The Revelation of the Vine: Graft

Chapter 23: Two steps out of Three

  A wicked, graven voice stirred the thoughts around in my mind like a boiling pot of necromancer's brew. It sounded like the bones of a skeletal hand scratching words on a tombstone. "Kill them," it scraped through my mind. "Devour their souls. Take the power of the generations for us." I wasn't going to give in. I pushed my own will back through the pressing weight of the Corruption, and into the front of my mind. NO, I told the voice in my mind, as I struggled to regain control of my body. I opened my eyes, and the bats continued to flutter around us. I heard their screeches fade in. I felt another pang in my side, as a gurgling voice came from within the smog above the branches. "2 steps out of 3," The smog swirled away from its center, revealing the elongated, oozing limbs of Kivan's deformed, chaotic body. He sat on a thick branch with his body hunched forward so that his head, arms, and legs dangled like a broken-stringed puppet. A sudden snap pulled his body back and his head rolled up, revealing his black, abysmal eyes. "And sooooon," The word cracked from his throat like a high note from a broken flute, and then his voice fell deep like thunder. "You'll become like me," His eyes locked onto mine, "And I'll become like you." He pulled the dripping ooze that covered his mouth up into a crazed, sludgy smile. An ear-shattering cackle broke from the hole of his mouth and then faded away into the forest. He repeated the words, "2 out of 3," like a madman's mantra, as his voice fluctuated between the high and low. Then he looked at Vhalrin, and spread his arms out toward him like the creeping branches of the barren tree that held him. He wiggled them like a ghost, and then let out another maniacal laugh, before folding into the smog. The bats exploded in a puff of thick smoke that faded into the mist, and the smog was sucked back into the shadows above the tree. A sudden smell of rot and decay filled my nose. My head thumped as silence fell upon the forest. I felt a ton of pressure in my skull, and my ears popped, each time letting in a thicker layer of sound. "This is so not right," Tenbu said, his voice cracking through the layers. "What the Shadow is going on?" "The poor trees," I heard Teion mumble, as the last layer of pressure popped. My eyes surveyed the scene, as I became fully aware of what had transpired here. The trees around us had become infected with the same Corruption that gnarled the great oak. A once vibrant area of the forest now lay barren and waste. The trees poked up like skeletal spires devoid of the vibrant life they previously nourished. The ground was dry and cracked, the vegetation withered and crumbled, and the stream had all but dried up, save for the slow trickle of a new black liquid that squirmed through its bed. "The Corruption is spreading through the Dale." I said shakily, still not fully understanding all that was happening. "I don t know how long I'll be able to last against it now. The tree will be gone, and the mist will vanish." The weight of my comment must have stunned them all, as a silent apprehension fell. A faint burn in my side constantly reminded me that I was already lost. I pushed the pain down and focused my eyes to see beyond the effects of the Corruption in the forest. It was odd seeing such little energy around me through Vine Sight. All that remained were small, purple sparks that popped randomly along the ground and on the trees. I saw a faint outline of life energy in the distance, and sighed relief that the Corruption hadn't completely spread through the Valley. "Keep your eyes focused on the living energies along the horizon. We still have a ways to go." I said, ushering the Knights forward. We travelled quietly for a while, seeing nothing but the same dismal surroundings for miles as we Surged through the wasteland. When we reached the edge of the Corruption's area-of-effect, we noticed creeping tendrils that oozed forward into the living trees, slowly swallowing them in its toxic embrace. At this rate the valley would be engulfed by dawn. We pressed forward, leaving the creeping void behind us. I was thankful to be back inside the forest, but the Corruption inside me wanted to crawl back toward the spreading void. The mist suddenly became heavier, and the air became very cold. The light of the moon filtered through the mist, illuminating the valley in an ethereal glow. The Bridge was gone. Swirling, blue-white vapors curled down into the shadows of the forest like ghostly fingers. I noticed the black liquid creeping upstream from behind us, overcoming the waters of the brook. Eventually, it passed by us and continued north toward the falls, spreading roots of Corruption into the forest as it went. The sudden stench of death and decay rose around us as we walked through the quickly rotting forest, and watched it turn sour and vile before our eyes. We saw the vibrant life-energies burst and fizzle out as the Corruption replaced it with the faint purple sparks we had seen earlier. The more I breathed in the stench, the more I began to actually like it. "2 steps out of 3, and soon you'll become like me," Kivan's voice echoed in my mind. The sound of the waterfall that echoed in the distance faded, as we approached the edge of the dead forest. A once beautiful meadow now spread out like a barren patch of grave-dirt, as it stretched to the base of the mountain ahead eighty miles away, where the waterfall that once fed the Valley life had been replaced by the slow, oozing poison. Atop the mountain's frozen peaks that towered high above the mist rest the imposing keep of the Order. A narrow path that branched out into many cliffs, caves, and dead ends carved its way up the face of the mountain and disappeared into the mist. The terrible howls of corrupted wolves began to rise from the trees behind us. I turned back to see dozens of glinting red eyes hovering in the shadows of the barren trees. A discord of ferocious growls and snarls, and the snaps of jaws and clicks of fangs rushed toward us, as the wolves sprang from the trees in full sprint. Long tendrils of void-energy lashed out as they ran, separating the molecules of air and causing small claps of thunder. There were at least 9 of the large beasts barreling toward us in a storm of smog and oozing Corruption.