Keron
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Chapter 71 - The Curse's Influence
🕑 Added 2024-04-29 17:00:03 +0000 UTCA few hours later, Emily gets up early to join Enzo and Dante for the end of their watch, helping them deal with the slowly increasing number of beast attacks as the sun rises. She stands up, pulling her battered Claw free from a razor-fanged wolf’s head as she looks at the corpses surrounding her.
Are they coming from deeper in to attack us? I don’t remember running into any razor-fangs on the way in.
She moves between the corpses, severing heads to take back to camp for harvesting. Dante closes the distance from where he’s been flinging spells and starts helping her, using a knife from his belt.
“There’s going to be a lot of fights today, isn’t there?” Dante asks as they gather the decapitated heads in their arms and start walking towards the barrier.
“Yeah, we’re gonna have our work cut out for us.”
“Good!” Dante grins and starts humming a happy tune.
“Psycho!” Emily chuckles, rolling her eyes at him but unable to hold back her own grin.
I guess I’m no better. I’d rather fight the whole way back than have a boring trek.
They cross the lip of the crater and are hit by a wall of sound as they enter the barrier. The sound of movement, loud conversations, and laughter mix with the patter of rain, drowning out the sickening squelch of knives on flesh coming from Cian and Callum. Emily and Dante approach the brothers, dropping their bounty into the boys’ to-harvest pile.
“Thanks,” Cian chirps at them, holding out a bundle of meat tied together with string to Emily. “We prepared some fresh meat for you!”
“Thanks,” Emily says with a small smile as she takes the food.
Cian visibly blushes as she does and, as they walk away, Dante turns to her with a teasing grin.
“Looks like you have an admirer.”
Emily says nothing, fixing him with a deadpan stare until he can’t hold back his laughter. They approach Enzo and Ivor, sitting on the bank of the crater and sit down with them. Emily separates the meat and hands half to Dante before casting burning hands and cooking two portions for herself and Ivor.
They eat their breakfast quickly as the rest of the group breaks camp, finishing at the same time as the sound barrier falls. They leave their seats and join the group to continue their journey back.
They spend two days fighting their way out of the rainforest, felling hundreds of attacking beasts. Their third day becomes oddly peaceful halfway through the night, and they don’t encounter any creatures until, at midday, they face an onslaught of different beasts attacking at once.
Emily does her best to wipe them out quickly, but is hampered by the trees providing cover to her enemies. Then, after one too many mistakes, Oscar dies to a mudscrap, attacking from below, before Emily can end the fight. She resets, returning to the second day, and mindlessly relives the trek until night falls. As she’s sitting on watch, staring out into the darkness, waiting for the last attack of the day, she starts questioning the horde.
Why did so many come at once? I thought the Mensacus was just making them more aggressive, not coordinated like the groglers.
She reaches down and touches the pouch holding the cursed tooth without a thought, and is surprised as she feels a frigid chill emanating from it. She opens the pouch and pulls the small black iron lump out.
It’s stronger than when I initially sealed it.
She frowns and turns the metallic mass in her hands, spotting a few microscopic holes leaking dark black miasma.
Is the curse eating through the metal? I need to check.
She gets up from her watch point and moves back into the camp. Finding one of the spatial bags, she opens it up and reaches around inside for another black iron claw. Closing her hand around her prize, she closes the bag and puts it back before returning to the edge of the camp.
Taking the black iron claw between her hands, Emily casts burning hands and slowly forms the claw into another seal before placing it down on the floor in front of her. She takes out the sealed tooth again, and checks her stats while holding it.
Thought so, it’s back to reducing my intelligence by two.
She casts burning hands and slowly traces the edge of the melted seal, revealing the Mensacus to the world again. Built up black and red malevolent mana pours out of the metal the moment a large hole is made, and Emily pulls the tooth free.
¯¯¯¯¯
Mental attack spell detected!
Resisting…
-5 hp
Resisting...
Mental attack successfully resisted!
_____
She grits her teeth at the strength of corruption that hits her in a wave, but other than a slight aching in her cortex, it soon fades. Looking into the opened seal, the tooth still looks and feels the same, but the metal housing it is uneven, as if eaten from the inside.
It’s been corroding the seal. This corrupted mana is really strong to be able to destroy mana resistant metal like that.
Instead of feeling discouraged, this result only fuels Emily’s desire to analyse the tooth closer.
I wonder what would happen if I exposed a normal mage to that corrupted mana...
Pushing aside her dangerous thoughts for now, Emily places the Mensacus into the new container and seals it with burning hands. She drops the sealed tooth and the half eaten metal into the same pouch for later, and looks up to see four figures creeping towards her through the fog.
She rises and walks forward to meet them, casting flying lightning and feeling the familiar weight form around her arm as she does. With clean, practised motions, pulling on the influence of her dancing skill more than she’d like to admit, Emily gracefully winds the weapon around the four unsuspecting fog cats, stunning them before pulling the wire taught and slicing them to pieces.
Turning away from the bloody mess, she returns to her position at the edge of the camp, waiting for the morning to come.
***
The next morning they once again encounter no beast attacks but, as they push through the shrubbery, cutting away at bushes and low hanging branches, a low rumbling starts in the distance.
“What’s that?” Dante asks, glancing between Emily and Ivor.
I guess the Mensacus has already spread its influence. Maybe I should try resealing it sooner. If I reset now I still can... But this fight was fun and we should be able to get through it without casualties if we just prepare a little.
“Sounds like a lot of beasts,” Emily says with a grin, her decision made as she turns to face Oscar behind her. “Let’s back up to the clearing we saw ten minutes ago.”
“Okay,” he agrees easily, trusting Emily’s judgement and turning to instruct the rest of the group. “Turn back and make for the clearing we just passed!”
Everyone follows without complaint, having come to respect Emily enough not to question her judgement. They quickly retrace their steps, moving away from the faint cries of angry beasts pursuing them. The rumbling grows louder, as their enemies gain ground despite their quick decision to retreat. By the time they reach the clearing, Emily’s able to clearly make out hurried footsteps in the distance.
“Set up for horde defence!” she calls over the noise. “Use individual barriers, if there are pop frogs we don’t want to lose our only defences.”
We don’t need to repeat that mistake.
The barrier mages all voice their acknowledgement before starting their chants.
“Enzo, focus on blocking mudscraps. Ivor, help him! Carriers, throw me any grenades left in your bags then ditch them and prepare to help.”
Emily ignores everyone else preparing around her after giving out instructions, keeping her focus on the forest before her as she feels several unprimed grenades flying towards her from behind. With a few quick tendrils of machina, she grabs the explosives and pulls them to her bandolier where she clips them in place.
I should sell people weapons then use them myself more often.
She activates infra-sight and watches the forest ahead for approaching foes.
Unfortunately, I can’t dump machina into the ones I sold Oscar or he’ll realise I never made better grenades for myself. This will take a little more finesse.
She takes one grenade in her hand as she waits, pouring a trickle of machina into it and stopping just before it starts crackling with electricity. A few seconds later, silence falls over the group as they finish their preparations, several magic circles floating in the air around them, awaiting activation. Everyone listens with bated breath to the rapid footsteps and violent snarls growing closer.
Emily spots several flickering orange forms approaching between the trees, both on the floor and in the canopy above.
“They’re here! In the trees and on the ground!” she calls out before throwing her prepared grenade towards the biggest cluster of movement.
Without hesitation, she tears another grenade from her bandolier, before the first has even detonated, and charges it with a bit of machina before sending it out as well. Her teammates spot the enemies and start unleashing their spells, bursts of colour filling the forest as explosions and pained screeches sound out deeper into the trees.
Emily fast runs out of grenades and drops infra-sight to start charging up two bolts at once, pointing them at different angles to clear the forest before her. A razor-fanged wolf leaps from the bushes towards her throat as her spells finish, and she waits till its jaws are a few centimetres from her before releasing both her spells at once, watching two beams of plasma rip through the wolf, along with the trees and beasts behind it, with glee.
A thin, formless armour of wind forms around Emily as the crackling after effects of her spells fade. She turns her head, sporting a manic grin, and nods her thanks to Oscar while weaving together hand signs to summon flying lightning, dodging a rock projectile slung at her, and preparing another bolt with her second core. The treeline bursts with motion as rabid beasts surround them, bounding forwards through the shrubbery to attack.
Emily slashes flying lightning across the first attackers to step into the open, firing bolts past them to fry the forces building up behind them. Her armour deflects several shards of rock raining from above and, having now created a small pile of bodies that will slow down the ground beasts’ advance, she casts infra-sight and starts flicking flying lightning into the rocky howlers above.
While she’s focused on slashing and puncturing every flicker of heat above, an ocelax springs over her temporary blockade, aiming for her throat. Before it can connect, it’s smashed to the side by a heavy rock from Ivor. Emily ignores it, having felt Ivor’s attack coming in advance, and finishes driving a hole through the chest of the last howler in front of her. As the monkey falls to the ground dead, joining its comrades, she hears a loud screech high above.
They’re here!
“I’ll deal with the sky, cover me!” she yells, looking up to see a small group of large, black birds, that she recognises as sominal bombers, circling them while holding pop frogs between their talons.
Trusting Ivor, Dante, and Oscar to cover the front, Emily reaches for her thigh, pulling her revolver out of its holster and raising it to the sky. Charging the gun with machina, she lines up a shot and squeezes the trigger. A bullet tears through the air, punching clean through a frog and the bird above. She adjusts her aim, taking another shot, but the birds notice their comrade’s death and react poorly. They panic and start flying erratically. Two drop their payloads at the edge of the group, and Emily’s shot misses its mark, ripping through a pop frog’s leg, missing the bird still clutching it tight.
“Look out above!” she yells as the frogs fall.
Luckily, the spark of machina in her bullet jolts the injured frog awake, temporarily breaking it free from the sedative being secreted from its carrier’s talons. On instinct, the moment the frog regains some control, it registers danger and detonates. The explosion rips its captor to pieces and shreds the wings of the surrounding bombers, sending them all tumbling to the ground on top of the group.
Shit!
Multiple explosions go off around the group. Emily avoids the worst of it, but as she holsters her gun and glances at her group, her heart drops. Ivor is lying on the floor without a barrier, clutching his scorched and bleeding left leg. Mia is beside him, sitting up on the floor looking disoriented and confused, but otherwise unharmed, and a few metres from them is Fionn, lying unconscious, bleeding from the head. Blocking the advancing beasts nearby are Callum and Cian, slashing away with swords but slowly becoming overwhelmed.
“Damn it, they just had to hit the healer!” Emily growls in frustration. “Take over the front for a sec.”
Receiving a grunt of acknowledgement from Dante, she leaves the front line and makes a break for their injured companions. Whipping flying lighting at a few mudscraps closing in on Callum and sending a bolt through the beasts near Cian, Emily reaches for her belt and pulls off two vials of healing potion. She tosses one to Mia as she passes.
“Give Ivor this!”
Her words seem to jolt Mia out of her confusion, as she catches the vial and frantically nods, scrambling over to the fallen mage. Emily keeps going, dropping into a slide as she reaches Fionn and comes to a stop next to him. She grabs his head, opening his mouth quickly and dumping the potion in. The small split running down the back of his head leaks blood onto her hands, but she sees it starting to close over quickly under the influence of the potion.
For good measure, she pulls out her last potion and pours it down his throat as well before laying his head down and standing up. Fionn’s eyes flutter open as Emily splits an approaching razor-fang in half with a violent whip of flying lightning, taking some of the burden from the Gavin brothers. Noticing he’s awake, Emily turns to return to the front.
“Heal yourself and Ivor,” she calls over her shoulder to Fionn, receiving a silent thumbs up as he instantly starts chanting.
After returning to the front, Emily continues cleaving through and scorching the approaching beasts, dealing with at least sixty per cent of their numbers herself as the battle slowly winds down. The outpouring of beasts from the trees reduces until only a few injured strays remain, only to be quickly ripped apart by metal or magic.
With the fight over, everyone collapses in exhaustion. Dante falls to the ground on his back beside Emily, so she sits down next to him, an ecstatic grin fixed on her face as she rides high on the thrill of battle. Dante looks up at her and chuckles. Emily notices his matching expression and laughs before bumping his raised fist.
“Those were some great explosions,” she says as their fists part.
“Thanks, but I can’t hold a candle to you. I never even thought to drop pop frogs on my own teammates!”
“Didn’t think to? Or didn’t have the ability to try.”
“Ah! You got me!”
They both break out in laughter, enjoying themselves, unconcerned by the pools of blood and corpses surrounding them.
