Grand Game 308: The Swarm of One (Patreon)

You have cast necrotic spike.

The final spike materialized beneath the serpent and, just like I intended, triggered immediately.

Necrotic spike activated! A swarm viper has sustained nether damage.

The serpent flashed into sight once more, this time with a shard of darkness piercing its slender body. I smiled tightly. So far so good. Hands on my blades, I waited patiently. The next move was my foe’s.

Quicker than I expected the serpent calmed, and I guessed its initial frenzied motion had been spurred by surprise rather than pain. Now though, the predator was back in control. Rearing up, it searched the darkness impassively.

A hostile entity has failed to detect you!

My smile broadened. My stealth was holding. The viper allowed me scant time for further celebration, though. Dropping back down, it slithered across the rocky floor. Whether by happenstance or not, it headed in my direction.

Necrotic spike activated!

Necrotic spike activated!

Necrotic spike activated!

Necrotic spike activated!

Four more ebony needles materialized from the ground to skewer the serpent anew. Its forked tongue flickering out, the viper hissed in pain at each new piercing, but that was the sum total of its reaction. Despite the shards decorating its torso, the creature did not abort its advance.

A hostile entity has failed to detect you!

My eyes narrowed. The viper had already covered a quarter of the distance to me and showed no sign of slowing. I couldn’t afford to delay further. Releasing the casting I held ready, I drove my will into its mind.

You have cast slaysight.

A swarm viper has passed a mental resistance check! You have failed to induce your target to sleep.

My smile turned grim. The failure was not unexpected, but disappointing, nonetheless. Spinning psi, I tried again.

You have failed to induce your target to sleep.

God damnit! I swore. The distance between me and my foe had reduced to ten yards and soon my stealth would fail. There was no time for a third attempt, I realized. Wrapping my fingers around the remote in my pocket, I pressed down on it.

You have activated a trap.

A jagged bar of lightning burst into existence in front of me and shot down the tunnel to strike the onrushing serpent dead center.

A lightning bolt has grazed a swarm viper.

Your target has passed a magical resistance check! You have failed to stun a swarm viper.

Damn, damn and damn. One failure, I’d anticipated. Two, I’d planned for. But three… that left me with no other choice but to flee. Time to go. Drawing in psi, I focused on the waiting form of Ghost.

A hostile entity has detected you! You are no longer hidden.

The shadows cloaking me fled, baring me to the viper’s sight. My alarm growing, I kept casting. Almost there. Just a—

The serpent flowed upwards, and its head darted forward. Knowing the horror it was about to unleash, I threw myself against the closest wall.

You have evaded a swarm viper’s venom spit. Your spellcasting has been interrupted!

Green spittle blistered the air, passing scant inches from my face. I’d dodged the lethal projectile, but in the process, I also lost control of my teleport spell. Worse yet, the viper hadn’t paused to study the results of its attack. Rushing forward, it closed the remaining distance between us.

I drew my blades and tried to set my stance, but there was barely room to maneuver. Fighting blade-to-fang was the last thing I wanted to do, but my foe was leaving me no choice.

Two yards away from me the viper went airborne. It snaked through the air, jaws open and fangs ready to bury themselves in my exposed face.

Reflexively, I slashed down with ebonheart.

But even as I did, I knew the blow to be useless. No matter how physically vulnerable the viper appeared, it was sure to have some hidden defense mechanism.

The blow landed.

And to my surprise, cut through—slicing away scales and flesh without hindrance.

You have dealt a swarm viper a fatal blow!

I gaped in disbelief as the two halves of the viper’s bisected body landed on the ground with soft thuds.

I’d done it. I’d killed a tier five monster.

And it had been ridiculously easy too.

The laughter bubbling inside me escaped, and I chuckled involuntarily. To think that after all the planning and preparation, it had taken only a single strike of ebonheart to—

“Prime? Are you alright?”

“More than alright, Ghost,” I murmured. Sheathing my blades, I stepped gingerly over the still-twitching corpse. “Our foe is dead,” I said, then, with immense satisfaction, added, “I killed it.”

Ghost’s mind tasted confused. “Are you sure?”

“I am.” Her confusion was understandable. I was also more than a little puzzled by the encounter myself. It had been easy, true—I glanced over my shoulder at the corpse—but there was no mistaking the evidence. The viper was dead.

Still, something about the skirmish didn’t feel right. It had been too easy, after all. I hesitated, then asked, “You have some reason to believe otherwise?”

Ghost shifted uncertainly. “Uhm, it’s only… The thing’s mind, it hasn’t vanished. I can still feel it.”

My eyes narrowed. What Ghost sensed was impossible. A mind did not survive its body’s death. But I didn’t doubt her. So, what was going on? Turning about, I crouched down to examine the viper’s corpse anew.

My blade had caught the serpent mid-torso, severing it neatly in two. Each half was about two feet in length and continued to twitch. Blood and other fluids leaked out of the exposed ends, creating a rapidly expanding pool. I edged backwards, not wanting to let the stuff soak into my boots. There was no telling what toxins it contained. Wait…

Mid-motion, I paused. My subconscious was screaming at me. Something I’d observed about the remains was off. Squeezing my eyes shut, I replayed what I’d seen in my mind’s eye.

A heartbeat later, my eyes snapped open.

I had it. I knew what was wrong.

In life, the viper had only been a yard long, if that. So, why is each of its severed halves two feet in length? My gaze jerked downward, seeking confirmation.

Each piece was not two feet in length. Not anymore. They were two and a half feet now. The damn things were growing!

Unease gathering in the pit of my stomach, I retreated warily. Whatever was happening to the corpse, it did not bode well.

A swarm viper’s deathwish ability has been triggered!

✵ ✵ ✵

In the wake of the Game’s message, any temptation I felt about hanging about vanished. Spinning psi, I hastened my flight and retreated into the shadows.

You have teleported 48 yards to Ghost. You are hidden.

“Oh my,” the spirit wolf exclaimed excitedly when I emerged from the aether beside her. “Do you see that? Its mind is changing!”

I nodded grimly. “I think it’s reviving itself.”

As maddeningly vague as the Game message was, I was sure now that whatever was happening to the swarm viper, it was not in fact dead. In hindsight, I realized that should have been obvious to me earlier.

The Game had not awarded me any experience after the encounter, nor had the Adjudicator pronounced the swarm viper dead. Both were important ‘tells’ that I’d missed. Thankfully, the lesson had not been as costly as it could have.

“What do we do now?” Ghost asked.

“We wait,” I answered, my own gaze fixed on the far end of the tunnel where the two halves of the serpent’s body were still twitching—and growing. “And watch.”

As far back as I was, there was little chance of the reviving serpent spotting me and before I resumed our skirmish, I needed to better understand what was going on.

It did not take long for the spell wreathing the swarm viper’s corpse to finish, and when it was done, I saw that I’d guessed wrong.

The viper had not revived itself.

It had done something altogether different—and infinitely worse.

Deathwish spell completed. A swarm viper has cloned itself.

Aghast, I stared at the two very-much alive vipers slithering languidly through the blood pooling around their progenitor. Two, I thought. I have two foes now in place of one.

Both creatures appeared identical to their predecessor. But were they? Surely, that couldn’t be so. They had to be magical constructs with a timed lifespan. Otherwise… Otherwise, I was in a lot more trouble than I’d originally imagined.

Ignoring the impulse to cut and run, I reached out with my will and analyzed the distant creatures.

The target is a level 191 swarm viper.

The target is a level 191 swarm viper.

Swarm vipers are amongst the most intriguing monsters in the Forever Kingdom. While they possess a host of other menacing traits and abilities, it is for their unique deathwish ability that the serpents are feared.

A deathwish ability is triggered in the instant between a creature being dealt fatal damage and the spirit fleeing the body. The swarm vipers’ variant of this ability is a cloning spell, which creates two marginally weaker copies of the host.

Extraordinarily, the copies are not transient beings, but fully-fledged individuals in their own right. In a very real and frightening sense, swarm vipers can be said to give birth when they die.

It is this bizarre—but nonetheless efficient—method of procreation that makes swarm vipers such fascinating creatures.

“It has split its mind,” Ghost marveled. “There are two of them now!”

I nodded numbly. Ghost’s observations tallied with the Game’s message. It was a safe bet, too, that both of the newly created swarm vipers also had the clone deathwish ability. If I killed them, they would only multiply again.

I sighed, finally understanding the true meaning behind my foe’s name. The viper wasn’t part of a swarm. It was the swarm.

A swarm of one.