Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 53 - Wrapping Things up (Patreon)

I decided not to do an image of the table here because it was too long to get in one go. So, pardon the slight alteration of the format.

Elijah knelt, his face only inches from the mushroom.  He remained perfectly still, not even breathing.  Then, in a rapid expansion, it exploded, spraying spores in his face.  They clung to him, eating away at his flesh.  It felt like nothing so much as a peeling sunburn, though he knew that if it had been just about anyone else, their entire skull would have melted.

He thanked his new resistances for that.

“Don’t be like that,” he said, raising his voice.  “I’m not going to be gone forever.  Just for a little while.”

A dozen new mushrooms shot from the ground, and within a second, they exploded as well.  Clearly, Fungee wasn’t happy.

Elijah hadn’t expected that.  But then again, he’d not really known that Fungee would understand when he came to tell the fungal colony that he would soon be leaving Orveth Kaal.  Ostensibly, he’d come to Fungee’s enclave to gather samples that he could take back to Earth, but he’d also felt obligated to explain himself.

To a mushroom.

It hadn’t gone well.  Fungee had been giving him the spore treatment for the past few hours, and he didn’t seem like he was going to let up anytime soon.

Fortunately, Elijah had his new form evolution to help mitigate the effects:

Shape of the Reaver

Archetype: Druid

Class: Emerald Archon

Level: 440

Take on the form of a fungal reaver, providing an incredible increase to Regeneration and Constitution attributes.  Also provides a formidable increase to Strength and a moderate increase to Dexterity.  Spellcasting (save in specific circumstances) is suspended while Shape of the Reaver is active.

Bracken Body

Passively increase the effects of Regeneration, as it relates to vitality, by 300%. 

Also absorbs up to 60% of incoming damage.

Grants functional immunity to most poisons, venoms, and other toxins.  Slightly weaker version of immunity persists in other forms.

Efficacy of all aspects dependent on relative Core Cultivation.

Fungal Leech

All attacks against the caster will cause a puff of spores, spreading a virile fungus that is deadly to weaker foes.  Against stronger enemies, it will serve to hinder their physical attributes.  It also drains vitality from enemies and into the caster.

Activation limited by regeneration attribute.  Current: 2.3 per second.

Potency of effects depended on relative core cultivation.

Tyrant’s Edge

Grow a stromatic blade that incorporates all traits associated with currently equipped weapon.  It also injects fungal spores into enemies, facilitating a vitality drain.

Activation limited by regeneration attribute.  Current: 1.1 per second.

Drain potency dependent on relative soul cultivation.

Bracken Crown

Create a domain of rapidly growing fungal stroma. 

Duration dependent on Regeneration attribute.  Current: 3.3 Minutes. 

Durability of stroma dependent on constitution. 

Sharpness based on core cultivation.

Mycelial Rebirth

Increases Regeneration by 2000%.  While under the effect of this ability, user can regrow from nothing.  Duration based on Constitution attribute.  Current: 2.6 minutes.  Cooldown dependent on Core Cultivation.  Current: 19.6 hours.

Only usable while under the effects of Shape of the Reaver.

Mantle of Thorns

Erupt with thorn-like fungal stroma, impaling enemies. 

Coverage dependent on constitution attribute.

Efficacy based on core cultivation. 

Only usable while under the effects of Shape of the Reaver

Mycelial Army

Passively establish kinship with foreign fungi. 

Conjure fungal minions to do your bidding.  Duration of summons dependent on ethera attribute.  Current: 2.36 hours

Potency of summons dependent on core cultivation.

Degree of control over summons dependent on soul cultivation.

With seven attached abilities, Shape of the Reaver was Elijah’s most complex form yet.  However, it was really more like six, because Thornbound Legion had been absorbed into Mycelial Army.  He’d yet to use it in battle, but he’d tested the effect a couple of times.  In those instances, he’d come away both impressed by the potential and overwhelmed by the reality that he was a long, long way from reaching it.

The issue with the ability was that it required intense concentration and more ethera than any other spell he’d ever used.  To get the most out of it would require both Grove Conduit and False Grove, and even then, he’d end up almost entirely drained.  The only caveat to that was if he used it in conjunction with Mycelial Rebirth, where the massive influx of regeneration would help to mitigate the drain. 

He hadn’t tried that yet because he didn’t want to wander Orveth Kaal while it was on cooldown.  After all, the orcs were still out there.  So was Ok’tarik.  Elijah had yet to receive any experience from that fight, which meant that the orcish chieftan was still alive.  And finally, there were a fair few beasts that could give Elijah a run for his money.  Most of the time, they ignored him, but there were some that could – and would – mess his day up if he accidentally ventured into their territory.

He had tested all of the other abilities, though, and he had come away impressed with his new form.  Some, like Bracken Body weren’t fundamentally different from their predecessors.  It still did the same job, just better.  However, the form truly separated itself by establishing a very different purpose.

Shape of Spores had been all about base regeneration and battlefield control.  By contrast, Shape of the Reaver seemed devoted to overwhelming strength and regeneration through draining his enemies.

Elijah hadn’t missed that it resembled what he’d witnessed from Ok’tarik.  The means were obviously different.  The orc was dependent on his spear – which remained in Elijah’s storage space within the Arcane Loop – while abilities like Fungal Leach and Tyrant’s Edge used spores.  But the results were similar enough that Elijah couldn’t miss the common throughline.

For what it was worth, Fungal Leech worked very similarly to its predecessor, just with an added vitality drain.  Where the form really diverged from Shape of Spores was with Tyrant’s Edge and Mantle of Thorns, both of which were facilitated by bone-like stroma that grew from the form’s body.

Tyrant’s Edge was, for all intents and purposes, a sword, though a massive one with a jagged, curved blade that grew out of his forearm.  Meanwhile, Mantle of Thorns’ passive presentation was a series of bone-like protrusions jutting from his shoulders, arms, forearms, and head.  They weren’t quite horns, but they weren’t totally fungi, either.

In short, the new shape functioned very similarly to what his instincts had prepared him to expect.  The only real surprise was the expression of the form. 

Upon testing it, the first thing that had stood out to him was that it was much slimmer than Shape of Spores.  With wide shoulders, narrow hips, and powerful legs, it was built more like a linebacker than a power lifter.  It was also covered in black scales, with green and yellow fungal growths spiderwebbing across his body.  The face was blunt, with a reptilian snout that reminded Elijah of a gila monster, though one equipped with sharp teeth. 

It was difficult to estimate his height, but Elijah had managed to narrow it down to around twelve feet tall. 

He hadn’t had a chance to fight anything in the form, but he suspected it would perform very well.  It received seven hundred-and-twenty-five points in both strength and dexterity, with a thousand-and-fifty in constitution.  Meanwhile, the most potent bonus came with regeneration, which came in at a healthy fifteen-hundred-and-twenty. 

That made it his most powerful form yet, at least when only taking attributes into account.  His shapes were far more than simple buffs, though.  The real benefits came from the abilities they granted.  In addition, there was something else going on under the hood that muddied the perception of what attributes really did.  It reminded Elijah of cultivation.  A silver-tier body performed better, point for point, than a bronze-tier body.  The same was true of his forms, which seemed to accentuate the attributes that represented that shape’s focus.

Was it a little frustrating?  Sure.  In a perfect world, one point was one point.  But Elijah had long since accepted that the multi-verse and all things system related were much more complex than they appeared at first glance. 

Whatever the case, he was happy with his evolutionary choice, and if he was honest with himself, he was more than eager to give it a good test run. 

Not that he had time.

The duration of the trial would soon meet its end, and he – along with all the others – would return to She’evoth.  On the one hand, Elijah was looking forward to it.  He’d exhausted Orveth Kaal for short-term benefits.  It still had plenty to offer, but that would require a much longer stay.

Elijah intended to return sometime in the future, which was one of the reasons he’d built a dolmen.  But for now, he was ready to get back to civilization where he could spend a little time in relaxation while he reconnected with friends and family.

With a sigh, Elijah asked the mushroom, “Are you going to cooperate?”

Another puff of spores told him the answer to that question was a decisive, “No.”

So, Elijah took matters into his own hands, digging up a few clumps of hyphae attached to smaller mushrooms.  He shoved them into his Herbalist’s Pouch, where they could live until he replanted them back on Earth. 

As he did so, he wondered if Nerthus enjoyed as much control over fungal growth as he did over plant life.  On the surface, it seemed like he should.  After all, he’d built the Hartwood Grove with well-engineered precision.  Everything had its place, including the native fungi.  Even the bacteria grew according to his plans. 

But if he didn’t, then introducing Fungee’s offspring to an Earth-bound habitat came with significant risk.  For better or worse, Fungee was built for colonization.  He would spread until something stopped him. 

Right now, that something was Elijah, but he knew better than to believe he would remain on Earth for long.  At some point, he would get restless and set out in search of progression and adventure.  When that happened, he would need to lean on Nerthus to maintain the fungal colony.  If the spryggent couldn’t manage it, then Elijah wouldn’t plant the fungal offshoot on Earth.

After a little while longer, he said his goodbyes to Fungee, who was still pouting.  Then, Elijah set off for the Vengeance.  He didn’t bother using Guise of the Stalker.  The orcs were still out and about, but their presence was diffuse enough that Elijah didn’t need to worry much about them. 

And he was on a schedule.

Because of that, he used Shape of the World Serpent, slithering between sky islands on his way back to the mountainous ship.  Even so, it took days for him to reach his destination.  Fortunately, no one barred his reentry.  Was that because they’d finally accepted him?  Had they overcome their unfounded resentment?  Did they suddenly want him around?

Assuredly not.

Instead of outright hostility, they now treated Elijah like he wasn’t even there.  Mostly, that meant they ignored him.  When someone did need to interact with him, they did so in a perfunctory, not-quite-curt manner, conveying whatever information they needed to convey before hurrying along.

Elijah still wasn’t entirely sure why they disliked him so much.  From his perspective, they should have celebrated him.  After all, he’d saved their lives.  But if there was nothing else Elijah had learned during his time in Orveth Kaal, it was that dragons were a complicated people.  Trying to figure out why they treated him the way they did was an exercise with which he refused to engage.

At the end of the day, he just didn’t care anymore.

The people he did care about liked him, and that was enough.  Everyone else could cease to exist, as far as he was concerned.

 One such person was Imal, who met him only a few minutes later, and with unabashed enthusiasm that sent them back to their shared quarters where they engaged in a private reunion. 

Afterwards, she let him know what had happened in his absence.  Mostly, it was just more of the same.  The non-combatants continued to work on the Vengeance, believing that the ship might help the next deity trial accomplish its mission.  Meanwhile, the rest of the force branched out to cleanse as many cells as possible. 

They only had about a month left in the trial, and the battle for the second through tenth place on the Ledger had reached a fever pitch.  The rankings jostled with every passing hour, and who ended up where would only be decided at the last minute. 

That included all of Elijah’s friends.  Imal was only back for a few hours before she intended to set out again. 

“Do you all need help?” Elijah asked.  By that point, he could cleanse most of the cells by himself. 

She shook her head.  “You’ll take all the contribution points.”

“Counter point,” Elijah said. “I could make sure nobody dies.”

“We’ll be fine, Elijah,” she said, getting dressed as he lay on the bed.

With that, the conversation drifted to other things – like who’d gained what abilities – before finally, Imal set off, leaving Elijah alone. 

He lay back in the bed, wondering what was going to come next.