Chapter 41: Investigation (2/2)

Varska leaned forward, expression blank.

“Are you quite sure?”

“We have found a charnel pit with ritual victims. There is no mistake.”

Varska slowly sat back down into her couch, eyes lost in deep thought in a way that Viv recognized. Varska was in full focus mode. She would not even answer questions. Then, a torrent of words erupted from her lips.

“Here for a long time so no recent immigrant, possibly low-profile, lives alone or with enough personal space to carry out their activity, close to the tree for added potency, unchanged over a period of… oh. OH! THAT MOTHER. FUCKING. BI—”

Viv’s danger sense shook her.

Danger sense: Beginner 5

The door to the lower level exploded inward and a thin clawed limb punched through it.

Everything happened very quickly.

Varska managed to raise a thin shield of brown and green. The attacking bone pierced through it and burrowed deeply into her left arm.

The Hallurian swung and cleanly severed the offending tentacle with Denerim charging right behind.

Marruk dove for Varska’s falling form, interposing her shield. She glanced back to check that Viv was ok.

Viv was last to act despite having used her heightened perception as soon as the noise of cracking wood had reached her ear. She waited for the fighters to engage and angled a purge left, under a couple more tentacles and into the body behind it.

It screeched and threw itself forward.

A solid mass of pinkish, muscular flesh without skin slammed into Marruk’s door which, against all odds, held. The Kark woman’s mace was now playing against her as the single strike she managed hardly had any effect. The two inquisitors were having much more success. Their blades bit deep into the creature and golden flames licked their edges, preventing them from closing at all. Great spurts of blood covered the expensive carpets.

Viv cast successive purge spells. They were barely penetrating the creature’s highly resilient flesh, but the wounds were not healing either.

The acolyte shrieked and burst through the nearest window, leaving a man-sized, circular hole behind like a looney toons character. The afterimage of a humanoid shape with tendrils coming out of its back remained seared in Viv’s retina. It had been simply too quick to see clearly.

The two inquisitors jumped after it at the same moment. No hesitation.

Viv returned her gaze to Varska, kneeling on the floor and applying a healing spell to her punctured shoulder. Marruk stood protectively above the mage. Viv saw that she was quite pale. Beads of sweat pearled on her paling brow.

“Are you alr—”

“What are you waiting for? GO AFTER IT!”

Viv took a few steps forward and looked down.

They were on the fifth floor.

Below, the two men had engaged the monster, which had grown to hippopotamic proportions but not quite elephantine proportions yet. A peasant woman laid in a pool of her own blood, the entire right side of her torso missing. A child was screaming.

“It’s a bit…”

Marruk grabbed Viv in a firefighter carry and jumped down.

“Ah, FU—”

“Keep it off the tree!” Varska’s voice came. It was frantic.

They landed on the plaza’s pavement with a grunt. Marruk dropped Viv and charged forward. The acolyte and the two inquisitors were caught in a deadly dance around the tree’s base. The acolyte was aiming for the tree, probably to do something drastic now that its cover was blown. The men fought it off, coordination and technique against random savagery. They were not winning, or at least, not fast enough.

Viv sprinted towards the creature while, in her mind, a strange split occurred.

One part was casting overcharged purge after purge on the monster’s pink’s skin. Grey scales started to form on its flank to mitigate her attacks and a tendril slashed her way, only to be deflected by Marruk’s fearless form.

Another part was shocked. The speed at which the combatants moved was like watching a kung-fu movie in fast forward. It was insane. Insane!

The last part was relief.

At least, it was not Varska.

She managed to get close enough.

“Werfer!”

The small, localized, and fast blight spell would not have hit if Orkan had not dug its hooked blade in one of the creature’s limbs to throw it off balance. The shadowy flames hit its shoulder with a terrible hiss. The creature recoiled in pain for the first time since the beginning of the fight. It also opened three eyes from under its armpit — tentacle pit? — and they zeroed on Viv.

The acolyte bounded away towards her, ignoring two devastating slashes on its flank. Viv noted in passing a limb going up and raking a low branch. Violet flowers faded and fell where it hit.

That was bad.

The creature dodged under another werfer and simply tanked an overcharged purge, swallowing back eyes under thick scales before they could be burnt. Marruk expertly blocked three strikes.

Then the creature’s chest split open like an exploding carcass, showing purple, veiny flesh and half-formed, football-sized human molars.

It screamed.

Viv yelled in pain and brought her hands to her ears, and so did the two inquisitors. Only Marruk stood steadfast. A few tentacles merged into a larger limb with impossible, horrific speed and slammed the brave defender aside. The creature jumped on Viv.

Mages often depended on gestures and rituals.

Instinctive casters like Viv did not.

“Werfer”

Hands still clutched on her ears, Viv allowed the wave of pure, destructive black mana to emerge from her core instead of her arms. The familiar, eager power overloaded her conduits in its enthusiasm to get out and do what it was designed to do. The spell caught the acolyte full on as it was already in the air and incapable of dodging. Viv felt a moment of triumph as she rolled to the side and let the smoldering horror show screech its way above her head.

She sprinted away and towards Marruk while looking back. The thing flayed with small tendrils which she blocked with a large, all directional nope shield. She felt exhilaration when a large chunk of corrupted flesh simply shed from the whole, reducing the creature to a more manageable size.

Marruk rushed back in and thwacked a tentacle away, the pair of inquisitors fanning around her. They renewed their attacks. Viv’s mind was getting tired though and her perception slowed down. It became difficult to follow the insanely quick combat. The combatants were barely more than blurry forms to her at this stage, striding across the plaza in a flurry of flesh and golden-tinged steel. A show as terrifying as it was awesome.

Viv shook her head and resolved to help however she could by throwing an overcharged purge when she thought she could land one. The inquisitors somehow gave her openings despite their lack of familiarity with her fighting style. Every time they left her a clear path, she flayed the creature’s flesh with thick threads of annihilation. Marruk repulsed any attempt at killing her from afar.

But the fighters were tiring. As they finished a full circle of the plaza and were back where they had started, the acolyte tore off and threw one of its arms in the path of one of Viv’s spells. It rushed between the pair and ignored the attacks on its back.

It was aiming straight for the tree.

Viv was no expert, but she guessed that a creature of corruption touching a defenseless symbol of purity was a bad thing. She raced after it with Marruk by her side.

“Help me stop it.”

“WHAT?”

Viv looked to the side. The Kark warrior’s eyes were bloodshot and she was bleeding from both ears.

“You’re deafened.”

“YES! I DEFEND!”

“Fuck.”

They were not going to make it in time.

Denerim screamed something and the symbol of Neriad appeared on the creature’s back. It slowed down the more it tried to flee. Orkan’s tattoos flashed red and he planted his hooked blade into the ground, through the thing’s temporary back leg. Once more, the creature shed flesh to escape.

Corded muscle stretched to the undefended trunk.

There was a thud, like a baseball bat hitting a face if both were the size of a bus.

Where the acolyte used to be, there was now a denuded root jutting up. Viv backpedaled and looked around, not quite understanding, until something smashed into a far wall.

The other three were already sprinting back. The acolyte’s diminished form was rebuilding bones at the base of Varska’s tower but the mage of Kazar had apparently had enough. Thorny brambles burst through the pavement to form manacles around it. For every one it tore off, three more encircled it. Viv did not dare cast to avoid destroying the binds, and she did not have to. A heavy arrow punched through the heavy plates forming on the monster’s surface. The projectile came from Koro, the Amazon member of the Temple Guard. Their leader Lorn joined the fray.

Their coming heralded the beginning of the end. The front of the tower soon turned into a veritable butcher shop of wrecked stone and slabs of bloody, pulsating flesh of various sizes. The acolyte had to discard gobbets of meat as soon as they were burned and purified. In the end, only a heavily deformed head filled with serrated teeth was left in the midst of an expanding pool of gore.