Eldanar’s Chosen 158. Torn Apart

For a long, agonising mont, ti seed to freeze in the ruined courtyard.

The air, previously thick with the cacophony of slaughter, was dominated by a new, terrifying sound: the deep, bass-heavy groan of shifting earth and the wet, tearing sounds of accelerated growth.

Josh lay frozen on the slick cobblestones, the breath trapped in his bruised chest. Above him, the kobold boss was suspended in a cage of impossibly thick, thorn-studded vines. The creature was a monunt to primal fury, its muscles bulging beneath its dark, bruised scales as it strained against its bindings. It roared, a sound that shook the dust from the ruined keep’s walls, but the sound was laced with sothing new. Panic.

All around the courtyard, the defenders had stopped fighting. They couldn't fight. The ground itself had beco a sea of writhing, violent flora. n and won huddled against the battered barricades or pressed their backs against the stone walls, their weapons trembling in exhausted hands as they watched the subterranean kraken drag their executioners down into the mud.

"Don't move," Bhel hissed. The dwarf was pressed flat against a splintered wagon wheel, his knuckles white around the haft of his axe. "Nobody make a bloody sound. If it doesn't see us, maybe it won't take us."

It was a sentint shared by everyone. They had fought monsters all night, but this was a force of nature—an ancient, uncaring power that had erupted from the foundations of the world. Why would it distinguish between human and kobold? Flesh was flesh.

But Carcan, battered and covered in soot, was already moving.

She pushed herself up from the mud, her hands slipping on the gore-slicked stones. She didn't crouch; she stood to her full height, her chest heaving, her eyes darting across the chaotic battlefield.

"Carcan, get down!" Josh wheezed, his voice a ragged croak.

A vine the size of a battering ram swept past her, missing her shins by a fraction of an inch. It didn't pause. It struck with predatory precision, spearing cleanly through the chests of three shrieking kobolds attempting to scramble over the rubble. The vine hoisted them into the air like a macabre shish kebab, their blood raining down onto the stones, before slamming them brutally into the keep’s outer wall.

Carcan didn't flinch. She watched another cluster of smaller, whip-like roots slither directly over the boots of a wounded militiaman, completely ignoring the terrified human to wrap tightly around the throat of a kobold lunging for him.

"They're ignoring us," Carcan said, her voice cutting through the groans of the dying monsters. It was a statent of profound disbelief. She took a tentative step forward, right into a nest of writhing greenery. The thorns brushed against her greaves, parting like water around a stone. "Look! They’re only taking the horde. They’re leaving us alone!"

Josh didn't want to believe it, but the evidence was undeniable. He forced his battered body to obey, pushing himself up onto his elbows. His ribs scread in protest, a sharp, stabbing agony that made black spots dance in his vision. He planted his boots and, with a guttural groan, staggered to his feet.

Above him, the situation with the boss had reached a terrifying crescendo.

The giant kobold, realising that brute strength was failing, had descended into a frenzied, animalistic panic. Its jaws snapped wildly at the thick vines coiled around its throat, its jagged teeth splintering the bark but failing to sever the iron-hard wood. Black blood poured from a dozen deep punctures where the dagger-like thorns had pierced its rusted armour and thick hide.

Crack. The sound was sharp, like a cannon shot. The boss shrieked, a high, reedy sound completely incongruous with its massive size. The vine wrapped around its right arm had begun to constrict and twist. The heavy, rusted iron beam it had used to shatter the barricade slipped from its grasp, crashing to the courtyard floor with a deafening clang that sent sparks flying.

Josh watched, morbidly captivated, as the forest exacted its toll. The vines weren't just holding the creature; they were actively, thodically dismantling it.

Two more massive roots erupted from the shattered masonry beneath the boss, wrapping thickly around its waist and upper torso, pulling in opposite directions. The creature's rusted chest plate groaned under the imnse pressure, the steel buckling and warping. The rivets popped like musket fire, pinging off the stone walls.

The creature thrashed, its yellow eyes wide and bloodshot, fixed on Josh in a look of purest hatred. It opened its maw to roar one last ti.

Before the sound could leave its throat, a thick, spiked tendril shot upward from the dirt, plunging directly into the creature's open mouth and bursting out through the back of its scaly neck. The roar was silenced instantly, replaced by a wet, sickening gargle.

Then, the main vines pulled.

It wasn't a clean break. It was a slow, excruciating tearing of corded muscle, thick bone, and reinforced leather. The creature's joints popped out of their sockets with a sound like wet canvas tearing. The sheer level of torque applied by the enchanted roots sheared the boss's massive right arm completely off at the shoulder. A geyser of black, viscous blood erupted into the air, raining down on the cobblestones in a warm, foul-slling deluge.

The creature's body gave way. With a final, sickening crunch of snapping spine and separating ribs, the boss was ripped in half. The vines imdiately dragged the two horrific, ruined chunks of at down into the soil, the earth parting to swallow the gore whole, leaving nothing behind but the shattered iron beam and a massive, steaming pool of black blood.

Josh stumbled backwards, his stomach heaving, a hand clamped over his mouth to hold back the bile. He had seen death tonight in a hundred different ways, but the absolute, rciless brutality of the forest's magic shook him to his core.

Across the courtyard, the tide had completely turned.

The vines were no longer just defending; they were attacking. A rolling wave of dark green roots, thorns, and whipping tendrils surged forward, a tidal wave of flora that crashed over the remnants of the kobold vanguard. The monsters were swept off their feet, crushed under the weight of the growth, or speared and dragged beneath the earth.

The horde, which re monts ago had felt like an unstoppable, apocalyptic flood, broke. The kobolds turned and fled, trampling one another in a desperate bid to escape the slaughter. The vines chased them, pushing them back from the shattered remnants of the barricade, driving them out of the courtyard, and forcing them back through the ruined arches of the gatehouse.

As the dense mass of monsters thinned, retreating into the smoke-choked area beyond the walls, a new figure erged from the chaos.

He moved with a speed that defied human biology. He didn't look like a traditional soldier. He wore a long, sweeping duster coat over a bright white tabard. Beneath the fabric, Josh could hear the unmistakable heavy clank of old, well-cared-for plate armour. He moved with a speed and grace that completely defied the heavy steel he wore, as if the armour weighed nothing at all.

The young man didn't just run into the mass of retreating kobolds; he threw himself into it like a thunderbolt.

He didn't draw a weapon from a scabbard. Instead, he reached into the deep pocket of his duster, a pocket that seed to swallow his arm entirely, and pulled forth a handle. It was a thing of beauty: a golden crossguard embedded with three gleaming gems, two red stones flanking a larger blue one in the centre.

As he gripped it, a blade sprang forth. It was forged of a tal so nearly white it was blinding, actively drawing in the ambient light of the dying fires and amplifying it into a radiant halo.

The blade was alive. As he closed the distance with a cluster of heavily armoured kobolds holding tower shields, he swung the weapon in a wide arc. Mid-swing, the brilliant white tal seed to liquefy and stretch, extending from a standard longsword into a sweeping, six-foot greatsword. It sheared through the heavy wooden shields and the creatures behind them as if they were made of wet paper, completely unbreakable and impossibly sharp.

Before a spear-wielding kobold could flank him, the man pivoted, bringing his arm back. The sword instantly snapped back into a short, brutal gladius, which he drove smoothly through the monster's throat.

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Up on the battered remains of the wall, Brett leaned precariously over the edge, his exhaustion montarily forgotten, his eyes wide with arcane shock. He rubbed his soot-stained face, trying to clear his vision.

"Do you see that?" Brett muttered to Perberos, who was slumped against the parapet, his bow resting limply in his lap. "The sword... it’s alive. It’s changing mass. And his aura..." Brett shuddered, the hairs on his arms standing on end. "It's not elental. It’s not kinetic. It feels... heavy. Like a physical weight on the air."

The young man in the trench coat was a dancer in a ballroom of death. He weaved through the desperate, thrusting spears of the kobolds, his blade flashing in the firelight—long, short, wide, narrow—a fluid, rcurial weapon of absolute destruction. Every movent was perfectly calculated, a masterclass in kinetic violence.

Down below, Josh limped over the slick stones, heavily favouring his left leg, his hand clutching his bruised ribs. He navigated the grotesque carpet of dead monsters, making his way towards where Carcan and Bhel stood near the ruined centre of the barricade.

Bhel was leaning heavily on his battleaxe, his massive chest heaving, his beard completely matted with dried gore. Carcan was leaning against a surviving support beam, her head tipped back, eyes closed as the cool night air washed over her sweat-streaked face.

"Everyone..." Josh rasped, coughing to clear the dust from his throat. "Everyone in one piece?"

"Define one piece," Bhel grunted, spitting a glob of black blood onto the stones. "I feel like I've been chewed up by a dragon and spat off a cliff. But I'm breathing."

As Josh looked around at the sheer scale of the devastation, sothing else began to happen.

The oppressive stench of blood and void-tainted flesh began to fade. The mounds of slaughtered kobolds—those impaled on the barricades, those crushed by the boss, and those torn apart by the vines—began to shimr. Their physical forms started to break down, the dark scales and jagged bones dissolving into thousands of glowing, golden motes of light.

It was breathtakingly beautiful. The golden lights drifted upward like fireflies, swirling in the night breeze, casting a warm, ethereal glow over the blood-soaked courtyard. The horrific reality of the carnage was being swept away, replaced by a serene, magical dissolution.

And walking through this shower of golden light, humming a cheerful, andering tune, was a man.

He was dressed in simple brown and green robes that looked entirely out of place on a battlefield. He strolled past the shattered wagons and the groaning wounded with a relaxed, ambling gait. He didn't carry a weapon, nor did he wear armour. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like a man taking a pleasant evening stroll through a garden.

Josh froze. He knew that face. He knew that breezy, slightly detached deanour.

It was the administrator from Ashenfall. The man they had found sitting cross-legged in a field of swaying blossoms, cheerfully ignoring the grim realities of the world.

The group slowed their breathing, exchanging bewildered, uncertain looks.

Hopeless approached the group, his hands clasped casually behind his back. He stepped over the shattered remains of a kobold spear, entirely unbothered by the golden motes dusting his robes. He looked exactly as he had in Ashenfall: sporting a dreamy, almost cheerful expression, as if the horrific siege they had just endured was nothing more than a minor nuisance.

"Hello there!" Hopeless called out, raising a hand in a friendly wave. "My, my. It certainly got a bit rowdy out here, didn't it? I was trying to finish so paperwork, but duty calls, so would say."

Carcan blinked, her mouth opening and closing a few tis before she managed to speak. "You... you did this?" she pointed a trembling finger at the massive, pulsating vines that were currently retreating slightly, forming a periter around the courtyard.

"Well, I certainly encouraged it," Hopeless said with a bright, theatrical nod, as if this were a perfectly normal conversation. "The flora here is surprisingly defensive. Just needed a little push, a little direction. You’re the adventurers from Ashenfall, aren't you? Yes, I rember! Perfectly breathing and entirely subject to the mysteries of existence. How delightful to see you again."

"You're Hopeless," Josh said, the pieces finally clicking together in his exhausted brain. "The moderator. The... the part-ti druid."

"That's !" Hopeless bead, sweeping a hand through the golden motes dancing in the air. "Part-ti druid, full-ti husband, and occasionally, an aggressive landscaper. My wife, bless her, told I needed to get out of the office and get so fresh air. Said I was becoming entirely too cynical dealing with the demands of rchants, and I’d best co help with the overflow. She’s usually right about these things."

Bhel stared at the cheerful man, then looked at the massive, twenty-foot vine currently digesting a kobold, and then back at Hopeless. The dwarf slowly lowered his axe. "You... you're a madman. A glorious, terrifying madman."

"I prefer 'eccentric'," Hopeless corrected mildly. He looked past them, towards the gatehouse where the young knight in the white tabard was currently carving through the last remnants of the vanguard. "Ah. It seems my young friend is being thorough. I suppose I should go help him tidy up the source. The portal is dreadfully noisy."

Hopeless didn't walk towards the gate. He simply tapped his foot twice on the cobblestones.

The earth responded instantly. A solid pillar of dark, root-bound soil erupted beneath his feet, lifting him smoothly into the air. He rode the pillar of earth as it surged forward like a localised wave, carrying him effortlessly over the wreckage of the barricade.

"Try to catch your breath!" Hopeless called back over his shoulder, waving cheerily as he glided away. "The worst of it is over!"

Josh, Carcan, and Bhel scrambled up the remains of the rubble, desperate to see what was happening outside. Brett and Perberos joined them on the wall, peering through the gloom.

Outside the keep, the situation was utter domination.

The young knight and Hopeless had converged on the town square, where the massive, swirling purple void of the portal pulsed angrily in the air. The remaining kobolds, perhaps two hundred of them, were caught between the flashing, liquid blade of the knight and the unstoppable, earth-shattering power of the druid.

It was a masterclass in asymtrical warfare. Hopeless didn't fight; he conducted. He waved his hands in gentle, sweeping arcs, and the earth rose up to et his commands. Giant walls of stone and root boxed the kobolds in. Thorny whips lashed out from the alleyways, dragging monsters into the shadows.

The knight moved through the corralled monsters, his blade extending and retracting, a blur of silver and white, reaping lives with every step.

Within minutes, the square was empty of living threats, leaving only a sea of golden, disintegrating light.

Hopeless stepped up to the edge of the pulsing purple portal. He tilted his head, inspecting it like a curious gardener examining a weed. He raised both hands, his fingers splayed wide.

"Let's put a cork in this, shall we?" his voice drifted back on the wind, surprisingly clear.

The ground around the portal exploded. Not a few vines, but a dense, impenetrable forest of thick, iron-hard trunks and razor-sharp thorns surged upward. They twisted and wove together with blinding speed, forming a massive, cylindrical funnel that completely encased the exit of the portal. The vines on the inside of the funnel were lined with thorns the size of longswords, vibrating with a tense, kinetic energy.

A heartbeat later, three kobolds stepped through the portal, their weapons raised, expecting to charge into battle. They stepped directly into the funnel.

Thwack. Crunch. The vines lashed inward with the speed of a striking viper. The kobolds were instantly skewered, crushed, and pulled apart before they even realised they had left the void. Their bodies disintegrated into golden motes, floating up out of the top of the wooden chimney.

Hopeless dusted off his hands, looking thoroughly satisfied with his handiwork. He turned to the knight, said sothing unheard over the distance, and the two n bumped fists.

Back in the courtyard, the reality of the silence finally hit the defenders.

There were no more roars. There was no more screaming wood or clashing iron. There was only the crackle of dying fires, the soft hum of the golden motes fading into the night air, and the rhythmic, chanical thwack of the vine funnel crushing whatever poor creature dared to step through the portal.

The adrenaline, the primal, white-hot fuel that had kept them alive for hours, vanished. It didn't fade; it simply evaporated, leaving behind a profound, crushing emptiness.

Josh felt his knees buckle. He didn't try to stop his fall. He collapsed onto the cold, blood-stained stones, his back hitting a shattered wagon wheel. The pain in his ribs, his shoulder, and his legs suddenly flared into a roaring inferno, no longer suppressed by the fight-or-flight instinct.

Beside him, Bhel dropped his axe. The heavy weapon clattered loudly against the stone. The massive dwarf sank to his knees, his broad shoulders shaking. He pressed his face into his thick, calloused hands, letting out a long, ragged sound that was half-sob, half-laugh.

Carcan slid down the support beam she had been leaning against, pulling her knees up to her chest. She rested her forehead on her crossed arms, her whole body trembling violently.

Up on the wall, Perberos lay flat on his back, staring up at the smoke-clearing sky, his chest heaving with dry, hacking sobs. Brett was seated beside him, staring blankly at his blistered, magically burned hands, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on his cheeks.

Down by the breach, the Captain finally let go of his halberd. He stood completely still for a mont, swaying slightly in the breeze, looking at the bodies of his n, and the golden light of the monsters that had killed them. Slowly, awkwardly, the veteran soldier sank to the ground, bowing his head.

They had held the line. They had looked into the abyss, felt the teeth of certain death closing around them, and they had survived.

Josh closed his eyes, the cool night air washing over his face. He listened to the weeping of his friends, the groans of the wounded, and the distant, reassuring sound of Hopeless’s vines keeping the nightmare at bay.

He took a slow, painful breath, the air tasting of ozone, copper, and crushed leaves.

We lived, he thought, a single, silent tear slipping down his cheek to mingle with the gri. Holy shit. We actually lived.