Pandora Unchained - B1C85: Deforestation

Sorin and his companions raced across what used to be the well-maintained cobblestone roads of the Bloodwood Outpost. Vines and tangled roots were spreading rampantly across entire city blocks, barring roads and tearing down buildings.

What's worse, an entire square kilometer of civilization had been transformed by the dryad near the aqueduct, with more land falling under her control with each passing moment. It sent a statement to the defenders: time was not on their side, and soon, not even ruins would remain where the outpost once stood.

The Governor was doing his best to tie up the dryad, but he was unable to completely lock away her influence. Thick vital energy rained down on the on the outpost, further fueling the rampant growth of the vine forest and the treants as they lumbered about and doled out destruction.

"First contact will be with a single treant," said Gareth, directing them to an isolated treant. "Be aware that we're fighting an elemental; conventional tactics may not prove effective. I have only one request for this round: Daphne, you're sitting this one out."

The fire mage looked downright miffed at being left out but didn't overly complain. After all, there were plenty of trees to burn, and there was only so much mana she could draw on.

Sorin was personally very grateful for Gareth's consideration. Both he and Lawrence had attacks that were highly dependent on his opponent's physiology. Sorin had no idea how a treant would react to his poisons.

The target in question was a 'short' treant, barely 20 feet tall. It towered over the row housing it was halfway through demolishing with exaggerated oaken fists the size of a small horse.

"On my mark," said Gareth, nocking an arrow. "Get set. Go!" He struck the treant with Shackle Shot, tethering it to a half-broken house. Thanks to his heroic attribute, the stun effect lasted a little longer than it had with prior two-star enemies, exerting its influence for a full second before wearing out.

In that time, Lawrence worked his way to the creature's leg and sliced it up and down, leaving shallow gashes that quickly healed over.

"My attacks aren't doing much," said Lawrence. "I'll try to hit its eyes? Maybe its joints?"

"The key is trying as many things as possible," called out Gareth. "Maybe Sorin can help us out with some poison once he figures out what works and what doesn't."

The treant freed itself from Shackle Shot's influence just before Sorin arrived and greeted him with a large fist to the face. Sorin used Adder Rush to dodge the lumbering attack and struck what appeared to be an ankle with his dagger. He infused it with a combined poison and cast Ophidian Eye to analyze how it traveled.

Paralytic has little to no effect, thought Sorin as he dodged a follow-up attack. Vines shot out from the earth—he barely avoided them but ended up in an awkward position. The treant tried to kick him, but he used Cobra's Glare to lock it down. To his surprise, this was very effective. Soul resistance is minimal, with all resources spent on physical strengthening, life magic, and recovery. Python Coil will likely have little to no effect.

Sorin sent out a Python Coil for good measure to confirm his hypothesis. As expected, it barely affected the treant's movements. After avoiding a stray vine sent his way, Sorin stabbed at a tangle of vines that appeared to be the creature's calf. Manabane Poison is extremely effective and causes disintegration and seeming necrosis of the creature's wooden 'flesh,' which is curious because the invasive blood poison component has little to no effect. Acidic poisons are also minimally effective.

Having completed his initial analysis, Sorin attuned his blood to deliver an optimized poison consisting of primarily manabane poison. He then used Viper's Strike to deliver quick payloads to the creature's legs, disabling movement in its lower limbs.

In tandem, Lorimer shot out of Sorin's chest pocket and adopted his flame form. He scurried up the treant amid Lawrence's probing blows and located what Sorin figured was its 'heart'.

Three seconds later, there was a loud crunch. The treant froze mid-motion, then fell to the ground as a pile of sawdust. Lorimer hopped out from the pile holding a half-eaten demon core, which he gobbled up greedily.

"Looks like their cores are their critical weakness," said Sorin, retrieving his poisons from the pile of sawdust. "By the way, where's Stephan?"

Stephan, it turns out, had wilfully ignored Stephan's orders and had decided to take on a treant by himself. In terms of offense, he was the most frightening on their team but was, unfortunately,, a bit slow. The lumbering treant proved an excellent matchup.

Compared to the treant's powerful body, the vines it summoned were weak and couldn't hold back the Arctic Rune Bear. The aura of frost Stephan gave off further embrittled the wooden enemy and hampered its strange bodily functions.

What followed next was a brutal and one-sided mangling, with the nimble armored bear slashing at openings like a boxer, breaking away pieces of frozen wood until the treant could no longer keep up. He finished it off by biting into its chest and retrieving its core, which he directly tossed into the small storage space attached to his hero emblem.

"Can I start burning things now?" Daphne asked Gareth once Stephan returned.

"Sure," said Gareth. "Knock yourself out." Daphne sent three fireballs she'd pre-cast streaking towards a treant, setting it on fire. This didn't seem to be enough, so she sent a fourth fireball, finishing it off. "Feeling better now?"

"Much better," replied Daphne. "What are we waiting for guys? Let's go burn ourselves some trees."

Seeing that five-on-one tactics weren't efficient, Gareth split them up into three groups. Sorin and Lorimer consisted of one group, and Lawrence and Daphne a second. Stephan was a one-man team, but in all fairness, Lawrence mostly served to distract Daphne's targets as she torched them to oblivion.

Gareth was a floater, as his normal arrows had little to no effect. He mostly used Shackle Shot to support their team and used his commanding presence to optimize their movements as they worked further into the city.

It wasn't long before they finished off ten treants, a full third of the number spawned in their area. "How's everyone holding up?" asked Gareth. "Mana-wise, I mean." No one had suffered any serious injuries thus far.

Sorin had Toxic Metabolism to rely on to reabsorb his poisons and was, therefore, good to go after consuming half a mana potion. Daphne, on the other hand, was greatly fatigued. After unleashing hell on a few elementals, she discovered that maybe spamming fireballs was not the answer to everything. She, therefore, shifted her strategy and focused on providing pointed assistance to Sorin and Stephan in the form of fireballs at point-blank range.

They continued killing treants as before, but it soon became clear that they could not continue in this fashion. "I don't like where those treants are heading," said Gareth. "We need to increase our pace and ignore some of the nearer treants."

"What's got you worried?" asked Stephan.

"They're just getting awfully close to a cluster of shelters," said Gareth. "A good half of the remaining ones are at least. Is everyone ready to move fast?"

Gareth once more sent a map to everyone and used command ability to guide them down the least cluttered pathway. The dryad's ability to provoke growth was difficult to deal with, and many of the streets were blocked off by tangled vines.

They avoided one such blockade and were about to enter what used to be a small business hub when Lawrence suddenly bolted to the side.  An image flashed in Sorin's mind, alerting him of a pit trap full of wooden stakes, which he managed to jump away from before the 'ground' beneath them collapsed.

"Why didn't you see that coming?" asked Gareth. "As far as I know, your vision at close range is near perfect. Daphne, would you mind?"

"Sure thing boss," said Daphne, torching the pit trap and killing the elemental creature governing it.

"My ability works fine," said Lawrence. "It just gets a little blurry when dealing with entities summoned by three-star demons."

"Fair point," said Gareth. "There's a shelter with three treants getting a little too close just up ahead." He nocked an arrow and fired a Power Shot at an elemental's head but failed to provoke a response. "Shackle shot it is, then," he muttered, rushing up ahead and firing a shot that tangled two treants together. "Watch your fire, Daphne. Make sure it doesn't spread."

"No problem," said Daphne, summoning a fireball opposite the bunker and detonating it straight into the elementals' unprotected backs.

Meanwhile, Lawrence and Sorin closed the gap. As the creatures broke free from the Shackle Shot, Sorin ran onto a vined leg, executed Cobra's Glare, and stabbed a dagger filled with manabane poison where Ophidian Eye detected the creature's core.

As for Lawrence, he was carrying their most potent weapon of all: Lorimer. Lawrence carried the rat up to the scorched treant's back and tossed the rat onto the core's approximate location. The rat proceeded to burrow into the creature's wooden flesh to seek out the delicious treasure within.

Stephan arrived shortly after and began mauling the treant Sorin had disrupted with his manabane poison. Having taken manabane poison to the core, the creature was easy prey for the Arctic Rune Bear. This freed Sorin to launch an attack on the third two-star treant attacking the shelter. This one was a willow and proved to be nimbler than its companions. It evaded his initial attack with a poison spear and whipped its willowy branches at him, slapping him down onto the broken stone streets.

Three fractures, thought Sorin, picking himself up. Minor muscle trauma. Two partially torn ligaments. He shot back a cocktail of stimulant poison and rolled his shoulder as his regenerative powers kicked in. He then shot out towards the willow, ducking beneath its branches to reach its main body, only to find himself facing another row of thin branches arranged as a prison. Yet Sorin wasn't troubled by this development because his contract with Lorimer made him fully aware of the small creature flying the willow's way on a collision course for its thin, willowy arm.

The treant shrieked in what seemed to be rage or annoyance as the rat gnawed off the arm. It brought up its branches to sweep away the rat, but in doing so, freed Sorin. He stabbed its thin legs with Viper Strike, filling them with manabane poison until their wood failed. It wasn't long before it fell to the ground in a pile of wood chips, revealing a grinning rat with a large demon core tucked in its cheek.

"It looks like the second team has everything under control," said Gareth, peering off in the distance. Barbara and her group of five were tackling a second group of three treants.

It was Sorins' first time seeing Barbara fight since her awakening as a hero; what he saw left a great impression on him. The armored fighter started off with a fiery spear to initiate, only to rapidly switch to a sword mid-combat. A shield appeared as the treant she was engaged with slapped at her with a vine-covered arm, only to disappear as she summoned the spear once again and pierced it straight into the creature's heart.

"Speed enhancement, I think?" commented Sorin.

"And a weapon ability," said Stephan. "By the looks of it, she can switch between different weapons at will. It's a happy coincidence that they all have fire-related enchantments."

"Not to spoil the mood, but I think we have more important things than watching an Amazon goddess kill treants," said Lawrence.

"What's the problem?" asked Stephan, but cut off when Gareth launched himself into the air to get a better look at his surroundings.

"He's right," said Gareth upon returning. He sent a quick image to the group to apprise them of the situation. "Those treants tricked us. While we were fighting this group, another small group made a quick break toward the next shelter."