10-74. Glorious
Kurik leaped aside, narrowly dodging an oncoming veinroot. The fleshy tendril changed direction at the last second, wrapping around his ankle and fouling his maneuver. Panicked as it dragged him toward the wall, he hacked at it with his new hatchet. The bone-handled axe bit deep, but the rubbery veinroot was anything but easy to sever. Thankfully, with his recent influx of levels, Kurik had enough strength and dexterity that, when he hit it a second time, the axe tore through it.
Blood squirted everywhere as the veinroot went wild, waving in the air and bathing the entire area in red. Kurik sprang to his feet, dragged his dagger from his belt, then waded into the fray. Every swing of his axe bit through the wrist-thick tendril, sending bits of grotesque flesh and more blood flying in every direction. Finally, he reached the thing’s base and cut it down to a useless stump.
Only then did he wheel around to observe the in-progress battle.
The creature at the center of the hollow was, in a word, disturbing. Tall and grossly thin, its long arms moved like bony whips. A half-dozen good dwarves had already been laid low, and the other six they’d brought along remained on their back feet, barely holding their own. Meanwhile, a few goblins and gnomes slashed in from the rear, cutting into the creature with daggers and shortswords.
At the same time, nearly as many ranged attackers aimed projectiles and spells at the monster. Those attacks normally fell short, blocked by waving tentacles. The ones that landed were grossly ineffective, leaving only small wounds behind.
More dwarves, humans, goblins, and gnomes joined Kurik in guarding against the veinroots attached to the spiky walls. Left unattended, they would creep forward, wrap around the attack team, and drag them to their deaths. Kurik himself was among those guardians, having taken an entire side to himself. Even as he observed the battle, his vine traps tangled with the veinroots, keeping them occupied.
The only reason he’d taken an attack at all was because he hadn’t accounted for the hollow’s entrance. That had been a mistake.
The skittering, fleshy slap of a thousand small, finger-like legs drew his attention to the rear, and he saw an entire swarm of those grotesque flesh spiders coming his way. They moved like a wave, rolling toward him with inexorable inevitability.
He leaped backward, already reaching into his Key of Twisted Ethera and retrieving a handful of seeds. Then, he activated Seedburst:
| Seedburst
| Infuse properly prepared seeds with an influx of vitality, resulting in rapid maturation. Potency based on core cultivation and ethera attribute.
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