[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] Chapter 45

Hal realized with mounting horror that he had not heard the Manatree’s song since entering the glade. It usually serenaded him with a song of love and companionship, as a child to its parent.

It was silent as the grave.

Dark mounds were heaped beneath trees that he had taken for shadows until, upon closer inspection, they turned out to be withered wortlings. They seemed asleep, but Hal knew they were close to death.

“What… has happened here?” Noth asked, her voice trembling.

“The Shadesblight,” Hal said wearily. He was so tired, but he couldn’t rest. Not yet. “It… wanted this. I think the Manatree was copying me. Doing as I did, staying silent, over-extending itself… until the Shadesblight found a crack in its defenses and burrowed in.”

Noth looked distraught.

This was no affliction. That was why his Steel Mind never triggered. Fighting off a disease was not the same as succumbing to it.

Hermes looked between them, and then at the Manatree. He stiffened his little shoulders. “Things will get better, mates. And it’s going to right now!”

The small oppa pulled out one of his stash boxes and dumped some fluted bottles on the ground. Their contents shone with cosmic energy. He tossed one back, and then pressed his paws together.

Hermes readies Solar Convalescence (Aeder Magic).

Area Effect:

Spirit Potency +30%

Spirit radiated out from the soul aeder, splashing against the Manatree’s desiccated bark like a golden solar tide. The Manatree’s dry, withered roots drank up the energy.

The skeletal limbs of the Manatree creaked with renewed strength. Tiny red shoots where leaves should have been, peeked through the gloom.

The glade’s air began to clear. A faint warmth was carried on the wind that held the promise of spring after the first thaw.

The oppa gave the Manatree some remnant of life to cling to, but it wasn’t enough. The little guy continued to cycle as more of that golden solar tide ebbed and flowed against the tree, maintaining its lifeline. Maybe Hal’s too.

It was up to Hal to do the rest.

What little strength Hal had left, he marshaled to the best of his ability.

It broke his heart to see the Manatree in such a state. Its silent suffering reflected his own.

This was a painful reminder that his actions had consequences beyond what he could see. People relied upon him. They saw what he did, and some–like the Manatree–modeled their behavior after him.

Pushing himself to the brink, nearly killing himself over and over again, not just for the Tower, but every battle and every trial before as well.

Hal had taught the Manatree that the only way it could be strong like Hal was to take everything onto its shoulders. Never cry. Never complain.

If I had only known, Hal said, putting his skeletal palm against the tree’s withered trunk. Dry bark crackled and fell away to dust. I would never have left you alone.

The Manatree’s voice was so faint, even as close as Hal was to it, he could no longer hear it. All he heard was the faint sighing on the wind.

“No more,” Hal promised. He braced his frail body and grabbed the tree’s thick trunk in both hands.

He called on every ounce of Spirit he had left. He spun up his Monster Core, using the Manatree as a conduit along the path. He pushed out his Spirit from his Core, to his arm, through the Manatree, and back into his Core.

At first, Hal feared he was too late. The amount of Spirit that the Manatree drank from him was so tiny, he could hardly tell the difference.

As much as he wanted to increase the flow by using Dragonfire, he held back. Too much could shock the Manatree, even kill it if he wasn’t careful.

Which was saying nothing of the risk it posed to Hal.

Instead of goldflame, Hal channeled whiteflame to build up his Spirit, drawing in everything he could from the Shiverglades. For as lifeless as the place felt, it was rife with aether. He could use that. Distill it, turn it into Spirit with the aid of his whiteflame Dragonfire.

Noth lent what aid she could, but with neither Dragonfire nor a Monster Core, she couldn’t do much more than be there for Hal, Hermes, Vorax, and the Manatree. She lacked access to Spirit that even Hermes had.

Even with everybody working to help the tree, it seemed fruitless. The Manatree struggled, barely clinging to life.

More soul aeder arrived, lending what help they could. Both were far stronger than Hermes, but Komachi and Kow lacked the special attunement Hermes was beginning to build with the Manatree and with Hal.

An hour at most, and it would have died. If Hal had gone to sleep. If he had gone back into the Tower… he didn’t want to think about it.

The dragons alighted into the clearing with a whisper of wind in their natural forms, providing Hal what aid they could. His Spirit filled to bursting, Hal passed on what he could to the Manatree.

Time lost all sense and meaning to Hal as he focused on that thin lifeline to the Manatree. To keep it alive, to pull it back from the jaws of death itself.

Hours passed in the blink of an eye, and still there was little sign of the Manatree’s recovery. It was like pouring water into the desert sand.

As much as they could give it, the Manatree drank it up and always seemed to wither again as if–

“Noth, Orrittam, Naitese,” Hal spoke, half-asleep already. “I need you to protect… my body…” Fatigue threatened to drown him.

Hal shut his eyes and let go.

Sleep claimed him and he felt himself fall forward into the Manatree, his body still feeding it Spirit from all the myriad of sources opened to him.

There, in the darkness, Hal saw the faint pulsing light of the Manatree. He didn’t know if it had a soul, though he liked to think that it did.

He had seen that light before. More than once, in fact. Wrapped all around it were dark poisonous tendrils, like the threads of a fungal network beneath the surface of the soil.

Feeding on that light was a parasite. An abomination born of the Shadesblight. It was little wonder all the Spirit and energy poured into the Manatree couldn’t take hold.

So long as those tendrils fed on the Manatree, no matter what they did, the Manatree would never recover. The Shadesblight had gotten in too deep.

Hal snarled with fury.

In his trance-like state, Hal pulled deeper on his Dragonfire than he ever had before. Even more than he had during the Tower. He let it burn him, consuming him, until a new form emerged from the blazing conflagration.

A draconic form of dream and hope, silvery white scales dotted with gold and sparkling with righteous indignation. He launched himself, unaccustomed to his new, larger body.

Silver-tipped claws slashed the tendrils apart, a scythe-like tail carved through the thickest sets. Dragonfire, white and gold, mingled together into an explosive mix, blasted free the Manatree’s dim core of hope.

With a massive, clawed dragon’s paw, Hal could have sliced the rotten core of the Shadesblight to ribbons. It would have been easy to destroy it and rid the Manatree of its blight once and for all.

But that was too good for the Shadesblight.

For a second time, the vile creature had invaded his home. It had attacked the very things that he held dearest. Such atrocities required a response in kind.

“I have seen you,” Hal said, speaking High Draconic in an unfamiliar voice, “you have been watching me. Learning. Plotting. Always one step ahead. But you are not the only one who has been watching. I have learned from you, and now you will see my vengeance.”

Roaring with all his fury, Hal slashed the last of the tendrils free from the Manatree. Tenderly, he reached an oversized dragon paw toward the light and cradled it with utmost care.

He offered it his Dragonfire, a tiny flicker, a spark to ignite its flame once more.

The heart of the Manatree pulsed with pure argent light. Moonlight struck out from between Hal’s clawed hand, and where the Manatree’s light touched the Shadesblight, the corruption was burned away.

“No,” Hal told the Manatree, “destruction is too good for this foe.”

Guiding the Manatree’s blessing, pulling it into himself and spinning it around his Monster Core, Hal emboldened the Manatree’s power a thousandfold.

The rotting core of the Shadesblight tried to slip away into the infinite dark expanse, but it was a simple affair to reach out and grab it with his free hand.

Hal’s behemoth dragon body made such things trivial, even when the Shadesblight moved faster than he could have ever thought possible.

Though the Shadesblight slipped between his claws, Hal flapped his colossal wings once, twice, three times, and he had overtaken the Shadesblight.

This time, he struck fast. Gold lightning snared the Shadesblight in his other hand.

Just like he had done with the Manatree, trying to lend it his Spirit, Hal spun his Monster Core and cycled Dragonfire and the Manatree’s blessing.

The Shadesblight core struggled and fought, wailing with a soul-rending shriek that would have harmed a lesser being. But in his new form, the foul powers of the Shadesblight bounced off his dragon scales harmlessly.

A faint light began to glow in the center of the Shadesblight. It pulsed with silvery moonlight, and only then did the Shadesblight understand its doom.

It might not be able to think or feel as normal creatures did, but it understood death very well. And it knew that its fate was one worse than even that.

Hal had learned much from the Shadesblight.

Destruction was simple.

Corruption, turning the creatures that were attacking you to your side, that was the true danger. Time and time again, the Shadesblight managed to slip through Hal’s clutches, always one step ahead, always worming its way into some other part of his home.

This time, Hal would give the Shadesblight a taste of its own medicine.

Pulsing with godly power, Hal threaded the Manatree’s blessing inside the Shadesblight, building up a core of pure moonlight within the eternal night of this parasite.

It was not the whole of the Shadesblight, only that portion that stole into his home. The piece and part that fueled the horrible Tower of Blight.

Hal understood that. It was like a node, and that node led back to its parent. Siphoning off strength and empowering the core of the Shadesblight, wherever it might be.

A massive web of corruption seeped all around Hal as he spread the Manatree’s blessing. It nearly took his breath away. The scale was unlike anything he had ever seen. Even the Shard itself must be choked by the Shadesblight.

No. More.

Moonlight ignited the shadowy tendrils, revealing their countless paths. The weaker ones, those that did not return to a node of corruption, were burned out.

Those that could be followed, Hal pushed with all the backing of his new form to infect them with the Manatree’s blessing. The nearest node was a black pit of filth so deep that Hal was nearly moved to tears, but he did not relent.

The Manatree, empowered by Hal’s Spiritual Form, lent him further aid, drawing on deeper wellsprings of power.

The Tower, over a mile away, in all its dark majesty, began to glow with argent light. The miasma and corruption around the Tower receded. The shimmering Manatree barrier squeezed the filth and corruption tighter and tighter around the Tower until it was like a second skin.

The land surrounding the Tower, once desiccated and rotting, was scoured clean. In time, new growth would settle in, but for now, it was a field of dirt and stone.

Hal pushed with all of his remaining strength. Silvery moonlight pulsed and shattered the stones of the tower but could not break through.

At the end of his strength, Hal strained but could not get past the tough exterior of the Tower.

Then it hit him. Think like a parasite.

The Tower was wounded.

Focusing on the vestiges of Dragonfire within the Tower, Hal found the source easily enough. Like an opportunistic infection taking root in an open wound, he poured the last vestiges of his mingled power into the Tower.

The ground shook and a distant howl of agony filled the valley. A backlash of power rolled its way down the Shadesblight’s many tendrils.

With his last act, Hal sheltered the Manatree from the backlash. His large, draconic body shattered on impact, and he knew no more.