Spear of Destiny by James Baldwin (room on the broom read aloud txt) 📗

The Rotmother was slowly crushing my spear arm, threatening to snap it as I struggled. Growling, I twisted the flaming weapon deeper into the spongy root of the tentacle. “URGH! Please, just eat... shit... and... die!”

I hit one of my most powerful energy attacks; the Mark of Matir ability, Shadow Lance. It turned the fire billowing along the Spear solid black and sent a shockwave of energy rippling through the Rotmother’s body. The undead dragon swayed, some of her fungal tethers snapping as dark energy tore through the Dragonrot growths and sent congealed blood and slime raining to the floor. But even after her dealing a cool 3712 damage, the mutated dragon didn’t drop me. Instead, a cloud of glassy, needle-like darts shot out at me from her undercarriage. Most of them plinked off my armor. A few of them embedded into the meat of my thigh, shredding my pants and puncturing the skin beneath. To my horror, I felt them pump something into me—and then my leg turned numb as a leaden sensation spread through my torso and limbs.

[You have been poisoned! You are afflicted with Slowness!]

[HP: 580/2378]

“Urghh...” I slurred as the feeling spread to the muscles of my face. “Fuck... you... Ryuko.”

“Hang on!” Karalti called to me from the ground. “Hold it off as long as you can!”

My head lolled on my neck as I spared a glance at Karalti. She’d used Wings of Deception, and the chamber was full of brawling dragons. The Sporemaidens had split up, one of them chasing the magical duplicate with gaping jaws. I watched as one of them charged her with a flurry of slashing blows, and shouted in alarm as its claws connected with her forearm and tore a long gash in it. Both copies of Karalti gasped.

“Krralti! Dun let the spores get urrn!” I slurred like a Scottish drunk. Thanks to the poison, the Rotmother now had two combat turns for every one of mine—and she spent her bonus turn pulling me toward the nest of dripping, writhing pseudopods growing out of her abdomen. But as she did so, we passed her soft underbelly. I sluggishly rammed my weapon into her guts and channeled my fear into a second powerful AoE attack: Umbra Blast. Thorny tendrils of pure darkness exploded from the blade of the spear, tearing through the Sporemother’s body.

[You do 1990 Darkness damage!]

[Rotmother: 22,111/28,773]

The spongy body rocked a second time, and the dragon’s head tore free of the fungal net. It was stripped of flesh—but just looking at her horns and the size of her head, I knew this dragon had been a Queen. Her massive crowned skull flopped to the side as the fungal mass shriveled under the intense cold. The Rotmother’s digestive tentacles took the brunt of the damage, cracking and shattering, leaving me to thrash with sloth-like vigor as the Dragonrot fungus snapped over the Sporemother’s body like bands of cartilage. The jaws formed by her ribcage closed, and new blue fruits pushed their way through the dark sticky mess I’d made of the colony’s external stomach. The bitch was sprouting.

I searched the cavern, desperate to see if the Sporemaidens had infected Karalti. Her shadow copy had lapsed: the yellow dragon was staggering back to her feet, and Karalti was wrestling with the blue one. The mutated Sporemaiden was straining toward her, snapping like a rabid dog as Karalti pulled her one way, then the other, and then shoved forward and bodily threw the smaller dragon away from her. The clumsy monster staggered away from her and smashed into the opposite wall. The impact shook the cavern—and opened up one of the small lava domes. It spewed a column of molten rock over the fallen dragon. She squealed, writhing in agony as lava seared over her infected body, eating through its sodden flesh and boiling away the Dragonrot growths that infested it.

[Karalti deals 3200 damage to Sporemaiden! Your enemy is mired!]

The flailing dragon tried to stand up, but Karalti spun around and knocked it right back into the weakened rock with her tail. Fresh lava pulsed out of the wounded lava chamber, and the Sporemaiden wailed, clawing desperately along the floor as her HP disintegrated, three thousand points at a time. The lava did a crazy amount of damage to her—or, more accurately, to the fungus that was puppeteering her corpse.

“That’s it! Do it again!” I groaned as the tentacles around my chest tightened with crushing force. They ripped the Spear out of their flesh, and no matter how much I strained, I couldn’t bring it up high enough to stab it in again.

[You have taken 300 bludgeoning damage!]

“Stop ordering me around!” Karalti backed up as the yellow Sporemaiden let out a rusty shriek and lurched toward her, jaws agape. But this time, it didn’t try to bite: instead, it belched a plume of glowing blue spores, a perversion of a normal dragon’s breath weapon. Karalti squealed, backpedaling with her eyes screwed shut and her nostrils clamped against the parasitic cloud. She beat her wings frantically, gusting the spores back from her.

I focused back on my newest slimy friend, mind racing. The Rotmother’s HP wasn’t regenerating, but she was steadily regrowing the blue glowing mat of rhizomes—rhizomes I was pretty sure could turn me into a Hector-flavored smoothie. I strained against the tentacles still firmly wrapped around my waist and right arm, but they weren’t budging. “Hey, Princess Toadstool! I swear I’m not as delicious as I look, okay?! I taste like ass! Literal ass!”

“I’m coming! Try not to get eaten!” Karalti snarled as the yellow dragon closed in on her, teeth flashing toward her neck.

Chapter 7

The pair clashed chest to chest, foreclaws locked as they strained against each other. Karalti pumped her wings, using the draft generated by the huge membranes to drive her forward. Claws shrieked and sparked against stone