambered over the bucking saddle, ripping the claws out and throwing them overboard.

The exit was in sight: a dark cave entrance feeding into what looked like a larger cavern. Dim blue light spilled out from it - light that got dimmer as the fungus began to throw sticky strands across the opening, sealing it off. Karalti had blasted four spore clouds - she had two breath weapon charges left, one of which she spent to incinerate the rapidly forming web that was trying to close off our escape. The fungus shriveled back from the heat, and we blew past as more darts sprang out and fell away, unable to catch on Karalti’s body from behind.

The cavern we flew into was lit by huge columns of bright blue crystal that hummed like exposed wires. They jutted from the ceiling and walls, practically forcing Karalti to finally go to ground. She landed heavily, wings sagging.

“Wow...” she panted. “That's... that’s a lot of mana.”

“This has got to be worth a fortune,” I whispered. The radiation from the crystals beat down on my armor like small suns, but the crystals weren’t damaged or liquified, so there was no Mana Poisoning alert. “How many tons of bluecrystal mana do you think this is?”

“I dunno.” Karalti looked back at me, startled. “You’re not thinking about taking any, are you?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “We could power Withering Rose with this.”

“This the tomb of my ancestress! My dragon’s horns flattened with irritation. “I’m not graverobbing my grandma, you ass.”

I winced. “Ah... yeah. Sorry. Didn't think.”

Karalti neatly flipped her wings so they rested properly against her flanks, and gave an irritable grunt. “I’m just about done with this place. How much further do we have to go?”

“No idea.” I focused my eyes on the other end of the chamber. Under the jutting forest of crystals was a dragon-sized crawlspace. It looked like someone had busted through the wall. There was rubble and broken crystals scattered around it, sunken into the dirt and covered in dust. Claw marks were gouged into the walls. The room beyond glowed brightly. “Given that Myszno was one great big dragon city, we might have to fly all the way to the Endlar at this rate.”

“Ugh. Don't say that. I remember Istvan saying there were ruins under the swamp or something.” Karalti flipped her wings along her sides and pushed herself to her feet. Her stamina was looking better - but her hunger meter was sitting at 10%, and her stomach rumbled audibly. “I don't like the smell coming from that next room. It smells... dead. And mushroomy.”

Between Karalti's description, the traceries of fungal strands reaching around the edges of the opening, and the bright glow lighting up the next room like a neon sign saying 'go here!', my Gamer's Intuition began to poke at me.

“Let's buff up,” I said, quietly. “I'll give you what food I have in my pack. It's not much, but it'll get you through whatever we probably have to kill in there. While you eat, let’s talk strategy. You’ve only got one burst of Ghost Fire left: assuming there’s a boss that is designed to challenge dragons and other flying creatures, how are we going to fight it?”

Karalti rubbed her face with her front claws, hissing low in her throat. “Uhh... I-”

“If you say ‘I dunno’, I’m gonna kick your ass,” I said. “That’s baby talk.”

She huffed in a way that told me she’d been about to say that exact thing.

“I can use Wings of Deception to make a double of myself,”she said, after a few minutes. “My copies deal the same physical damage as me. I can hit something with thirty-five percent more breath weapon damage that way... and then fight them physically.”

“Right. What about magic?” I scrounged around in my pack, evicting all the food I’d saved. Macarons, sandwiches, burek, random vegetables. I pulled out an entire cabbage I hadn’t remembered picking up and grimaced. I must have picked it up out of a pot somewhere. Mmm-mmm, delicious dungeon cabbage.

“Haste makes me faster,” Karalti said. “Dirge can curse enemies and make them blind and unable to speak, so if they’re a magic user, that helps.”

“Right.”

“Uhh... Dark Focus gives me triple power on my next magical attack. The only offensive spell I have is Shadow Wave. Maybe Circle of Protection?”

I bought the spell descriptions up in my HUD with a thought:

Shadow Wave

Rippling shadows disorient enemies and inflict moderate damage. Causes one or more of: Confusion, Blindness, Deafness, Rage, Nausea to living enemies.

Circle of Protection II

Create a 20ft radius of protection against undead for 5 minutes, warding them back from contact with the dragon’s body while dealing 1 Dark elemental damage per second (15 MP, 10-second cooldown).

“Pretty sure it will work with Shadow Wave. I’m not sure what ‘moderate damage’ means, but triple that will probably end up being ‘serious damage’,” I said. “I guess that was one of those beta testing descriptions that wasn’t fully updated before we... I... joined the game.”

“Yeah! So blast them with fire, then with Shadow Wave, then pow!” She balled her foreclaws into fists and swung them forward and up. “One, two, right in the kisser! Then bite them!”

“No biting, if it’s a fungus thing.” I walked out along her wing edge with arms full of food. “Here. Chow’s ready.”

My dragon craned her neck back, looking at me coyly. “Feed me?”

I arched an eyebrow, but I held out a pastry I’d looted from somewhere in Taltos. It was perfectly preserved, thanks to the magic of virtual reality logic. Karalti gently nipped it from my fingers, followed by all the rest of it. Meat, vegetables, assorted desserts. She ate the lot, filling her food bar by four percent.

“Better than nothing,” I sighed, as I handed her my last piece of jerky. “At least you won’t starve. But I might.”

GO TO CHAPTER SIX >>