"Chres!" Sil cried out weakly as Akai took her away to safety.
"No… What are you doing?”What was this pain? This worry?
"We… we can’t leave them…. We can’t leave him…"Her mind felt clear again. Why now? Why here?
The cries of battle began to fade as Akai took her further away.
”No…" She whimpered. With every step away from battle she could feel her mind dulling.
"don’t…"I’m broken. she realized as the clearity began to leave her. Her mind… It had always been broken…
The tendrils reaching for Chres hesitated as a giant icy blade began to form. Intentional or not, Karina had kept the extent of her abilities hidden during most of this fight. Her ability to attack from afar caught the Seed off guard.
The icy blade shot through the air. The Seed panicked and redirected its tendrils away from Chres and towards the incoming attack. But it was too late. The blade flew true. It hit its target and ripped the last of O’Kal’s hearts out from its home.
Time stopped for Karina. A towering shadow fell upon her in the form of General Frost.
“You can’t escape it.” Said a voice behind Karina. A voice belonging to the Being.
“You can’t escape him.”“No matter where you go. No matter what you achieve. The weight of his name will follow, and the ‘respect’ given will never really be your own.” The shadow of General Frost faded.
“One must not chase mirages, my friend.” The Being said, smiling coyly.
“They have this nasty habit of disappearing when you get too close.”The Being vanished. Time rushed in on itself.
The seed screamed. It slammed its tendrils on the ground as if throwing a fit.
Two hearts left. The last two hearts were the ones connected to the mass that used to be Nieffar. Chres held his breath. Hoping beyond hope that at the very least the loss of O’Kal’s four hearts would impact the O’Kal part of the seed in some way beneficial to the Pactmakers.
He waited. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty. Nothing happened. The Seed continued to throw its fit.
Chres cursed. Their gamble to focus on only one half of the Seed appeared to have not paid off. It had become clear that they would indeed need to rip out the final two hearts.
The Seed screamed. Nieffar’s tendrils, still shivering, uncoiled themselves cautiously. They almost appeared unhealthy. Perhaps a little brown... and… cracked?
Chres cocked his head.
"C-C-C-CAN’T L-L-L-L-LOOSE… C-C-C-CAN’T-T-T-T-T”O’Kal’s tendrils sharpened. The action making Chres tense up. He’d managed to get himself into a sitting position but struggled to get back on his feet. However, instead of launching the tendrils at him, the tendrils instead shot into the earth.
Chres cursed. He had seen Sightless attack like this before, launching tendrils from the earth beneath their feet in a surprise attack. A Sightless was one thing, but for a creature with several of individually moving tendrils to do the same?!
”Run!” Chres cried out to the others, but it was too late.
What seemed like hundreds of tendrils shot out from beneath the earth, individually surrounding each of the soldiers and Pactmakers. Caught in the Seed’s trap, their attempts to escape were fruitless. Within seconds the each Pactmaker and soldier became coiled and bound by one or more tendrils.
The tendrils coiled around each of the Pactmaker’s chest and tightened. The pressure making it difficult to breathe.
Damn it. Chres thought.
We were so close to winning. So close to ending this nightmare.Chres felt one of his ribs give in with a snap. He open his mouth to roar out in pain. Though with no air left in his lungs, nothing came out.
“CAN’T L-L-LOOSE!” The Seed repeated.
“C-C-CAN’T!”Chres tried to cry out. His lungs screaming for air.
“S-S-SEE ALL. L-L-L-LOST FROM START.”So this was how Chres would die. Never knowing if he deserved it?!
The air seemed stiffen. As if time had stopped. A familiar sensation, but this time, Chres, his fellow Pactmakers and the Seed still moved.
“Lost yes.” Said a coy voice from the shadows.
“Though not for them.”The strange sensation stopped. Time seeming to rush back in on itself.
The seed seemed to hesitate. Its grip on the pactmakers loosening. Time stopped.
“Nieffar, oh Nieffar. Proud and Pompous to a fault.” Said The Being, emerging from the shadows.
“His vision short-sighted, as were his ambitions.”The Being vanished. Time rushing back without him.
The Seed roared and lashed out at where the Being had been. Yet again time stopped.
The Being appeared in a different location. This time leaning casually against the base of the Seed.
“This fight is lost but not for them. For you see, what is this? Is that rot I detect?” The Being casually nodded to the Seed’s base, where what used to be the hips dug into the ground.
Time returned in a rush. The Being, gone from sight. The tendrils’ grip loosened further, enough for the Pactmakers to breathe again.
Chres gasped for air and then turned to look at the Seed’s stem. And there he saw it. The brown coloring he had seen before was a rot growing from Nieffar’s roots. It cracked the wood-like outer layer of the seed. It grew up along the base, seeming to attack the part of the seed that had been Sightless Nieffar.
Nieffar’s tendrils shivered further, turning browner in color as rot grew further. Suddenly, the stem cracked.
Time froze. The Being returned. This time sitting atop one of the Seed’s tendrils.
“The town you rooted in; it rejects you.”Time returned. The Being, gone. Another crack from the Seed’s rotting stem. Time stopped.
“Your connection to this place? Tenuous at best. And so, the land; it rejects you.”Time returned. Two more cracks. The tendrils gave way, releasing the Pactmakers. Again time stopped.
“You lost this fight from the start. Your decision to delve into the Insight’s depths; Let’s just say it was a miss of the dart.”Time returned. The Seed bellowed out. The rot spreading up Nieffar’s mutated spine. Ten cracks followed. Time stopped.
“The Insight used you, and like the fool you are, you dove into its depths. Now, with ties to this land so weak… your very roots themselves; they reject you.”Time returned. Nieffar’s spine snapped. Splitting the once Sightless away from the remainder of the Seed. Time stopped.
“Farewell Nieffar, fool of a Sightless. If you wish to toss blame, by all means, go blame yourself. Your cause was lost, though only to your arrogance.”Time returned. The Being vanished.
“Its gone…” The thing that had been Nieffar whimpered weakly as it died.
“I could see… everything… and now… its gone…”The remainder of the Seed slouched. Its last remaining hearts, having belonged to Nieffar, now gone.
“We… did it?” Chres breathed in disbelief. He struggled to comprehend everything that had happened.
Suddenly the Seed, that had been O’Kal, twitched. The Seed… the place where the hearts had been… they appeared to be healing.
Chres cursed. The Seed could heal its hearts?!
Cut off the stem. Salt the stump. The Being had said.
He struggled to his feet only to collapse. Damn it! They had to stop it before the fight started all over again!
A shadow emerged, dropping down from where the stairs, leading out of Lord O’Kal’s cellar, had been. The figure rushed in swiftly towards the seed and pulled out a blade. In a rush he raised his blade and swung with all his might. The place where O’Kal’s spine connected to his hips was now severed.
The man reached into a pouch at his side. He grabbed a handful of salt and tossed it on to the stump.
The world around them pulsed. Slowly the unnatural darkness began to recede. The pactmakers shadows shifted. No longer did they stretch towards the light coming from the dropped crystal jade candle. Instead, they retreated away from the light. Acting as shadows should.
The Distortion was gone. Chres blinked. He recognized their savior.
”Ferris?” Chres said hesitantly.
A brown gas released from the stump and the corpse of the O’Kal seed. The gas caused Chres’ attention to shift away from Ferris. The stump and the corpse’s color shifted to a color darker than black. It almost appeared to suck in the light around it. Almost like-
”Shadow metal…” Chres breathed. His eyes widened in realization.
Time froze. A slow clap broke through the silence.
“My, oh my.” The Being said, sounding amused. He sat in midair. Hovering above the rotting stump of The Seed.
“You folks sure know how to put on a show.”
