Intimancer

For the next hour they wound their way through the woods, slowly encountering larger and more varied groups of blightlings as they made their way deeper into the infection.  Just when they thought they were getting close, they came across a large stone wall.  The stone was old and choked with vegetation.  Despite that, it was still extremely solid.

“Well then, how much do you want to bet our tree is somewhere in here?”  Rick said as he tapped his spear against the stone.

“No bet.”  Sade chuckled. “I have no doubt that it is.”

“Now how do we get there?”

Both the humans shrugged at Tyr’s question.  After a brief discussion, their options were to try to scale the wall or walk around it to find an entrance.  Sade chose to walk around since she may not be able to climb back over once they reached the other side.  They decided to go along with her logic for the moment.

They found an entrance not long later, but none of them were happy about it.  “It’s a fuck’n gopher hole.”  Tyr groaned.

“Oh come on.  It’s not the tightest hole you’ve plundered.”

Sade smacked Rick upside the head lightly for his crude joke.  She had yet to try anal sex in any form after her first surprise experience.  The soreness was not pleasant, and she was more than a little scared to take either of their significantly larger dicks in that hole anytime soon, especially since she was barely big enough to take them in the proper entrance.

“Alright, alright!  To make things fair, I’ll head in first to check it out.” Rick said while fighting a grin at her reaction.  “If I find a trap or dead end, we’ll find another way.”

True to his word, Rick ducked down and started to crawl through the tunnel.  Both Sade and Tyr bent down to get a delicious view of his rear as it shimmied along the tight space.  It was still fairly flat, nothing a few points of energy couldn’t fix though.  But even without the help of magic, it still had developed nicely due to all the training Tyr put him through.

“No traps that I can see.  You two will certainly want to see this, though.”  He called out a minute later.

The women sighed and Sade elected to go first.  She got down on all fours and started to crawl into the claustrophobic space.

Then Sade felt her forward progress suddenly halt.

“Everything ok out there?”  Rick called.

“It seems our girl needs ta shrink her arse before she can join ya!”  Tyr snickered.

Sade’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment.  She knew full well that her hips were wide, but having them be an active detriment on their first hunt just made the situation even worse.  It just felt so good to have them grow, though.  Using coital energy was always extremely pleasant, especially if used in large batches, but something about her lower half made it feel even better.  Maybe it was the way all her clothes hugged her rear even when the rest was fairly loose.  Or how the way her gait changed so that each step she took was more of a sashay that made her pert and jiggling orbs bounce with every motion.

Regardless of the pleasure, it seemed she overindulged more than she originally thought.  She began to squirm and pull in the hopes that she could still crawl through the temporary blockage.  Her efforts were rewarded.  With a slight shift that caused one side to lower and the other raise slightly, she got past the narrow entrance.

Thankfully, it seemed that the narrowest part was at the beginning, and she had no further difficulty moving through the tight enclosure.  One more thing she was grateful for were the kneepads.  She could feel the unyielding stone beneath her pound into the padding with each step.  She would have to ‘reward’ Rick once more for his ingenuity.

“I am through!  The tunnel is not as narrow as it is in the beginning.”  Sade lowered her head to watch Tyr slide inside, or at least attempt to.

“...fuck.”

Tyr was too tall to crawl on all fours like Rick and Sade, so she first had to get on her belly.  Then the elf’s broad shoulders slammed into the sides of the tunnel.  Undeterred, she raised her arms forward to give herself some more room, only to have her own massive ass get stuck as well.  The irony was just too rich.  Sade collapsed to the floor in a fit of giggles, her arms clutching her sides as she rolled around on the floor, relishing in the schadenfreude.

Even Rick found it difficult not to laugh at their trapped friend.  He fished around in his pack and pulled out some rope.  “Here, grab on and hopefully we’ll get you through this.”  It took the combined strength of both humans plus Tyr shifting around before her rear was released with a faint pop.

When the amazonian woman finally crawled to her feet, she glared at the two of them, daring them to continue laughing with her fierce gaze.  Sade had long since lost any fear of this particular elf and smacked her on her muscular behind.

“Cheer up!  You will get to kill something soon enough.”

That brought a smirk to Tyr’s face.  She also gave a tap to Sade’s rear before readying her weapons in preparation to finish the hunt.  The party found themselves in a small room, sparsely decorated.  Broken chairs and tables made with rotting wood was all that remained in the piles of dust.  Whoever resided in this place had long since left.

Sade circulated mana through her body.  Within her palm a small orb of bright yellow fire bloomed before she gently tossed it over her opposite shoulder, just above her head.  The orb halted its position in the air, its gentle glow brushing away the few shadows left in the room's corners.  The ‘lantern orb’ cantrip certainly living up to its name.

“The spell creates mostly light, very little heat.  I can cut off the mana if we encounter dense foliage or anything else that has a chance of burning.”  Sade said to Tyr before the elf could even open her mouth.

Tyr shrugged.  “Aye, it’s mostly stone here.  Just be sure ta dim yer light so we don’t get spotted.”

Sade nodded.  She didn’t consider her spell from a stealthy angle.  Perhaps she could find some lore on old spies or assassins and see how they tackled the problem.  For now she would constrict the mana tether to adjust the brightness when needed.

They continued exploring.  Tyr bringing up the rear so Rick could get more experience in detecting threats.  The building was a maze of corridors and branching rooms, leaving Sade to conclude that the builders just built what they felt like, or that the impractical layout was an intentional decision to confuse trespassers.

Occasionally the sun would pour through a hole in the ceiling or two, but otherwise the stone halls were dark and dingy, choked in the blighted growth.  Sometimes they would hear the rasp of wood scraping against stone and the party would wait in ambush for a patrolling blightling.  Sade always either dimmed or outright canceled her lantern spell so they wouldn’t alert their foes.  Neither option was too strenuous, the mana needed to cast the spell was replaced within minutes.

Every once in a while, they would fight branch or vine blight variants.  These were larger and more dangerous than the twig blights, but not by much.  Branch blights were simply a bigger version of the twigs, but the vine blights looked like shambling mounds of twisting green vines in the rough outline of a human.  When the trio couldn’t take those masses of vines out with stealth, the monsters would unravel several vines and use them like ropes or tentacles to trip up the party or simply grab them in an attempt to drag their victim closer so the blightling could enwrap and suffocate them.

The party didn’t have too much difficulty all things considered.  Tyr’s bow usually took out any blightling in a single hit.  Rick had had greater reach on most of the monsters, aside from the vine blights, with his spear.  Every time he or Sade got grabbed by a vine, his claws would get them free fairly quickly.

Sade’s frost was devastating for the blight creatures to deal with.  Her blasts of cold caused their joints to lock up or freeze entirely, making movement nearly impossible the moment the icy mist overwhelmed their paltry resistance.  Twig blights were reduced to frozen statues in seconds, a quick tap of her mace shattering the monsters like green tinted glass.

Eventually, their wandering around brought them to an expansive courtyard.  The early afternoon sun filtering down through the canopy of a gigantic tree growing in the center.  There was something off about the tree, something wrong.  Unnatural.  It’s dark bark looked sickly, rivers of sap oozing from various fissures in the wooden surface.  The branches were twisted in odd angles, like growing outward in a straight line went against their very nature.

“I’m going to go on a limb here and assume this is the source of the blight.”

Both Tyr and Sade could only nod and agree with Rick’s assumption.  “So what is the plan?”  Sade asked their most experienced member.

Before Tyr could answer, the infected tree groaned.  Vines snaked down from its boughs and plopped down in a great pile between its massive roots.  Slowly the pile formed into a twisted humanoid shape, unfortunately this time the mass of vines stretched taller and taller until it towered over even Tyr.

“Balls!”  Rick cursed and started to run to one of the walls to the side.  “Everyone split up!  I’ll try to whittle it down from its blind spots.  Tyr, turn that thing into a porcupine.  And Sade,”  She saw the wolfish grin split his face as he continued to run.  “Time to cut loose!”

Sade could feel her lips tug into an expression mirroring Rick’s.  Both her and Tyr started to bolt in different directions the second Rick started shouting.  Long before the hunt they all discussed strategy on what to do when they encountered a powerful lone enemy.  It was Sade’s idea to have a rough plan for a wide range of scenarios, even outside this specific hunt.  During their training they all practiced by someone shouting out a scenario and someone else shouting the plan to deal with it.

Sade ran.  Once she was a significant distance away she turned to see which of the three the large blightling would focus on.  Whoever drew its ire would lead it on a merry chase while the others would attack its flank.  If it changed targets, the new focus would run instead.  This was also why Sade’s ‘frozen mist’ was so essential.  She couldn’t run as fast as the other two, but she could slow it down enough to give her a fighting chance.

For now it seemed Rick was the one to distract the thing.  Sade suspected it was because he shouted and moved first.  The blightling propelled itself after him by slamming its oversized arms to the ground.  In no time at all it was galloping right behind Rick, an arm cocked back to slam him to the dirt.

An arrow embedded itself into the area where the shoulder joint would be.  It didn’t appear to do much damage, but the slight delay was just enough for Rick to dive out of the way of the swing.  Sade bathed the creature in a jet of super cold mist.  She would not let it move with impunity any longer.

Two more arrows hit the thing in the chest while Sade continued to pour mana into her spell.  “Shit!”  She cried as she dove out of the way of a massive vine.  She fought a shudder as she saw that the green appendage was covered in sharp thorns that dug furrows into the ground as it was reeled back in.

“Watch out!  It has thorns!”

Sade could hear faint curses from her companions at her announcement.  None of them heard anything about a blight creature with thorns.  This could prove quite problematic.

Sade ducked under another swung vine while she continued to bathe the monster in ice magic.  “It has high resistance too!”  She called out when she noticed the creature hardly seemed affected by the cold.

Rick ran in and swiped at its leg before jumping out of the way of a brutal looking counterswing.  He jabbed at the outstretched arm with his spear, hoping to deal at least a little damage.  More and more arrows were sticking out of the thing's body as Tyr continued to do as Rick suggested and make it look like a porcupine.  Her own efforts were having about as much effect as Rick’s spear.

Sade needed to do something and fast.  She quickly ran through the formula for her spell and cycled it throughout her body in a mirrored fashion.  This was not very easy to do as ice spells, especially this one, were fairly complex to begin with.  She doubted she had enough time to try again if it failed.

With a warcry escaping her lips, Sade held out both her hands as she completed cycling her mana.  Another jet of mist shot out of her palm and joined the first.

She did it!

Dual-casting was a subject her teachers touched upon in their lectures, but also warned that trying to cast two separate flows simultaneously could have disastrous consequences.  Sade remembered asking after one of those lectures was over if casting two of the same spell would make it easier.  She was told it was theoretically easier if the spells were the same, but trying to use two mirrored copies of the same spell or even spells from the same source had complications of its own.  Something about crossing the streams.

Even Sade couldn’t quite wrap her head around the long and technical explanation given to her.  Since she couldn’t understand with one method, she considered attempting to try dual-casting on her own in the practice yard or another private location.  She never thought her first attempt would be in the middle of a fight with a powerful monster.  Or that it would be successful.

Under the dual assault from her magic, Sade saw that her magic was finally starting to have an effect.  The smooth motions of the vines became jerky, the fine control the creature had shown earlier beginning to slip.  Her companions wasted no time capitalizing on the opening she created, each of their attacks breaking off chunks of partially frozen plant matter.

The thorny blightling curled into a ball and started to expand.

“Take cover!”  Tyr screamed.

Sade ducked down and covered her head in her arms.  Pain lanced all up and down her side as the monster's thorns exploded out and dug themselves in any tender flesh they could find.  Her concentration broke, mana snaking its way back through her body to its source like a snapped cable.  She couldn’t focus on anything other than the red hot needles of pain in her arms, legs, and back.

A deeper, more masculine cry overrode her own.  Sade opened her eyes to see Rick on the ground just behind the thorn blight.  He was closer to it when the explosive attack went off and probably was more injured than she was.

She saw the monster rise up and turn to him.  She saw his eyes were still pinched shut with pain.  She saw the thing raise its oversized arms high into the air, ready to crush him into bloody paste.

She could only watch as its arms came down.

Sade heard a roar erupt from her other side.  Tyr bounded forward in front of their gigantic foe and caught its arms with her own.  The force brought her down to one knee, but she just snarled in fury and grabbed it even tighter.  The same spark of fury ignited in Sade’s chest.  It attempted to kill one of their own.  It tried to kill Rick.

It would not do so again.

“Tyr! Throw it!”

The elf complied.  Tyr darted farther in and sunk her fingers deep in the top and bottom of its torso.  Completely ignoring the thorn blight’s flailing limbs as it smacked and scraped against her flesh, creating punctures and tears in her skin that wept blood.  She roared her pain and fury as she hoisted it over her head and threw the monster with all her considerable might.

Right at the twisted tree that birthed it.

Sade was already hard at work channeling her mana.  Her hands traced the patterns in the air mirroring the pathways she was leading the magic on.  There was no conscious thought to her actions, only the need to make the thing pay for its transgressions with its very life.

She let out a roar of her own as flames erupted from her outstretched hands and bathed the monster and its tree in an inferno.

Every scrap of magic her body possessed was thrown into the dual spells.  There was no official name to the magic, or at least none they could find in any spell books they looked through, but Rick had called it ‘flamethrower’ after seeing her successfully cast it for the first time.  He gave her the inspiration for the formula after they were discussing how her freezing spell worked.

The spell eventually petered out and she collapsed to the ground, utterly drained.  Tyr padded up to her, her arm around Rick’s shoulder.  It seemed the two of them were using the other for support.  Both plopped down by her side and took in the view. 

The heat from the flames was hot enough to make their eyes sting.  But none of them looked away.  It was one of the most beautiful sights any of them had ever seen.

“Well… that was fun.”  Rick joked.  Both women groaned weakly at his poor attempt at humor.

Tyr fell back to the ground with a thud.  “Next time, we bring a healer.”

“Agreed!” the two humans said in unison.