Nym shared illusions he crafted from what his scrying spell showed him. The first root-corpse in the link was embedded in a random tunnel wall, almost completely buried except for its face. It would require some excavating to dig it out, but not so much that anything other than basic terrakinesis was needed. Sakaro and Tiramaya were assigned to that one.
The second root-corpse was trickier. It was in a cavern near the ceiling, with maybe a third of its body visible but heavily concealed behind stalactites that had grown around and in one case through the body. Nym wasn’t sure exactly how feasible that was naturally, but he supposed with a few squads of earth mages working on expanding the tunnel network, oddities were bound to crop up. That one went to Ogric and Leaf.
Nym was partnered with the undead scholar, Blanchet, and as his elemental earth skills were the best in the group besides the archmage himself, he fittingly got the root-corpse that would be the hardest to dig out. This one was fully entombed inside a patch of thick clay with a shelf of rock underneath it. They’d either have to break through a foot of stone or else dig four times as far to go around it. Nym was tempted to ask the archmage to switch with him, but he knew that the old man had kept the hardest target for himself.
The corpse in front of them was the direct link to the source. It would be stronger and harder to kill, but it would at least be possible if they could eliminate the redundant clones in the necrotic root network. The problem was less disposing of the root-corpses than it was dealing with all the ghouls still filling the tunnels.
At least, Nym hoped that the ghouls would be the harder part. He couldn’t lay down the sort of punishment Archmage Veran had displayed. If that’s what it took to take out a root-corpse, they were going to have a problem. Nym doubted everyone else together could do half the damage the old man’s pinnacle spell dished out.
“I will clear the areas and teleport you in one at a time,” Archmage Veran said. “Nym, if you could shift your scrying to the first drop point?”
He did as requested, and once they had a visual on the first root-corpse, the archmage cast some sort of complicated spell made up of raw force that flattened everything in the area. It probably killed the sole wight it caught, but definitely didn’t kill a single one of the ghouls. Still, considering the amount of space covered combined with the distance it was cast at and the fact that it was being targeted using nothing but an illusion Nym provided based on his own scrying… It was scary impressive.
[Group communication link is up,] Archmage Veran said in Nym’s head. [Teleporting now.]
Ogric and Leaf appeared in the middle of the squished ghouls. They were reinflating, but too slowly to save them from Ogric’s flames. Nym didn’t just leave the scry anchor there to watch though. He had it speeding through the ground, searching out the second corpse-root. The illusion he was projecting shifted, and the archmage repeated his ghoul squish and teleportation combo.
Sakaro and Tiramaya appeared in the illusion, and the former immediately laid down a barrier across the floor, one that kept the rapidly reforming ghouls firmly squished. It was a stop-gap effort at best, but she must have thought she could hold for at least a few minutes. Hopefully new ghouls wouldn’t appear to harass her.
“And now your turn,” Archmage Veran said. He waited for Nym’s illusion to shift to the final location, a small cavern with three tunnels intersecting at it. The corpse-root was buried overhead, necessitating the use of multiple simultaneous magics to reach it. Surprisingly though, there were no undead in the immediate area. He supposed that the ghouls must have been drawn to the sounds of combat from the other two groups.
He wasn’t about to complain about it, since it would take more than three times as long to reach his target. As soon as the teleport took hold, he pulled in arcana filtered with that solid intent he always worked earth magic through. Chunks of the ceiling started falling away, only to be flung off to the side with greater telekinesis.
“I feel like I should warn you that I’m not much of an actual fighter,” Blanchet said. “I’ll keep watch for you though.”
Nym grunted and kept working. He’d already known that. Though his primary focus hadn’t been on the bone behemoths, it was easy to see who was struggling the most to contain their opponent. Blanchet was passable with a weapon, but she was mostly there to advise on the possibly unique undead they’d expected to find.
He didn’t think bone behemoths qualified as unique, but they certainly weren’t anything he’d ever heard of. The corpse-root though, that was something none of them were familiar with. It might not exist anywhere else in the world. Nym certainly hoped it didn’t, since it seemed like it could only flourish if there was a nearby tear in the Veil.
He decided to break through the stone rather than dig around it. It might take slightly longer, but it would make a more straight-forward access point and allow him to retreat quickly if he needed to. Besides, stone wasn’t that hard to reshape with the right spells, which he did know.
It cracked and crumbled as it turned into sand, one little chunk at a time. He didn’t need to get rid of all of it either, just enough to get through. More sand fell away, and some of the dirt resting on top of the stone started to trickle through as he breached the breadth of the slab. Nym started to widen the hole.
“We’ve got a geist incoming,” Blanchet below him. She pointed down what Nym thought was the south hall.
He dipped down and spotted the geist swirling along the top of the tunnel, though he wasn’t sure exactly how since there were no real air currents to carry it. “How do they fly underground?” he asked Blanchet as he summoned up a lightning bolt to fry it.
She blinked at the streak of light and said, “It’s kind of weird actually. They basically just… punch themselves, I guess, with blasts of telekinesis and then sail along for as far as they can go. The ones down here are rubbing up against the ceiling to keep tugging themselves forward when they need to, or maybe to build up some speed.”
“Weird. Well, it’s dead now,” he said. “Let me know if anything else shows up.”
[Second point is ready to go,] Ogric said through the group telepathy link.
[Still working on securing the area,] Sakaro responded.
[I haven’t finished digging yet,] Nym added.
More stone broke away, and Nym reached up with terrakinesis to rip down a chunk of dirt. Once he pulled the center through, it started pouring out of the hole to pile up on the ground beneath him and he got his first look at the corpse-root. It was only an arm sticking out of the dirt, but it told him he needed to start being very careful about brushing up against it with his magic. Once was enough, and he was not looking forward to actually attacking the damn thing.
[I’ve found it,] Nym reported. [But I’m going to have to dig a little bit more to fully expose the corpse. I should be ready to go within a minute.]
“Two ghouls wandering in. I should be able to- ah, they spotted me. I’ll take care of this. Just keep digging,” Blanchet said.
“You sure?” Nym asked without turning to look. He was relying on gravity to pull the dirt away from the body once he’d scooped up everything beneath it, and spending more of his arcana on widening the hole he’d broken through the stone than anything else.
“I can handle this,” she said, readying a sword. “Ghouls aren’t that smart. It wouldn’t hurt if you burned the pieces after I’m done though.”
“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”
He did his best to ignore the sounds of combat below him and carefully scooped away the rest of the dirt. “Ahhh!” he yelped, shooting backwards as the corpse-root tumbled forward into the open hold to dangle head first into the tunnel. Its legs were still up above the stone, but the rest of it flopped around in the open air.
“So that’s done,” Nym said. He started up the heated disintegration spell he’d copied from Sergeant Grom the other day and fed the remaining ghoul pieces into it.
[Ready to go,] Nym said.
[Second point is also ready.]
[Having some trouble with more ghouls coming in,] Sakaro said. [I wouldn’t say no to some help cleaning them up. I don’t really have the fire I need and it’s getting harder to keep them pushed back.]
Nym sent a scry anchor out to find her. She was standing by herself, no surprise considering she was partnered with Tiramaya. There were still a dozen dismembered ghouls underneath the barrier she’d created to keep them flattened, but easily twice that many had appeared in the cavern and were circling a dome-shaped barrier she’d created.
Even as he assessed the situation, someone’s magic swept through and picked all of the ghouls up. They slammed into the walls and ceiling at random points, some impaled on stalactites, but most falling back to the ground a few limbs lighter. The sheer force of the telekinesis being used on them was ripping limbs off from torsos, a sure sign that Archmage Veran had interfered.
[Please destroy your corpse-root on my mark,] the archmage’s voice sounded in their heads.
“Hey Blanchet. Do you think these things are made of the same stuff ghouls are?” Nym asked.
“Almost certainly. Why?”
“Because my lightning bolt spell doesn’t work very well on ghouls. I’m going to have to get more creative here.”
[Begin.]
Nym directed the incineration spell up to the corpse-root, and then for extra good measure, threw up a thermal barrier around the whole thing so it would heat up even faster. As soon as the magic touched the root, pain spiked through his head. Nym dropped down to his knees, but held the spells steady.
“What’s wrong?” Blanchet said.
“The corpse-root doesn’t like magic. I think it would feel like using it directly on the Veil.”
“Oh no. I just assumed you knew. You haven’t learned to separate yourself from the touch of the Veil. You can’t use a channeled spell. It’s got to be something with a battery of energy that’s fully separated from you.”
Nym had a few offensive spells like that, but nothing that would be strong enough to turn a regular ghoul to ash, let alone the corpse tied directly to the reaper lurking behind the Veil. “Don’t have that,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just need to hurry up here. I’ll be fine.”
The corpse was started to break down to ash, and even as it tried to reform, the new parts were disintegrating too. After about a minute, there was nothing left in there except the root. It writhed and squirmed around, but Nym didn’t let up until he heard the archmage’s voice in his mind.
[We’ve done it! Confirm no more corpses are hanging from the root.]
[Confirmed,] Sakaro said.
[Confirmed,] Ogric echoed.
Nym let the spell go and slumped down in exhaustion. He started to respond, [Confi-ack!]
The root lashed out at him like a living thing. It snaked out of the hole he’d created, the one he’d made so he’d have an easier time retreating, and struck down at where he was sitting on the floor.
“Look out!” Blanchet said, moving to intercept, or to shove him out of the way, or something.
It didn’t matter what her intentions were. She was too late either way, and Nym was too drained to move under his own power.
The root struck him in the chest, and it didn’t let go.
Nym shared illusions he crafted from what his scrying spell showed him. The first root-corpse in the link was embedded in a random tunnel wall, almost completely buried except for its face. It would require some excavating to dig it out, but not so much that anything other than basic terrakinesis was needed. Sakaro and Tiramaya were assigned to that one.
The second root-corpse was trickier. It was in a cavern near the ceiling, with maybe a third of its body visible but heavily concealed behind stalactites that had grown around and in one case through the body. Nym wasn’t sure exactly how feasible that was naturally, but he supposed with a few squads of earth mages working on expanding the tunnel network, oddities were bound to crop up. That one went to Ogric and Leaf.
Nym was partnered with the undead scholar, Blanchet, and as his elemental earth skills were the best in the group besides the archmage himself, he fittingly got the root-corpse that would be the hardest to dig out. This one was fully entombed inside a patch of thick clay with a shelf of rock underneath it. They’d either have to break through a foot of stone or else dig four times as far to go around it. Nym was tempted to ask the archmage to switch with him, but he knew that the old man had kept the hardest target for himself.
The corpse in front of them was the direct link to the source. It would be stronger and harder to kill, but it would at least be possible if they could eliminate the redundant clones in the necrotic root network. The problem was less disposing of the root-corpses than it was dealing with all the ghouls still filling the tunnels.
At least, Nym hoped that the ghouls would be the harder part. He couldn’t lay down the sort of punishment Archmage Veran had displayed. If that’s what it took to take out a root-corpse, they were going to have a problem. Nym doubted everyone else together could do half the damage the old man’s pinnacle spell dished out.
“I will clear the areas and teleport you in one at a time,” Archmage Veran said. “Nym, if you could shift your scrying to the first drop point?”
He did as requested, and once they had a visual on the first root-corpse, the archmage cast some sort of complicated spell made up of raw force that flattened everything in the area. It probably killed the sole wight it caught, but definitely didn’t kill a single one of the ghouls. Still, considering the amount of space covered combined with the distance it was cast at and the fact that it was being targeted using nothing but an illusion Nym provided based on his own scrying… It was scary impressive.
[Group communication link is up,] Archmage Veran said in Nym’s head. [Teleporting now.]
Ogric and Leaf appeared in the middle of the squished ghouls. They were reinflating, but too slowly to save them from Ogric’s flames. Nym didn’t just leave the scry anchor there to watch though. He had it speeding through the ground, searching out the second corpse-root. The illusion he was projecting shifted, and the archmage repeated his ghoul squish and teleportation combo.
Sakaro and Tiramaya appeared in the illusion, and the former immediately laid down a barrier across the floor, one that kept the rapidly reforming ghouls firmly squished. It was a stop-gap effort at best, but she must have thought she could hold for at least a few minutes. Hopefully new ghouls wouldn’t appear to harass her.
“And now your turn,” Archmage Veran said. He waited for Nym’s illusion to shift to the final location, a small cavern with three tunnels intersecting at it. The corpse-root was buried overhead, necessitating the use of multiple simultaneous magics to reach it. Surprisingly though, there were no undead in the immediate area. He supposed that the ghouls must have been drawn to the sounds of combat from the other two groups.
He wasn’t about to complain about it, since it would take more than three times as long to reach his target. As soon as the teleport took hold, he pulled in arcana filtered with that solid intent he always worked earth magic through. Chunks of the ceiling started falling away, only to be flung off to the side with greater telekinesis.
“I feel like I should warn you that I’m not much of an actual fighter,” Blanchet said. “I’ll keep watch for you though.”
Nym grunted and kept working. He’d already known that. Though his primary focus hadn’t been on the bone behemoths, it was easy to see who was struggling the most to contain their opponent. Blanchet was passable with a weapon, but she was mostly there to advise on the possibly unique undead they’d expected to find.
He didn’t think bone behemoths qualified as unique, but they certainly weren’t anything he’d ever heard of. The corpse-root though, that was something none of them were familiar with. It might not exist anywhere else in the world. Nym certainly hoped it didn’t, since it seemed like it could only flourish if there was a nearby tear in the Veil.
He decided to break through the stone rather than dig around it. It might take slightly longer, but it would make a more straight-forward access point and allow him to retreat quickly if he needed to. Besides, stone wasn’t that hard to reshape with the right spells, which he did know.
It cracked and crumbled as it turned into sand, one little chunk at a time. He didn’t need to get rid of all of it either, just enough to get through. More sand fell away, and some of the dirt resting on top of the stone started to trickle through as he breached the breadth of the slab. Nym started to widen the hole.
“We’ve got a geist incoming,” Blanchet below him. She pointed down what Nym thought was the south hall.
He dipped down and spotted the geist swirling along the top of the tunnel, though he wasn’t sure exactly how since there were no real air currents to carry it. “How do they fly underground?” he asked Blanchet as he summoned up a lightning bolt to fry it.
She blinked at the streak of light and said, “It’s kind of weird actually. They basically just… punch themselves, I guess, with blasts of telekinesis and then sail along for as far as they can go. The ones down here are rubbing up against the ceiling to keep tugging themselves forward when they need to, or maybe to build up some speed.”
“Weird. Well, it’s dead now,” he said. “Let me know if anything else shows up.”
[Second point is ready to go,] Ogric said through the group telepathy link.
[Still working on securing the area,] Sakaro responded.
[I haven’t finished digging yet,] Nym added.
More stone broke away, and Nym reached up with terrakinesis to rip down a chunk of dirt. Once he pulled the center through, it started pouring out of the hole to pile up on the ground beneath him and he got his first look at the corpse-root. It was only an arm sticking out of the dirt, but it told him he needed to start being very careful about brushing up against it with his magic. Once was enough, and he was not looking forward to actually attacking the damn thing.
[I’ve found it,] Nym reported. [But I’m going to have to dig a little bit more to fully expose the corpse. I should be ready to go within a minute.]
“Two ghouls wandering in. I should be able to- ah, they spotted me. I’ll take care of this. Just keep digging,” Blanchet said.
“You sure?” Nym asked without turning to look. He was relying on gravity to pull the dirt away from the body once he’d scooped up everything beneath it, and spending more of his arcana on widening the hole he’d broken through the stone than anything else.
“I can handle this,” she said, readying a sword. “Ghouls aren’t that smart. It wouldn’t hurt if you burned the pieces after I’m done though.”
“Okay. Let me know if you change your mind.”
He did his best to ignore the sounds of combat below him and carefully scooped away the rest of the dirt. “Ahhh!” he yelped, shooting backwards as the corpse-root tumbled forward into the open hold to dangle head first into the tunnel. Its legs were still up above the stone, but the rest of it flopped around in the open air.
“So that’s done,” Nym said. He started up the heated disintegration spell he’d copied from Sergeant Grom the other day and fed the remaining ghoul pieces into it.
[Ready to go,] Nym said.
[Second point is also ready.]
[Having some trouble with more ghouls coming in,] Sakaro said. [I wouldn’t say no to some help cleaning them up. I don’t really have the fire I need and it’s getting harder to keep them pushed back.]
Nym sent a scry anchor out to find her. She was standing by herself, no surprise considering she was partnered with Tiramaya. There were still a dozen dismembered ghouls underneath the barrier she’d created to keep them flattened, but easily twice that many had appeared in the cavern and were circling a dome-shaped barrier she’d created.
Even as he assessed the situation, someone’s magic swept through and picked all of the ghouls up. They slammed into the walls and ceiling at random points, some impaled on stalactites, but most falling back to the ground a few limbs lighter. The sheer force of the telekinesis being used on them was ripping limbs off from torsos, a sure sign that Archmage Veran had interfered.
[Please destroy your corpse-root on my mark,] the archmage’s voice sounded in their heads.
“Hey Blanchet. Do you think these things are made of the same stuff ghouls are?” Nym asked.
“Almost certainly. Why?”
“Because my lightning bolt spell doesn’t work very well on ghouls. I’m going to have to get more creative here.”
[Begin.]
Nym directed the incineration spell up to the corpse-root, and then for extra good measure, threw up a thermal barrier around the whole thing so it would heat up even faster. As soon as the magic touched the root, pain spiked through his head. Nym dropped down to his knees, but held the spells steady.
“What’s wrong?” Blanchet said.
“The corpse-root doesn’t like magic. I think it would feel like using it directly on the Veil.”
“Oh no. I just assumed you knew. You haven’t learned to separate yourself from the touch of the Veil. You can’t use a channeled spell. It’s got to be something with a battery of energy that’s fully separated from you.”
Nym had a few offensive spells like that, but nothing that would be strong enough to turn a regular ghoul to ash, let alone the corpse tied directly to the reaper lurking behind the Veil. “Don’t have that,” he said through gritted teeth. “Just need to hurry up here. I’ll be fine.”
The corpse was started to break down to ash, and even as it tried to reform, the new parts were disintegrating too. After about a minute, there was nothing left in there except the root. It writhed and squirmed around, but Nym didn’t let up until he heard the archmage’s voice in his mind.
[We’ve done it! Confirm no more corpses are hanging from the root.]
[Confirmed,] Sakaro said.
[Confirmed,] Ogric echoed.
Nym let the spell go and slumped down in exhaustion. He started to respond, [Confi-ack!]
The root lashed out at him like a living thing. It snaked out of the hole he’d created, the one he’d made so he’d have an easier time retreating, and struck down at where he was sitting on the floor.
“Look out!” Blanchet said, moving to intercept, or to shove him out of the way, or something.
It didn’t matter what her intentions were. She was too late either way, and Nym was too drained to move under his own power.
The root struck him in the chest, and it didn’t let go.
