Grand Game 375: Foreplay (Patreon)

You are hidden.

I emerged from the aether with a smile on my face. Our gambit had worked. The spores were destroyed, and I had my stealth back.

Everything was going smoothly.

The crawler I’d teleported to had still not spotted me, and I backed away before that could change. Orienting myself using the beacon in my mind, I crept westward in the direction of the void tree. My target could not be far.

The range of Farren’s oblivion spell was two hundred yards, and since all the spores had seemingly been destroyed, the tree had to be somewhere inside that range. But, after less than a dozen steps, I ground to a halt as the harbinger let out a strident cry. It was a clarion call for help.

And the entire nest responded.

An instant later, every stygian in mindsight range was moving towards the harbinger. And there were a lot of them. Farren’s spell had killed a few hundred nether creatures. But that still left thousands standing, and right now, each and every one of them was rallying to the Power’s cry.

It didn’t matter that the spores were dead, and they’d lost their shared sight, the nether creatures were experts at maneuvering by sound and they had the harbinger’s call to fix on.

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you!

I rose to my full height, still hidden. Moving forward was out of the question. I would have to wait for the swarm to pass by. Until then, I would have to do my best to evade detection.

Forcing myself into a loose-limbed stance at odds with my keyed-up state, I watched the closest clump of mindglows draw closer. Three seconds. Two. One. Then, they were upon me.

Dancing left, I avoided a slithering serpent.

Ducking low, I dodged the low hanging head of a hydra.

Turning my body sideways, I let two crawlers pass on either side.

Throwing myself flat, I escaped being trampled by a hydra.

I emerged from each incident alive and hidden. One of the crawler’s tentacles had brushed my arm as it passed by, and a hydra had actually clipped me on the shoulder. Despite these close calls, though, my stealth—bolstered by fade and the mist itself—had held true.

A minute later, with my heart still pounding and a sickly grin pasted on my face, I picked myself up. The swarm had passed, and miraculously I had lived to tell the tale.

The path ahead was clear with not a single mindglow in sight. Focusing my attention eastwards, I winced.

I could barely make out Adriel and Farren’s mindglows, they were so swamped by stygians. It did not bode well for my allies. Although the lichs had had the harbinger at a disadvantage earlier, they would not be able to keep him at bay for long now.

But the two were still fighting, and while they were, hope remained.

I swung back westward. I would have to fulfil my own part quickly.

✵ ✵ ✵

Ten yards later, I located my quarry.

The void tree was not characterized by a bright mindglow, but by the distinct absence of one. It sat ninety yards ahead; an almost perfect circle of emptiness in the middle of twenty weavers.

It could only be the sapling.

I glanced back. My allies were fifty yards behind. Adriel had cut it close, setting us down less than one hundred and fifty yards from the sapling, but right now, I had cause to be thankful for that. It made my own task easier.

Pausing, I took a second to plan my approach.

The first challenge was the terrain. It was unlikely to offer much help. What I’ve seen of it thus far had all been flat rock, unrelieved by either crevices or outcroppings.

The second problem was the weavers. The creatures did not have their mind shields active, but that would change the moment they or the sapling sensed me, and while I could eventually break through their mental defenses with shatter, it would take time I didn’t have.

Lastly, there was the void tree itself to consider. I didn’t know what it was capable of, and the only way I’d find that out was in the doing. I could be certain, though, that if I was detected, it would call on the harbinger for help.

There was no question that my best chance of success lay in remaining undetected, but there were enough unknowns that I felt uncomfortable with the idea of advancing further without any contingencies.

Unfortunately, time was of the essence, and I couldn’t afford to spend even a few minutes arranging the battlefield to my liking.

Full speed ahead then, I thought, creeping forward as swiftly as my stealth allowed.

✵ ✵ ✵

I covered the next forty yards quickly, only drawing to a halt when I reached the fifty-yard line. The weavers were in teleport range, and I had another decision to make.

I could either cover the remaining distance in a single bound, the more dangerous option, or on foot, ready to retreat at a moment’s notice.

“Adriel,” I asked reaching to her mindglow, “how is it going?”

“Poorly,” she replied bluntly. “We will be overrun soon. Hurry.”

I winced. The dracolich’s response made my decision for me. “I’m going in,” I said, then shadow blinked.

You have teleported into a stygian weaver’s shadow.

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you!

You have passed a mental resistance check!

A hostile entity’s beguiling aura has failed to dominate you!

A hostile entity’s beguiling aura has failed to dominate you!

A hostile entity’s beguiling aura has failed to dominate you!

…

…

I stepped out of the aether, bombarded by a near endless litany of Game alerts. Momentarily overwhelmed, I froze in place while I waited for the messages to subside or for something to attack.

Neither happened.

It took me a split second longer to understand why. Despite the frightening proximity of the twenty weavers, I remained hidden. More alarming though, was the second alert. It was still scrolling through my mind.

A hostile entity’s beguiling aura has failed to dominate you!

A hostile entity’s beguiling aura has failed to dominate you!

…

The entity in question had to be the sapling, and if I was interpreting the Game message correctly, the creature had an aura about it that bespelled everything nearby.

How big the field was, I couldn’t tell, and it didn’t truly matter. I was already inside the void tree’s sphere of influence. Nor could I leave. Besides, I was resisting its domination attempts.

For now.

That could change at any moment, though. All it took was a single failed resistance attempt...

Let’s get this done quickly. Slowly turning my head from left to right, I scanned my surroundings.

I was inside the perimeter of weavers. The creatures looked outwards and stood stock-still, unnaturally so, and were probably bespelled. A marble statue was in front of me, close enough that I could see part of it through the mist. Only its hooves and lower legs were visible, but from them I could tell it was enormous.

Draven.

A white tree, unlike any I’d seen before, and one that so closely resembled the guardian in color I had missed it, was wrapped around the statue, its branches creeping all over him in spiderlike fashion.

The void sapling.

I examined it carefully. The sapling’s central ash-white trunk was as spindly as the rest of its limbs and meandered down the guardian before burrowing into the ground.

The sapling had nothing so wholesome as leaves either. Its rail-thin branches were covered in ebon-black thorns that looked like condensed slivers of the void. Completing the hellish picture were the concentrated tendrils of nether slowly seeping out of the cracks and knots in the bark.

Right, so that’s a void tree.

Letting my gaze drift downward, I scanned the base of the statue, looking for the indentation Adriel had told me would be there.

At first, I didn’t see it, and my pulse began to race, then my gaze alighted on a particularly dense patch of prickly thorns. The tree had gone to great lengths to conceal the spot in question.

That must be where the Emblem goes.

I only had to reach it—and brush aside the obscuring branches and thorns. All without alerting the tree.

Nothing to it, I thought sardonically.

Staying crouched and rotating my feet a few inches at a time, I turned around until I was facing the tree.

Multiple hostile entities have failed to detect you!

Step one complete. I rose into a half-crouch. Next, I had to cover the remaining distance to the guardian.

“Michael!”

I froze.

It was Adriel, and from the sounds of it, she was only a few feet behind. Slowly, I glanced over my shoulder.

And found myself staring at a ghost.

“You better hurry,” the spirit said. “I’ve died, and Farren will, too, soon.”