NOVGO.NET Chapter 2049 Poison Plants
Chapter 2049: Chapter 2049 Poison Plants
— Kat —
Kat would like to say they reached a compromise. That her explanations of logical reasoning, about how it was ’just a house’ or even ’that it wasn’t real’ if you wanted to consider it from that angle. That ’we’re wasting time’ or perhaps just ’we can help more people if we’re quick’. Perhaps this arguments could’ve worked against a different opponent… but at the end of the day, when Lily wanted something Kat was exceptionally hesitant to deny her. It meant searching the house as swiftly, but thoroughly, as she could manage and they found nothing.
Exiting the domicile, Kat looked to the sky, or rather, as far up as the cloud of poison would allow her to see. “Alright. What’s the plan now? I have no idea where we’ll find Appoline now. Not that I had a great idea before…”
“We could split up?” offered Lily.
Kat grimaced… and looked in both directions. The poison here was fairly settled. It wasn’t obviously expanding out in either direction. There did seem to be more of it slowly flowing from behind the house if anything, but Appoline wasn’t there. Though, perhaps a potion bottle was?
“How about we put a pin in that and look for the source of this poison,” countered Kat. Lily nodded along. It wasn’t like she wanted them to split up either. Simply that it might be necessary for them to make good progress. Their new focus didn’t take long to find. Simply running behind the house for about a minute showed them what they needed to find.
The source of the poison, or at least one of them, was clearly visible. It was also clearly guarded. Someone had carved out a large pond and filled it with a green sludge, thinker and darker then the stuff in the air, bordering on black. This was countered by the plans resting in the pond. Each one looked like a thick bulb that hadn’t yet bloomed, though considering what happened next it may be their default state.
Inside was five plants. One in the centre, and four more surrounding that to make a cube. Each bulb pumped like a set of bellows. Sucking up the gunk below them and soon dispersing it all up into the air. A system that might eventually run dry… but even as the water level lowered from violent suction, it soon refilled. The gunk was being replenished somehow when the plants expelled. Perhaps water was being drawn in and discarded, or there was some method to gather water into the pond. Lily’s thoughts immediately went to an underground well that was being siphoned.
The plants were slated for destruction. No sense in leaving something like that in operation… except for the fact that there were guards. Four in total. Three made of slime and one a rather obvious plant trap. The bush surrounded the pond with dozens of spikes everywhere you looked. There were barely any leaves on the poor thing. Looking more like biological barbed wire then a plant in truth. Perhaps it wasn’t sentient…
But the fact the damned thing was obviously breathing in the tainted mist air that was thick around the bulbs was a sign otherwise. It also seemed to wiggle and expand. Tangled ’branches’ thick with spines would sprout out if you looked at it too long. Increasing its mass and making the trek through the bush deadlier. Flying might be an option… but it might also be able to unwind and attack with purpose.
All of that was new, and scary, but the slimes were the real problem. Not overly deadly on the surface of it, the fact that they simply cost so much demonic energy to destroy meant that Kat wasn’t sure she could defeat them all. The bulbs were the same. They weren’t small dainty things to be found on the edge of a stem. They were large, industrial things the size of a cow. Each with enough mass to crush a person when dropped and Kat needed to burn away the entire thing.
The ’cleanse it with fire’ plan seemed optimal until you remember Kat didn’t have normal demonic fire. She had ICE fire. *Dammit. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted demonic fire that burns more than I do in this moment. My ice isn’t going to spread properly. Sure the demonic fire will, a BIT but that’s just because it’s demonic ’fire’. Everything after that initial bit I’m going to have to fuel from my reserves and I don’t know if I can.*
[I’ve seen you put out plenty of fire before. What’s the issue?]
*The issue is that everything here is probably soaked in magic. Burning away that as well as the stuff behind it is like throwing a fire blanket on a house fire. Eventually with enough blankets the job will get done, but its going to be expensive. I usually burn one thing, and when it’s bigger things I usually burn the head or whatever counts as a brain.
Here we still don’t know if the slimes HAVE brains, and the plants might not either. I don’t know if they regenerate so I’d need to get the whole thing at once. Which is, yet more demonic energy. I really don’t know how much I can spend here. Sure I could burn everything, kill two slimes, retreat and then go at it again… but if I don’t get there cores we’re going to be wasting a lot of time.*
[You might have to though. I might be able to deal with the bulbs and the brambles, MAYBE but I certainly can’t take out the slimes. They’re too big and it would require a proper devastating spell… that I just don’t know. I suppose I can sympathise because being a normal fire mage would be helpful right about now.]
*So what’s the plan?*
[Well… you can probably be at least a bit more efficient with your fire. Las time you just sent as much fire as you could until it died… maybe using less? Or trying to target more? Do you think a sufficiently big bit of demonic fire dropped from above on the whole thing would work?]
*It… wouldn’t be all that dense… and I think that much demonic energy might start to take on a mind of its own. I’d probably need to cleanup afterwards to prevent it spreading…*
[Wait, I thought the issue was that you didn’t have enough to spread it?]
*Well, yes but also no. Demonic energy, especially demonic fire likes to spread but it doesn’t really create more of itself. This stuff here is probably too magical for it to spread properly… but the grass and stuff around it? Perhaps the potion stuff in the air? That’s not. Think of it like… a river finding the path of least resistance. We really want it to travel left, but there’s a giant waterfall on the right sucking up the demonic energy.
If I just dump a giant fireball on this, most of the energy will go to spreading into the surroundings and the stuff we want to destroy will resist it until the energy runs out. Well, that or it gets concentrated enough to start self-propagating but I don’t think I could do that myself and we really don’t want it.*
[So… it’s a matter of control, control you don’t think you have?]
*Pretty much. Using enough demonic energy to even have a chance to take everything here out is going to be 90% or more of my reserves and I’ve never controlled anything even close to that amount. The main reason blasting that slime with fifty percent worked so cleanly is that I was stuck inside of it. There’s nowhere else for the energy to go.*
[What about that time you just let lose in the first round of the tournament? Right at the end?]
*Hang on you weren’t there in person for that…*
[Your memories are pretty clear.]
Ok fair enough. *As for that instance… well I had a lot less demonic energy then and it was just air. Demonic energy can burn it… but it burns it away too quickly for it to propagate properly. This poison might not be the same.*
[Then let’s back up and do some tests. See what happens if you just let the demonic energy do whatever it wants. If it’s too rampant, spreads too much then we can go back to the drawing board.]
Kat let out a long sigh. It would take time. It would arguably delay them more… but it was probably for the best. *Ok, but plan B is going to be just jumping down and ripping the bulbs right out of the ground. You’ll probably have to do it because I’m not sure Rank 2 strength is enough to uproot something that size. Especially if they’re really dug in there.*
[As long as you can keep the slimes busy I suppose I can agree to that as a plan B. Not quite sure where I’ll need to stand to have the right leverage… but we can figure it out as we go. Now enough stalling let’s get to testing.]