jollybane
patreon
72- I'm Growing Concerned
🕑 Added 2025-09-05 18:26:21 +0000 UTCVraxious—The Ravenous Grove
Vrax stared at the happy, wiggling Spriggan, who was pouring the last of the water on itself in surprise. “Damn, that last jolt really got you lively!” The Spriggan creaked at him in response, slowly handing back the watering skull. Vrax took it cautiously. “Buddy, I think I need to adapt you now before you get too strong for me to do it.”
Vrax took one of the little monster plant's clawed hands. In his own and began channeling [Adapt Life] Just a trickle at first, adding a slight swirl of emerald patterning to the edges of its pearlescent white bark—more a visual accent than anything else. The way his mana flowed felt natural, easy, almost like the Spriggan was aiding the change made to it with its own essence. Vrax paused in surprise for a moment, looking at the Spriggan; it seemed...happy…and somehow hungry.
[Mana 180/204]
The radiant pits it had for eyes slowly sealed closed as it leaned into the sunlight more directly contentedly. Vrax chuckled, gave it one last fond pat, and used his [Predator’s Gaze] on the spriggan to see how far it had really come. [Adapted Spriggan Sproutling Tier-1](lvl16)[Threat: Moderate]. Wait, how in the hells is its threat already moderate? I get the level up; it's been absorbing every bit of essence it can as it grows. If it killed something, it would grow even faster. But like...what can it do that the system already considers this thing as dangerous as a shrike guard? There is far too much I don’t know about this little guy and what it needs to grow right...hell, I could use some more info on Vurune as well.
Vrax walked out into the courtyard and gazed slightly southeast of the city, towards the grove of Vurune. If anywhere would have answers, it’s there...the question is, will that fucking Betrayed Spriggan kill me on sight? I mean, my armor matches his whole…everything…
Vrax walked back into the workshop up to the spriggan still happily resting its “eyes.” “So…wanna go on a field trip?” Vrax said, reaching out and adding the Spriggan to his stigmata garden, hoping that he wasn’t about to get himself killed. The Spriggan disappeared from his sight along with the armor it used as a pot and the fae body it was feeding from.
Vrax took a single step back towards the door before his armor summoned itself onto him in a creeping green flash. UHHHH…what the fuck. Vrax tried to dismiss his armor, and it flatly refused, staying wrapped around him protectively. He willed open the list that showed his stigmata garden contents.
[Stigmata Garden 11/12]
[Razor Retriever Hive]
[Razor Retriever Hive]
[Mangler Tree](Slots 2)
[Sunshine](Slots2)
[Spriggan Sproutling](Anchored)
[Cascading Dandelion]
[Cascading Dandelion]
[Acidic Lurker]
[Acidic Lurker]
Vrax summoned the spriggan back into his workshop in a bit of a panic; it plopped pot and all back where it was before at the cost of him melting half his walls. His armor faded back to just vambraces as soon as the Spriggan was no longer in his garden. Goddammit, my walls! Okay, that may have been an overreaction. I guess having to have my armor on for our field trip is fine...concerning as all hell but fine...
Vrax added the Spriggan back to his garden and began planning the trek to the grove. He was looking forward to it; he was taking a path through the city he had never seen before. It should take him out right alongside the river, and from there it would be a short straight shot into the eerie crystalline forest surrounding the grove.
Vrax paused before he left the safety of his grove. "Yeah, I should spend my essence."I have to have an ungodly amount after the whole paladin murder spree. Vrax sat at the base of the shrine to Vurune and leaned back onto his kingdom anchor and sank into his personal sanctuary.
Vrax wasted no time dashing between his frolicking creations straight around the overflowing lake to his [Core Statue]. If I'm going to continue down this path, I need to make damn sure I can withstand the horrors I'm going to have to overcome deeper into the forsaken lands.
Vrax gathered essence up behind him, channeling it into the bulwark he was building around his mind, wrapping layer after layer of additional defenses that would deflect the dark things' attempts to ruin his mind or, worse, manipulate it. Vrax kept going; he knew with his planned diplomacy he would be entering an entirely separate world of new risks. By the time he finished forging a metaphorical wall around his mind, he had spent easily a third of the lake behind him.
Improved Attributes
Mental Defenses: 2.2
Vrax moved on from his core and walked up to the crowning jewel of his skill set [Adapt life]. Sat before him a stark reminder of what he could now do. He could change the world; he could break it. Vrax laid a hand over his own sculpture's hand. “If I do this…..” He cut himself off mid-sentence; now wasn’t the time for self-doubt—he needed power. If this worked, the things he could make would be nearly limitless.
Vrax willed the essence behind himself into crashing, thrashing waves that constantly fought to be unleashed on anything nearby. He began pouring it into [Adapt Life] with a single goal in mind: the unholy melding of plants and monsters, taking the best parts of one beast and discarding the rest to add it to one of his creations. The waves crashed over Vrax over and over, increasing in tempo as they slammed through the sculpture endlessly. His sanctuary had gone silent other than the booms from the forcible crafting of his skill.
The lake ran dry, and Vrax breathed heavily, his hands shaking. A single line had been added to [Adapt Life].
[Adapted Entities may be Grafted together, this process destroys the lesser creature and is subject to all normal mana requirements.]
It had worked; it had also raised his level substantially, bringing him all the way to level thirty-five using the essence he had gained from the rather ridiculous bell tower fight. He opened [Adapt Life] to see where it was at level-wise.
[Adapt Life] (lvl 16)
Change living beings to better suit your needs. Entities changed with this skill will be less hostile towards the paladin, and towards those who wear an adapted mark of the cycle upon themselves. You may view and adapt the [Talents] and [Skills] of adapted entities. Faster changes or changes farther from the base functions of an entity will use exponentially more mana. The more powerful an entity, the more mana required. All adapted entities can be called back to you the willingness of them to return hinges on distance and if they are occupied. Adapted Entities may be grafted together, this process destroys the lesser creature and is subject to all normal mana requirements.
Ha! Guess I just have to kill a whole bunch of paladins to power level… Vrax’s attempt at gallows humor just made him flinch internally; he knew that was more of a probability than any kind of joke at this point. He was about to leave his sanctuary when he saw Duchess in the distance doing something odd. She was dragging something around near the borders of his sanctuary.
Vrax jogged over to see what kind of weirdness was happening in his soul this time. Duchess had a limbless torso that was covered in bite marks that did not match her own maw. That while weird in his sanctuary, it wasn’t what made Vrax stop short. The torso was wearing the very memorable remnants of a pure white robe with golden trim stained red and green with blood.
“Duchess…where did you…?” Vrax paused for a moment. I'm being fucking ridiculous; this place is nothing more than a representation of my soul. Nothing in here is real, well, except me. Vrax looked past Duchess at the shadowy figures prowling like always just beyond the opaque walls that separated his sanctuary from. Well, he didn’t know what.
Duchess looked at him quizzically for a moment before slither-crawling right up to the border of his sanctuary, the shadowed things on the other side of the wall noticeably scattered as she approached. “Ha! Even the imaginary monsters are scared of…” Vrax trailed off as the eldritch symbols along Duchess hummed with power and unfathomable energy. She reached out, pushing on the boundary until she ripped through it in a trail of grey mist and lunged forward after one of the shadowy figures that was racing away from his sanctuary.
Vrax stared in open-mouthed horror at the tear in his soul; it led into sheer blackness that somehow still showed flashes of movement as Duchess tore something to the ground ahead. Vrax sprinted right up to the tear, trying to peer through. It sealed itself shut like a wound before he could lay a hand on the opening. “What THE FUCK!” Vrax shouted at the barrier after Duchess in a shrill tone.
Vrax just stared ahead through the wall, watching Duchess’s silhouette chase after dark shapes for a few minutes before letting out a deep, bone-weary sigh. “Alright, I officially need to figure out what the hell is going on. This went from odd to “Is something going to eat my soul?” Without waiting for something else existentially concerning to happen, Vrax left his sanctuary and came back to his real body at the Kingdom Anchor.
He wanted to try and use it to improve his defenses some, but every time he had checked, the amount of essence it contained was still minuscule. The kingdom had expanded a few blocks towards Hopes End after the battle against the paladins, which was nice, but it hadn’t budged an inch deeper into the forsaken lands yet, unsurprisingly. Vrax was sure he would have to clear out some very scary shit farther into the city before his borders would expand in that direction.
He quit stalling and gathered provisions for a trip to the grove. He looked around the courtyard as his creations flitted about. “Okay, guys, you are in charge! Don't eat the Vein Mesh symbiote wherever the hell he went.”
A shrill voice answered from just above Vrax’s workshop, “I’m right here, you monster, hiding from the damned daisies! I don’t think this bracelet is working; they still look at me like I’m lunch!”
Vrax chuckled. “That just means they like you, but for real, don’t worry; they look at everyone like that!”
A pair of eyes peeked over the lip of the second floor, peering down at him incredulously. “I’ll just stay here until something with flesh and blood that isn’t from the depths of hell wanders in, thank you. I’m sure they will understand the value I offer!”
Vrax rolled his eyes and started off towards the grove.
Torvald Glenn—The Forsaken Lands
Torvald grumbled to himself; he was standing right on the edge of the willow curtain that led into the forest. “Come on, Bearsbane, you can do this; you promised your buddy you would meet him in his new kingdom. You made it out; you can make it back!” Torvald cautiously began shuffling into the shade of the trees, noticeably twitching at every bird call and animal shuffling nearby.
Torvald trudged as straight forward as he could manage; he had a plan. The plan was really simple: just don’t fucking touch anything. Without Vrax here to guide him, he really didn’t know what was deadly or not, so it was best to assume that yes, in fact, anything he saw was here to turn him inside out.
Torvald journeyed forward, trying his damndest to channel his stealthy side as he jumped over fallen logs and skipped across brooks. He paused after an hour; so far he had been chased half a league by an entire field of red wildflowers he had accidentally stepped into. They had all popped up out of the ground like demented crabs with razor arms and a flower on their backs. He had squished about four of them before he realized the entire field was pulling itself up to swarm him and promptly decided not to die so ingloriously less than an hour into the forsaken lands.
After that he had been ambushed by a glimmer. The thing was fast as hell, but one good solid thwack of his hammer had ended it the second he finally got eyes on the stabby little trickster. Immediately after that, as in less than one hundred strides away, a tree had exploded. Torvald didn’t know how else to put it; one moment he was looking at a weird fat apple tree, the next it detonated in a shower of sharp wooden shards and fruit pieces. He still had no clue why.
Torvald took a few deep breaths to calm himself. This was ridiculous; he knew for a fact he and Vrax had made it four times farther than this in the same amount of time with zero issues last time. Torvald took a big pull off his canteen and continued on, stopping when he ran into yet another inexplicable addition to the terrain.
A straight line of the forest was just gone; plants, trees, and everything floral were reduced to a slightly shiny blue sludge that looked oddly like honey. Torvald shrugged and went to leap over the line of devastation in his path when he saw a shambling figure lumbering towards him. Torvald stopped, a big smile crossing his face; even from this far away, he could recognize the silhouette of a bear, a big one. “Another foe to grow my legend with! Wait…does that thing have a fucking tree on its back?” Torvalds's enthusiasm tapered back into concern as a very odd bear swung directly towards him, its squinty blue eyes locking with his.
Comments
Demolition D
😶ohh poor Torvald.. also im worried and excited that he is gonna Bond with the Symbiot. Ohh and Dutchess for the win! Bring random scraps of food/dead paladins and makes into his soul space yet still wanting to terrories demonic entities that try to haunt Vax
Austin Gibbs
I feel that we are shooting for a bromace but heading for a deeply toxic rival situation who is, the biggest damage sponge?! Find out next time on TRG.
Ben A
Bear
