JaceVAmor
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Chapter 179: Mushroom Mystic
🕑 Added 2024-01-03 16:11:00 +0000 UTCAn ethereal battle axe slashed through the dank cave air as Coop wielded his newest weapon against the horde of mushroom monsters. Swirling trails of turbulence twisted in the soup of dust, mist, and darkness, chasing the double-sided two-hander as another Elite Sporeguard was cleaved in half by the gleaming edge. As the monster’s life escaped from the severed stem, its torso collapsed with a wheeze, still grasping with pointed claws as it fell. Coop allowed the momentum from his backswing to draw his body away from the explosion of spores that burst from the monster’s interior. The wind that chased his broad swing pushed the cloud of spores deeper into the crowd of enemies as they surged and he engaged another.
Strangely, despite the increased density of spores in the air, the voices in his head had gradually diminished as the fight developed. Coop believed that the tiny motes had been carrying the whispers, infecting any intruders to the cave system with the mushroom’s madness. It was similar to the disorientation effect of Fog of War. Where his domain was within the mists, the fungal caves were a domain of spores.
The voices had been trying to discourage and confuse him throughout his journey from cave to cave, but it seemed like the reverse had become reality once the battle had consumed Coop’s spirit. He imagined the forms that carried the voices sulking as Coop fought and thrashed in their trap. They still left him with the occasional cryptic threat, but for the most part, they were silent, as if they were the ones that ended up discouraged in the face of Coop’s insistent progress.
Rather than continued mental manipulation, the primary enemy appeared to alter its focus to concentrate on deceiving Coop’s senses in the moment. The cloud of moths kept him encircled, swooping into his flanks or scattering above his head, obscuring his sight and drawing his attention away from other threats. There were constant feints combined with real attacks being launched from behind the moths.
The mushroom boss was manipulating its roots to assault him from different angles whenever he seemed distracted by the rest of its minions. The roots would stab at him like lances from the darkness beyond the swirling white swarm, forcing him to either abandon his position with an emergency dodge or stand his ground and block with the head of his battle axe. The ethereal weapon was up for the task, catching the oversized mycelial threads with clangs that caused a muffled echo throughout the cavern. Coop was also fast enough to step aside, letting the spikes miss his limbs by inches thanks to the combination of his excessive Agility and Presence of Mind empowering his battle sense.
The problem was that the root spikes weren’t always real. The hallucinations drained Coop’s focus, bombarding him with threats that required just as much of a response as the real assaults since he didn’t have an effective way to determine if they were fake before countering. In the split second the quick attacks required him to react, he couldn’t decipher between what was real and what wasn’t. Even with Presence of Mind empowered by his Fog of War, he was never confident as to whether or not he was hallucinating the specific characteristics of the mushroom spears that he detected.
It didn’t matter. Coop simply gritted his teeth and engaged with everything, real or fake. When he chopped through the real thing it was all the more satisfying. Blasting through a hallucination was practice, giving his Haunted title a chance to perfect his two-handed axe technique with every strike.
Ultimately, an extended and chaotic skirmish was playing to his strengths. Over the course of the fight, he was getting stronger, rather than being worn down. Coop shook his head as he swung his axe like he was creating a cyclone, claiming the lives of even more Elite Sporeguards with every shift in direction. It must have been frustrating to fight a Revenant. The carefully laid traps ended up being chewed up by his steady advance.
When the ground rumbled, he ignored it, maintaining his balance with his strong core while eviscerating the mushrooms. He wouldn’t be fooled into abandoning his position by the same trick twice. In fact, he took the shaking room as a sign that he was right where he should be, in a spot that the mushroom didn’t want him to occupy.
Coop’s phantasmal barbarians were only able to defeat two or three of the surrounding creatures before succumbing to the afflictions they accumulated, but the same wasn’t true for Coop himself. Even though he had resisted thousands of the fungal infections, he still collected hundreds of afflictions, yet none of them slowed him down to any recognizable degree. He kicked part of a mushroom corpse away before shifting his attention to the next target. The cloud of moths followed.
Contrary to the typical characteristics of monsters as expressed by the Primal Constructs, the Sporeguards didn’t disintegrate into mists upon their defeat. They also didn’t behave in the same manner as human remains when killed. Instead, when the fungal creatures were overcome by Coop or his phantasms, they collapsed into a heap of what Coop was affectionately calling mushroom meat. Their interiors were filled with the same gray spores that lit up the dark caves and coated every surface until being disturbed by the flapping wings of the small white moths that called the caves home. The motes were expelled from space between interior hyphae while the rest of the Sporeguard deteriorated until a pile of inert gray dust was all that remained.
The battle raged on long enough for Coop to find himself dashing through a layer of dust with muted footsteps, leaving a trail where he had been, and kicking up poofs as he planted his feet to strike at his foes. Coop was one of those people who had never seen snow, but he imagined the Sporeguards had given the cavern a light dusting of gray that was visually similar to the real thing. If it wasn’t for the violence, the dim gray illumination of floating specks falling into the powdery gray blanket with fluttering moths dancing through the limited light might have been beautiful. The presence of the mutated mushroom minions destroyed the image of dark serenity.
Coop whirled his axe in a wide horizontal swing that chopped through two Elite Sporeguards that were reaching at his back with moist claws that almost seemed fuzzy with the spores stuck to their surfaces. Both of their torsos gave way to the axe, letting their top halves fall backwards and causing their mushroom cap heads to roll in the dusty floor. Coop planted his left foot and forced himself to rapidly change directions with a grunt, dodging a root lance that jabbed from above, piercing the stone ground before it pulled itself back through the ever present moth cloud. It retreated too quickly for Coop to chop it, so he split another Sporeguard in two as consolation.
He cast Legacy of the Mists at his back, letting an unseen phantasmal barbarian assault another pair of Sporeguards that had encroached on Coop’s presumed blind spot. The phantasm flew out of the mists above Coop’s head, already leaping at his target in a manner eerily similar to Tzultacaj’s opening attack on Coop and he realized where the subconscious inspiration for his new weapon had come from. Maybe he’d ask for some tips from the warrior when he was done with the mushrooms.
As he decapitated another Sporeguard, he considered how his new friends would have fared if they were in the situation that he found himself in. It was probably lucky they hadn’t made it this deep into the cave system. He didn’t like their chances against such a highly leveled foe. If they had a way to neutralize the mental attacks and a suitable method to isolate individual enemy minions they could probably do some damage, but he wasn’t sure if the fungal boss would have allowed them such a luxury. It was clear that Tzultacaj was empowered beyond simple levels with his connection to the class-defining unique axe he carried, effectively multiplying his combat power in a similar way to Coop’s passives. Likewise, Juliana and Felix combined their individual traits while maintaining the flexibility of an in-sync duo when they fought either as one or as a pair. Still, just over 300 elite levels was a lot to overcome. Coop could only stay comfortable at such a level disadvantage because accumulating stats had been the entire basis of his class, for them, it might just have been a bonus to their specific builds.
He was frustrated by the thought of the Mystic dictating the fight with Tzultacaj, Juliana, and Felix. He was frustrated because he realized the exact same thing was happening to himself, despite his perceived power. Coop may have been resisting the ambush in his typical fashion, grinding his way through whatever was thrown at him, but ultimately he was playing the mushroom’s game. Why should he allow his foe to dictate the fight?
He wanted to change the pace of the fight and take control away from his opponent. After defeating another Sporeguard and claiming an open space in the crowd, Coop stomped his foot onto the ground. He didn’t hold back, putting all of his Strength into the action. A wave of gray dust blasted away from him, curling as the wave broke on the Sporeguards around him. He stomped again, cracking the rock the same way the imaginary earthquakes had. Three more phantasms joined him in the arena he had cleared, and he let them engage with the encroaching Elite Sporeguards while he reframed the fight.
Coop stood in the center of the growing gap in mushroom coverage and slammed his battle axe straight into the ground. The symmetrical crater that had formed with his foot sent tiny fissures outwards, extending cracks down into the earth. Small rocks fell from the ceiling, threatening a real collapse, but Coop didn’t hesitate from repeating the action until he exposed the leathery skin of the main mushroom.
[Fairy’s Inkcap (Level 317)]
[Enthralling Mystic (Mind)]
[Hallucinogenic (Bound)]
“Did you think I’d forget about you?” Coop wondered with his axe held above his head, preparing a decisive strike onto the exposed leathery skin.
Before he could bring it down, the ground shifted beneath his feet. There was nothing manipulating his senses this time, and despite flexing his core and bending his knees, he struggled to maintain his balance. At the very least, he was forced to abandon his attack to brace himself and retreat from the small clearing he made.
Coop jumped away, striding with long steps and staying low to the ground. He zigged and zagged between the stumbling Sporeguards, leading with the ball on the handle of his axe, and liberally applying it to clear his path, saving his wide swings for larger clumps of enemies that blocked his way. He smashed his way through Elite Sporeguards, until he reached the edge of the crowd and aligned all of his enemies to a single angle. The shaking slowed to a stop as Coop cleared the battlefield.
When he turned, the main boss had finally made its appearance. Looming above the crowd of Elite Sporeguards, the Enthralling Mystic’s gargantuan presence filled the cave all the way to the ceiling like a gray shadow standing over a tabletop wargame. Coop had concluded that the Enthralling Mystic was a class that avoided direct confrontation, keeping itself away from physical threats with the series of mental manipulations, afflictions, and minions. That didn’t prevent it from having a formidable presence.
The room was hazy with floating spores. Scattered moths reflected the dim illumination on their flapping white wings, but whatever was guiding them had been lost. They escaped to the edges of the cavern while the Sporeguards assumed a tactical formation in front of the gigantic mystic, lining up in an orderly phalanx that made them seem of one mind.
There was nothing humanoid about the boss itself. Three gray leathery caps, like massive drooping umbrellas, stood one after the other. Rather than standing on a thin stem, each rested upon a thick trunk that hardly branched. Together, the trunks formed a main barrel shaped body that rippled and bulged with veiny striations. Beneath the base were wide legs that connected in patternless sets. One group had three legs, another had one, and in total there were 17 bracing against the broken stone floor. It was like a fungal colony imitating the warped idea of an animal.
Coop frowned. “What a nightmare.” He mumbled to himself, feeling disgusted by the sight of the enormous mutant.
The Fairy’s Inkcap was massive, extraordinarily leveled, surrounded by loyal minions, and in its own selected territory. It held every advantage, but Coop had always expected to be challenged sooner than later. Rather than feel intimidated, he was primarily curious how the creature would match up with the weight of his stats.
The monstrous mushroom bellowed a low deep challenge that shook the gills beneath its caps and vibrated the air in the room. Coop charged forward in response, shouting a nonsensical retort with his battle axe trailing behind, already prepared for a low-to-high sweeping strike from beneath a larger target.
The sound of a dozen different orifices roaring the same note made his skin crawl, but he didn’t waver in his rush forward. The layer of dust spores that covered the floor was scattered by the rumbling clamor, elevating into the air and rolling forward and back in jerking motions as they were caught in waves of sound like smoke in front of massive bass speakers.
Coop broke through the suspended sheets of dust, leaping across the rubble covered floor and casting Legacy of the Mists five times to break through the Elite Sporeguard honor guards that had taken a protective stance in front of the main mushroom. The phantasmal barbarians dove into the fray, breaking the defensive formation with reckless abandon, seeming uncoordinated in comparison, but making up for it with brutal viciousness. Coop rushed in from the back, skipping over water-filled gaps until he drew close enough to attack. He swept his battle axe from behind, low and on his right, carving a gouge in the ground as he raised the blade all the way across his body and over his left shoulder. The blade crashed into the meat of the Enthralling Mystic and ripped the leathery skin on the edge of its underbelly.
A gaping wound formed in the body of the mushroom boss, torn by Coop’s attack. The monster reeled backwards, bracing a dozen trunk-like feet against the unexpectedly powerful strike. Coop kept moving, following the momentum of his weapon, anticipating an explosion of spores to escape the larger mushroom’s body. He let himself spin, sliding on the rock floor and building momentum to chop one of the leg clusters out from underneath the mutant fungus.
As his axe cleaved through the series of forward legs the central mushroom cap rippled as it released a dense cloud of spores down toward Coop, dropping them like a sudden rain shower, coating its own body and screening itself from sight.
After hewing the legs, Coop leapt backwards and drifted away, pummeling the Elite Sporeguards between himself and the perimeter, rather than stay within the sea of spores.
Ropey mycelium entangled themselves among the exposed hyphae beneath the torn skin, retaining the body’s rigidity and not letting the wound extend any further beneath the bulk of the monster. A handful of the spikes flailed in the air in front of the wound as if fending off invisible enemies. Coop had carved a creepy mouth into the monster, but it had stabilized itself immediately. The same roots that had been launching surprise attacks on him throughout the battle demonstrated an impressive amount of dexterity.
Once the positions were reset, Coop swapped to his spear and launched it at the center mass of the boss. Rather than absorb the missile, like Coop anticipated, the mushroom dropped its entire body onto the floor of the cave, releasing more boulders from the ceiling and sending a tidal wave of dust outwards. The pressure wave redirected his spear into the rubble that the mushroom had climbed from, preventing any damage at all.
Coop pressed his lips together, blew air out of his nose, and squinted as he prepared to be saturated by the deluge of spores. However, before the wave reached his position at the edge of the cave, the mushroom abruptly stood up, drawing the spores back toward itself as it reversed the pressure. To Coop’s surprise, a large group of the Elite Sporeguards disintegrated, collapsing into heaps of dust, and joined the returning spore wave as it swamped the boss.
For a moment, the looming mushroom was fully engulfed by its own spores. When gravity brought the curtain of dust back down, the mushroom’s wound was healed. The mycelia that covered the leathery skin were swollen and red as if they were agitated. Coop resummoned his axe, twisting the handle in his hands as he came up with a plan.
He was satisfied that he was making progress even if the monster could stabilize itself and rejuvenate. All he needed to do was overwhelm its capacity to heal, and it seemed like it had limited resources to do so, judging by its sacrifice of minions and dust. Coop’s mana pool was in good shape, so he could freely summon more phantasms without risking his Mind over Matter buffer. His health was full, completely replenished by defeating Sporeguards, so he wasn’t under any health pressure despite the debuffs, and Fog of War lingered in the cavern, though it had retracted from the rest of the cave system. Other than an absurd number of minor afflictions, he was basically at his maximum fighting capacity.
Coop charged forward again, leaping across the opened chasms, brandishing his resummoned axe and conjuring phantasms as he went. There were noticeably less spores in the air. The mushroom boss was employing parts of itself to maintain control of the caves, but it had already been forced to abandon its expansive territory in order to concentrate on Coop. The Elite Sporeguards were also manifestations of itself, meaning every threat in all of the caves had all been from this one opponent. He thought it was nice that the mushroom was consolidating itself rather than scattering. The fight could be concluded right there.
Coop weaved past a series of mushroom lances as they tried to prevent him from closing in on the main body, easily spotted without the cloud of moths masking their appearance. He dodged and countered the telegraphed attacks until he was nearing the flank of the boss, draining his mana with another dozen casts of Legacy of the Mists, establishing a squad of spectral phantasms. This time, he dropped the phantasmal barbarians around the massive mushroom, letting them frenzy on the main opponent with vicious strikes. The Elite Sporeguards abandoned their defensive formation to retreat backwards and engage the phantasms, letting Coop pick his shot.
The ethereal battle axe carved another gouge in the rock on Coop’s right flank, lighting up the dark cavern with sparks as he drew the heavy weapon up and to his left. The mushroom boss tried to shift away as it was riddled with ghostly attacks, but its stumpy legs lacked the Agility to match Coop’s speed. It sent out streamers of mycelial forming a net that was ripped by the curved edge of the axe before its leathery skin was torn asunder.
Coop let his torso follow the battle axe to his left, releasing his right hand as he dismissed the axe. He spun all the way around, revealing the heaviest spear he had ever summoned, already cocked back over his right shoulder. Releasing the missile, he aimed for the opening he had created with his axe. The unstable spear was swallowed by the mushroom’s body.
The boss exploded. Ethereal shards blasted through the mushroom’s body, shredding its insides and escaping into the cavern before dissipating into mists. Coop stumbled further away, surprised by the increased potency of his own abilities. Chunks of mushroom meat shot across the cavern and he covered his head with his hands, protecting himself as he retreated from the splattering bits of meat that scattered throughout the chamber. It was like blowing up a pumpkin with a bomb.
When he uncovered his head, the cave had darkened even further. Other than a handful of white moths finding their places hidden among the tiny green mushrooms at the edges of the cavern, only Coop still moved. The mushroom boss was a mountain of disintegrating mushroom meat, drying into lifeless gray dust.
Comments
DuskDeadman
But is it dead is the question? It's not over till you get the EXP
Amadhe
Glad to see Coop was finally able to let himself go, he was all *Cooped* up being unable to grind!
