I quickly composed my thoughts as I stared at the Eldritch garden flower. That unholy, arboreal abomination was the real culprit here. Those ethereal purple lines, pulsing beneath the surface of the ground were like magical marionette strings, and the flower was clearly the puppet master. Much as I hated to admit it, Renholm and Marina were right. The only way we were going to end this was to burn this whole fucking grove right to the ground. Sometimes scorched earth is the best—nay the only—policy.

I’d come equipped with exactly the right spell for the job, but first we needed to try and save as many lives as we could.

“New plan,” I bellowed at the top of my lungs, “fallback on Marina’s position. Colin, keep her alive. Marina, blow shit up. Everyone else, work to get these loggers out of the grove while I’ll take a magical weed whacker to these fucksticks.”

Without waiting for a reply, I pivoted right and darted toward Berk.

The boar-man was drowning beneath the press of rotting flesh and vine-covered limbs. Losing one of my newly-minted Vigils was probably frowned upon, so first things first, I needed to save his ass. With a thought, I activated Armor Evocation. Silver mist swirled around me and my blue brigandine armor was whisked away, replace by my clunky, Stone Spider plate mail. I dropped my shoulder and rammed into one of the zombies.

I swapped my axe for my shottie—currently filed with Rabid Affinity Rounds—and went to town. I pressed the barrel against a sunken zombie chest and pulled the trigger. Rotten meat and chunks of vibrant green foliage spiraled out from its back as the creature fell.

[You have killed a Wither Bloom Corpse! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 150 Essence!]

I swiveled, leveled the shotgun, and blew off a second zombie’s head. Or, correction, most of its head. A portion of jaw and one eye socket remained along with a purple, eye flower. Tendril-like green roots protruded from the remaining section of skull, wriggling in the air like angry spider legs. Instead of attacking me again, the creature turned and leapt onto a third zombie, pummeling its former ally with closed fists. That had to be the Infectious Rage effect of the Rabid Affinity round taking hold.

I temporarily dismissed my shotgun and grabbed Berk by the shoulder, jerking him away from the mass of Husks and reanimated corpses.

The boar man turned with a frenzied gaze but seemed to calm down when he recognized me.

“Pull back,” I said, “go help Colin and Cal with the survivors.” I waved toward the hollow trees, cradling their catatonic prisoners. “I’ll take care of these shitheads.”

I spotted Jacob Francis not far off, his hackles raised as he spit and swiped at a Husk closing in on him. He was one mean ol’ sumbitch, but he was still just a cat. I surged forward and blasted the Husk in the side with a brutal front kick that sent the creature sprawling. I bent over, scooped up the still hissing kitty, then shoved the furball into Berk’s hairy arms. “And take my cat with you.”

Berk grunted and followed instructions, taking off toward where Marina, Cal, and Colin were already gathered. They had managed to extract several of the loggers from the tree trunks, and had them laid out in a line, but there were still a few more to go.

I spun back toward the wall of meat and vines moving toward me like a slow-moving tidal wave. Fifteen, maybe more at a quick glance. But several were now rolling around on the ground or wrestling with former allies—Infectious Rage spreading with every hit, bite, and scratch—but the body count wasn’t racking up quite fast enough for my liking.

Time to fix that.

Kentucky doesn’t get a whole lot of natural weather disasters. Aside from the occasional tornado, we don’t have earthquakes, hurricanes, or forest fires—it’s just too damned green and too damned wet for those things—but man oh man does Kentucky get some lightning storms. They can roll in out of nowhere, a single white puffy cloud transforming into a roiling mass of black and gray doom in the time it takes to walk home from school.

Back when I was sixteen, just such a storm descended on our little slice of backwoods and a bolt of lightning, brighter than the noon day sun, lanced the colossal old oak tree that grew in our backyard. I happened to be scrambling under the protection of the porch when the blast hit. The ground rumbled and the tree blew apart on impact, sending chunks of smoking, wooden debris flying outward in every direction. I took a small bit of shrapnel to my right calf and still had to scar to prove it.

Lighting was a helluva thing and, as fate would have it, trees were pretty good conductors.

I manifested my axe, raised it high, and buried it right in the upturned face of a Husk. The blade sunk home and as it did, I triggered Electro Arc, feeding every ounce of Arcana I had through the weapon and into the vine-covered hunk of wood and stone and bone. Blue-white light sparked and spit from the blade and the Husk began to sizzle and crack, wood splitting and burning from the intense surge of heat and power.

[You have killed a Wither Bloom Husk! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 115 Essence!]

The Husk was dead in a second, but I didn’t stop.

I forced more energy into the spell, watching my Arcana gauge plunge steadily, even while golden essence refreshed me. The world seemed to take a stutter step and time slowed as a jagged bolt of searing electricity erupted outward from the Husk, connecting to the next Husk and the next in a zigzagging line of brilliant blue and white. A collective, inhuman howl went up from the flowers all around me as the monsters snapped and burned under the strain, falling into heaps of charred wood, splintered bone, and smoldering ash on the forest floor.

Notices flashed across my eyes in a constant stream as I finally cut the power, panting hard from the exertion.

There were still husks milling about, but they seemed reluctant to get any closer to me. I glanced at the enormous yellow eye nestled in the leafy boughs of the Banyan tree and saw a combination of fear… and anger. The ground trembled as huge roots, thicker than my thigh, tore themselves free from the earth in a shower of dirt.

As far as I was concerned, that was my cue to get the fuck outta dodge.

The others had liberated the last of the remaining loggers from the surrounding tree trunks and were busy loading them up onto Cal’s broad, hound-like back.

“Move your goddamned asses!” I hollered, making a break toward my party as the roots started to flail and strike, smashing into the earth behind me.

Seeing the chaos that was already unfolding, the others didn’t need to be told twice. Berk, still in hog-man form, bent over and picked up the last two loggers with effortless strength and tossed one emaciated body over each shoulder, then he was running through the trees. Monstrous roots darted after us like pursuing serpents and one wrapped a tendril around Colin’s ankle, sending him fast-first into the ground.

Marina, wheeled around at the sound of his startled cry and thrust her staff out like an accusatory finger. A huge root whipped through the air, ready to turn Colin into a meat paste, but a glowing golden shield of Arcana burst to life in front of the fallen boy.

“No one hurts my friends,” she growled, her red eyes flashing in genuine rage. I’d had my doubts that this petite, bubbly woman could really be a Vigil of Wrath, but not anymore. Gone was the cutesy, soft-spoken cheerleader. In her place was a vessel ready to pour out righteous judgement. “Taste the pain you have caused others,” she cursed as a javelin of Unbound Flame erupted from her staff, dousing the writhing roots. The tendril that had ensnared Colin recoiled from the attack and withdrew, waving frantically in the air.

This thing liked fire even less than it liked lightning.

I quickly helped Colin to his feet then coaxed Marina into motion with a gentle nudge. “Don’t worry, we’ll sort this fucker out,” I said, “but let’s get clear first. Burning to death is not a good way to go, just ask Cal if you want to know…”

Her jaw tightened in defiance and, for half a second, I thought she was going to demand to stay and fight. But finally, she just nodded and ran with Colin and I, dodging past trees, ducking outstretched branches, and carefully avoiding exposed roots that tried to trip us up at every step.

The three of us skittered out past the tree line. Cal, Berk, Renholm, and of course Jacob-Francis were waiting for us a hundred feet off. Berk had reverted and was busy laying out the loggers in a line, while Kerra worked her way through them, administering doses of healing power with every touch. She’d refused to help us in the battle itself, but she couldn’t just watch those poor people die because we didn’t happen to have a Vigil of Valor of our own along for the ride.

The battle wasn’t quite over yet.

Marina and I wheeled around as the ground trembled, sending tremors running up through my boots like a massive earthquake. The great Banyan tree with the colossal eyeball flower was walking toward us, its domed canopy swaying as it lurched and forced its way past lesser trees. It was pissed and it was coming to get some vengeance, but it was also slow as balls.

“Ready to finish this thing, kid?” I asked, looking at Marina.

“I’ve never been more ready,” she replied.

I reached into the pouch at my side, pulled free a Pure Affinity Scale, and pressed it into her palm. Scales like that didn’t occur naturally and there were no Mortka who dropped them. They had to be manufactured in the Soul Vault by stripping away and condensing the inherent Affinity Type with the Affinity Retrofitter ability. Pure Scales were necessary to power the Soul Forge and create most Mortka Forged weapons and armor, but they could also be consumed. And, although they didn’t offer any secondary benefit—no stone skin or plague resistance—they had one huge upside.

Consuming one allowed a Vigil to channel a dump truck worth of Arcana.

“You go low, I’ll go high,” I said as she clamped her hand closed and absorbed the Scale in a flash of golden light.

She offered me a feral grin and unleashed a constant stream of Unbound Flame. Honest to god, it looked like she was wielding a magical flamethrower.

I’d never been prouder.

The trees at the front of the grove went up as the blaze took hold, tongues of flame dancing among the dried pine needles and devouring the brittle branches. Another unearthly shriek rose from the forest as the Banyan tree continued its plodding, but methodical escape.

My turn.

I raised my palms heavenward and unleashed the wrath of god.

An overflow of Arcana poured out from my core—powered in part by the small army of Bloom Husks I’d just eradicated—and surged along my limbs. Golden strands of twisting power burst forth from my hands. It was so much power. Too much power. Sweat poured down my face, my arms shook, and my knees trembled beneath me. The recommended attributes for Rain of Fire were right on the boarder of what I could handle, and I was feeling the strain. It was like the magic was pulling me apart and turn my insides into my outsides.

I braced myself like a cowboy trying to saddle and ride a goddamned tornado and held on for dear life as Arcana rampaged through me.

A great, churning cloud of reds and oranges and yellows formed over the grove and in a blink the spell tapered off, leaving me trembling and empty.

The storm had arrived out of nowhere, just like they always had back home. Suddenly, it began to rain. But not the gentle pitter-patter of early spring droplets. These were the fat, heavy drops of a monsoon and they were crafted of molten flame that reeked of brimstone. Fire poured down in a sheet, pockmarking the treetops below and burning great holes through the thick foliage of the Bunyan canopy. The purple flower caught flame and a thick plume of acrid smoke drifted up.

Fire from above met fire from below and, in an instant, the grove was gone, engulfed in a choking inferno as unseen purple flowers shrieked and shriveled and eventually fell silent.

[You have assisted in killing an Eldritch Wither Vine! The world has been cleansed! You have been blessed with 1,975 Essence!]

>>

Bounty Fulfilled

Sinister Grove: After investigating the ancient grove outside of Willowbend Township, you discovered that an Eldritch Wither Vine had infested the trees. Many of its victims were already dead and reanimated by the necrotic power of the Wither Vine, but you did manage to find several missing loggers alive and burned the Wither Vine, eradicating its vile corruption and cleansing the land in the process.

>>

Renholm flitted over and touched down on my shoulder, watching the unrelenting blaze with pure joy in his eyes.

“Told you we should’ve just burned it.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Someday you will recognize my genius, protégée, and how the world will tremble when you do.”

I grunted noncommittally. I hated how often the little turd was right. But the truth was, sometimes there really was no better solution to a problem than a bathtub of homemade napalm.