Grand Game 474: Underlings First (Patreon)

Updated 19-06-2024

I was watching Leafbright’s face as I released the casting and so, didn’t fail to observe her reaction.

An entire host of emotions ran riot across the elf’s face. First confusion. Then shock. And finally fear. Stunned into inaction, she watched helplessly as the surrounding vegetation came alive—but not under her direction.

The vines grew. 

Wriggling free of their fellows, individual stalks pushed further into the chamber, transforming the rugs of green covering the walls, roof, and floor into a deadly pincushion that extended not just upward, but downward, and even sideways. 

A resounding cheer rose in the air. 

It was the Riders—celebrating. 

Most of them, it seemed, had not caught onto the fact that it was an enemy and not Leafbright who was transforming the already thick strands of vines into juggernauts of destruction. Some, though, were watching their Game alerts more closely.

“JASIAH?” Malikor bellowed, his voice echoing loudly across the chamber. “WHO IN DAMNATION IS JASIAH?”

“The rogue Power, the one who…” Leafbright whispered. 

I didn’t manage to catch the rest of what she said, but I’d heard enough to know she’d stopped chanting. Satisfied that the blight druid had been neutralized—somewhat, anyway—I resumed my advance on Zultan. 

The vines shivered.

I smiled, but didn’t bother to look, knowing already what it portended: the pollen seeds were being released. And this time, there was no safe area. I’d not designated one. The only escape from the pollen’s deadly touch was through the room’s exits.

It occurred to me to wonder then how Leafbright had intended to use nature unchained. The spell did not distinguish between friend and foe, and if the druid had released it in the manner I had, just as many Riders would’ve died. 

Maybe she planned on designating a safe spot around Malikor, one large enough to fit all the Riders. I shrugged aside the question. It didn’t matter now. The spell was out of Leafbright’s reach.

“Move people,” Tyelin shouted, his voice smaller and shriller than the paladin’s but carrying across the chamber just the same. “Take your positions! Guard the doors.”

All around the storeroom, the Blades disengaged with satisfying promptness and, like a gathering swarm of insects, raced for the exits.

“Stop them!” a Rider captain shouted.

But most of the Riders failed to heed his call. Instead of responding, they stared in bewildered fascination at the glowing mist of pollen who’s not-so-tender mercies they were being subjected to—for the first time ever, perhaps. 

Ignoring both sets of combatants, I fixed my gaze on Zultan. Although he looked as perplexed as Leafbright, he’d not stopped chanting. I would have to deal with him quickly.

“Ghost, you’re following all this?” I asked as I completed my final preparations.

“I am.”

“Good, then unmanifest. When the time’s right, you can re-materialize in the room.” 

While both Ghost and I would feel the effects of nature unchained, I had my void defenses to protect me. The pyre wolf’s draining bite would help her offset some of the damage from the spell, but her death magic skill was still new and couldn’t be depended on entirely.

“On it, Prime,” she replied.

Another Tyelin exploded—and again, it was Zultan’s doing. Smirking in satisfaction, the orc began spellcasting anew.

My lips thinned unhappily. I couldn’t delay further. Leaving Ghost to her task, I released the casting I held ready.

You have cast mass puppet.

Expanding outwards, strands of my will reached into the minds of Zultan’s guard. Six of them lacked any mental defenses or mage shields, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation. Their mounts were similarly exposed as well. 

Like a few of the other patrols, the orc’s squad had brought along their companions. The creatures would be constrained within the limited space on offer in the storeroom, more so now after the vines’ recent growth. But that concerned me little. I didn’t need the hellbats to move far.

You have charmed 12 of 12 targets for 30 seconds. 

All twelve of my designated targets fell victim to my spell. Better yet, my control over my minions was more nuanced than it had ever been before. Though my will overrode their own just as firmly, they retained enough of their minds to interpret complex commands.

“Attack,” I ordered. “Take down Zultan first and fight as a group.”

A pollen seed touched me.

A blight pollen has devoured 0.008% of your health (life magic damage reduced by 20% due to void armor).

A carnivorous vine has leeched a fraction of your life force.

Ignoring the damage, I watched my new minions. The bespelled hellbats had clamped their jaws around the closest of their surprised fellows. Disappointingly, puppetting the creatures seemed to have made no difference.

The players, on the other hand, were acting just as I hoped. 

The bewitched fighters had formed a defensive line. Retreating behind it, the three archers fired shaft after shaft at their former squad leader—and from nearly point-blank range, too.

Not unexpectedly, their attacks did not get through the elite’s shield. Still, the magic bubble encasing him dimmed noticeably. 

Which, in turn, forced a response from Zultan.

“Fools!” the orc spat, breaking off from his spellcasting to berate the bespelled Riders. “How weak-willed are you idiots to fall prey to the Blades’ trickery?”

“I don’t think this is the Blades’ doing,” a mage objected, backing away from a tussling hellbat duo. “This spell is stronger than I’ve witnessed any of them cast.” He licked his lips. “It must be that Power, the one who tripped—” 

“The rogue Power?” Zultan scoffed. “That one has long since fled.”

“But—” 

The orc cut him off again. “If a Power was here, don’t you think he would have taken a hand in the battle before this? No, this is the Blades’ work. Nothing more.”

Unlike the rest of the squad, Zultan appeared completely at ease, unaffected by both the turmoil in his own guard and the happenings in the wider battle.

Another salvo of arrows thudded in the elite’s shield, causing it to dim further.

Zultan’s eyes narrowed. “Can you wrench back control, Arie?”

“I’ve tried,” the mage so addressed replied. “But the spellcaster’s grip is too firm. I can’t—”

“So be it,” the orc said. Lowering his staff, he pointed it at the fighters. Spelled energy gathered at the end.

The fighters responded immediately, charging forward.

My brows rose in surprise, impressed by their initiative—even if it availed them little. 

The first fighter staggered and fell, his legs burned out from under him by the flames fanning out from Zultan’s staff. The other two managed to evade the attack, but the rest of the squad were pitching in too now. My minions would not survive long.

Still, they had done better than I’d expected, and the moment had come to launch my own assault.

Drawing psi, I launched myself forward.

You have cast windborne.

Ghost has unmanifested.

✵ ✵ ✵

You have cast whirlwind and piercing strike.

Invisible and borne up by a ramp of air, I closed the distance between me and my target at an astonishing rate. Despite this I was ready when I reached my target and struck without pause. 

First with ebonheart—

You have backstabbed your target for 10x more damage! 

Your target’s spell has blocked your attack.

—then with faithful.

You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage! 

Your target’s spell has blocked your attack.

Then, I did it again and again. 

And again.

Each of my attacks was three times faster than usual, flawlessly executed, and courtesy of the windslide bearing me round and round, launched from a different direction. What’s more, I remained hidden the entire time.

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you! 

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you!

… 

It took Zultan an entire second to realize he was under attack. Another to turn in my direction. Then yet another to realize the foe battering at his shield was invisible.

By then, his defenses were already in tatters.

Somersaulting off the windslide, I launched my final attack from above.

You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage! 

You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage! 

Your target’s shield has been destroyed!

I landed lightly on my feet in front of the shocked orc. His eyes were wide with fear and even though I was close enough to reach out and touch his nose, he still failed to spot me. 

“What— Who…?”

Not troubling to respond, I buried ebonheart deep in his chest.

You have killed Zultan with a fatal blow.

You and Ghost have reached level 225!

You have slain a Sworn servant of Mammon! 

You have passed a mental resistance check! Multiple hostile entities have failed to pierce your disguise. 

Congratulations, Michael! You have successfully avoided Mammon’s attention despite killing one of his Sworn servants.

Blood bubbled out of the orc’s throat as he fell lifelessly to the floor. It was an ignominious end for the powerful caster, but I had little further time to spare him. Withdrawing my blade, I spun away and took stock of the battle.

The skirmish between my minions and the rest of the squad had not abated, but they, too, were of little consequence now, and I cast my gaze further afield.

The greater part of the Blade and Rider forces were congregated around the north and east exits—the Riders trying to get out, and the Blades holding them at bay. I nodded approvingly.  The Blades were performing the task I’d set them admirably.

“Good job with Zultan,” Tyelin congratulated.

 I glanced at the center of the room. Tyelin, Haiken, and Bern were still battling Malikor. The two Blade elites were not faring so well, though. None of Haiken’s copies remained and Bern was swaying listlessly. The pollen had claimed a heavy toll from both, I realized. 

Malikor, though, was unaffected. None of the seeds seemed able to penetrate the heat haze surrounding the paladin. Each was burned away to nothing before it could land on his armored form. 

As for Tyelin…

My eyes narrowed. He’d lost his copies too, but the seeds were passing through the envoy as if he wasn’t there. 

Some sort of phasing ability? I wondered.

“Deal with Leafbright next,” he added when I didn’t respond to his initial remark.

My gaze flickered to the opposite side of the room. Leafbright had not moved since entering the chamber and in the interim had acquired an entourage of unshielded Riders. 

Pollen fell on them as much as it did on everyone else in the room—barring the two envoys, of course, who, each in his own way, was proving immune. But despite this, Leafbright and the contingent of players around her were all at full health.

She’s healing them, I thought, watching the constant pulses of soothing energy expanding outward from the druid.

I turned back to Tyelin. “Will you be able to defeat Malikor on your own?”

“No,” he stated bluntly. “But I will be able to keep him occupied long enough for you to deal with Leafbright—if you hurry.”

I nodded. “Then, I better get to it.”  Directing my attention inward, I addressed Ghost, “Time for you to join the fight. Take out the druid’s guards. I’ll handle the elite myself.”

✵ ✵ ✵

Bern has died.

Void armor charge remaining: 80%. Void thief triggered. 

Void negate activated! You are now immune to nature unchained. Stolen spell, slime tentacles, lost. 

Void siphon failed to activate. Mana cannot be siphoned from a self-cast spell.

Your familiar has cast explosive manifest. She has 50% mana remaining. 

Ghost emerged in the center of the tightly packed ranks of Riders, flinging some aloft, injuring others, but killing none. The pyre wolf was just getting started, though.

Bounding off the body of a downed fighter, she snapped the neck of a nearby lancer, gouged the chest of another, then plowed into a mage. 

Her sudden appearance sent many of the Riders scattering, consequentially putting them temporarily out of range of Leafbright’s aura. Focusing on the largest such group, I released my next spell.

You have cast slaysight. 

You have paralyzed 8 of 10 targets for 60 seconds. 

My gaze darted to Leafbright. The elite had not stopped channeling her healing spell. Nonetheless, she was watching my familiar with hawklike intensity. 

“Ghost?” I prompted.

“I got this,” she replied.

I didn’t ask if she was sure. There were no sureties in this fight, and I’d done what I could to assist her with the druid’s escorts. Now it was time for me to focus on my own objective: Leafbright.

Gathering psi, I shadow blinked.

✵ ✵ ✵

You have teleported into Leafbright’s shadow.

I emerged from the aether behind the elf, and with both my blades raised and poised to strike. Amazingly, no magic bubble encased Leafbright. She’d left herself unshielded. I did not for a second believe that meant the druid was unprotected, though.

Ebonheart flew down.

But before the black sword could make contact, a whipcord thin growth shot out from the ground and wrapped tightly around its bladed-end.

Leafbright has trigger-cast earthen defenses.

Your attack has been blocked.

In the midst of my attacking maneuver, I started in surprise. 

The living rope looked for all the world like one of the vines I’d subverted—a thin, shriveled version, granted, but a vine nonetheless—and I wondered just how in hells Leafbright had regained control of it. Then, too, there was the question of how the vine had seen ebonheart. The black blade was as invisible as the rest of me. 

I wasn’t about to let the mysteries halt my assault though, and I brought faithful sweeping down from the left.

But I had scarce set the sword in motion before a second ‘vine’ shot out from the ground and wrapped around the blade, stopping the blow in the same manner the first had. 

Your attack has been blocked.

Damnation, I cursed. Straining my arms, I attempted to force either of my blows to completion. To no avail. The vines gripped my blades too firmly. But they were not vines, I realized a heartbeat later. They were roots. Dark, brown roots that looked entirely too alive and aware.

The roots yanked.

My eyes widened in grim understanding. 

Tightening my grip on the hilts of my blades, I resisted their pull. But the roots were stronger, and a moment later, both my swords were unceremoniously wrenched out of my hands.

You have lost faithful. Recall disabled.

You have lost ebonheart. Note, the hostile spell targeting you has temporarily overcome the soulbound properties of this blade. Ebonheart will return to your possession once the spell has dissipated.

I stared down at my empty palms, momentarily dumbstruck. I’d been disarmed and, in a manner, most unexpected. What am I—

“Prime, watch out!”