Kat waved her right arm back and forth, activating Water Jet and filling the air with mist that quickly caught the light. Above them, the Tyrant Vine was coiled tightly around the staircase, unmoving but foreboding.

She took a quick breath, trying to ignore the harsh chemical smell of the mask pressed tightly against her face as she activated Scald. The glittering mist exploded, evaporating and turning a bitterly hot cloud of fog.

“Go on Kaleek!” Dorrik yelled, setting their legs and drawing both of their blades. “Start the fire and begin hacking at the main stalk. I will cover you until we can draw the vine down. Once it touches down, we will all be too busy for any stratagems.”

Kaleek grunted loudly, popping the cork on one of his oilskins and pouring the contents out on the man-sized length of corded plant fiber that wrapped itself around the base of the tower and buried itself in the ground. Above, something creaked portentously, followed by what sounded like fabric hissing as it was drawn across a solid surface.

Kat kept an eye on the boiling fog. Dorrik hadn’t given her any specific instructions, simply to keep the air hot enough that any spores would be cooked before they could land on the three of them, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. As soon as she could start making out the stairwell’s details through the mist, she was going to evaporate another burst of water.

Over by the root of the vine metal clicked on metal. Evidently Kaleek had emptied all three of his skins into the plant, and the handful of sparks drawn from running his sword over his gauntlet was more than enough to set the entire thing ablaze.

This time, there wasn’t any question about the noises coming from the vine. The plant’s body flexed, pulsing as if to the beat of an unseen heart. Above them, the quiet hissing grew to an angry cacophony Kat couldn’t make out exactly what was happening, but it was clear that something large was moving through fog.

“Be ready Miss Kat!” Dorrik called out. “Although the Tyrant Vine focuses on using it spores to debilitate its enemies, they are far from its only defenses.”

A thorn, about three paces long, slammed into the dirt, shaking the ground as it embedded itself a full pace deep. Steam hissed off of its sides as it pulsed in time to the vine’s root.

She took a step backward, firing another jet of water into the air and evaporating it as she watched the slowly undulating thorn. To her right, Kaleek’s sword thwacked into the heavy wood and fiber of the root.

The thorn cracked open, its surface falling aside to reveal a tightly wound mass of greenery that burst free from its casing in the blink of an eye. With whiplike speed, two of the three long, supple branches swung themselves at Kat.

She jumped to the side, tucking herself into a roll as one of them zipped past her shoulder. They were quick, but not as fast as many of the enemies she’d faced in recent months.

Kat spun to her feet, using the momentum of her roll to break into a run. Already, Dorrik had shredded one of the branches sprouting from the thorn and was approaching the sharpened chunk of wood, their blades whirring as they fended off further attacks.

Another spear of wood launched itself through the fog, landing in the ground about ten paces to Kat’s left. She sprinted toward it, activating Penetrate and planting her knife deep into its side before the thorn could begin to blossom. Sidestepping, she dragged her knife through the thorn’s armor. The weapon jerked and pulled at her arm, Penetrate no longer helping now that she was using it to slash, but it still opened up a long, jagged wound in the side of the plant.

Its wooden exterior cracked, revealing the same tightly furled branches. Rather than lashing out, they simply flopped onto the ground, inert and dead before they had a chance to do any damage. Kat poked it once with her knife, confirming it was dead before turning back around.

Dorrik had finished off their thorn, and, their entire body glowing purple, was making quick work of another that had fallen while Kat was distracted. Over by the stairwell itself, Kaleek was slashing away happily at the burning vine, large divots of charred plant matter smoldering at his feet.

The ground itself was covered in a thin layer of yellowish green dust. Kat ran her toe through the dirt. Her foot came away with a line of the powder sticking to it. She hadn’t even noticed it falling, but evidently the almost microscopic spores had been filtering down from above for the entirety of their fight.

“Careful!” Dorrik yelled, their voice muffled by their mask. “I think we’ve done enough damage to the vine to draw it’s-”

The air shuddered again, cutting Dorrik off. A second later there was a loud thump, followed by the hiss of the vine as it pulled itself across the smooth surface of the staircase.

Three of the thorns whirred through the air, stitching a line between Dorrik and Kaleek. Kat sprinted toward the nearest one, Shadow Step speeding her along. It cracked open just as she arrived, and a quick slash of her dagger cut one of the three branches at its root before it could do any damage.

The other two swung toward her, forcing Kat to bend backward at her waist in order to let them zip overhead. The whipping wind from their passage pulled at her hair, but Kat sprang back up, reversing her grip on her knife and stabbing downward into the top of the thorn.

Her blade sank deep, squelching as thick, greenish sap began to well up from the stab wound. The remaining branches twitched one before sinking lifeless to the ground.

Before Kat could rest, another branch whirred through the air toward her. She threw her body to the side, but wasn’t quite quick enough. The springy wood slammed into her shoulder, picking up her airborne body and sending her flying almost ten paces away.

She managed to right herself, tucking her shoulder and landing in a roll that dispersed her momentum despite the pulsing, ugly ache coming from her left shoulder. A quick rotation of the arm revealed pain, but no restriction in her movement as the thorn flailed wildly, no targets within its range.

Kat winced slightly, pulling out her crossbow and loading a bolt. She took aim, noting Dorrik’s movements as they slashed their way through the final thorn’s branches and destroyed the wooden core.

The crossbow twitched, kicking gently against her shoulder. Her quarrel punched through the thorn’s wooden armor, leaving a fist-sized hole in the plant. Its branches still swished through the air, but the injury was steadily leaking sap.

Above her, the air groaned again, Kat couldn’t quite make out what was happening through the mist as she slotted a second bolt into her crossbow, but a sense of pressure settled over the battlefield. Something was coming.

‘Her second arrow killed the thorn, easily penetrating its armor and stabbing deep into the biological weapon’s interior. Kat began reloading her weapon, looking around for another opponent. Kaleek was still hacking away at the root of the vine, steadily making progress as he destroyed more and more of the flame weakened plant, but other than the tense silence that had descended over the battlefield, there was no sign of any enemy.

Then, the fog parted.

A sphere, made from criss-crossed strands of greenery twisted and wrapped around some invisible core, rushed through the stinging mist and slammed into the ground like a mace.

For a second, the world shook, and Kat was forced down to one knee, her shoulder throbbing uncontrollably. The tendrils and feelers wound about the bulb sprang free, diving into the dirt and anchoring the plant. Near its top, a bud pushed itself through the snarl of leaves and wood.

“Miss Kat!” Dorrik yelled. “The vine is blooming! Quickly, you need to use scald again but at ground level.”

She didn’t ask any questions. Kat broke into a sprint, running toward Dorrik and Kaleek in order to minimize the area that her magic would need to cover. Water sprayed into the air at neck level, almost immediately bursting into thick, burning mist as she worked both spells at once.

It was hot. Even with the talismans provided by Jaalin, the steam burned her exposed skin and choked Kat’s lungs. Still, Kat kept going. As unpleasant as it was to fight in the fog, Dorrik’s description of the spores had been enough for her. Firsthand experience was something she’d prefer to avoid.

A blast of wind pushed Kat back a step or two. It wasn’t enough to do much more than stir the mist, but she could feel the vine’s pollen stinging against her slightly burnt skin like driving sand in a dust storm.

Purple flashed, giving her a general idea where Dorrik was as the lokkel began their attack on the vine, and the fire from the burning root marked Kaleek’s location, but Kat couldn’t make out much of what was happening through the steam.

A series of thuds heralded a volley of thorns from the vine, but the heavy steam worked both ways. Kat barely had any idea where the plant’s main body was, but at the same time, it couldn’t exactly find her and was reduced to firing blindly.

Wind whistled, and Kat dropped to her stomach just in time for a branch to whip through the air overhead. Her mouth quirked into a half smile. Blind or not, it didn’t really matter if the thorns could be used to deny entire sections of the landscape with their erratic arcing attacks.

Kaleek bellowed something wordless in the distance as Kat planted her hands in the soil and hefted herself back onto her feet. The whir of branches zipping through the air drew her gaze to the left, and once again Kat doused the general direction in water and immediately activated Scald.

It wouldn’t do as much damage as Gravity Spike or Crushing Fist, but the cloud of steam could hit a large area, and if heat could harm the Vine’s spores, hopefully it would do something to its thorns as well. She didn’t wait around long enough to find out, instead taking off at a jog toward where the Vine had planted itself, purple flashes from Dorrik’s Psi abilities guiding the way.

Kat made it a dozen steps before she stopped suddenly, curving her course to the right a half second ahead of another swinging branch. Then she was at the side of the Tyrant Vine’s main bulb, the thorn swinging its limbs ineffectually behind her.

She took a deep breath, gathering mana as she focused a Gravity Spike deep into the monster’s core. There wasn’t any way of knowing what passed for the creature’s organs or where she should be aiming, but Gravity Spike targeted a large enough area that a guess would probably be good enough.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The spell’s only real downsides were the amount of mana it required and its ponderously slow casting cost. In the middle of the burning fog where nothing could see her, casting it on an immobile target, the only actual concern was mana, and she had plenty of that to burn.

Her spell finished, and the Vine shook, its core tearing and ripping itself apart under the shifting tides of gravity. Kat began casting the spell again, shifting its focus two paces to the right and one up.

Thorns thudded into the ground behind her. Kat jogged to the right, not letting the monster’s last attempts to defend itself distract her. Branches swished through the air, the one to two seconds needed for the thorns to grow and crack through their shells more than enough for her to outpace them.

Gravity Spike finished casting a second time. The Vine shuddered in front of her. It was still pulsing to the beat of an unseen heart, but the pace had grown sluggish, as if the plant were laboring.

A thorn thudded into the ground to her side, but without the force needed to truly plant it into the dirt. It wobbled for a moment and then fell to its side. Small roots emerged from its bottom, struggling and failing to plant themselves in the soil.

Kat began casting Gravity Spike a third time, her eyes fixed on the struggling thorn. In the distance, she could hear the steady thudding of blade on wood as both Kaleek and Dorrik continued hewing their way through the floor guardian.

It didn’t crack open. No branches sprouted from it. The thorn wasn’t a threat anymore. It could barely even rock back and forth helplessly on the ground as it tried to plant itself.

She cast Gravity Spike a third time. By now, Kat’s mana was beginning to run low, but it didn’t really matter. The sphere shuddered one final time and went still. Around the clearing, the sound of singing branches disappeared as the thorns all went silent.

A second or so later, the notification of their victory popped into Kat’s vision.

Congratulations Adventurer!

You have defeated the Tyrant Vine and ascended past the Eigth floor!

For achieving this feat with three or fewer players, a bonus attribute point has been awarded. Assign it wisely!

For ascending a level as an Elementalist Initiate, you gain the following benefits:

+2 Mana

+1 Stamina

+1 Mind