[Fsh] Chapter 51: Graveserpent

The Graveserpent punished Shiver for her arrogance.

Even as the ivory driven into her leg had lost its form and slipped from her wound, as the Graveserpent’s body locked up once more, Shiver cursed her foolishness.

Despite all the invocations she received, if the Graverserpent had better aim, her descent would have come to a messy, abrupt end.

The shambling skeletons around her melted into a shifting mass of ivory as the Graveserpent began to right itself. A part of the mass broke off, and hovered above the serpent, acting as a makeshift shield that it could stretch in whatever direction it wished.

[Shard of the frostwolf]

She called her Fear, sending frost shards the size of her arm, hurtling towards the creature. So long as her invocation over her wound held, she could move just as nimbly as she did before. The only price would be pain and the cold.

“Bladey, cover me.”

The frost shards did their job, barely distracting the graveserpent for a moment as Shiver closed on it, skating over the shifting sands. Then, as it returned fire with spears of ivory of its own, Shiver called her Fear once more.

[Shard of the frostwolf]

[Mirrordance of the Spiritfox]

She skated directly into the plane of ice, emerging from above the graveserpent, in a tactic that continued to serve her well. This time, she invoked the Fear of the bladefrog.

[Slash of the bladefrog]

As she swept her Phobia downwards, a brilliant slash of frost emanated in a sweeping arc down towards the graveserpent, that was gradually recovering from Caledon’s invocation. It impacted with the ivory shield that it morphed over its body, but Shiver grinned when she saw that it had left a mark.

The ivory that it wielded was not invulnerable to her strikes, and that was all she needed to know.

“Bladey!”

The Fearshaper of blades flew forwards, parting the sands with his advance and sending out a slash emanating towards the graveserpent. Now faced with two opponents, the creature was beginning to grow incensed. Shiver barely had time to react as the tail of the serpent tore out of the ground in a shower of sand, and whipped towards her.

Shi-

She knew, given the mass of the serpent, that her [shield of the frostwolf] would pop like a bubble. The invocation came to mind again… but this time, she employed a different strategy.

[Timesnap of the spiritfox] was a burdensome invocation.

As vast as her Fearcore was, it was an invocation peripheral to her Fear of ice. She had burned through Alarum with every use of it.

But what if she employed it…

To a lesser degree.

 Not freezing time altogether, but slowing it.

As the tail rapidly approached, Shiver called her Fear. This time…

[Parry of the bladefrog] met its mark.

Her blade deflected the oncoming tail, that eclipsed the size of her, as she fell from midair. Against all odds, she watched with wide eyes as it slipped past her, redirected by her Phobia. Similarly to how the bladefrog that she danced with, had redirected the lightning.

There was a catch to the invocation, and that was executing it perfectly.  

Although there was nothing that prevented her from making it easier by slowing its motion.

As its tail was deflected, the creature hissed, and Shiver winced from the high pitch noise that it emitted, ringing in her ears. She watched as Bladey crashed into the graveserpent’s side, tearing into a chunk of bone, to reveal dark green blood that dripped onto the sands.

The creature that had seemed to be comprised entirely from bone…

Bled.

The graveserpent was actually closer to an insect, with its exosekelton of bone. Beneath the ivory that coated its body was skin and innards, like any other creature.

Shiver leapt into another mirror, emerging on the other side of the creature’s head. Falling from the air left her unable to manoeuvre, and a single slip-up with [parry of the bladefrog] would have her hurtling into the distance.

Then… an idea appeared to her.

“Feardamn the consequences… if this works.”

[Mirrordance of the spiritfox]

[Shard of the frostwolf]

[Slash of the bladefrog]

Shiver interwove her Fear, calling multiple invocations simultaneously. Planes of ice blinked into existence high above the graveserpent’s neck. Then, shiver sent a slash into the plane before her.

Shiver stared, as her slash… emerged from a single mirror.

Feardamnit.

She had hoped that her invocation would have been duplicated across the surfaces to sever the graveserpent’s head from its body like a swift frozen guillotine that encroached from all sides. Instead, her single slash impacted into its skull, and just incensed the beast further.

Then Shiver’s eyes grew large, as she watched the graveserpent’s exoskeleton… melt. The beast sacrificed its own bone, to consolidate it in a shifting mass of ivory above its head.

“Bladey… get to cover!”

She cast an eye towards Vale looking anxiously towards her on a faraway dune.

Then instead of shooting towards them, in a shower of ivory spears… the mass of bone morphed. The Graveserpent began to shape the bone into the form of a familiar beast.

A deathstalker.

Free of the limitations of its mundane kin, that were slightly smaller than the frost wolves she had fought. The artificial creature was sure to move with their dexterity, but it did not sacrifice size for speed.

This creature, once completed, would have both.  

Shit... If it completes this monstrosity, we’ll be torn to shreds dealing with both of them.

A tentative glance towards Caledon told her all she needed to know about the lord’s capacity to help her.

Let’s end this.

Her eyes fell on the crack in the wound inflicted by Bladey, with ichor pouring from the crack in its bone.

Ugh… I’m going to regret this.

Shiver shot straight for the exposed wound, skating towards it at speed.

Then, she plunged herself into the narrow wound, diving into gore and ichor.

“Disgusting.”

She called her Fear to reality, and pushed through the slight difficulty that she faced when she attempted to regale her Alarum into the prescribed form.

Eventually though, her Fear bowed before her will.

[Shield of the frostwolf]

She heard a crack reverberate through the air, as the shield that winked into existence around her, widened the wound created by Bladey. The shield emerged outwards from her Fearcore, forcibly pushing the bone outwards as her Fearshaping asserted itself.

Spitting disgusting flesh and blood from her mouth, she shouted to Bladey.

“Together! Let’s finish this.”

[Intuition of the Bladefrog]

For a moment, time seemed to curl around her blade. The invocation did not impose a literal halt to time or the physical world around her as [timesnap of the spiritfox] did. Instead, it gave her an insight into her Phobia – imparting her with the wisdom of the bladefrog as she wielded it, for a brief moment.

Shiver’s eyes widened, when she realised that it drained her Alarum almost as quickly as [timesnap of the spiritfox].

Perhaps its burdensome because it isn’t the most compatible with my Fear.

Then she grinned, imparted with new insights and wisdom. How to twist and pronate her body to maximise the force she inflicted with her strikes with the blade.

She paired this wisdom with [slash of the bladefrog].

Shiver unleashed a flurry of slashes that cut through bone, muscle and sinew, pulverising the wound and evoking a high-pitched hiss of pain that threatened to burst her eardrums. 

Bladey joined her, and she grinned as the deathstalker the Graverserpent was forging from its ivory fell to the ground, half complete. Through brute force, they carved a literal path through the graveserpent, until finally, it stilled.

She grinned, as Caledon and Vale drew closer. Vale wrinkled her nose.

“You’re rancid. You need a bath.”

Shiver stared at her, as the girl ignored her glare and drew the Alarum generated by the creature’s death into her Fearcore. The fruits of Shiver’s hard work. She watched as the girl gasped, and her eyes hardened.

“Vale?”

Sweat emerged on Vale’s forehead at the effort of integrating the creature’s Alarum. It was clear that the creature’s dominion was over bone – shaping into it into whatever forms it wished. Vale’s proclivity towards souls was a different dimension of death, altogether.

“Come on, princess. You can do this. If you fail, I’m going to hug you.”

Never had the offer of a hug been so deadly.

Vale redoubled her efforts, as she felt a part of her Fearcore give way to the invocation, expanding the dimensions to her Fear. For all of Shiver’s efforts, she felt a single invocation settle in her Fearcore, yet she knew that it carried weight. Almost as much as [fearecho of the bodysnatcher].

The graveserpent burrowed through calm sands. It enjoyed the serenity of its domain, unthreatened by the denizens of the Inheritance. It spent its days admiring the oblongs, as they shifted with the winds, moving with them. It drew inspiration from the way they scattered into bone dust, flying with the sands.

Then the sand around it shifted. It felt like its world was twisting, and it watched in the distance, as a wall of sand had burgeoned into being, spiralling towards it. It knew, that wounds would be inflicted from the force of the wall, and it drew on the bone of its servants to shape a bones shield to protect it, from the oncoming sand wall.

Brought into being, from idle breath of the sleeping leviathan. 

[Forgery of the graveserpent]

Vale stared with wide eyes, as the invocation finally carved itself across her Fearcore, another dimension to her Fear emerging. It was a dimension which would only serve her, in creating vessels for her remnants that brought out their full potential.

She stared at the body of the beast before her, and was struck by inspiration.

[Ivorydust of the oblong]

The bone that encased the graveserpent, acting as its exoskeleton, fell into a haze of ivory dust. Shiver stepped back in surprise, as it showered from the serpent’s body – and they realised that its bone armour had been forged for itself.

[Forgery of the graveserpent]

Vale winced, as she struggled to give form to the invocation. With the form of a simple skeleton in mind, she watched as the dust just merely intermingled uselessly.

I’m going to need a lot more practice. Maybe I can build a skeleton piece by piece instead.

It would be a waste however, for the sheer mass of ivory to be left behind. She concentrated, a bead of sweat dripping down from her temple, as she brought the ivory dust together, with a simple intention.

Condense.

She watched, as the ivory melded, her invocations working in tandem – similarly to the graveserpent’s own abilities – to become a sphere of ivory that had a diameter of about her own height.

More.

She winced, as the sphere of ivory shrunk in on itself, compressing and increasing in its density, until it became a sphere that could fit comfortably within her palm.

She grabbed it, where it hovered in midair.

Then it pulled it with her, towards the ground as it fell. She released it with a yelp.

“I didn’t think this through… did I.”

Caledon hummed, a hand under his chin as he contemplated their dilemma. It seemed like he had finally recovered from the invocations he had inflicted upon himself to provide Shiver with openings.

“There is one way to solve this. What if you melded it onto Triol and Bladey… Proportionally increasing their mass.”

Caledon’s eyes widened.

“No… The deathstalker!”

“You have your moments of brilliance, lordling.”

Shiver and Caleodn exchanged a grin, as their eyes fell on Triol’s lithe and agile deathstalker. The thought of creating a beast similar to the one the graveserpent was attempting to give form to, made her chest thunder in anticipation.

Vale called forth her invocations once more, sending a portion of the bone condense into the spear to encase itself around the deathstalker’s body.

Then watched, as its hind legs fell to the ground, as if pushed downwards by Triol’s [presence of the moonwalker]. If she failed to distribute the mass evenly, it was unlikely that Caledon’s plan would succeed.

However… it had potential.

“This might take a while.”

---

After spending an inordinate amount of time trying to increase the density of her revenant’s bones, Vale finally reached a satisfactory stopping point. About a tenth of the sphere she had condensed was now subsumed evenly across Bladey, Triol and the deatstalker, slightly fortifying their skeletons.

When done correctly, it seemed to empower them, rather than weigh them down, which was a great blessing. Caledon had to admit, that the skill was extremely versatile, and could probably be used to create vessels that accommodated a revenant’s Fearshaping in ways that their natural form would not allow for.

The prospect of crafting those vessels was… incredibly exciting, even putting the light revulsion that sprung up at the thought of creating undead.

Shiver walked through Virgil’s portal – having returned to Viridian at their shared insistence to wash off the graveserpent’s blood and gore.

“How many more creatures do we have left?”

Virgil turned to them.

“The Highlady as assigned a skinsweller to Vale, and a nightviper to Caledon.”

A tense silence fell over them, at the name of the latter creature.

Virgil just nodded.

“It’s your choice, the creatures you choose to fell.”

“After we find a skinsweller… there’s something I want to check out.”

“Oh? Keen to snoop around your great-great-great grandfather’s last wish?”

Vale pointed to something in the direction of the leviathan, Azkhul Zahaard.  

In the distance, at the very edge of the sand basin’s edge, in the shadow of the [mythic] guide of death…

Was a serene graveyard, that sat beneath a vast tree of glittering silver leaves.