Ogre Tyrant Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 60 – Marked for death – Part Two

Ogre Tyrant: Chapter 60 - Marked for death - Part Two

With the afterimage of the black void still burned into my retinas, I hung back while Wisp and my champions disposed of the remaining Vampyrs. Except for Marco, of course.

Using Shady’s Synergy to Shadowstep out of the chamber and return to the surface, we fought our way clear to the wall and used Shadowstep again to return to the relative safety of the fortified pass.

Shady was in rough shape. The blow he had taken while accompanying Marco had broken one of his ribs and punctured a lung. He had also suffered a severe degree of bruising, but it was negligible when compared to his internal injuries.

With no other ans of setting the bone, I decided to Summon Sebet again and instructed her to set the bone and do her best to reverse the internal injuries. The Sculpt Flesh Spell was incapable of restoring lost HP, but I was more concerned with stopping Shady’s internal bleeding. More than that, wandering bone fragnts from the broken rib had the potential to create significant harm down the line. So I couldn’t leave Shady in that state.

Wisp returned to his position atop the wall and raised Ophelia’s slayer sword high, “A POWERFUL LIEUTENANT OF THE LICHE HAS FALLEN!!! REJOICE!!!” His dry rasping voice carried through the mountain pass with the strength of a winter storm.

A handful of seconds passed in stunned silence before staggered cheers rose from the Asrusian soldiers accompanied by howling from the Kobold Auxiliaries.

Because of his true nature, Marco was forced to hide his face beneath a cloth mask and a heavily cowled cape.

I felt sowhat guilty for using Marco as a Trojan horse, but the results we had achieved and my promise to reward him in exchange were enough to satiate my conscience.

I hollowed out a small room for Marco to stay in and then settled down to rest in my quarters.

The sudden evacuation of the Vampyr commander left with several questions and concerns. Not least of which was why the Vampyr commander hadn’t been evacuated sooner. Without a ready blood supply, the Vampyrs had looked like they had been engaging in their unique form of cannibalism.

With their situation so dire, it didn’t make sense that the Liche would have just left them there like that.

Unless...

Unless the Liche hadn’t left them by choice. Perhaps the Liche had been unable to act sooner? Had the effects of the Empowered Ward sohow impaired the Liche’s ability to cast its Spells?

We didn’t know the full effects of what the Empowered prefix supplied for each Spell. So it was indeed possible that the Empowered Ward could impair or interfere with enemy Spells.

[ Integration Complete. New Species has been successfully integrated. ]

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies have been detected and successfully integrated. ]

I stared at the pair of alerts in confusion. After my brain had a chance to shift ntal gears, the full gravity of the situation settled on my shoulders.

Leaving my quarters, I descended into the pass and approached the trunk of the thorn bush. Resting the palm of my bare hand against its bark, I was surprised to find that I couldn’t sense its presence.

Scanning both mountains for signs of movent, I was shocked to find that the sprawling masses of thorn bushes were completely still. However, I could feel a strong and mounting presence of mana coming from the cave I had repurposed into a feeding chamber for the living thorn bush.

Hiking up the mountain, the intensity of the mana only grew denser as I drew closer to the cave.

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies has been detected and successfully integrated. ]

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies has been detected and successfully integrated. ]

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies has been detected and successfully integrated. ]

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies has been detected and successfully integrated. ]

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies has been detected and successfully integrated. ]

[ Species {Sempervivum}: Subspecies has been detected and successfully integrated. ]

.....

A stream of identical alerts appeared before my eyes before I made it to the cave entrance. I could only assu that the thorn bush, Sempervivum, had begun consuming its collection of accumulated mana stones.

The prospect of being around so many mana stones gave pause. To play things safe, I decided to wait outside of the cave until I could be certain they were all gone.

Shadowed by my champions, I had Randle investigate while I reviewed the Sempervivum’s Status.

“Cor Spina Seedling?” I recognised the first two words as Latin.

My dical training had only tangentially involved limited exposure to Latin, specifically what was embedded in dical terminology involved in diagnosis and procedures. It took a few minutes to puzzle out a few different potential anings.

The literal translation, as best I could determine, was Heart Thorn. However, Latin had a way of moving words around to fit certain ‘romantic’ anings. This was why I felt far more confident in the interpretation being Thorn Heart, aning a heart of thorns.

The crimson willow had a sowhat simpler translation, but it took much longer to puzzle it out. Custos Salici. The literal translation being, Guardian Willow.

Sempervivum was both the na of the original Species and a Racial Ability shared by both of the plant monsters. I wasn’t super confident about my translation, but I interpreted it to an sothing along the lines of ever living in the context of being a perennial. A plant that grows year-round.

My translation was largely based upon the description of the Ability itself which gave them Cold Resistance, Heat Resistance and Necrotic Resistance.

The second Racial Ability they both shared was Arboreal Transmission, an Ability that facilitated a form of passive long-distance communication with plant-based monsters and limited perception through plants in their imdiate vicinity.

Their third and fourth Racial Abilities were where their respective Subspecies diverged from one another.

Thorn Aura allowed the Thorn Heart to passively inflict minor damage against a lee attacker whenever it received damage. At the cost of its mana, the Thorn Heart could amplify the damage and range to include enemies beyond lee range.

Briar Infestation was far more sinister. The Ability allowed the Thorn Heart to infest a host from the inside out with a satellite organism known as a Briarling. Converting the host to sothing akin to a living Zombie, the Briarlings were stated to be capable of moving host to host as needed but were otherwise short-lived without the nutrients a host body could provide. Bound entirely to the will of the Thorn Heart, the Briarlings would have no true will of their own.

Ironbark was a straightforward Ability. It hardened the main body of the Guardian Willow, making its trunk, roots, and branches resistant to physical forms of damage. The hardness could also be temporarily increased by spending mana.

Lastly, Blooming Vanguard allowed the Guardian Willow to share its Racial Abilities with plants within a moderate radius in a similar fashion to Synergies. The major exception was that the plants would use the Guardian Willow’s stats when determining the effectiveness of the Abilities. The secondary effect of Blooming Vanguard amplified the Synergies of plant-type monsters within a large range.

Neither the Thorn Heart nor the Guardian Willow had a na. However, they both possessed the Advanced Druid Class. Assuming they both had similar senses to the Dryads, they would probably qualify for the Arch Druid Master Tier Class with a little assistance.

“I am not quite certain how to explain what I have seen,” Randle admitted quietly, “It wears the sa general shape as a man. However, it seems half-ford? Like sothing a child or particularly clumsy apprentice would shape out of clay,” he scratched his chin uncertainly and glanced back toward the passage to the cave, “It is definitely a monster. Of that, at least, I have no doubts...”

“What of the mana stones?” Faine asked warily.

“Gone, now,” Randle confird confidently, “It was devouring the last of them when I arrived.”

“And it didn’t seem agitated by your presence?” I asked, curious to witness the new monster for myself.

“I do not think so?” Randle replied with markedly less confidence, “Forgive , but it was hard to tell what it felt if anything. With its body made of bundles of thorny vines and gnarled roots, it could have been overjoyed for all I would be able to judge.”

I nodded in understanding. I still struggled sowhat with telling the more subtle expressions of the Gnolls apart. Gods knew whether the forr thorn bush would even attempt to use expressions to telegraph its emotions at all. Assuming, of course, that it even had emotions as we understood them in the first place.

With Randle’s assurance that all the mana stones had been consud, or at least removed from the vicinity of the cave, with my other champions following behind, I followed Randle back through the passage to take a look for myself.

Lovecraftian.

Despite my attempts to categorise the Thorn Heart as anything else, my brain kept insisting that its initial observation was the only one that mattered.

Easily fifteen feet tall, the Thorn Heart was vaguely humanoid in overall shape. Its lower body was ford from gnarled roots, while its upper body, limbs and the writhing mass that equated to a head, were all ford from thorny vines.

Thick thorny vines hung from the lower section of its head in a vague likeness that lent the appearance of a barren topiary octopus. Once that image took root in my mind, it was impossible to think of its barely ford hands and feet as anything but additional tentacles. These thoughts were only reinforced by the Thorn Heart’s lack of joints and the constant undulation of its extremities.

Four ovoid spaces in the mass of the Thorn Heart’s ‘head’, three on the left and one on the right, glowed with dark crimson light. Despite the Thorn Heart’s passive stance, the ominous lighting lent the Thorn Heart a nightmarish and insidious aura.

The crimson light in the Thorn Heart’s ovoid sockets contracted and intensified as its head turned to look at .

I resisted a minor surge of panic as the tentacles hanging from the Thorn Heart’s head animatedly writhed in what I chose to interpret as excitent. Despite its alien appearance, I knew the Thorn Heart ant no harm.

The Thorn Heart hunched downward and slowly extended one of the larger vines from its right arm.

Stepping forward, I removed the gauntlet from my right hand and took hold of the vine, taking care to avoid the smaller thorns.

A familiar consciousness made contact with my own and was quite suddenly joined by another.

Images and emotional impressions passed between the two consciousnesses with dizzying speed.

What little I could recognise and interpret was an account of their recent activities. However, it was impossible to be certain. Beyond a handful of images depicting the cave around us and an arid orchard of olive trees, the remaining images were too abstract for my mind to interpret without references.

The images provided by the Guardian Willow had shown Sebet’s clones excitedly smiling at one another while standing in the Guardian Willow’s shade and offering it mana stones.

Offering HIM mana stones.

The correction ca almost imdiately but held no malice.

Communicating through impressions and images made it difficult to censor or otherwise separate my thoughts from the flow of communication. It was like being telepathic but unable to stop myself from broadcasting my thoughts.

A trio of thoughts thrumd through the connection. Ever so slightly out of sync, I recognised that they belonged to Sebet and her two clones. Already capable of communicating with one another over imnse distances with their innate telepathy and unique connection, it was still quite interesting to learn that Sebet and her clones could hijack others' connections.