CC5 ~ 25!

~ 25 ~

Quest gained: Living Revenge of the Fallen. Major General Havoc has issued a mandatory quest for you. He believes that the Elven Mage known as ‘Elfreeda’ is his lost ‘Francine’. Although there is no way for him to prove this, there are characteristics that lead him to believe that slaying this Elf would bring ‘Francine’ back to the Dwarven Oligarchy. If you encounter the Elf ‘Elfreeda’ and do not make an attempt on her life, Havoc will have nothing to do with you from that point forward. Rewards: Maximum reputation gained with Havoc. Potential asset for the Dwarven Oligarchy. Failure: Havoc destroys himself and everything that he can take with him.

Joe felt a pounding headache coming on. “I knew that I should not have read that quest right now. I abyssal knew it, and did it anyway.”

Havoc entered the fortress, practically dragging Joe along with him. The Dwarves that had entered beforehand seem to have run into a stalemate, not able to move forward, not able to retreat without being attacked. The Elves were hurling insults as barbed as their arrows, “Ay, it's getting pretty friggin’ short out there.”

“If you were wicked smart like we ah’, you'd go hang out in your own place! We cannot live under the same sky!”

“Look at these chowdaheads; they don't know the immensity of heaven an’ earth! Beat it in the amount of time it takes an incense stick to burn, or we’re gonna bust ya down!”

“It'll take a whole lotta time to describe what I'm going to do to ya, but it's going to happen in an instant, shorty!”

Havoc's goggles reflected the sight in front of him, though Joe could have sworn that the reflection was on fire. “Get those automatons up here! I can't do everything for you, ya lazy metal-shelled layabouts! Are you going to let walls stop you?”

“Nah, Major General Bro!”

“I got this; I'm going to use my head!” One of the Dwarves bull-rushed the stone wall and slammed his helmeted head into the structure, leaving a surprisingly large dent but rendering the Dwarf insensible.

For his part, Joe stepped forward and coated the wall with a generous amount of acid. The next Dwarves that slammed themselves bodily into the wall tore out larger chunks, but Havoc's voice made them hold back from continuing. “For celestial’s sake, at least use your warhammers!”

It was a war of attrition at this point; the Elves behind the barricade continued to shape stone and call upon their spells to refill anything that was damaged or destroyed. The Dwarves didn't mind, didn't slow, and cheerfully slammed the reforming wall to pieces. With Joe's ritual still draining the mana from anyone who cast a spell, the wall was being reformed slower… slower. By the time the automatons had arrived on scene, there was already a Dwarf-shaped opening ready and waiting.

The battering rams that the automaton had used to take chunks out of the outer wall had shifted configurations once more. Now they were using pickaxes placed on a gyroscopic circuit. Every hit simply caused another pick to swing up and over, and in mere minutes, the defenses were gone and the Dwarves rolled over the few remaining Elves before confronting the Guardian.

Joe wasn't sure what he should have been expecting, but the interior of the keep itself was filled with plant life, the walls were made of living wood, and the carpet was lush grass. In the center of the building stood a massive sunflower, a plant that the Dwarves all regarded with great hesitation. Joe heard one of the platoon leaders mutter, “Celestial feces, how did they get a Daisy Duke in here in under a day?”

“Isn't that a sunflower?” Joe felt that his question had merit, since it looked exactly how one would expect a sunflower to appear.

“Nah, bro.” A mustachioed Dwarf slapped him roughly on the shoulder, getting a slap in return from Joe’s shadow. It only made the Dwarf chuckle, which was why Joe kept the retaliatory effect on at all times. “Every fort has a different guardian; the Elves can't figure out how to standardize anything! Whenever we have the fortress, we make our guardian modular, and upgrade it. They use different plants every single time, even if they recapture the same fortress! That's a Daisy Duke. Just wait, you'll see.”

The Dwarves were taking no chances; the front line pulled out metal rods that Joe had not yet seen in action, activating them all in sequence. Joe flinched backward as flames erupted from the tips of the metal rods, filling the space with an inferno. Enchanted rods as flamethrowers? Though the fire only reached roughly fifteen feet in whatever direction it was pointed, it was enough to ignite any of the plant life that it came in contact with.

The effects of Joe’s ritual could also be seen. The initial wave of flames had caused most of the smaller smoldering plants, which had lost their roots, to lift up and flutter through the room, quickly creating a wildfire that spread rapidly. Elves that were hiding within the strange underbrush started to screech, giving away their position to the Legion, who took the initiative to send them to respawn.

As the sweeping fire reached the base of the Guardian, which Joe was definitely going to continue calling a sunflower, the top of the plant started to swivel. The flower, which had been facing the sky through the open ceiling, turned to face them. Instead of standard flower fluff, an actual face was glaring out at all of the Dwarves and Joe: golden cat eyes, bright teeth, and a roar generating enough wind force that a few Dwarves had to grab Joe to keep him from lifting off the ground.

“Abyss! It's not a Daisy Duke!” Havoc shouted at the others, “Get ready for a serious fight! They didn't use a flower here; they used a weed! It's a Dandy Lion!”

At that moment, Joe noticed a small top hat nestled away in the flower fluff, or mane, of the Guardian. “It's a weed? That would at least explain why it hasn't fallen over yet; weeds tend to have stronger root systems than standard plants. It has to be weakened, though!”

“All units, attack immediately!” The Legion rushed forward, at least fifty Dwarves with bladed weapons dashing to the base of the flower before it could launch a retaliatory strike. They cut its stalk at an angle, as though they were trying to fell a tree. The weed twisted and swiveled, slamming its maw down and crunching through the armor of a target like a hungry child chomping directly into an orange without peeling it. Damage was done to the soft flesh underneath, but the outer shell of armor stopped the vast majority of the bite.

Joe raised his hands and tried to cast a spell, only to feel a massive headache set in immediately. Confused, he looked at his mana and realized that it was completely drained. “Ahh! Abyss, that’s right! I cast Acid Spray in the area of effect of the ritual!”

Before he could beat himself up too much about losing all his mana to his own ritual, Havoc noticed his plight and grabbed Joe by his robe; chucking him almost all the way back to the entrance of the room with a single toss. The human hit the ground heavily and rolled, his Exquisite Shell taking four hundred and forty-one points of terrain damage, even though half of it was mitigated by his Jumplomancer abilities.

At first, he thought that Havoc had tossed him away because he was useless, but then Joe saw small seed pods floating around the area where he had been standing, as well as hovering over the remaining members of the legion. Just as he noticed them, the room flashed white as each of the pods detonated with the force of a brick of C4. Even as far away as Joe was, he still took three hundred eighty-six points of damage to his shield.

Exquisite Shell: 1519/2346.

Joe wasn't concerned for his own health; he was almost certain that that blast was a last-ditch effort to take out as many Dwarves as possible, and he was positive that it had a significant effect on the Dwarves who were only protected by metal and personal constitution. He wasn’t wrong; as his vision returned, Joe spotted twisted bodies laying all over the ground, even if most of them were still alive and kicking. The Dandy Lion was still alive as well, though it was slowly toppling to the side as its root system finally disintegrated to the point that it couldn’t hold up the oversized Guardian.

Joe felt something *click* in his mind, and he realized that the ritual had ended due to lack of input. His mana came flowing back to him second by second, and he sprinted to the nearest Dwarf, who clearly had a collapsed lung. Blood-flecked spittle sprayed from the Dwarf’s mouth every time she breathed out; her mustache was already matted and sticking to her skin. Even so, she managed to ask Joe questions as he started to treat her. “Is… *hack*… is that a rib poking into my breastplate? It got *cough* through the armor?”

“It did, but don't worry, you're going to be just fine. Mend!” The Dwarf managed to hold back a scream as Joe shoved her rib back into her chest, and his spell took the pain almost instantly.

“You better make sure to leave me a scar!” the Dwarf threatened him, not even slightly playing. Even with just a single treatment, she was already breathing and speaking easier. “No one is going to believe that one of my bones was hard enough to cut through Manasteel!”

“It had some help-”

The Dwarf cut him off instantly. “Yo, bro! This is an accomplishment; don't be trying to take that from me!”

“If you're well enough to mess around like this, you're going to be just fine.” Joe left her there to recover, moving to the next, and treating the most serious cases he could find. He only glanced up from his work once, when cheering broke out near the downed Guardian. Havoc was standing near the enormous plant, and had gripped just below the base of the flower, where the stem was attached. In one powerful heave, he had torn the entire Lion’s head off of the weed. The cheering reached a fever pitch and the bloodthirsty Dwarves started hacking up the rest of the Guardian.

Joe shook his head and kept moving among the injured.

“These Dwarves are insane.”