From above, the light within Beef’s core space was blinding, even to Felix’s powerful senses. Essence and Mana congealed, the storm now centered upon a point immediately below him as he floated in the space between.

Is he doing it? Pit asked, still dropping deadly magic on the writhing ooze abomination.

He’s doing something, Felix said.

Is it working?

He had only guesses, all based on the friction he felt against his Fiendforge. Felix still wasn’t entirely sure of all that the Skill could accomplish, but he knew, without a doubt, that if he stopped maintaining it Beef’s entire core would collapse. Or explode. And it grew harder to hold by the second, especially as Pit grew tired of his battle.

Felix’s Illusory Double was also having issues. Though his way out of Beef’s core space was cut off, blocked by the ooze, it was not a perfect seal. Felix was still able to channel his Skills out of his Mana Gates, a detail he used to wreak havoc on the monsters above. It turned out, Illusory Double allowed him to utilize a tiny percentage of his Perception, providing dim flashes of events as they happened. That was how he had been guiding his shaping Skills around; otherwise Felix would have certainly killed his own people. Thankfully, as Illusory Double gained levels, the percentage increased bit by bit, until he could see and hear a reasonable amount of what was occurring in the root tunnel. His team was alive, but things were looking more and more dire.

Rime Shaping and Stone Shaping were effective at driving the Fathom spawn back—even killing them—but they were of limited use against the Ooze Behemoth that raged above. The thing shattered the barriers and spikes he manifested like they were made of glass or paper. His team was pulling their own weight, but the Behemoth was too tough. Beef wasn’t the only one who was brimming with fear.

Do like you said, dummy. Felix shook himself. Use the damn fear. Fight!

Felix couldn’t do anything about Beef’s struggle, but he damn well could bring the pain onto a monster.

The phantom and shadow sprinted around a jiggling mass of tendrils as it smashed down onto the earth. From their channels, Vess could make out streamers of dense liquid—all of it colored green-gold—that fed into the floor and walls of the root tunnel. Vines, roots, and thick fronds burst from the earth, fat and vital. The tunnels choked with it as they expanded and grew just beyond the Ooze Behemoth’s advance. Fathom spawn crashed into the swelling greenery and were rent asunder by the deadly thorns the size of swords or held fast by the rivulets of viscid sap.

The roof of the tunnel shook, pieces torn apart before life Mana repaired the damage. Something is trying to get in. Vess’ eyes cast across the curved root tunnel ceiling, noting the cracks and splits where ooze and geysers of dark water were still finding a way through. Can they hold against it and the Behemoth?

Isla was hurling jars and vials from the bandoliers on her chest and pouches at her hips. She cursed every time she did so, but it was so musical, so potent, that Vess was unsure whether it was part of her Skills or not. Enemies went up in swathes of emerald flame, before being blasted with tiny projectiles that bounced among them all while the plants grew ever faster. Whatever Isla had taken from the Temple treasury, she knew how to use it.

The War Naga, now down to nine, fought tooth and nail at the front. All of them were doubled up with stolen tridents, trading blasts of Levin Bolts with the Broodvipers. The cross fire was astounding, and only the strange nature of their enchantment kept the lightning relatively contained.

Which was just as well, as Vess moved among them all.

She spun through the enemy in the only way she knew, relying on the Seven Steps of the Dragoon. Not a Skill so much as a technique, a kata, the movements of the Seven Steps were fundamental to Vess’ training as a Dragoon and formed the foundation for what would later become Dragoon’s Footwork. And which then mutated into On The Wing, she reminded herself grimly. She took great care to ensure she wasn’t activating the Skill itself, relying instead on her muscle memory, Stamina, and Agility to move in the proper way. She would not sacrifice her people’s history for some twisted, malformed Skills—even if they were more powerful.

Vess had more than enough power for these foes.

Everywhere she stepped, Fathom spawn were cut to ribbons. The Bodies of the Broodviper and Drakin were strong—ridiculously so, considering their levels—but Vess had grown stronger. Her partisan and Spears were like surgeon’s tools, slashing here or thrusting there, always moving, always spending the least amount of Stamina and Mana she could manage.

But the Fathom were everywhere. Paxus and Felix’s shadowy double managed to choke off the far end of the root tunnel, but it left plenty more on the battlefield. They swarmed the sky too, swimming through the air like water. Vess leaped, cutting down Drakin by the handful and raining down vile blue ichor.

More eel-beasts swarmed, snapping their double jaws with malicious revelry. Madness swirled in the Fathom spawns’ eyes, burning bright enough to glow with a white-red intensity. Vess sent silver Spears into them all in a whirling cluster.

“Ten Tribulations!”

The Drakin exploded, many torn apart by the release of her Skill and others dealt a crippling blow. Others pushed into the gap though, even as a jagged blade of ice cut across them with a spray of dark ichor. Vess spun toward an outstretched, shadowy hand.

“I have this, Felix! Focus on the Behemoth!” She shouted at the illusion. Which was when she noticed the tremendous ooze bashing apart pillars of ice and stone, while vines tried unsuccessfully to bind it in place. The creature simply pushed through all obstacles and bonds, as hard to restrain as it was to injure. “What…what is happening?”

The Ooze Behemoth was bristling with Fathom spawn. Broodvipers carrying crooked tridents and shields made of large shells clung to its back and limbs, intervening bodily whenever an offensive Skill approached it. Another blade of ice thrust upward, but it was met by a wall of Drakin that blunted almost all of its savage edge.

“Vess! I need you to open a path!” Felix shouted, not from his shadowy double, nor from his physical body, still collapsed over Beef’s broad chest. It was a voice she felt in her chest and Mind—across their Link. “This thing is in here too!”

The insubstantial hand of Felix’s double touched her forehead, faster than she had time to react. For a brief instant, Vess saw what Felix saw.

A mass the size of a small mountain burst all around her, tendrils moving faster than her eye could trace, there and then simply gone. She did not move, but lifted a clawed hand and stopped the appendage cold, no so much as shifting from her spot. A blurring bundle of lightning and howling winds ripped by, neatly severing the oozing tendril and sending out an arc of frozen spears. Felix didn’t move—couldn’t, she realized. The ooze monstrosity, dozens of times larger than the Behemoth, was being fought to a standstill by Pit.

Her—his—eyes shifted downward, and for the first time Vess made out a burning ring of light. It seared into their vision, a spot of brilliance in an endless darkness.

Abruptly, she was back. A Broodviper thrust a crooked trident at her face, but Vess batted it aside with barely restrained surprise. Rallying her senses, she caught a bolt of lightning from another Broodviper on her partisan, sending it whirling down into the dirt. Vess spun, partisan slashing as two more silver Spear manifested at sharp angles to her foes. She struck.

You Have Killed A Manawarped Broodviper (x2)!

XP Earned!

Felix’s double still stood there, shoulders shifting as if it were breathing hard. His voice still transmitted crystal clear through their Link. “I am holding Beef’s core space stable, and we are holding the majority of that Behemoth’s power here. My strength is split among it all, but I can muster an effort against the bastard if you open a path. Those Fathom spawn need to drop, all at once.”

“Beef can’t handle it himself?” she asked.

“Maybe. And maybe he’ll burn up if I release my Fiendforge.” The shadow shook his head, and thin skewers of stone ripped upward to take another several Fathom spawn in the gut. It was a wild shot, badly aimed. They didn’t die, but they were stuck for a moment. “I can’t take that chance, and I can’t maintain precision without sacrificing power. Can’t even use Chthonic Tribute through this thing.”

Damnation. She had been hoping Felix would finish and wake soon, solving this issue for them; but she understood. He couldn’t escape…not until the Ooze was destroyed.

“I only have one Skill that can do that,” she whispered, and it felt like a weight on her soul.

“I know,” he said. “Find another way, if you can. But we’re running out of time. I’m running out of time.”

Thoughts and ideas flashed through her Mind, tactics and maneuvers that she could employ. The Ooze Behemoth was surging forward, its Body still covered in clinging spawn—each time they killed one, another took its place.

“GAHHH!” She thrust through the skull of a Drakin as it dove for her, killing it instantly. The eel-beast whipped its body around in its last moments of life, and she kicked it free. “Felix!”

The Fang of Havoc!

She rocketed into the air, powerful, gale-force wind at her back as she ascended to the peak of the tunnel and flipped, mid-air.

On The Wing!

“Do not miss!”

Draconic Stormfall!

She landed atop the Ooze Behemoth itself, and a ring of powerful lightning exploded from her feet. It blasted outward, ripping apart the nearest Fathom spawn with air, metal, and lightning Mana. The sheer volume of it seared flesh from bone, and the rest were hurled backward by the concussive impact as tempestuous winds whipped outward from her position. The Behemoth shrieked with its bubbling mud-voice, pain and rage contained in a buzzing howl that made her vision fuzz.

Yet worse of all, within her core space she felt the clouds parting as a dark sky bloomed in the heavens and a metallic dragon bellowed out a dark, melodic challenge.

Matriarch’s Lament!

An identical cry ripped from Vess’ throat, a sound that was both amplified by her Journeyman Body and yet did not originate in her lungs. It was primal, a sound not of fury but of loss.

Of sorrow.

You Have Inflicted Enervation On Your Targets!

Status Condition: Stamina Drain!

Status Condition: Vitality Drain!

Every Fathom spawn for fifty strides around the Ooze Behemoth collapsed to the ground, unable to maintain their movement as their Stamina dropped to almost nothing. Their Health maximums, determined by their Vitality, shrank incredibly fast, until it was all they could do to keep breathing.

But the effect only lasted so long.

Felix! Now!

Vess felt it as not one or two, but five different Skills activated within her friend’s core space. Stone rumbled, ice cracked, vines creaked, a thick core of virulent green surged and, surrounding them all, a brilliant torrent of red-gold flame swirled from Felix’s core space. Again, her vision doubled as a vision of Felix’s channels supplanted her normal sight, and she witnessed the horrifying flood of power as it ripped from Felix’s unconscious Body…

…straight into the Ooze Behemoth itself.

“Now!” Paxus yelled.

Lightning, shadow, life, air, and metal Mana all hit the creature at once. Fathom spawn went up in a flash of smoke, their unresisting Bodies no match for the might of all of them together. The Ooze Behemoth bubbled a final, caterwauling screech as it swelled up and up, stretching to impossible, bulbous proportions.

It burst.

You Have Killed A Moontouched Ooze Behemoth!

XP Earned!

The Fang of Havoc is level 73!

Draconic Stormfall is level 72!

Matriarch’s Lament is level 69!

…

Matriarch’s Lament is level 72!

A rush of System power flooded her channels, rolling in from across her visualized horizon like the dawn itself. It thundered into the metallic dragon at her center, her…core…where it spun and spread, rippling outward in targeted gales and shimmering waves. Her Skills grew, their peaks becoming more detailed in an instant, more real. And all Vess could do was grit her teeth against it all, feeling the rawness inside her Aspects that she could not fight or prevent. She felt tainted.

Even so, a version of the Lament welled up from deep inside her changed temple, a chant that brought traitorous tears to her eyes.

Felix’s shadowy double stepped up to her, cradling her hand in its insubstantial grip. A face that was a bare suggestion of features—save for the burning eyes—smiled sadly at her.

“I know. I do not blame you. It…had to be done.” She straightened. “Now wake up so we can fix this tunnel and continue onward.”

“Yeah, give me a second—”

“Run!” Paxus shouted again, and this time he was looking straight up. “I haven’t the power to stop it! Run!”

Roots snapped above them, louder than any explosion, as claws larger than some buildings ripped down into the tunnel ceiling. Dark water dropped from those rents, a deluge so powerful it blasted new holes wherever it landed, and more water rushed inside. Vess leaped just as Felix’s shadow double was torn apart, attempting to grab the real Felix from the still-frozen earth.

The water found her first.