“TREE AND SKY!?” One wail among many finally names their doom, the shrillest female cry coming from the flank of the green-bodied shorties manning the battlements ahead. “OLDEST DAY…! OLDEST!!!”
“Yes, elf of elves! Flee, weaklings.”
The tied-straw-cloaked-wearing leader no longer boasts, surrendering the job to a kobold that marches directly to puff up behind the green knight that all stand in horror or awe of. Down the spine of the great greenhouse, across lower rooftops and almost to its pointed end, the party traversed until Rouvenor reappeared where the building meets a battlement rising from the lower levels of the enormous trunk to form a corner.
Only two sets of stairs lead into the raised defenses of this corner. Statues of a familiar enemy at both entrances spread their legs to allow those who dare to climb almost straight up to catch a glimpse under their mini-shorts. These leotard-wearing servant girls with faces molded into the “beauty” of their mistress seemingly hold up the battlement with their enormous arms. Shade of a handful of thick trees carefully grown in the center provides limited protection from arrows. The crenelations above, and kill holes in side and beneath, no longer serve as defenses when you approach at the same level as the top.
The end goal is the serpentine stairway held aloft by stone columns that the battlement guards. At its top is a sole open-topped shrine where a small forest grows from the great world tree trunk itself.
(Assaulting this… hooh…! Without a secret weapon… would’ve been.. quite…!)
“One’s… momentum be suspect.” Neesiette’s whisper from his arms is more reproachful than kind. Adris drags his feet through the pain gripping his muscles.
“Run! Hide! Like Kol remembers of all Scribblies! Kakakaka!”
“Bastard furry, funky wrestle mutt from kitchen losers!?”
Several “Scribblies” nearly overcome their cringing to hurl rocks at a known foe, until their overly-painted leader howls again.
“Not fight! Not fight ‘oldest day’!” Her modest rack held by tied rags jiggles with how she gesticulates in fright. “Not offend, destroy us…!”
“Root-addicted kick balls should learn to roll back to their holes instead of making Kol put them up after playing.”
Every foot the guileless elf knight claims with Kol in tow, two are given up by the horde of plundering goblins that flee to the edges of the battlements to hide in shadows.
(“Glyphic Goblins”, one of the most… ugh, common enemies of the Wandering Gardens… and very far from home…!)
Children-sized enemies can be misleading in the Castillo, but these are simply wiry kids and about as threatening to a slayer. Punching bags that infest the Gardens. Their sole “appeal” is, as Adris now acknowledges, in how they send the blood racing with the thought of naked bodies cutting off all escape…!
(If you give me a weapon, no matter how much it hurts…!?)
The plan is perfect for Adris’ needs, for Ave at the front of the slow invasion has a special story opened before her.
Both this elf and Neesiette fail to comprehend the immense terror Rouvenor brings to those touched by darkness or the Alchemaster.
That it is completely illusory matters not, for the dozens of wretches could pose a problem if they turn the stately weapons they’ve plundered from the battlement’s former defenders’ stockpile upon the party. Every last one of them has hundreds of various sizes of glyphs painted over spindly muscles that can hold stabbing implements out-sized for their hands. Far from magical in Adris’ sight though, they’re more a mockery of “Art” than true representation.
(Only the… uuhh…!? Slightly curvy leader seems strong…)
“Leave alone! Before bigger bads return!” The female leader offers a truce, which Adris nods at internally. She is obviously the most well-fed, yet all only reach Neesiette’s height. Straw thongs and branch-and-bark panels with a curious greenish tint when catching the sunlight are all that protects them.
(A hint of magic to them.)
What’s caught Kol’s eye though is the pile of treasures they’ve accumulated with shields laid up next to it. Looted from the living quarters built into the defenses, they’re for the claiming.
“This lady’s Emperor, blood be upon one’s lip.”
The cost of fooling others is that Adris’ heart tears further with each moment Rouvenor is out, the key now jiggling in rage in the lock that is his heart.
It’s a price Adris will pay with tears so long as it effortlessly wins his conflicts!
After getting coated in slime along with everyone else, it’s time for others to suffer…!
(I SACRIFICE EVERYTHING FOR ELVES! AHAHAHAHA!)
“All Kol smell: fear and pissing Scribblies.”
Even their tribal spellcaster joins that estimation when she collapses from weak knees upon Rouvenor slowly coming to stand upon the end of the greenhouse and look down upon a new scene.
“Generosity… is… my truest nature.”
Choking on his words as he forces them out, Adris shakily addresses the enemy force with his grandest language. “Robbers, begone from the path of a… false god! Your glorious Alchemaster has abandoned…!
GRK!?” Adris shudders and bites his tongue.
“What human say!?”
“R-Raise no… arms and we… ugh…!”
Another spasm shooting through his body interrupts the effect he was having. Neesiette clings harder in the aftermath, touching upon his bare skin before whispering. “Vessel be at risk by unknown ailment?”
(Very… well… KNOWN!)
The colorful scene that Rouvenor compels spills over the battlement as flowery painted petals.
And to answer this growing presence, another overwhelms Adris’ hearing with a shrieking buzz that drowns out Kol’s rant and the goblins’ cries. That can only come from the presence at the furthest edge of Adris’ senses, the Castillo’s evil heart that resists attempts to call to it now.
(Try all you want to stop me!)
It won’t stop Adris from using the book.
He’ll abuse it till he’s dead and buried.
In his entire life, the hustler has never passed up on a sure thing.
(Turn me into ice if you… think you can!)
With outrage escalating at every elvish jape, the key appears to also be stealing internal heat.
(I’ve still got a leaf pop-up book that will…!)
“FWAH!?”
The world rotates forty-five degrees at the same time the object within his heart makes an audible “clang”. Only with loose consciousness does Adris hear the next sound, the impact of his head upon the greenhouse. That pain, and the scrambling of a doll in his arms yanking on him to keep both from sliding off into a lethal drop, pales in comparison to the agony of what pulses from within to spill over the Castillo grounds.
The Golden Heart’s voyeur sight isn’t summoned so much as yanked to envelop everyone present. It quivers with palpable fear at the reconstructive demands the key booms outward into its oppressive oversight.
Instead of building up slowly, the ruined battlement that was being painted upon distorts into a brief shaking of vision.
All cracks are unmade when it clears.
Every missing furnishing, barrier, and defender’s rest as fresh as the first day after construction!
Then, the structure rumbles.
(AAAAAAAHHHRUMIAAaaaa…!)
“Adris, vessel…!”
Trying to scream evil’s true name, Adris only coughs up more blood onto Neesiette.
“Boss, hands.”
“GIANTS AGAIN!? RUN!” Kol and Ave call out next.
Adris stops his eyes rolling for long enough to climb over Neesiette so that he can witness Servants of Wonder, sculpted and anonymous kin of Lycia, free one burdened arm a piece from holding up the battlement. Kol and Ave both scamper away from the edge before roaring stone blocks out the sun above an elfin knight.
The greenhouse roof edge explodes into endless glass shards when that peerless hero is flattened into a spray of paint.
“THEY SMUSHED ROUVENOR!?”
In the instant of slamming the memory into oblivion, the pulse of power that spread out returns to its origin like a burning ripple. It leaps not into Adris, but instead into the shattering, deforming greenhouse.
“Falling…!? Eh?”
From its iron rods that support its ponderous weight, golden chains thread into being as they rocket toward Ave!
“LET GO!?”
The innumerable chains plunge into the open pages of the vibrating book that Ave tries to rip free. When no more are left outside, its open cover slams shut to jump from her grasp and land on the roof.
A painted illusion spawned from a forest god chews up like a crunching cookie by golden shining until just the green leaf plate is left.
The scenery dims after.
Only the Castillo’s imperiousness tinges sight with visions of obtaining, now.
“Arise, Emperor!”
“… Arising…! I’m arising…”
Adris’ hoarse voice isn’t dignified when exhaling the misery that just tore through him. The sole bright point of the experience of turning like a lock with his whole body is that he felt that, even when it was gloating at its work, the key diminished into a residual quantity whatever it was saving.
Still is at his side only for a moment, then to Ave’s. Both check the now closed leaf book that alone glitters gold in the sunlight.
[DE MINIMIS CURAT AVARITIA]
What binds the leaf’s surface are chains embossed upon the green leaf made of unfamiliar letters, yet their meaning repeats that “Greed cares about the smallest things.”
(Petty aristocrat! I can’t keep a single advantage over you, can I!?)
“UP! THEN DOWN!? Slam them good!”
“Great Alkem above! Feel, watches us!”
And that greed cares rips the entire thrust of their indomitable march away.
“We chosen…! Great ‘first day’, gone! Alkem chose Orla, [Smoke Whisper] to fight!”
The goblins creep back out from the shadows of their corners to rejoin their leader, weapons hoisted as this female goblin points a sprig of some tree at Adris.
(We do not need to fight!)
A victory by bluffing was pursued because a nagging feeling kept digging into Adris’ memories when a kobold had screamed…
“STILL WEAK! Beat twenty times, stopped counting after!”
A knight-squire completely ignores the changing circumstances to charge up onto the ghoul-statues’ hands. After slamming down her pole-axe, the giant hands only crack from the impact.
“SEE!? Not moving! Scribblies, ‘chosen to get beaten up’!”
And now Kol points her poleaxe at an enemy that she lacks fear of.
“Evil dog, scarier than ever!?”
“Wear BIG armor, now!?”
Kol’s Talent of intimidating those she’s already beaten before sends them reeling away when the kobold blazes up with white flames feeding on their dread.
(Stop her…!)
Adris motions toward Still with a wimpy sign, one that Still nods to before her half-cloak flaps with her rush.
The sneak makes signs at the goblin leader, who stops moving forward and yells back after reading them.
“We not go or give up stuff! But… not chase if not take?”
(Good… Still is so reliable…)
“This lady’s Emperor, sparing consideration for weaklings does one…? Or…?” Neesiette’s insecurity spreads to Ave, who is still cradling her shut book with the teary expression of a girl whose pet was beheaded before her eyes by brigands.
A not-distant memory of other cowards finally pierces Adris’ pain.
Those idiots had wailed, too, about things being unfair.
(NOT KINDNESS! HIDDEN MECHANISM!)
[Darkness doesn’t forgive acts without meaning in Adris’ view.]
This is a basic truth of the Black Cross.
(Only the strong should be afraid of me…)
“Puddle!? Why stop!? Boss say not to…?” The bruiser and sneak dance around each other at the crushed edge of the greenhouse, before Kol simply leaps off to land on the battlement below.
“Just us two, could easily beat them!”
(That’s why you shouldn’t try, you idiot!)
But Adris can neither scream from biological insufficiency nor that of his position.
Still is required to…!
(If you summon the cross’ power, we’ll…!?
URK!?)
The key jostles slightly, draining a bit more heat and heaving Adris upright onto his knees with a feeling of it poking at his Inner Expanse. Probing for…?
Then, the gathered heat becomes a tiny pulse of authority that washes over the Gardens.
After expending even more limited authority, the smugly burning key… goes dead cold.
“Nah?”
{?}
Both forward defenders jolt when shields leaned up against a treasure pile clatter to the ground. Behind them, unfelt at all before now, a wash of power bastes the kobold and thief with different flavors.
“… Better Best Weapon?” Adris can almost hear Kol’s tongue wagging inside her helmet. “Something that good… pure…? Scribblies can leave…” Ignoring the enemies around her, the knight squire leans over the abyss to stare at a gigantic (for her pint-sized self) mirror-finished golden long axe that rests within the pile. “… but, THAT HUNK is Kol’s!”
“What even that!? Who found that axe!?”
“Axe? We had one?”
(Alchebitch, you brought that!)
“Not give, single thing! What WE stole! OUR RIGHT!” Their leader howls when the treasure pile becomes the subject.
“Still… stop… her…!”
“But, if Kol can beat them alone, shouldn’t we…?” Ave tries to be helpful, but instead helps Adris up instead of doing what he asked. He can’t quite make out what catches Still’s attention, but there is a clear orb with a familiar-colored liquid within the pile lying “coincidentally” next to the axe.
But he has faith!
This is his dutiful Partner, bound by more than oath!
An intelligent girl who always…!
This trinket is not something so important that a blue angel, so faithful to Adris’ plans as she leaps into the air…!
The instant a slickened-sickly-purple steel sparrow whistles from Still’s hand, a slasher smile painted across her mask with her surprise assault, Adris’ heart breaks completely.
“NICE!” Kol cheers and chambers up her poleaxe.
(I really am cursed, Serras.)
At bullet speeds due to the sneak’s spiraling windup of her plush self, the dirk screams for the shocked leader’s eye.
But… steel isn’t quicker than the reach of the beyond.
A black cross, forcibly self-raised in preparation for the inevitable confrontation that Adris denied while watching it, explodes all the darkness of creation to obscure the sun above.
“KAKAKAKAKA!” Expecting it by now, Kol maniacally laughs when drowned within its blackness and the whispers that roar out to call others to witness.
Yet, the first manifestation of “equality” is for the whistling that entered quicker darkness to be snuffed.
“FEEL, BOSS’ MIGHT, SCRIBBL— Nah?”
The Gardens rumble with the swirling darkness ignoring Kol and Still to instead gather at what caught Still’s poisoned dirk.
Not an eye, but two stubby green fingers.
“… GYAAAAAAH!!! Great… ALKEM!!!” A male peon trudges through the darkness with captured dirk in hand. Still quite ungainly, the tight muscles of a fighter grow wider as the goblin’s height also increases inch-by-inch each time it shudders.
Golden sands swirl around him on currents of blackness, torn from the battlement itself.
This goblin lifts the dirk up to show it off, then bends it between his two hands while ignoring how the purple poison discolors his skin.
“Boss, explain. Why, Kol not getting bigger, but… they are?”
The storm of darkness swirls in to cradle the entire horde. Each menaces with a new foot of height and a greater sense of mania set in their gold-tinted green stares.
Teeth bared, and stolen bludgeons and swords raised, they are almost a perfect memory of Kol’s tribe’s own newfound bravado.
Except, the weak, painted faux-glyphs on their skin are now tattoos instead of paint. Pulsing with glowing yellowish-green energies, they’re like popped veins all over that fuel their new battle statures.
“Higher tier… goblinoids be these now.” Neesiette doesn’t clarify further, the emotionlessness of her whisper conveying enough to Adris about the tribe’s newfound aura of danger.
(The cross commanded the Mansion to empower them!?)
“AHHHHH!? ORLA… ORLA CAN HEAR ALL THE TREES!?” The darkness settles most of all into their leader, whose dark hair beneath her straw cloak lengthens. Thorn-like horns pierce through her cowl to grow like a devil from the Wondrous Works.
A shimmer like sparkling green feathers uncoils from the gobliness to fly to the trees surrounding.
“Trees… TREES…!” When this goblin girl grips her head, the mighty trees shake to match how she swirls her head around. “[Awaken, awaken, let foes be forsaken! Stomp, march, leave man-things shaken!]”
“Nnnnrn!?” Kol growls when the animated forest scenery violently rips up flying stone. Branches whip around without intellect, only rage. Roots become legs for the wooden warriors, and each gains followers equally green and armed with Castillo weapons!
“Intermediate Druidcraft (PRIMITIVE HERBALISM AND ANIMISM), pseudo-Art manifestation animates non-moving flora by sympathy.”
Neesiette’s warning calls it what it is when the trees violently twist about…
“Adris, she’s bonded with nature for real, which means those old growths full of malevolent spirits are about to smush us. Fire isn’t much use against fresh wood, so let’s just accept that they’re better than us and leave, okay?” Just as he told her to, Ave completes Neesiette’s thoughts with a helpful suggestion.
(That was all… I wanted.)
“Choose now to fail being best backstabber, Puddle?”
Kol glares back at Still, who has landed behind the kobold and slumps in disbelief; then, Kol turns that glare on Adris.
(You wanted a meal after already being stuffed…?)
Up to fullest energy Adris bounces, flinging his cloak free of his front to laugh.
“Why dissatisfaction, Kol?” The black cross’ remnant night still wafts toward the emboldened killers below; yet, Adris betrays none of the fear within outside.
(Then choke on the next course.)
“I will never permit any of you to go unchallenged.” Always the consummate professional actor, a godlike being’s majesty requires capriciousness.
“Especially my disciple, so needy for strong foes.”
“SKIN FURRY!”
“MUTT KICKBALL!”
The horde’s blood-curdling screams empowers their druid’s magic, whipping the trees into crashing forward faster.
“Cut meat from tin! Stomp flat females, then cook — OUR FUN TIME BE WITH BOY!” The druid points her sprig of wood, now a rough stave that grows fresh leaves from it, at Adris and licks her lips. She’s joined by the other females who single him out with burning cheeks!
(It’s a hard responsibility, being so desirable.)
“ “ “ “ “DOG SOUP! DOG SOUP!” ” ” ”
The males all chant with the hungriest scowls demanding not eros, but payback.
“BOSS!? Why ‘up’ them, instead!?” Kol roars like it’s a betrayal, then swishes her tail wildly when turning back to face them. “No, not bad?” Her feminine, deep voice gains a tinge of pleasure when growling.
She lifts her front foot to crash it down into the stone, bursting a familiar explosion of heavy air that staggers the tight knit goblin charge!
“See mountain: CLIMB OVER! Want…!” Still dances at Kol’s back when the bruiser howls, like something knocked loose to set the sneak back to killing mode. “KOL HAS WILL TO IMPROVE!”
(At least she’ll have fun!?)
“BLOOD AND STEEL! FOR FALSE GOD!”
They meet the wave not as destined arch-enemies, but with Still thinning the numbers with a rapid sweep of dirks, before ducking so that Kol can make a huge swing to cut down the momentum.
(What?)
“‘Gift’, not!” A cry interrupts Adris’ appreciation for the spectacle. “‘Curse’, more apt!” Neesiette totters on the collapsing greenhouse rooftop, struggling to find somewhere to perch on that’s not noisily crashing a hundred feet into darkness below them.
“ADRIS!?”
“Rouvenor’s tale is over.”
No fray that includes hulking tree juggernauts and berserk green-skinned midgets is something that he can remain safe of.
“RELINQUISH! L-LEAP NOOOT!?” Adris leaps with this baggage hoisted under his arm, joined by Ave flinging herself at the battlement!
(Let’s see who improved most since fighting for Fehr!)
Plopping Neesiette upon the battlement’s stone floor, Adris smiles at the four opponents rushing on the outside of Kol’s flaming sphere that jump him. None of them notice the hard-wrapped ball with a striker squeeze that he flicks into his hand from out of his chest bandoleer.
It explodes into a flash no less impressive than the sun when tossed, letting him truly enjoy the punches and kicks he launches into as the martial thrum of his converted aura Talent starts up.
(If I don’t die…!?)
His skin that was already on fire becomes tenderer when the first vial strikes him, smearing viscous fluids that smell familiar! Already incensed, Adris feels the sudden urge to be free of clothing between himself and the first female-looking green body he leaps at with his fist raised.
(MY PUNITIVE INSTRUCTION FOR MY WOMEN WILL INVOLVE A WONDERFUL PUMMELING OF THEIR
JUICY,
TIGHT…!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH—!!!)