The Tale of One-Tree, Chapter XII, Part III - The Depths of Yokté
Using the time the gatormen’s ability to swim swiftly had bought them, the adventurers surrounded the southernmost hatch leading down into the sunken Orgoth facility, and stood weapons drawn and raised in tense anticipation. Samira also cast a new watcher spell so her warbeasts might the more quickly respond to the assault that surely was immiment, and Roza once again called on the gifts of the Devourer, this time choosing to channel the strength to drive her enemies before her. However, the moments passed one after another, and nothing emerged from the dark waters. The bokor-chieftain William squinted suspiciously at the three rectangular pools, trying to discern any movement underneath the surface, but the waters remained eerily still, and so he contented himself with merely casting guiding spells on himself and Roza, renewing them every few moments, while also sustaining the fate-twisting magic he had placed on Odrys earlier, though William’s fingers did grip the staff Corpse-Eater tightly in growing frustration.
Then the tension was finally broken when the hooded form of an excruciator wielding one of the strange Orgoth spears silently rose from the ground next to the hatch to the north of the adventurers, effortlessly passing though solid earth in the manner of these foul undead. Once it had fully emerged, the masked spectre leveled its spear at the adventurers in challenge, but held its ground.
Bellowing an challenge of his own, the gatorman warrior Odrys, relishing the prospect of battle, immediately responded and rushed the undead, though covering the distance did mean he had to expend his strength on running rather than bringing the full force of his jaws, axe and spiked shield to bear in a devastating charge. But the warrior’s prowess was still more than sufficient, and after his jaws had ripped half of the undead away, a strike with the axe Manyfangs ended it for good.
To the adventurer’s misfortune, however, the emergence of the excruciator turned out to have been a ruse to split the adventurers’ forces apart, and groups of dreads now began clambering out of the water, where they must have been waiting just out of sight in the darkness. Three came up behind Odrys, their bladed limbs hacking at the gatorman’s back and wounding him severely, though they failed to fell him. Three more dreads emerged from the hatch next to adventurers, who had been momentarily distracted by Odrys’s charge, and went for the warpwolf Bacarl, William, and Samira. The dread engaging Bacarl had barely managed to reach him by the time Samira’s guarding spell was unleashed, allowing the warpwolf to pre-empt the undead’s attack with a swift bite that nearly tore the dread in half before it could answer with a strike of its own. The dread that came for William took swings at the less-than-agile bokor-chieftain, but failed to penetrate his thick hide with its enchanted limb blades, while the one that had gone for Samira was too much slowed down by having had to come up the submerged stairs to accomplish anything but getting the blackclad-warlock within reach of its arms.
More dreads came up the hatch to the east of the adventurers’ main forces, and though they lumbered as swiftly towards Roza as they could, they could not quite reach her, though their presence at least served to prevent the shaman-bloodweaver from supporting her blackclad-warlock, as she would then have to leave the adventurers’ flank undefended.
And all the while these dreads were keeping the adventurers busy, two more spear-wielding excruciators had been rising up from the ground, one behind them and one secure behind the dreads on the adventurers’ eastern flank, and both of them immediately began to hurl black-runed spells into the fray. The first spell struck Samira’s woldwyrd, badly cracking the construct’s stonework, then another mystic bolt flew at Terys, making the Iosan give off an eery howl as he convulsed that was somehow more just wrong than an expression of torment. The third excruciator flung its magic at Samira, similarly sending the warlock into convulsions even as she managed to at least partially dodge the full force of the blast and passed off the rest of the damage, though not the pain, to Bacarl. Samira’s woldwyrd failed to strike true with an answering blast from its lambent eye, but seemed to have at least thrown off the excruciator’s aim, as the next spell it flicked at Samira’s back missed.
Odrys wheeled, furious at himself for having fallen for the Orgoth ruse and having recklessly abandoned his friends, and vented his rage by closing his jaws on one of the three dreads who were now preventing him from running back to his chieftain’s side. The axe Manyfangs seemed to gain a life of its own as it rose and fell and rose and fell on its own accord in the warrior’s hand, smashing the dread to the ground, whereupon Odrys pulverised its head with the edge of his spiked shield before snapping his jaws at the next dread.
William, in the meantime, renewed the guiding spells on himself and Roza, and both snapped and struck at the dread facing him, though he failed to tear its iron-infused flesh. However, the bokor-chieftain also realised that one of the two excruciators who had risen from the ground behind him was within reach of his magic, and as fortune had it he could even get it into view without taking his eyes off the dread. Dredging the depths of his potential, William flung a boneshaker spell at the excruciator who had cast its torturous magic at Terys, but did not yet accomplish more than making the spectre reel.
On the adventurers’ eastern flank, Roza now stalked forward to engage the three dreads coming for her, the strikes of her enchanted blades making the central undead stagger backwards. The shaman swiftly pursued, drawing power both from her blood as well as her soul to strengthen her blows, and after her first strike had already sliced off half the dread’s head, her second one felled it altogether thanks to the combined might of the deathly runes she had inscribed on her blade. And with the momentum of her powerful strikes having carried Roza right into the middle of the dreads, the excruciator who had been hiding behind them was now open to her magic. Drawing on the very core of her power, Roza threw her life-devouring magic at the thing, though the initial damage to its animating force was merely superficial, as the excruciator was able to dodge the brunt of the attack.
The soulless Iosan Terys, still wracked with pain, could barely expend sufficient breath to gasp insightful directions to William and Samira to aid them in the fight, and hung back for the time being, well aware that the dreads were foes he was not well equipped to handle. Samira, who was suffering just as much as the Iosan, was still able to direct her woldwyrd to fire its eye ray at the excruciator before it, but could only score a glancing blow as the spectre twisted out of the way in time. Fortunately, Bacarl proved more effective, as under his warlock’s direction he bit the head of the dread before him clean off even as his body was growing bony spikes to ward off further blows. Rushing up behind the dreads engaging William and Samira, the warpwolf then proceeded to lay into the back of the dread before Samira, but even as Bacarl picked the thing up in his jaws, bit down, and spat it out onto the mossy ground, only to pick it up again in his claws before flinging it back into the mud, the dread never stopped twitching until Samira infused her limbs with the power drawn from her beasts and hacked the dread to pieces in a frenzy of blows with her voulge.
William, in the meantime, was still proving impervious to the dread’s strikes, as they kept bouncing off his thick hide. The dreads attacking Odrys and Roza fared little better, their blades failing to bite through the gatorman warrior’s hide, or failing to find the Tharn shaman-bloodweaver altogether.
The spear-wielding excruciators at this point also deigned to enter the fray, but not only did the first fail to stick Samira with its sinisterly whispering spear, but the second, despite using its unparalleled ability to move over and through terrain, also failed to sink its spear into Bacarl despite a determined charge, and similarly could not strike the warpwolf with another of its foul spells.
The tide of battle was now clearly beginning to turn in the adventurers’ favour despite the Orgoth having second-guessed the ambush, as Odrys scissored another dread into pieces with two snaps of his jaws before beginning his vengeful work on the last dread facing him, though the undead miraculously remained standing after being struck both by the axe Manyfangs and the warrior’s spiked shield.
William renewed his guiding magic on himself and Terys, but still missed the dread sandwiched between himself and Bacarl with both his jaws and the staff Corpse-Eater. Frustrated but undaunted, the bokor-chieftain then flung another bone shaker spell at the excruciator who had just tried to strike Samira, and even as his spell finally crushed what passed for life from the thing, its disintegrating remains staggered towards the dread still on William’s flank, propelled by the bokor’s will, and the tip of the Orgoth spear it wielded struck true into the dread’s pallid flash before the spectre’s remains collapsed onto the ground.
Roza, finding herself with dreads on either side, now drew fresh strength from her blood, and opened a deep cut in the flesh of one of the undead before sinking her finisher blade into its torso, ending its cursed existence. She also managed to fling another life-draining spell at the excruciator who had rushed past her to attempt to strike Bacarl, but could do little damage, while Terys rushed into position in the centre of the adventurers’ lines, still holding back from the fight but quickly reeling off insightful stratagems to aid the adventurers in their struggles.
Samira then drew the raw power that had been building in her warbeasts back into herself before expending some to seal over the cracks in the woldwyrd’s stonework and sending her killing intent to Bacarl, who happily ripped and tore at the dread between himself and William. After Bacarl’s second strike, the metal-infused undead suddenly collapsed like a puppet that had had its strings cut, and it took William only a heartbeat to realise that that dread had been stuck with the Orgoth spear just moments ago – apparently these foul spears had a similar ability to weaken those they struck against impending destruction to what the staff Corpse-Eater granted.
With the Orgoth lines now facing total collapse, Samira next sent her woldwyrd at the excruciator that was trying to stick Bacarl with its spear, but inflicted only a glancing hit with its eye ray even at close range. Then Samira herself joined the fight and flung a force bolt at the excruciator that scattered its mask, spear, and ragged robes over the ground at her feet.
Now only two dreads remained. Bereft of further guidance they kept mindlessly attacking their last targets, and the one that Odrys was still facing managed to open a nasty wound on the gatorman’s flank, while Roza received an even worse cut that made her grunt and clutch at her arm in pain. Still, the shaman-bloodweaver not only still lived, but had managed to hold the adventurers’ eastern flank all on her own for the entirety of the battle.
And then the fight was over in just a few more moments when a raging Odrys first bit off the head of the last dread that was still keeping him from rejoining his friends and then hurled himself at the dread that had just cut Roza with a furious burst of speed. A swing of the axe Manyfangs sent the undead onto the muddy ground, where Odrys gleefully proceeded to cave in its head with the edge of his shield. And that, was that.
Silence once more enshrouded the swamp as the adventurers allowed themselves to sink to the ground, breathing heavily from the exertion of the second battle that day. Odrys quickly went around to bandage the wounded, taking a particularly careful look at Terys, who was, after all, intended as the recipient for the spirit-fireflies still trapped in the Orgoth dungeon below. Thankfully, the Iosan wasn’t as badly wounded as had first appeared, and William waved the Tharn Juta over to them again from where she had been hiding among the trees, even as Samira was circulating the power of Orboros through Bacarl, the woldwyrd, and herself, to mend both bone and stone.
William then went on to collect the Orgoth spears the excruciators had wielded, careful to touch them as little as possible while he wound them with rope and set them aside. Then Odrys and the bokor-chieftain picked up their flasks of bottled light again and made ready for another dive into the submerged Orgoth dungeon, with Terys standing ready at the edge of the hatch and their friends holding on to the ropes that would guide the gatormen on their way back.
As before, the gatormen were able to descend swiftly with powerful flicks of their tails, and as the stairs opened up into the central chamber, there was no more movement except for the fireflies incongruously dancing in the dark waters filling the filigree cage at the chamber’s core. Though unable to speak, both William and Odrys also noted that they could hear the fireflies’ buzzing even under water, and without any of the curious quality that sounds took on when you were fully submerged. Then Odrys waved at William to return to the surface, and waited for him to disappear upwards before gripping the cage’s mesh with his hands and prising it open.
Perhaps even a warrior as mighty as Odrys was a little tired after a day’s excavation and fighting, and it took him longer than expected to wrench the metal apart. Still, the fireflies finally came pouring through the widening gash in a furious cloud, and as before began to pinch and sting the gatorman’s flesh, their touch inflicting sharp pain despite Odrys’s armoured scales.
Quickly, Odrys began his retreat, and moments later was helped by his friends hauling at the rope when William broke the surface to tell them to make ready. Bacarl, Samira and Roza pulled with all their might, propelling Odrys and the cloud of fireflies enveloping him to the surface in a ball of blazing balefire, and then William stalked over to Terys and slashed at the Iosan’s arm with his ritual knife.
As the Iosan’s blood began to flow, the mass of fireflies at once rose from Odrys and transformed into a funnel cloud of swirling wings and glowing bodies, its pointed tip hungrily seizing upon the gash in Terys’s arm and channelling the entirety of the cloud into his flesh in a torrent of light. So swiftly did the blazing cloud disappear into the Iosan that the adventurers were still blinking away its afterimages several moments later, even as Terys slumped to the ground, his black-on-black eyes wide open and his mouth agape in a frozen expression of utter astonishment.
The adventurers, too, were seized by a sense of vertigo, and the world seemed to suddenly press in upon them, the stench of the swamp, the slightest stirrings of air, and the very shifting of the muddy ground under the soles of their feet now overpoweringly acute. The sensation passed after a few heartbeats, though this was more from them gaining familiarity with the sudden sharpening of their senses rather than any actual diminishment. At the same time, William, Roza and Samira felt a strange lessening of some indefinable disturbance that had been surrounding the Iosan, or perhaps it was not that he was now less, but more.
William quickly examined Terys, who was still laying motionless on the ground, and found he was breathing, though he also noted that, in contrast to the others who had joined themselves to the spirit-fireflies, the Iosan’s eyes were still the same bottomless wells of black (But perhaps, William reasoned, the Iosan’s eyes simply were too different to show the joining in the same manner as with them).
Gently shaking Terys by the shoulder now, the adventurers asked him whether he was all right, and he finally blinked before stammering that the world was suddenly everywhere, and that he saw all of their eyes glow. Terys then amended that it was not actually that the world was everywhere, but that it did not feel right any more, before seeming to realise that it was what he understood as feeling that was wrong, with everything now infused with meaning that had previously escaped him, like the swamp’s stench suddenly registering as disgusting rather than just a smell. Terys’s voice, too, had lost its previous toneless quality, as he now began to recollect how he had only been able to understand disgust as a rule that he had been taught by those raising him, and others like him, and that he had also seen – but not understood – a different quality of disgust in the faces of the Iosans taking care of him when he had been a child. Last but not least, Terys punctuated his rambling by pointing in the direction of One-Tree, clearly now feeling drawn to the village just as surely as the others, and asked what was over there.
Home is what’s over there, Samira told him.
Can we go there now, Terys asked.
Yes, Samira said, and smiled.