Chapter 43

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

Mrs. Zoe Baldwin surveyed the room. She held her two dwarves wrapped up by her feet. She shifted out and thrust a fresh set of roots at the two dwarves that Hagane fought. The metallic girl was slashing and bashing.

Then she screamed out, “Lana!”

On the far side of the room, Lana Fulmine died. At the same time, Maya had run into the valkyrie in the middle of the ruined bedroom. A sword thrust into her guts and Maya screamed in pain. Mrs. Baldwin shuddered.

She couldn’t reach the valkyrie, but she could bind up one of the dwarves that Hagane was fighting. The girl was hardly paying attention to them. They were striking her body while she stared up at the fairy circling the room.

“You killed her!” Hagane screamed.

Mrs. Baldwin’s roots seized one of the dwarves. She yanked him off his feet and surged her tendrils over him. As she did, Hagane burst from the door, abandoning the Vault. Mrs. Baldwin’s heart lurched.

“No, don’t, Hagane!” she screamed.

My mother’s shout turned my head. Hagane was dashing away from the Vault door. She was staring up at the ceiling. I glanced up to see the fairy twisting her wand and then she fired it straight at me. It shot down, burning the air.

I spoke the spell out of instinct. “Hard and unyielding, let the steel of Lord Nabu attack!”

I threw a bar of steel at the beam of light. It struck the light moments before hitting me. A great flash of plasma burned burst from the steel as the fairy’s beam melted my attack. Molten metal flew at the fairy while her beam of light, blunted by my spell, struck me in the face.

Pain burned across my granite flesh. My eyes sizzled. Darkness crashed down on me. I hit on my back, unable to see anything. I screamed out in pain, blinded by her attack. Panic swept over me. Dwarves shouted, their boots thudding around me.

A pickax struck my stomach.

The molten metal sprayed around the fairy. She tucked her wings in and dropped to the bed to dodge it. Hagane roared in triumph as she leaped at the bitch, her sword-arm slicing to kill her for hurting Lana Fulmine and Leo.

Hagane had never been so angry in her life.

The fairy’s wings fluttered. She spun around as Hagane’s arm-blade slashed at her. Screaming, the fairy surged to the right in a flurry of lapping panic. She thrust her wand out before her. Light burst from it. Not a beam, but a general blast that slammed into Hagane.

Her metallic body rang like a bell. She screamed and then fell to the bed, her metal body crashing through the mattress and breaking worse than before. She groaned, pain ringing through her steel flesh.

The fairy laughed as she flitted free to safety.

Garnet burst out onto the top of the mountain. She stood there on the slope of shale, rocks spotted with fuzzy lichen. Below, a meadow started, flowers waving in the sunlight. Behind her, the dwarves who chased her moaned their passion for her.

“That’s right, boys,” Garnet said, bending over and thrusting her ass at them.

SMACK!

“Dat ass is right here!”

With a flap of her wings, she leaped from the tunnel mouth. She soared down and landed on a boulder, her demonette tail swishing behind her. She threw a look over her shoulder and smiled as the dwarves appeared. Their beards swayed down their chests, their rough faces full of lust for her. they scrambled down the slope.

“Yes, yes, come and get my cutie patootie!” she chortled and leaped again.

Like the sexiest mountain goat, Garnet the Succubus bounded down the mountain slope, leaping from rock to rock, her crimson wings flaring wide. Her black pigtails trailed behind her. The dwarves roared, rocks spilling before their feet and tumbling down after her.

She pranced and spun and laughed. She landed on the meadow, the grass whipping at her. She snatched up a red wildflower and thrust it behind her ear. The dwarves roared for her, lust maddening their wits.

She ran through the meadow, leading them farther and farther from her family.

Darkness wreathed me. My eyes burned from the light beam of that damned fairy.

I sat up and growled, “Graven wounds pulse in pain, let the healing of Lord Dumazid flow!”

The Mend Flesh surged over my eyes. The power rushed out of my soul and then flowed back into my body. I groaned as I felt the pain retreating. My flesh regrew. The world became lights and darks. Colors formed, smeared together in a blurry pattern. My vision focused as my eyesight was restored by the Life spell.

As I regained my 20/20 vision, a burst of light exploded above. Hagane flew down onto the bed, crashing into the mattress. She groaned while the damned fairy giggled above. I shook my head and stood up.

To see an ax of ice flying right for my face.

Led had finally attacked.

Mrs. Zoe Baldwin held tight to the three dwarves she had bound up. She fought to grow tendrils to wrap up the dwarf that slammed his pickax into the Vault door. He buried in hard and deep, struggling to break through it and get to the Void Crystal. Mrs. Baldwin couldn’t let him do that. Her tendrils grew out once more.

Her forehead furrowed. Sweat burst across it. Just as she started, a voice chanted. It rose over the din of battle. Her head glanced over to see her son sitting up. The burns around his eyes retreated. The blackened holes mended. Delight surged through her that he had mended himself.

An ax of ice appeared and hurtled at her son.

The motherly instinct in her to protect her son rose. She abandoned growing her roots at the dwarf attacking the door and instead hurtled the one she had bound up. She swung him with a desperate heave, screaming as her roots snapped from the forces involved, the weight of the dwarf’s body pulling on those woody strands.

He broke free and hurtled at her son. He struck a barrier of static around Leo and then struck her son. The pair fell to the side moments before the ax would have taken off his head. It hurtled past and struck the wall, bursting into shards that vanished before hitting the ground.

Leo crashed on his side, a stunned dwarf on him.

Then she turned he attention to the dwarf at the door. She had freed her tendrils. They might have snapped, the pain had shivered through her, but her toes were her roots. Sever them, and they could always regrow.

She surged them at the last dwarf. He raised his pickax and slammed it down, the door coming closer and closer to failure. She surged her vines up his body. He gasped, his head whirling to face her. Fear flashed across him. He raised his pickax over his head to throw it at her. His arms snapped forward.

She couldn’t dodge. Not with the two dwarves bound by her toes lying before her squirming in her roots.