In yet another display of her marksmanship, Daniela's struck the side of my triple overcharged . The hunk of rock glinted yellow like sulfur, but it was sturdy enough to withstand the impact from my friend's Skill. The low arc I'd managed with the torso-sized rock turned into a flat trajectory that landed it just over the Tendril's berm. The rock shredded and went off like a bomb.

The cries of pain from the Dreg Tendrils were the starting gun for the second act of our fight. Eric remained with the Trainees as I surged between my protective walls. Each step saw more covering everything but my joints. It took almost all of my remaining mana and left me wanting to coil up in pain but I had bigger problems.

Namely the three Earth Tendrils who were mighty displeased by my attack. Two were missing bits of their arms and the other was missing a chunk from it's torso, yet they stood their ground.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched mist rolling in from the treeline. Seeing the support, I threw myself at the creatures. Baseball-chunks of rock clipped me, bruising even my armored Limestone Skin. Several tried to take my head off, but I held up my pickaxe and formed my crystal umbrella to deflect them.

Torso-hole felt I was close enough to attack personally so it crashed down on top of me. It was all I could do to interpose my umbrella between us as I dropped to the ground. The Tendril had no business being so fleshy and mobile, yet so heavy. Lacking much mana, I released a quarter powered into the Tendrils side. It was awkward because of how I was pinned but I managed to use the momentum of my Skill and shove the earth attuned humanoid off of me with my knees. It's weight worked against it there as my spike found purchase in the missing chunk of its chest and sunk almost all the way through.

More rocks rained down on me now that the other Tendril was out of the way. While I struggled to catch my breath from the attack and from dumping so much mana, a caustic cloud of darkness flowed a foot over me.

"Stay low and move forward!" Clara called.

One other rock pinged off my crystal shield before I dismissed it and dropped to my stomach. Even through the torn up earth, it felt natural to crawl forward on my elbows. The vibrations of the battle passed through me, firing senses I didn't even know I had. Unfortunately the feeling faded as I reached the berm and drove the point of my pick into an afflicted, squirming Earth Attuned.

The other must have heard the wet gurgle of it's companion passing away because it fished me out of the ground, up into the caustic cloud, before putting me in an one-armed headlock. My breath hitched in my throat as the cloud burned me from within, throwing waves of nausea through me.

The crack of a whip was all I heard before the pressure on my neck disappeared. I heaved on the ground, struggling to catch my breath and keep the contents of my stomach. A warning flashed in the edge of my vision telling me my health had just gone down below 50% and I'd been afflicted by Clara's necrotic cloud.

Thankfully I wasn't alone in the fight. The vine that had saved me reached down and wrapped around my torso. The refreshing energy of healing magic bumped my health by nearly twenty percent and cleared the Affliction. A moment later the zipping energy of flowed through the same vine.

"Second wind, Ron! Dai needs help!" Sam slurred through the comm-plant.

I didn't even know he could heal like that... My thoughts drifted as I climbed the berm directly to the enemy side. The moment I was clear of the cloud, Clara called through the comm-plant. "Light it!"

Red zips of light were the last things I saw before the explosion pushed me off the berm. Animal bits also flew around me, at least two rats and a coyote based on the skulls. My Perception highlighted this before gravity made itself known once again.

The landing was cake. The damage from the shockwave? Not so much. I coughed out blood even as I tried to orient myself against some enemy.

To the right, at the edge of the platform, Kirby was furiously yelling at a trio of Tendrils lugging a pair of trainees between them. An earth attuned deer erected a barrier, blocking the group from an onslaught of fireballs from Daniela's wisp. They were heading towards the building.

To my left, Dai and his two companions were flitting around twisting mist. An Air Tendril was sending cutting gusts of wind into Dai's cloaking mist. A hard counter to the mist's strength.

Dai's orcish companion seemed to light up like a bonfire, dissipating some of the mist directly into steam, but shooting across the field to tackle the Tendril.

At ground level I watched a trio of Blobby fighting the smaller dreg creatures directly for the first time. Another blinding rat, a few more plague rats and a raccoon of all things squared up against the split slime. One of the slimes turned in place, acting like a tire spinning out to coat the other creatures in mud. Another of the Blobby glowed green, causing the mud to harden in the air, turning the mud into ceramic skeets that shredded the other creatures. The white life rat managed to dodge the attack before walking straight into the body of the third waiting Blobby. It struggled, even going so far as to claw at the core within the split slime. The strike caused Blobby to lose some substance, but it rejoined with it's two clones before completing it's suffocation attack.

This all happened in the few seconds it took me to catch my breath. I could almost feel the dissipate as my scan of the battlefield ended. While I didn't have a perfect grip on our match up, I had to hope we were at least even now. Our higher Quotient, but exhausted mana pools, against their numerical advantage.

"Ronan, are you alright?" Dai called out from his mist.

"I'm fine! Get to Kirby I think he's going to where the other trainees are!" The lizardman became visible briefly before he disappeared back into his Skill. "Watch out for the deer!"

That was all the time I had as a fire slime and earth slime rolled out in front of me. They were roughly the size of two Blobby's, so when they started to split I wasn't surprised. Instead I charged them mid mitosis. My steel toed boot connected with their split cores. The satisfying sound of shattering glass reached my ears before the first fire slime lost cohesion. The other fire slime quivered, suddenly trying to stabilize its mass since it hadn't finished separating. The earth slime, however, did get enough time. One latched on to my leg and the other jumped to my arm. Once again, the creatures had no right to be as heavy, because they took me down to the ground before trying to encase me in their gelatinous bodies.

There was a slight burn making its way through my arm and pant leg, but I ignored it as I swirled my hand within the slime. When it landed on the Metier Crystal, I flexed all of my Strength to crush it. That's a nope. When that didn't work, I flexed all of my Strength to rip it out of its body. The creature's insides resisted my tug, particularly the outer skin, but sure enough the green glowing crystal exited the body and the slime started to liquify. Hand free, I did one of the most important sit ups of my life. Crystal still in hand, which only resulted in my knuckles busting with the impact, I cracked the other earth slime's core.

My teeth ground as I fought against the wave of pain coming from my right hand. Doing my best to ignore my mounting injuries I focused on the last slime... only for a triple sized Blobby to consume it whole.

It wasn't clear to me through the lime green exterior of my companion, but the slime fight wasn't over just because Blobby swallowed the other. One of his signature appendages rose up amidst the turbulent shaking within to gesture in the direction of the building. When the appendage shook insistently, I shuffled to my feet. I could hear explosions and grunting beyond the berm, but my eyes zeroed in on the warehouse building.

My hobble-jog was a disgrace, but I wasn't looking to impress anyhow as I collected one of the trainee's broken posts for support and as a makeshift weapon. The four-by-four had seen better days, but it was better than a broken hand. Just in case, I used some of the mana that had recovered to encase my hand with , immobilizing and hopefully preventing it from breaking further. Unlikely with how this fight is going.

Darker thoughts aside, I followed the drifting mist into the warehouse. The place was dimly illuminated thanks to the numerous holes on its metal roof and the cloudy sky overhead. A flash of black lightning nearly connected with my chest before I got football tackled to the side by a large orc man. We tumbled behind a few rotted crates as two more zaps lit up the space. My brain registered him as Dai's teammate before I reacted poorly. "Stay down!" he whispered through his tusk.

"INEPT!" Kirby howled from the other side of the space.

>Failure rests on fleshbag< A chillingly familiar monotone voice.

The tone was different, deeper, but reminded me distinctly of Tec. "Please tell me there isn't some kind of giant evil crystal on the other side of this."

"There isn't some kind of giant evil crystal on the other side of this," the orc said. I let out a sigh of slight relief. "I would say it's a bigger-than-small evil crystal on the other side of this." Spoke too soon.

"That thing isn't trying to help you, Kirby!" I shouted, still in cover but I crawled forward to peer around our defensive debris. I could see Dai bleeding from a few injuries as he and the other person hunkered down. A thin sheet of ice covered his crates, acting as reinforcement for the decaying wood.

"BE QUIET!" Kirby shouted.

My one eyed look told me all I needed to know. The trio of Tendrils I'd seen before were hunkered down. One was channeling yellow-green energy into another while a Death Tendril kept watch on our two locations. The creature's hand was resting against a crystal the size of a torso, pulsing black energy flowed out of the depths of the crystal, into the Tendrils arm. That thing is replenishing it if I had to guess. Beyond them I could see the trainees chained up. Many of them appeared unconscious, the rest looked on in horror as the Tendrils lobbed attacks to keep us behind cover.

"You say that I don't know what I'm dealing with, Kirby. But how would I know that's a Dreg Entity!" I called out, racking my brain for a plan. With something on the power caliber of one of the Entities, I had no idea what to expect. Well, beyond the souped up Skill shots that Death bastard is throwing.

The warehouse got real quiet other than some rustling from the captured trainees and the crackle of the black lightning.

>Earth fleshbag knows<

"I know a thing or two, you oversized charcoal! Now let these people go or it's going to get ugly in here."

>Fleshbag has sacrificed much. He would not sacrifice lives for victory. Threaten the captives< My blood ran cold as I put two and two together.

"I've got up!" Dai said through the comm-plant.

No overthinking! Without trying to weigh anything else, I focused on the space where the cluster of Tendrils and Kirby were. Using the bits of my regenerated mana, I cast . Ironically, another cluster of obsidian formed between my fingers before flying straight at the Death Attuned. A bolt of black zipped to meet the attack, causing it to shatter but peppering the defending group in razor shards. Dai's summon flew into the mix. Hardened snowballs pelted the group. The wounded Death Tendril zapped the air, missing the Flurry. The living snippet of a snowstorm retributed with maximum prejudice as it swelled in size.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched Dai stagger and drop to the ground, shivering. Thankfully the Flurry seemed to have it's orders. Columns of misting snow rained down on the Tendrils.

I made a run for Kirby and the corrupted Entity. Mist swirled and snapped at the air wherever one of the Flurry's attacks landed. Condensation covered my skin and dropped down my hair. Less than three quarters of the way, the earth deer made itself known. Unlike the one I'd fought previously, this one looked more like a doe. Instead of the complex rock weave of horns it's male counterpart had, she had power in spades. One massive blunted column struck me and the Flurry before blowing me into one of the support columns.

The building and I both groaned in protest to the impact. Thankfully the doe had hit both me and Dai's Flurry, because that was the only thing that kept me alive. As it was, my ribs creaked from my injuries and most of my armor had crumbled to save me from the impact. My wrist was definitely twisted the wrong way.

Nonetheless, the fight wasn't over.

Dai passed over his infused hatchet and the orc went down on the deer still recovering from the attack. The man took a black lightning shot to the arm, cleaving it with necrotic death just above the elbow. To my concussed and stunned self the man's fortitude was incredible. Even having just been maimed the orc lobbed the axe like a tomahawk. It gave the death Tendril a whole new hair-do.

Kirby screamed out some words and I was faintly aware of the corrupted Entity speaking. The words were garbled and I heard shouts and a scream from somewhere outside. My thoughts swam even as I felt a pair of eyes practically burn a hole on me.

I wasn't sure what prompted me, but I turned my head and saw that I'd landed amidst the captured trainees. They were all staring at me wide eyed, everyone one of them looking the worse for wear. The one burning holes in me, however, I recognized. T-something. When our eyes met, he breathed out a glowing golden mist even as his whole body convulsed violently.

The mist reached me and sweet relief flowed through me. Thoughts and synapses fired as my brain was healed from lord knows what injuries. The sound came next, almost overwhelming, as the building shrieked in protest of our attacks and all the abuse it had already suffered.

"Take the crystals away!"

My mind relocked on the youth --Tristan-- that had healed me, seeing putrid black blood oozing out of his ears, and nose. Considering he'd saved my behind, I crawled forward on my good arm and knees. Everything hurt and even after the heal I knew I wasn't put together enough to make a difference in a fight. The task the kid gave me, well, that was manageable.

Each of the trainees had one of those corrupted crystals in hand. It was taped to them, on top of the rough knots keeping them bound. Tristan's crystal was glowing with an eerie black light even as the youth sagged. I jiggled my utility knife out and cut him free. The crystal rolled away and color flushed through the blue fae. Another rush of golden light, this time somewhat tarnished with a slick brass, plumed out from his abdomen. " The others!" he managed. More sludge dribbled out of him, but he continued to feed the healing energies that kept me from falling unconscious and recovering the other trainees.

I undid the bindings for an orc, a dwarf and finally Tristan's twin. The others started to free the rest and all I could do was slump to the ground. The dwarf manhandled me onto her shoulder and pulled me away from the warehouse wall. Tristan's twin, Louis, hit my arm with a burst of healing before they shot out of sight after the other trainees.

"Thank ye, sir," the dwarf muttered. She was still injured, but her voice was steady. Turning on her shoulder was difficult, but worth it. Not only did I get to see the beaming smile of the dwarf youth but also the other trainees.

A pillar of rock flipped the Life Tendril into the air. While still in the air, four different elemental projectiles struck it. A bolt of light, an ice shard, fireball and then a boulder. The attacks juggled the Tendril in the air briefly before it ragdolled onto the ground. Fairly sure they are dead. It didn't end there, a Satyr trainee whistled loudly and the concrete below Kirby and the corrupted Entity heaved. A thick pair of vines snapped around the man as he struggled to free himself. A set of vines also wrapped around the Entity, but they seemed to decay just as soon as they touched it.

Instead of trying to wrangle the crystal, since it was inert on the ground, the trainees doubled down on Kirby. Another set of vines, frost and a quicksand pit formed around the Councilman. All of his thrashing was meaningless.

"Check on those outside," I wheezed. Man my ribs are borked.

The trainees hobbled, hopped and stumbled their way out of the groaning warehouse. A neon red fae stopped by to help the tomahawking orc. Dai and his other teammate, a bald headed satyr, was already tending to the man, but they were swaying. The fae twins and the dwarf stayed with me as she set me down across from Kirby. The Councilman in question was waist deep in the ground with both arms pinned in place.

The man's eyes were wild, reptilian slits scanning me and the trainees. The tension between us was palpable. "You don't know what you've done. You've killed Wildwood and everyone near us!" The man howled, even going so far as to snap some of the vines with his struggling. Seems those scales weren't just for show.

"I'm too tired for this, Kirby. Ms. Dwarf, could you..." I gestured vaguely at the man.

A wicked smile split her face. There was a bloody gap there, tooth chipped from some sort of blow, but the emotion behind it was clear. Satisfaction. She threw a haymaker that caught Kirby mid-complaint. His whole body slumped to the ground. Tristan threw in a kick into the man's ribs. Louis was about to join in.

"Enough." I sighed.

"You can't even imagine what he's put us through!" The blue fae got in my face, tears streaking down his face.

"I can't. But I am sure as hell not going to let us beat up an unconscious person. He'll face judgement and he'll be awake for it." I tried to inject as much force as I could into my voice. The rest was more of a hiss of pain, but they got the point.

We nursed our wounds in silence after that. The twins offered to start healing my hand more but I waved them off using my left. Having their mana for someone more critical was more important than the pain radiating from my arm. I wonder if my Limestone Skin numbs that pain some. I feel like I should be rolling on the ground screaming. It was less than five minutes before people returned. Danny was amongst the group, face blushing red from the use of her mana.

"We're clear." Her expression wasn't one of joy and I felt my heart clench. "The other search teams just got here and the trainees were able to help out, but you're going to want to look at this."

"Tristan, Louis. Can you two please heal me some more?" I said, struggling to my feet. I was running on fumes as it was. A wash of healing energy coursed through me, refreshing me and sealing up numerous cuts and bruises. Most of the relief focused on my chest, letting me at least draw breath without pain, but as soon as they were done healing my body wanted to slump to the ground. A notification blipped in my peripheral vision.

The information vanished a second after, but it answered a few questions I had about just how healing worked. Nonetheless, I followed Daniela out. I gave the trainees one final look, eyes roving from them to Kirby before I turned away. A grating monotone echoed in the warehouse.

>Impure Fleshbag has been bested<