Summoning the xenodragon is just the start of a series of questionable actions I take. Marina cautioned me on how much I should reach out to the planet, but… this is important. Motes of indigo lights are glowing in my eyes and twinkling in my torn up arm. I pull more of them from the environment around us, igniting them with my nonphysical touch. The filigree of my boutonniere waves gently in tune with the energy. I spread the glow around not just me, but also Xiao and Cleve. My control is nowhere as clingy as it was when I made a similar barrier against the craws that the Progenitors abused. This is more of a sloppy cloud than a smooth coat. It will provide some resistance, but probably not much. It may even impede our efforts to repel any briar beasts that get right up close. Not my best work.
And it hurts. I’m using the environment, but I’m so shaky that I’m drawing from myself too. This pain is going to be too distracting. I need to dull it down if I’m to have any hope of improving this barrier. Rhum makes me dizzy. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t taken any myself since waking up on this planet, despite some pretty bad episodes of pain. But I figure, I’m already dizzy, so how much worse can it get? Better to not hurt so much, right? I fish my last piece of the drug out of my satchel, unwrap it, and slip it under my tongue. As it dissolves, the throbbing in my arm and leg starts to recede. The world around me does a bit, too. With the shimmering purple haze of the barrier between me and the darkness of the moonlit park, it’s hard to really believe a xenodragon is hanging out above me and briar beasts are moving in to crush me.
But Gale is up there. Her enormous wings can work wonders with the air currents. Right now, they’re ruffling my hair with the gentle pulses of a light breeze. “Hey there, Gale,” I say, looking up at her. I doubt she can understand my words, but speaking helps me focus my intent. “Is there anything you can do to blow that brambly pile over there away from us?” I gesture vaguely in the direction of the briar beast rolling this way across the park. The wind picks up for a moment, and then Gale launches herself in that direction.
“One came out of the office. I’m going to shoot it!” Cleve reports from behind us in the foyer. That announcement is followed by loud blasts from his rifle. It must’ve been him shooting down in the basement earlier when I got so spooked.
“Do you hear singing?” I ask Xiao. With Gale further away and no longer intoning her whale-like greeting, I’m pretty sure I hear voices somewhere. Maybe behind our building? Xiao groans in annoyance and mutters that the mariners have better songs than the cultists do. Seems like an audience is on the way. And probably also the briar beast that I miasma-saw near them earlier.
“All right, we’re going to tackle this one problem at a time,” Xiao announces. He keeps his eyes and his pistol trained on the briar beast across the park, but his words are directed at all allies within earshot, including Cleve behind us. “The briar beasts are our highest priority. I can sight one out here. Cleve, you’ve got eyes on two others. There’s still at least one missing. We’ve got cultists incoming. They’re an unknown entity. Keep an eye out for what they might be up to.” He’s direct and well organized, which is perfect for this situation. It’s quite reassuring to have another person on hand who knows what to do in a conflict. “Xenodragon is on our side,” he continues. “Somehow. And purple haze… be wary.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I tell him. I think I’m getting a better handle on it now, neatening it up and thickening the buffer around us three. Now I just need to keep it in place. I saw a briar beast snap Dr. Gupta’s arm earlier. It was no siege worm, but it was still really bad. We need all the protection we can get.
Between the barrier and my connection to Gale, my attention is completely absorbed. It’s just as well, because nothing in the physical world around me is steady, anyhow. I may be sitting on the ground, leaning against a building, but I feel like I’m on a boat. It’s a miracle I haven’t thrown up yet.
Gale’s having a good time. I think the briar beast is a novelty for her. It’s like an enormous knot of seaweed to her but easier to push around since it’s not a soggy mess. Her great gusts of air knock the plant creature around like a tumbleweed. Vines that were previously reaching out are now twisting all around each other. I… have no idea how I know this. It’s dark across the park, and there’s a table in front of me. Am I getting this information through Gale? Through the briar beast? Through the grass? Gale looks back over here—I am sure I can see her up in the air with my own eyes—and sends another gust of wind this way. Small pieces of leaves and vines blow around me. Why would she do that? Just being playful?
Something smashes against the barrier—my sparkling motes of indigo light, not Xiao’s table. There’s no briar beast here, so Cleve must be in trouble inside. He’s already covered in scratches and bruises from his last tussle, so he could probably use some patching up himself. The cloud of miasmic particles currently around him requires just a nudge from me for some of them to sink into his skin. There they can begin to soothe some of the injuries he has taken.
Next to me, Xiao spins around and starts firing off shots into the building. But I’m still idly wondering what Gale found of interest over here. I nod my head back, and the world tilts more than it really should, given how much I moved. But I now have a view of the vines snaking over the edge of the roof and coming right towards me. “Gale!” I shout in panic. “Galegalegalegale! There’s one over here!” The xenodragon directs more concentrated blasts of air this way, causing the new briar beast to slide across the roof. In a controlled tumble, it slips off the side of the building. I don’t have a chance to feel any relief, because it soon surges around the corner, backed by a chorus of cultists singing its praises. The Prophet of Chiron, Sal, is in the group, but they don’t look as thrilled as everyone else who rejoices to see all the purple glowing at the doorway of the research lab.
Tendrils lash out at me. Their thorns are dulled by my miasmic barrier, but it can do nothing to prevent them from wrapping around me, and my cane is just another object to latch onto. As I am yanked up, another set of vines whips in from a different direction. The ones already here are in the way, so the new ones can’t get at me, but something really, really weird happens when one of them slams into the node of the cultists’ briar beast. I feel a surge of resonance energy as a connection forms between the nodes, uniting the compatible creatures. This causes a blossoming along the vines, and alarmingly enormous thorns jut out along them. Xiao’s table, whatever it was made of, is being absorbed into the new structure wrapped all around it. Cultist’s shout praises at the formation of the “wall of thorns.” I’m not sure if that’s a descriptor or an actual plant creature name, but whichever it is, it’s apt. The vines pull in more tightly around me.
Then, confusingly, they rapidly withdraw, and I crash to the ground. Just as suddenly, I’m jerked back up to my feet by someone in full body armor. The edges of my vision go dark, and I almost pass out at the rapid change in blood pressure. When I nearly collapse again, they wrap an arm tightly around me. I have no idea where this person came from, but they’re wearing the same chitinous material as we found with Ayumu’s corpse, so I’m guessing they’re a ranger. Their outfit includes a mask to conceal their features, and it has a voice modulator which gives them a strange artificial voice that makes this even more surreal than it already was. “We can get you safe inside,” they tell me, unfazed by the mass of briar beasts, the indigo sparkles coating my skin, and the xenodragon hovering above us.
We only get a few steps before the recoiled vines launch at me again. I’m still clutching my cane, which thrums with the resonant connection between me and Gale. I use it to bat aside the largest, most scary-looking thorns, but lesser vines wrap around the cane and the hand holding it, then snake up my arm. From another direction, more vines come in, but the ranger is between me and that source. A tendril grabs at them, catching on a spray container from their belt. The briar beast tugs, inadvertently launching that back toward the central node and getting some of the caustic chemicals it contains on itself in the process.
To the mix of lights and wind and vines and dizziness, new smells and tastes arrive to further confuse my senses. Oh, that must be Marina’s briar beast pheromones. And the flashes and bangs—Xiao’s gun. The tendrils withdraw. ¡Ay! I need them to stop grabbing at me long enough for this ranger to get me inside. With just the thought of that, plants start rustling. It’s my intention guiding them, just not a very well thought-out one. Xenofungus sprouts grab at one of the briar beasts, catching at it and hampering its movements. Pieces of briar beast that broke off reanimate, wrapping around the briar beasts and rooting parts of it to the ground.
My attention is all there, along and in the ground. Gale is momentarily forgotten, and I’m almost startled to find myself inside the lab building again. The floor in here is littered with inactive briar beast vines. Tendrils whip around me and the ranger, failing to gain purchase, and it takes me a moment to realize nothing in here is moving—those were reaching in from the open doorway behind us.
I dimly recall moving past Cleve and Xiao on our way in. They’re still out there with the briar beasts. But… I’m the target, me. I need to protect myself, which is what everyone else is focused on already. I think that is what Cleve would want me to do. Now that I’m inside, the problem is simply an open door. I’ve managed to close one of those before.
The doors themselves remain open, but the doorway fills in. Plants and fungus I’d already agitated to drag at the briar beast outside now surge into position. New growth blooms forth from the not-entirely-dormant material from which the doors were made. It all weaves together, sealing the opening in such a tight thicket that not even a briar beast should be able to snake a tendril through. I hope. For now. I have no idea how long I can hold this, though. And more might still come in from behind the building, like they did earlier. I can’t relax yet. I have to keep juggling all the defenses I’ve already put in place as well as this new one.
The miasmic barrier is holding, but its edges are fraying, I can tell. It’s not as neat and clingy as I’d gotten it earlier. I’m so dizzy, and everything prickles with little stabs of pain. Even with the rhum in my system, this is getting to be too much. Maybe Marina was right, and I should have left all of this alone until we knew what Dr. Gupta’s serum was doing to me. Or at least until the briar beasts were dealt with. Well, too late now.
I feel rather than see Gale land in front of the door. Aw, that’s awfully nice of her! I haven’t had much mental space to devote to her, but she’s still looking out for me. Everything tilts and shifts again, and I find myself on the floor, sitting by myself among lifeless vines and leaning against the wall. Xiao is shouting something. Maybe we’re done?