B2 Ch. 52 Lay Me Down

Amelia Cooper -  Level 40 Botanist Surveyor

She dragged herself up from the rocky stream, gasping for breath.  Jonathan had arrived with her through the strangest transport magic she had ever experienced, and they both stumbled to their feet.

Something prickled all along her skin and Amelia quirked her head, as a sensation just outside her awareness washed over her. Her growth-aspected mana stirred interestingly as she bent her internal senses to find the source of this feeling. Looking around the valley in rising curiosity.  Jonathan had of course explained to them what this facet was like, but she had not expected it to resonate with her mana so… profoundly.

Then the sound of screeching metal followed by a concussive boom reverberated through the mountains. Amelia looked up to see something crash into the far mountain range, chased by the malevolent creature that had almost destroyed in their flight to the river. 

“The barrier is down, we have to hurry,” Jonathan noted grimly beside her, his eyes following the trajectory of the impact worriedly. 

“Let's get a move on then!  You lead and I'll keep up.” She replied, running her hand through her wet hair to get it out of her eyes.  She has some Drinking Dust stored away somewhere, but they didn’t have time for something as petty as drying off. 

“Alright, let's go.” He said, still distracted by the fight occurring in the distance.  Then as if jolted by electricity, he lowered his head and moved straight for the forest at a jog.  Amelia jumped to follow, fighting a grin as his sudden shift into action.

After all this time, she was still bemused by the man. He could be exceedingly short with his words, and direct in his manner one moment and then playful and clever the next.  Below all of it lurked deep waters that she would only catch glimpses of in the strangest moments. 

As he moved through the trees ahead of her, she relaxed into her final assessment of him.  He was proud and hated to see others sacrifice themselves in his place.  Yet he insisted on doing so for everyone around him.  His martyr complex was truly impressive but she could not deny he was always honest and courageous when it mattered.  In fact, he leaned into those virtues more often than was prudent, charging in without thinking, and sharing secrets without hesitating… Amelia shook her head ruefully and focused on following his shifting path through the trees.

Whatever his failings, he had been good to the people he had promised to help.  He might not be much of a leader yet, but she now fully understood that his intentions were always in the right place.  Even if he drove her crazy with his bullheadedness every once in a while. 

The feeling of goosebumps on her skin spread from her arms down to her back, like warm water flowing down from a hot shower.  A shiver of delight and relief suffused her senses as she moved further into the valley. The feeling caused her to refocus on the substance suffusing the area.

Then she caught it, right on the edge of her hearing.  It was the ringing of bells… No, that wasn’t it, although it had that quality.  There was singing there too, and some sort of rhythm present as well. 

Even over the sound of their running footsteps through the forest, she could hear the sound growing.  With its growth, her steps became lighter, and the chains of guilt and condemnation that so often bound her heart began to loosen. Emotional weights so familiar to her that they had become a fact of her existence began to lighten, and she suddenly had to fight the urge to giggle as she ran. 

A staccato of violent crashes echoed through the valley, followed by a symphony of screams, that sounded as if they had been ripped from hundreds of mouths. 

“The only thing you will find in this valley is your end!” A voice of astonishing power shouted in the distance.  Another answered it, the sound of which sent a very different kind of pleasure thrumming through her veins, 

“You are almost forgotten, shade.  Then the power of Endless Life will be mine, and my children will wash over the Land like the tide.”

Jonathan looked back at her a desperate question left unspoken on his lips.  She sighed internally and called forward,

“If you are holding back for my sake, don’t!  I will keep up.”  One of these days they were going to have to compare Stats so she could put him in his place.  The only one she was sure she lagged behind him greatly was that ridiculous Endurance of his.  She likely had him beet everywhere else, possibly even Strength.

He picked up the pace significantly, moving directly toward what Amelia now recognized as a song.  The forest started to thin again, and she began to notice another growing sensation in the pit of her stomach. The Corruption that had been held in check for so long by the Seed of Origin guarding her core, had now begun to writhe painfully.  

She glanced up to see that she actually lost a point in health over the next few steps… The seed within her seemed to be reacting to the song as well, but not in a way that counterbalanced the growing fury of the Corruption that surrounded it.  They cleared the trees, and the song grew clearer, as did the discordant notes of her agony. A few steps ahead of her, Jonathan grunted in pain, his gait hitching oddly as he continued doggedly forward, his run slowing to a jog. Whatever this was, it was happening to him too.

Health: 95%

She reached under her shirt and found that her abdomen had started weeping blood. Corruption was now lancing into nearby areas of her body with violent disregard for their function, no longer interested in co-opting her for its own use. 

It wanted to stop them…

She bit back a sudden scream as it wrenched at her insides suddenly dropping her health another 5%.  In response, she palmed her health potion, ready to down it as soon as she became unable to keep up, she would slow them down.  Jonathan soldiered on ahead even though she knew he contained far more of the hateful substance throughout his body than she did. 

They stumbled to the top of a low rise, the sight of the singular bloom almost enough to make her forget her pain for a moment.  A simple blue Flower, that somehow seemed more real and vibrant than the breath in her lungs. The sight of it did nothing to lessen her agony, but somehow made it more bearable, giving context to the pain, and reminding her of their purpose.  

Ahead of her, Jonathan just grunted slowing for just a moment as they both took in the sight. In their shared pause, she caught up to him, and saw, to her horror, that his mouth was pouring dark blood. Before she could say something, he stumbled down the rise into a hitching jog and she moved to follow, focusing all of her will on keeping up. 

That same symphony of screams echoed through the valley, this time much closer, and Amelia heard a sad, but friendly voice carry over to them on an invisible breeze, 

“This is all the time I can give you little brother, little sister.  Spend it well.”  Before she could process those words or their source, the sky boomed, shaking the entire valley as lightning descended out of the ever-present clouds and crashed down out of sight. Those same screams of outrage, warped further into wails of pain as the lightening continued in a seemingly endless deluge. It was as if heaven itself was pouring out the entire cup of its wrath in one violent judgment. 

They both continued toward the sweet song and its source pouring forth unbridled joy.   Jonathan coughed wetly a few steps ahead of her and stumbled weakly, before falling over.  They had made it about ten feet from the flower, which swayed softly in a field of wild grasses and clover.

Amelia's world was awash in an overwhelming mix of sensations that threatened to drown her in their complexity and juxtaposition. Yet her core was an eye of calm, in the storm of internal destruction.  Despite the Corruption within her doing all it could to stop her from advancing further, she was still moving.

“Don’t stop… *Cough* One of us has to make it.”  Tilly breathed out to her right. 

At this point, she was gasping too hard to answer, but she nodded mutely to him as she continued to stumble forward, shoving her potion into his hand as she moved passed, barely able to keep walking. 

Amelia didn’t know what would happen when she reached the Facet, but the fact that the Corruption was fighting so hard to stop her was more than enough to keep her moving forward.  Finally,  she collapsed to her knees, her health ticking down rapidly now, falling past the 50% mark with worrying speed. 

Her whole torso clenched in cramping pain as she reached forward and gently touched the edge of a petal so blue that it drank in her vision and drowned her in its azure vibrance. At her touch, the song coalesced around her, somehow forming words in her consciousness:

This Facet’s Champion has fallen, do you accept the mantle: Bloom’s Guardian? 

Amelia clenched her teeth against the scream that gurgled up from her belly at the raging of her invader… Smiling spitefully, she sent her assent to the music-formed notification, and the song roared around her into a crescendo, causing new blooms of all kinds of flowering plants to erupt from the ground around her. 

Then something changed in the midst of the song, an order rippled through the wild melodies that intertwined the Flower and its new Champion.

Emergency Quest Initiated /// Transport compatibility identified /// Relocate facet to a safer location.  Reward: Patronage of Origin’s Bloom 

Do you accept?

‘In for a penny, in for a pound…’ Amelia thought grimly, as her health continued to drop from the Corruption’s mindless raging against her innards. 

…

Jonathan Tillman, Level 23 Son of Flame

Tilly’s insides were boiling over into an exquisite mixture of burning flesh and eviscerated organs.  As soon as he had begun to approach the Flower, the Corruption within him had started to struggle, resisting his movements and causing him some pain, but it was nothing his crazy Endurance couldn’t counterbalance.  

But as he had cleared the trees, the warnings had turned into a frenzied attack that continued to increase in ferocity the closer he got to the Flower.   He began to wheeze and cough up blood as the Corruption’s internal network of branching feelers flexed and pierced as much as possible, doing more damage with every step. 

He felt Kindle's consciousness blaze into being in his mind, and take in the damage he was experiencing as well as its source, ‘Do not die, Bonded!  I am coming.  I have remembered something!’  

Tilly sent back a vague ascent as more and more of his will was demanded in the struggle to keep moving forward.

At first, he picked up the Internal Bleeding Debuff, and then Organ Failure joined it on his HUD. Finally, when he was just a few feet away, Massive Hemoraging appeared, rounding out the trio. Strength drained from his limbs like water from a tub, and he stumbled to the ground, struggling to breathe. 

Amelia must have been suffering something similar because he could hear her gasping struggle next to him.  He tried again to get up, but he simply didn't have the strength to stand.  Blood poured from his mouth as he tried to keep Amelia moving. 

“Don’t stop… *Cough* One of us has to make it.”  He wheezed through needle-filled lungs. The fire flowing through his mana pathways burned the Corruption every place they intercepted but this only resulted in further internal damage to Tilly’s ruined organs. He blinked as a blurry shadow passed him by, and felt something small and cold settle into his hands.  He uncorked the object and lifted it to his lips, the motion more a memory than a conscious decision. 

He coughed wetly as it went down and his focus returned as he watched in some satisfaction a few moments later when Amelia fell to her knees and lifted her head to touch the Flower.  Its music rose victoriously at the contact and Amelia sat there for a breath or two.  Then the music began to fade, whispering into silence as the flower itself dissolved into motes of light.  

Tilly managed a grunt of dismay as he watched the Facet disappear, and his Health spike and then drop below 10%.  The fact that he had any points left at all was truly a testament to the stubborn nature of his Endurance-infused body. 

Through the gut-wrenching pain, Tilly watched as the motes of light danced through the air and swirled into a vortex that centered on Amelia’s navel.    As the song faded in its entirety, the motes completely vanished into their chosen vessel and Tilly cracked a bloody smile, sure that they must have succeeded.  Then a new sound arose to completely replace the sweet music that only just faded. 

A multitude of screams tore through the air toward them.  The figure of the brutally disfigured Prime Dirge shot over the near horizon, crashing into the ground before Amelia, tearing a huge furrow in the previously vibrant carpet of grass and clover. 

“What Have You Done!?!?”  The cacophony of discordant voices screamed from hundreds of mouths all over the creature.  Its fight with thunder Descends had obviously not been onesided, and the waxy molting of severely burned skin covered its once sleek form. 

Even so wounded, its presence alone completely overwhelmed Tilly, and the Prime Dirge lifted its arm almost curiously, reaching for a frozen Amelia. 

Tilly’s health ticked back down to 1% and he desperately activated [Resolute] as he fought against the mental weight that had settled down over him like cement. 

The title kicked in, and all the damage he was receiving from his internal trauma ceased just as Kindle’s burning presence entered his peripheries, high in the sky.