Broken Lands

Chapter 331 – Crystal Clearing

It was a long way to the clearing where the scout found the crystal-tainted bear. When they arrived, they found that he’d actually been followed by one of three crystal-tainted bears. There were also six wolves, two dozen deer, and a single moose. The moose and four of the deer had crystalline antlers that could concentrate light well enough that it looked like a laser, while the rest of the animals simply charged the moment they saw Rockfist.

Sophia was ready and quickly tossed some feathers into the air to help establish her Domain. She didn’t see any reason to transform into her form made of feathers; if she stayed herself, she could see outside her Domain far more easily and it wasn’t like she was close enough to actually get hurt. As it was, her Domain barely reached Rockfist.

The charging beasts got in each others’ way and ended up bunched up around him. Rockfist took a single step backwards into the tighter space away from the clearing and found that the animals followed and kept snapping and clawing at him but didn’t move into the space occupied by the plant life.

Xin’ri diverted the light rays as quickly as she could, but three of them still struck Rockfist. None of them were strong enough to do more than sting through his Guide-provided shield, but he called out that they were draining it far more than the three animals that could otherwise attack him. 

The animals in the back were easier to target anyway, so the third of the expedition that could do anything concentrated their attack on the crystal-antlered beasts first. They squished under a literal rain of boulders; Sophia was pretty sure that whoever did that could have handled them on his own, without everyone else’s help.

Sophia turned to look and found that her assumption was incorrect. There were three people either throwing on manifesting the rocks and they were all women. They looked similar enough that they were probably sisters, dark-skinned with glowing eyes. They made Sophia think of Vramt from Old Kestii. She shook off the memory with a note to herself to ask Arryn how Vramt and Aymini were doing.

By the time she looked back, half of the pack in front of Rockfist was dead. The remainder took only a little longer to kill, and Sophia was pretty sure that was solely because people couldn’t use their strongest strikes too close to Rockfist.

Arak had a water-based mage make her way to the front and cleanse the clearing while he checked on Rockfist. Once both Rockfist and the clearing had a clean bill of health, they moved forward. This time, there were two other exits. Arak didn’t waste time sending scouts out this time; instead, after checking and making certain Rockfist felt up to continuing and had more than enough shield left to take on another group, they moved out down the right-hand opening.

Despite all of the warnings and precautions, fighting their way through the forest inhabited by crystal-tainted enemies quickly became routine, almost boring. It was blatantly curated, with monsters only appearing in the forest clearings. They’d attack as soon as they noticed someone and they were completely willing to chase as far as they could, but they were shockingly dumb.

As long as the expedition stayed on the trails, so did the monsters. It meant they couldn’t be ambushed or even surprised, and that meant there were no truly difficult fights. Rockfist literally could stand at the entrance to a clearing and trade blows with one or two crystal-tainted beasts while the part of the expedition behind him that could see what was in the clearing rained down Abilities to kill the ones behind them, just like the first encounter.

Sophia’s part was limited to using her feather enhancement, where she added a little bit of True Death to all of her allies’ attacks as long as they were within her Domain. Her own attacks were essentially pointless and at first that seemed pointless as well, but the very first time they didn’t use it, they found out that it was simply invisible. Arak had to remove crystal taint from the area before it was safe to enter; it seemed that Sophia’s True Death purified the miniscule bits of crystal that were released when the monsters were damaged and even had an effect on Rockfist’s injuries. The True Death from the feathers he’d tied to his armor didn’t prevent any of the crystals from reaching him, but they made the taint a lot easier to remove.

After that discovery, everyone in the expedition was encouraged to add feathers to both their armor and their weapon. It was a good thing that Sophia had a lot of basic feathers.

Well, it did mean one other thing: Arak promised that when they encountered any feathered monsters, Sophia would have the right of first refusal on the feathers since she was using her own to help out the expedition. That right was far more valuable than the feathers she was spending, but no one seemed to mind; feathers were bulky and breakable. It was also apparently standard to offer an outsized replacement to anyone who used their own supplies to help out the expedition. 

Arak explained it by analogy to link-gate token use. He expected to have some trouble choosing whose token would be used to enter the locked link-gate on the way back, but the trouble would be people volunteering to have theirs used because if any were found, they’d get the first two to pay them back for the risk of losing their token. 

Her feathers were the same; they needed to be replaced with either more than she used or better quality ones than what she used, and that meant no one would fight her for any they found. If they found an actual phoenix, he’d ask her to share feathers with the rest of the expedition, but short of anything that impressive no one would mind as long as she was willing to keep her boost available whenever it was helpful.

Sophia had no problem with that. It didn’t take much effort, which left her feeling a bit like a freeloader, but it wasn’t like there weren’t others doing just as little. Ci’an was doing exactly nothing against the crystal-tainted animals, because her arrows weren’t needed or particularly effective and the crystals seemed to make the beasts resistant to almost all of her Nightowl Abilities. Dav was more like Sophia, helping even when their team wasn’t in front, but he was only using his Overflowing Health, which was very similar to Sophia’s Domain in that it didn’t require him to do anything.

After the fourth clearing, Arak insisted that the forward team change, despite Rockfist’s insistence that he was fine to continue. He asked Sophia to continue to back up the feather buff, if she could. That was easy to agree to; all she had to do was establish her Domain at the beginning of each fight and make sure it encompassed the people at the front. The only real problem was the number of feathers setting up her Domain required, and she still had more than a thousand left. They’d last the rest of the zone unless it was a lot longer than any of the zones they’d been through before.

It was completely routine … until it wasn’t.

There were two more team changes before things changed. They were only on the second clearing with Lorien Steelfang in the lead when a loud roar revealed that there was something they hadn’t seen before.

Something, it turned out, was a crystal-studded shaggy elephantine shape with large crystal-covered curving horns, a long thin crystal-spiked tail, and crystal spikes protruding from its eyes.

The crystal-tainted mammoth charged forward and slammed one of its tusks into Larian Steelfang. The blow tossed him backwards through two of his teammates and almost into Sophia. She reached for her Domain and flashed into her feathered shape just before he hit her in the head.

Larian smacked into the shoulder of the man behind Sophia instead. He had barely enough time to brace himself to catch the flying warrior and not crash to the ground, but neither of them had time to do much about the next strike by the mammoth. It couldn’t reach them, but it could stomp on the woman right behind Larian. Sophia heard a sharp cracking noise, probably a bone breaking. 

The only thing Sophia could think of was that she had to help somehow, either by restraining the crystal-studded mammoth or by getting the injured woman out of the way and back to where she could be healed. She just wasn’t sure how to do that. Plush Bonds, her restraint Ability, was not going to be even close to strong enough to stop the mammoth, and she didn’t have a way to pick someone up and move them while in her safe feathered form. 

Maybe she should shift back to her humanoid shape, pick up the woman, manifest her wings, and try to fly?

No, that wouldn’t work. The pathway was neither wide enough nor tall enough for her to actually fly. That was why they didn’t have people flying above the leaders to help; while the clearing had an opening to the sky, the pathways didn’t.

Before she could figure out what she could do to help, Larian Steelfang twisted and launched himself at the mammoth, leading with his shield. One of his feet touched down once during his charge, but other than that it was a straight shot through the air at the mammoth. It rocked backwards, a few feet from the woman. 

That gave enough space for the injured woman to roll out of the mammoth’s way. She tried to stand, but screamed when she tried to put weight on her left leg and fell back to the ground.

Before she knew what she was doing, Sophia flashed into the place of the closest feather. It wasn’t quite touching the woman, but it was still less than a step away. She reached down and lifted the woman into her arms, not even thinking about the weight. It was a problem of balance, not lifting.

A flash of white in the corner of Sophia’s eye made her shy away just far enough to avoid a strike from the mammoth’s tusks, then she ran as quickly as she could to the back, rushing around the people trying to get at the mammoth. She couldn’t go over them the way she’d wanted to, but she could hug one side and hope people gave way.

They did.

She reached Arak before her Domain pulled away from the front of the fight; he’d come up close to where she’d started. He gestured for her to lay the woman down, then quickly passed his shadows over her. 

“Broken leg, cracked rib, minor crystal tainting. Less than I expected, nothing critical before the end of the fight.” He looked up at Sophia. “Can you see what’s happening up there? Are you still protecting against the crystal taint?”

Sophia frowned. She could see out of her feathers while she was in her feathered form, but she couldn’t while she was in her human shape; she used her eyes then. She quickly dissolved into feathers so that she could see what was happening ahead of her.

The fight was not going particularly well. The woman with the cracked ribs and broken leg was Larian’s backup, which meant that Larian was the only person standing between the mammoth and the people trying to kill it with lightning and fire. Larian could hurt it if he moved fast enough, but the moment he tried to do more than a single strike, the mammoth would smash its tusks into him and throw him away. He usually flew backwards, but Sophia saw him crash into a tree trunk more than once. It was clear he was sturdier than his teammate, but it was also clear that he was basically a toy for the mammoth.