[Beastborne: Tower of Blight] Chapter 51

As Hal cycled Spirit with the Manatree, he kept up a constant tide of power pulsing down the hijacked path through the Shadesblight and into the Tower. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if he left the Shadesblight alone for long, it would rebuild.

It would be back stronger than ever before.

Hal would not allow that.

The Shadesblight had nearly taken everything from him. He wasn’t going to let it take anything more.

Like the battering of the sea against the rocky shore, Hal combined his Spirit with that of the Manatree’s, breaking their strength against the Tower. Eroding its defenses, weakening the Shadesblight within.

The Manatree’s barrier was reinvigorated with every wave of Spirit, and the Tower was weakened, kept from ever regaining a footing.

Undoubtedly, Hal’s insistence that he continued his battle with the Tower was the main reason he took so long to fill both his and the Manatree’s Spirit back to full.

In Hal’s eyes, there was no other option. He didn’t dare venture into the Tower, potentially giving it an opening to attack without his watchful vigil.

Noth, Hermes, and his friends came and went over the course of the days. Those who took on the Tower returned faster, and with more floors cleared than ever before.

When the oppa had the reserves of energy, Hermes used Solar Convalescence, which heightened the potency of Hal’s Spirit. The waves of energy battering against the Tower grew stronger with the oppa’s assistance.

Hal continually heard the stories of how the Tower was breaking apart at the seams. Strange moonlit light seeped through its mortar. Cracks of moonlight formed within the Tower’s interior provided relief and respite for the weary climbers.

The creatures inside, once touched by that light, weakened, and burned with a pale flame.

It was all Hal could do not to smile. He took the news gladly, but only listened with half an ear most of the time.

Even though most groups were able to go inside and leave the same day, with more floors cleared than even Hal’s party managed, there was still no sign of reaching the top.

Hal was certain they were getting close, but every time it seemed they were near the top floor, the Tower grew.

I can’t figure out how it does it, he thought to himself. It’s still drawing power despite being cut off from the Manatree.

His relentless assault on the Tower never wavered or ceased for a moment. Even in his dreams, Hal continued to cycle, building his Spirit higher and higher.

Every wave crashed against the Tower, washed back to the twin pools of their Spirit, then rushed out again in a tidal wave of moonlit energy.

There were talks about digging beneath the Tower, but the plans never went ahead. Nobody wanted to risk opening up a seam of more noxious Shadesblight or risking their luck and somehow inadvertently connecting a Dungeon below Brightsong with the Tower.

It was a horrifying, nightmarish possibility, but a possibility all the same.

That would be just his luck, too.

The Drakst was bad enough as a Dungeon Guardian, but infected with the Shadesblight? It was already unstoppable, giving it more power was unthinkable.

Hal hoped that the Shadesblight never learned how close it had come to truly destroying his home.

It would not work, came a soft voice that sighed on the wind.

Hal looked around, but saw nobody with him in the Manatree’s Glade. Hermes was curled up in his lap, fast asleep. Vorax was in his blinged out treasure chest, glittering with more gold and jewels than a king’s ransom.

Hal got up and roamed the Manatree’s Glade, searching for the source of that voice. It was no one he recognized, so his thoughts naturally went to one of the wortlings.

Perhaps one spontaneously manifested the capacity for telepathic speech?

Walking while cycling was as easy as breathing now. Before his training with the dragons, it might have been all but impossible. Hal had once struggled to do the most simplistic of things with his Spirit.

Hal was able to do things that he never thought possible with magic, and Spirit combined.

Even fairly simple things like manipulating his Anvil Lightning like threads on a loom. That was never possible before. He had greater control over his mana and his spells thanks to his Spirit.

Not only could he empower his spells, but he could apply different properties, and control them with a greater degree than ever before.

Where he might have had to rely on a spell that would be shaped a specific way, or cling to the wall or ceiling, Hal could make his Beast Magic do what he wanted with Spirit. All it took was a clear concept of what he wanted done, and Spirit.

Having all of his monster essences back was glorious. He could feel a deeper connection to each of them, even the unfortunate essences he’d rather not touch with a ten-foot pole.

How much of me is… me? Hal wondered.

From what he understood of the events, his body hadn’t been destroyed, or melted down as it had felt like. It had been covered in a vaporous gold and white light. The next thing he knew was that Vorax stole Hal’s sword and cowered out of sight.

When Hal reappeared, his naked form was smoldering as if it had just come out of the oven, and he looked better than before.

Maybe that was why he was hearing voices now. One of his essences must be messing with the auditory processing center of his brain.

Hal strode back towards his preferred cycling spot.

I am not a ghost, the voice said petulantly. Once again, it came on the wind and was gone just as fast. It didn’t come from one place. It moved as it spoke, like it was drifting from one area to the next.

“You’re the Manatree, aren’t you?” Hal said aloud, feeling that he was correct.

I think so.

“You don’t know?”

How long did it take you to know what you were?

There was none of the expected bite or sarcasm in the words as Hal would have expected. It was a question, like a child asking a parent. Hal smiled and turned to the tree.

“I still don’t know,” Hal admitted, walking back to the tree’s wide trunk.

Then I shall think on it a while longer, if it pleases.

“Go ahead,” Hal told it. “So… you were saying something about the Drakst and the Shadesblight?”

The malady you call the Shadesblight could not survive in the Drakst. As much as it is a thing of death and decay, it requires life. The Drakst…

“Is not life,” Hal finished. “It can’t be killed. It’s not natural.”

As much as that suggested they might be able to use it to fight the Shadesblight, Hal knew how horrible of a suggestion that was. It would be like letting loose a nuclear warhead that could detonate itself and would gladly do so at the first chance it got.

Even if the Shadesblight somehow had to stay in the Tower, he would not dare attempt to control, much less influence, the Drakst or the Dungeon it now guarded. It could be defeated in the way that any Dungeon Guardian could be, but if the Dungeon ever lost its hold on it…

Hal shivered, remembering what it was like to be the Dungeon’s Guardian. So much power. So much madness. And a burden that no human soul should ever have to endure.

Still don’t know how I survived that.

Perhaps now that Hal possessed goldflame and whiteflame, along with a Monster Core and the spiritual form of a dragon, his interaction with the Drakst might be different.

He wondered if the Drakst might respect another dragon, or if it would be tempting fate too much. It certainly hadn’t cared for Orrittam at the time.

According to Orrittam, it wanted to kill him with every fiber of its being. The only person it hated more appeared to be Hal. He sighed, knowing it had only been wishful thinking to use that artificial monster for the benefit of them all.

“Thank you for your help,” Hal told the Manatree. “I know this is monotonous work–”

Simple is good.

Of course, a tree would think that. Hal had the suspicion that the Manatree liked boring and monotonous tasks. Things that would have driven Hal right up the wall were calm and peaceful for the Manatree.

For all its magical properties, it was still a tree.

Many Levels, the Manatree told him.

At first Hal thought it was talking about Hal, then he realized that the Manatree must have Leveled Up like crazy when he restored it. He focused on the Manatree and was amazed at what he saw. The last time Hal remembered checking up on it, the Manatree had been a Manasapling.

“Wow, you’ve grown up and become a Manatree,” Hal said in awe.

He used the term Manatree as a general catch-all because having to denote every stage of the Manatree’s life cycle would be too confusing whenever he spoke to another person.

The Manasapling had evolved into a Manatree. Its HP had ballooned from just under 2,000 to over 25,000.

That was an incredible amount of HP. The Manatree would be stronger and more resilient than ever. No wonder his [Manatree Dew Ring] granted so much HP. The 1,000 boost it gave to his resources practically doubled his base HP.

In fact, Hal now saw that the entire settlement had undergone a tremendous transformation.

[Brightsong Status]

Settlement Type: Homestead (Progression Available)

Settlement Level: 10

Consumption: +12%

Production: +7%

Influence Area: 10 Miles

Settlement Morale: +7%

Research Points: -0%

Manatree Type: Manatree

          Guardians: Hal Williams & Nothricient

          Level: 30

          Experience Points: 84,120/90,000

          HP: 25,300/25,300

Elysian Points: 0

Elysian Generation: 22.8/day

Hal skipped over the buildings and Guild status for now. They had Leveled Up, but Hal had put Noth in charge of choosing the best Guild abilities to grab and the paths to grow it.

It wasn’t that Hal didn’t care about the Guild, but its growth often came at times when Hal was dealing with something else. And in truth, there were only a few avenues available to alter a Guild. They were going along the same path they had before, and clearly Brightsong was thriving.

You chose wisely, the Manatree told him, bringing up images of Noth smiling and blushing.

“I’m glad you think so,” Hal said.

Of most interest to Hal was the “Progression Available” part. The settlement had grown extensively, more Levels than Hal would have thought possible.

Focusing, Hal was able to bring up more information.

Unlike the usual vague hints, Hal received a surprising amount of information about the progression of his settlement.

He guessed that, unlike everything else, this was a rather structured aspect of the Worldshard and its various settlements. Every proper town from the smallest homestead to the largest Sanctum adhered to the Shard’s rules.

People could still build around each other, but there would be no bonuses. Hal had heard Tristal talk about such “Free Cities” as they were called. Cities freed from structure or need to rely on the Shard.

They were often lawless places, such as the lands of the Broken that bordered between Tristal and Rinbast’s territory. Hal remembered appearing there and getting immediately mugged. He was glad he had run into Elora.

Without her help, he never would have gotten away from the insane villagers.

If he wasn’t killed by Rinbast, then the villagers sure might have done it.

In fact, it seemed like things hadn’t stopped trying to kill him ever since he arrived on Aldim. Going to Murkmire, a Sanctum of mercantile prowess, hadn’t stopped it.

Establishing his own damned settlement surely didn’t stop it. If anything, more things wanted him dead now than when he was a faceless nobody who didn’t know two words of Common.

And for some reason, Hal knew that it was only going to get worse.