Chương 31: Roots and Rot.

The wood doors snapped like paper, broadbeams cracking and splintering. Hugh's charge was barely even slowed by the door, he simply kept going. Nythera and Dominic immediately took stock of the surroundings, a low stone room that extended far to the left with pillars at seemingly random points connected floor to ceiling. Their eyes locked on one point. Reachman? A man with vaguely familiar features stood in the center of the room, clothes torn apart by blackened roots. He stared back.

"It took you all long enough, I was waiting for you, bitch." He snarled.

"You took everything from me, you gutter rat! That core BELONGED TO ME." The roots twisted further around his arms as he spoke, jumping forward every time he shouted.

"What the fuck have you done, Reachman? You were supposed to govern your people, not turn to mad gods for power." Dominic stood, frozen, face pale as a sheet.

"You understand nothing, The Great Lord Ralset offers power at such little cost, he can guide Myrraval to greater heights, HE ALONE!" Saliva dripped from mouth as he spat. Hugh shook his head "so many have been lost to the blind delusions of an old man." he pulled his axe out. Nythera pulled, feeling her very being straining as she grabbed as much authority as she could and infused it into her words. She spoke softly, but her words reverberated like thunder.

"Reachman, as your Lord, I, Nythera Vel Aurendor, command you to die." A wild grin split his face, the roots piercing through his body and weaving back through.

"You! You! You can't command me anymore, your words have no power over me, I have broken from your rotten ways." He spat at the ground. Dancing out of the shadows, a mass of root and flesh twisted its way forward. A face she didn't recognize, but attached to an arm and sword she did. The shadow guy from the first mayor meeting? He… what? Sacrificed his own man? Nythera turned to Dominic for guidance, but he was still frozen, seemingly unable to grasp what had happened. Just how far did Reachman corrupt himself?

"I know what you really are, you tried to hide it, but I was told what you really are by one of those men clad in white." Reachman explained. Ren? He spoke to Ren? When? How long has he known?

"You're a witch! A disease, a malformity in the world! Your ancestry is that of the fallen, those who tried to destroy us!" Reachman cackled maniacally. I am done listening to his insanity.

"FIRE!" Her cannon roared. There was no time for the shell to scream through the air, Reachman was way too close. The center of the room detonated in a shower of wood shrapnel. Nythera ducked behind her cannon, Dominic and Hugh hung back behind cover.

"HAHAHAHAHA" Laughter echoed and roots shot from the ceiling, stabbing down at random. Above her the ceiling twitched. A root stabbed down far faster than her Dexterity would let her dodge. Well, that is a problem. Blood seeped out of her abdomen where it had pierced through. The chamber was sliced into pieces root forming new pillars throughout the expanse, Reachman no longer visible. The root pulled out of her gut and blood followed in its wake. Dominic rolled across the floor dodging a creeping root cluster.

"Nythera got hit!" he yelled. Hugh hacked away at the growth, his newly empowered axe taking out chunk after chunk of black root. As the dust cleared, a mass of tangled flesh and root revealed its disgusting presence in the center of the room. Reachman's eyes and arms were now separated by the roots, shuffling position and moving at random. He's not even a man anymore, just the puppet of a dead god. And I am bleeding out on the floor.

Hyper-flux: 47/105 She wanted to use her hyper-flux, but the resulting explosion would almost certainly kill them too. Nythera laid down, back up against a pillar. She tried to stem the bleeding with her cloak. A clack against the ground and Dominic's staff thundered to life, sending out scorching lines of electricity. The smell of burnt, soured wood filled the room, roots writhed against the walls and ceiling as if in pain.

"FIRE!" She commanded. The shell rocketed forward and slammed into a wall of roots before Reachman. Jagged arrays of roots carved downwards towards her from the ceiling. Oh fuck it, here we go. Nythera rolled to the side as fast as she could manage, despite Health mending the wound, blood gushed out from the agitated wound. Her cannon was enveloped in a mass of roots and crushed by constriction.

"Nythera! Can you use it again?" Dominic's voice called out, clearly conflicted about asking the stabbed person for help. What? Huh?

"Use what?" She called back.

"The Centi-golem… remember that?" he said, drawing closer so they needn't shout.

"Are you sure? It'll bring down the whole roof on us…" Nythera hesitated.

"Don't worry, leave the ceiling to me Lord." Hugh had drawn much closer, hacking away at the clusters of root that attempted to approach them.

"He closed the stairs with roots, we need to kill the bastard to get out of here." Hugh added.

"What about the passage behind him?" Dominic asked.

"Can't get close enough to check, the roots on the far-side of the room are clustered too densely." Hugh replied. Another cluster arced down towards them, Hugh hacked it away and Dominic unleashed a thunderbolt, blasting most of it off the ceiling.

"He's a lot weaker than I thought he would be for taking on a god's power, he must have been a mere tier one, or maybe a lower tier two." Dominic absentmindedly said.

"Reachman was a rat, not a fighter, even corrupted by dead gods, he's not good for much." Hugh spat. Nythera brought her culverin forth and filled the chamber with dense flux. The bleeding had slowed, unfortunately the pool of blood beneath her was already quite big. Hyper-flux: 7/105 Ouch, not going to be using that again anytime soon. I don't have much for Health left either. The sludge-flux spread throughout the room flowed away from them, repelled by the density of powerful flux in Nythera's cannon.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The chamber on her cannon was heating up fast, struggling to contain the hyper-flux. Nythera crouched down over the cannon and aligned it carefully with where Reachman's mess of roots were. Hugh brought his shield down to her side.

"FIRE!" She bellowed. The cannon roared and she dove behind the tower-shield. She watched as her cannon flew backwards.

"THE MOON EMBRACES MY SOUL" an agonized scream echoed through the room. Grey flux streamed from the shield, enveloping them as shrapnel flew past. How am I ever going to use this alone, I'll blow myself up with my enemies. Level Acquired! x 8 Multiple skills have leveled up! WOW! At least he was worth something in death, I wonder if he had a lot of money stored down here somewhere. The roots that once sought flesh now lay limp.

As the dust cleared, they caught sight of a massive crater, half the ceiling was blasted out and a massive pile of rubble now decorated the center of the chamber.

"I don't suppose you have a way to clear this out? I am interested in that book he had." Nythera looked towards Dominic. He shook his head.

"This would take Hugh half a day to rip out, and I suspect people will notice what we have done here before long. Let's advance to the inner chamber and see if he left any hints of what exactly he was doing here." Dominic nodded toward the passageway behind Reachman. She pulled herself up the pillar slowly, ensuring blood loss didn't knock her out on the way. They crept their way around the pile of rubble, which now sat in a deep crater, water leaked in from the ceiling.

Maybe Myrraval will manage to reclaim this desecrated lair. The corrupted flux seeping out of the walls rapidly faded, the torches growing brighter bit by bit. The passage led forward and down several yards before opening into a circular chamber, much smaller than the last one. It had tables arrayed in a circle, lined up with the walls. They were covered in books, notes, and several had human limbs with now-inert roots piercing through them. I'll deal with the system shit later, time for my hard-earned reward.

Talvik flew into the room, backflipped and hooked onto the ceiling. If you drop bird poop on me, I am going to cover your feathers in tar. She glared up at him. They pulled apart desk after desk, rifling through papers written in an ancient tongue.

"Pile them up over there, we are going to burn them all." Dominic ordered. A nice paper and book pile formed in the center of the room. A pile of vile magics. Three skill tomes were found, all with symbols of the eyed-moon.

"I don't reckon we should use these, or even sell them." Hugh said, scratching his chin.

"I'll take them, I am doing research on tomes and they might be useful." Nythera said, scooping them up. Hugh and Dominic shrugged.

"If that's what the Lord wants." She scowled at Dominic. I swear, if they start calling me Milord and Milady, I'm going to start tripping my fist into faces. Hugh pulled a lock box out from one of the tables and lugged it out of the room. The rest of the room was set to the torch. Dominic struck flint with stone until the papers were ablaze.

"May Kronan cleanse this manor of its filth." He prayed. As the room blazed behind them, the trio huddled over the lockbox. Hugh slammed his fist down on it, snapped the lock straight off. Tokens. So many tokens. Five upgrade tokens, one Evolution token, and three of new type she had never seen before were scattered in the top layer.

"By Kronan, this is a fortune." Dominic swore.

"Aye, This could buy so much booze at Marco's" Hugh agreed. Nythera simply stared with unabashed greed. Dominic sighed, then took two upgrade tokens.

"Alright Milady, the rest are yours.". What?

"Stop joking around, we split things evenly, right?" Nythera asked in confusion, "I don't even know what those three are." pointing at the new tokens.

"Not anymore, remember Nythera, you are our lord, you have a responsibility far beyond us. It is your job to become strong so you can shepherd the island forward." Dominic suddenly got serious.

"Take them, those three are fusion tokens, you can merge skills with them, don't use them right now please, without guidance you'll probably wreck half your skills." he said. She stared back. And gave in to greed with a face of feigned reluctance. Merging sounds so cool! Can I get some kind of even bigger cannon? She grabbed all of them and shoved them inconspicuously into Boxy, which was hiding in her cloak. I suppose he's got a point, I did take the domain core… guess I have to take these too. Oh well.

Talvik had somehow come to sit across from them, a smug grin resting on his stupid beak. Hugh ripped out the top layer of the lock box. Thirteen glittering embers greeted them.

"These too." Dominic nodded at her. Ok this is getting to be a bit much, if they just hand me everything I feel like I'm robbing my own party.

"No, wait a moment. Doesn't Rustreach have a shipyard?" Nythera asked.

"I think it does?" Hugh said with a thoughtful look.

"Grandport is the main shipyard, but Rustreach is far enough away they have to make their own."

"Dominic, hang on to the coins for me, I have a better use for them." She ordered. A confused look painted his face, but he obeyed her instruction.

"Alright, I think it's time to make our way back to Grandport." Dominic said as they cleared the Manor grounds, back over the wall they came in through.

"No, we are going into town this morning." Nythera rejected his proposal. They returned to camp to find Shelly and Kennick waiting.

"How'd it go? Get him good?" Shelly asked. Nythera nodded and made way for her sleeping roll. God, I think I really need sleep.

"Wake me in the morning. We are going into town around luncheon." She said and passed out. …

"You should be checking your status more often and ensuring free stats are spent, leaving stats you need lying about can and will get you killed." Talvik's ever-present scolding rang in her head.

"Fine fine, I'll go do it ok." she grumbled and pulled up her notifications. Giant-Slayer (lvl 7 > 8) Artillery-Command (lvl 8 > 9) Flux-Condenser (lvl 3 > 4) Heavy-Ordnance Siegewright Commander Lvl 74 Wow, eight whole levels from just that lunatic? I suppose I did do most of the work. The words Talvik spoke prior, echoed back in her mind. This time, I think I'll be skipping Resonance. With a smile, she slid twenty points into Flux Control and twenty into constitution. This ought to help me live.

At least my own cannon will be less likely to kill me now. They broke camp and marched their way into town. People came out to stare or huddled back into houses, afraid. My people, these are not strangers, well they are, but they are MY strangers. Dominic led them straight to the central plaza, where merchants hawked their food like gold.

"Come, get our last crops, fresh from storage! Last stock!" Rang out of various stalls. Nythera marched straight up to the monument of Reachman in the plaza.

"Hugh, take care of this please." She ordered. Hugh nodded. He backed up. He breathed in deeply. He charged and jumped, grabbing Reachman's head and pulling it down with his weight. The statue hit the ground and shattered. You could hear your own breath in the silence that followed, all eyes watching the interlopers.

"I am Nythera Vel Aurendor, Lord of Myrraval." her voice filled the silence. Crickets.

"Today, I killed the traitor, Reachman." She bellowed. Gasps, hushed whispers, suppressed mumbles, resounded throughout the plaza.

"He was a traitor, to Rustreach and to Myrraval, he conspired with our enemies and for that he paid the price." Nythera said.

"As such, I will be personally funding a new fleet of ships, to bring in fish and reconnect Rustreach with the rest of Myrraval." She shouted, authority interweaving with her voice. She held up the bag of Embers. Dominic started clapping. Then Hugh. And then applause was heard throughout the town. Whether it was out of fear or appreciation, she did not know. Nor did she care. Nythera felt blood rising to her face. I hate public speeches. Next time I'm going to make Leo give a speech instead.

Grand Administrator (3 > 4) Really? That was all it took? Maybe I should give more speeches… They found their way rapidly to the outskirts, stopping to talk with one after another of the now-freed Rustreachers. The group managed to reach the pass into the mountains before nightfall, camping out on hard rock in the bitter winds of the mountains. … In her dreams, the moon cackled madly as it was stabbed by a great, silver spear.