Paladin Of The Forsaken Lands (Monster Crafting "Nature" Paladin Lit-Rpg) 133- New Arrivals

Vraxious—The Ravenous Grove

Vrax let out a sigh of equal parts relief and sheer fucking agony when he hopped off Malice and just took a knee in his capital's courtyard. The psychotic speedster had gotten him back to town faster than even Duchess and Edward; he zipped under them halfway through his journey, but dear sweet gods above, every part of his body felt like it had been beaten with a mace.

And that was with his armor on and enhanced defenses. That trip would have probably flat out killed an unarmored normal person with low defenses like Stereos. Malice was getting into the swing of things so intensely by the end of the trip that a few trees snapped under the sheer force when he flung himself off them.

Vrax looked up as an armored figure towered next to his workshop door and cleared his throat. Crixus stood there in all his tal-encased glory. The runes across his bleak grey armor burned with a hateful red, more than half having simply winked out the defensive magic's stored within used, the amount of dried gore and gouges on his armor was frankly astounding.

Vrax tried halfheartedly to stand and greet Crixus but gave up as his legs protested violently. Instead, he greeted him from his kneeling position. “Hey! Scary abyssal guard guy! I’m glad to see they sent you and not another random mber. I’m happy to have soone with your impressive mindset.” By that Vrax ant sheer hatred for Rembrand and they both knew it.

Crixus knelt in greeting, making a rather silly scene, one man showing respect and the other just unable to get up. “My lord, the journey here was certainly eventful; the Forsaken lands’ myriad dangers were not overstated…Do you require aid, sir?”

Vrax waved a hand. “First, no sir, no, my lord. Just call Vrax. Second…I don’t think so. Let see if my legs work again in like ten seconds once my cistern works its magic.” Crixus patiently waited for Vrax to gather himself. He had a nightmare conductor perched on his shoulder that Vrax hadn’t seen before.

It was getting hard for Vrax to tell them apart because, well, there were an awful lot of them. The original two he could recognize on-site, especially because they were slightly bigger than all the others and had picked up a couple scars at this point. And the one that Red kept as a pet. That one was just comically fluffy.

The conductor that was clinging onto Crixus’s shoulder, though…it looked kind of intense. The hellfire glimr in its eyes burned bright even with it just at rest. And the way its tiny head twitched back and forth scanning for prey was unnerving compared to the veritable stillness of Crixus.

Vrax pulled himself up finally and walked over to give Crixus’s friend a pet. The Nightmare conductor watched him coldly, mana starting to gather in hellish shadows along the edges of Crixus’s shadow. Vrax pulled back the hand. He was pretty sure he was about to get himself bit. “Huh, your new friend there is a little tense…”

“Crixus nodded. Yes, we found each other shortly after I entered the Forsaken lands. I recognized it as one of your creations and tore it from within the gullet of the beast that had just devoured it. He aided in wading through the blood and violence required to reach this place.”

He…ripped it out of a monster that had just eaten it? Uhh, buddy, the sugar gliders are crazy smart; you just made a murder squirrel friend for life. Now what the hell do I have him do? I don’t know the first thing about leading people.

“So, did you get the friendly builder spiders to start on the knight academy?” Vrax prodded hopefully.

“Yes, liege, they have been instructed upon building a compound fitting for multiple styles of schooling. I was awaiting your arrival to see how I might be able to assist you… I am hoping when the Abyssal Guard offers adequate aid in your conquest of the region. Once things settle down, you might be so kind as to provide a few war beasts for the guard to use against Hellmaw.”

Vrax laughed. “Oh man, if you guys help secure Hope’s End, I’ll march my ass over there and feed nightmare after nightmare into the damn thing. Don’t know how much good it would do to be honest though, most of my creations are savage but not terrifically powerful.” As if to disagree with that statent, the sobs of a troll could be heard in the distance.

Oh gods, the poor thing is still alive. Duchess, just eat him already.

Crixus nodded thankfully but just stood there silently still.

He’s waiting for orders...hmm, alright.

“Well, how do you think you could be most helpful? You know your own capabilities better than I do.” Vrax said affably and walked into his workshop, the iris-like plant doorway opening at the slight wave of his hand. Crixus took the cue and followed him inside. Looking around in open curiosity at the writhing walls and fist-sized insects made of blades scuttling around on the ceiling. Each was glowing a dull green as they tracked the newcors.

Crixus talked as he walked, “I would say that I am well equipped for securing a route from your capital to Hope’s End. I have vast experience with trying to keep supply lines clear. And if I utilize your adapted to life like garrisoning forces as unpredictable as it might be, I think I could keep a road working crew of the ...helpful spiders ...mostly safe.” He stuttered a bit as his gaze finally fell on Lux’s tree dominating the center of the room and the three almost mystical-looking eggs surrounding it.

“Sounds like a plan to . I’ll also have you help your compatriots whenever they arrive.” Vrax looked at the eggs for a mont, eyes going wide in concern. Every one of them had a neatly cut hole in the top of it.

“Ahh shit…you didn’t happen to see where those went, did you?” Vrax pointed at the eggs and then started looking around for the probably invisible erald predators that had gone God knows where.

“No, my liege, I have been here for only a few hours.”

“Alright…huh…” Vrax used his ability to call out to adapted life to attempt to summon them back. He had adapted to the eggs, so hopefully that counted. He felt a flicker of recognition across his mind as all three of them received the summons. And promptly ignored it.

Oh damn it...those guys are going to suck to try and find!

Crixus gave a slight bow and thudded back out the door to begin his task. Vrax gave a half-hearted wave, lost in thought as to where the hell the Erald Predator hatchling would be most likely to have gotten off to.

Vrax shrugged and sat down at his largest table; he had plans to make and more adapted life to create, especially if Crixus was going to try and secure an actual trade route. He could help him plan a path for the road that wrapped around the ashen stands. But he would almost certainly need sothing strong to plop along the road to keep it clear of random predators.

Vrax had a bit of ti. Torvald was still seeding adapted life farther out from the city. Adventurers hadn’t started arriving yet because of the blockade on the king’s road. Starting to secure a road would almost certainly do wonderful things for his borders' solidity. He kind of wanted to wait for the order of forest assassins to arrive before his next push on hope's end anyway.

So he settled in to try and think up sothing that would be a good road guardian. The obvious choice would be sothing like a Spriggan, but he couldn’t just go out and capture a bunch of them, at least not yet. Just getting Lux was an ordeal that spanned months and required his questionable parenting skills.

Not to ntion anything less than a sapling would probably kill him. And even if he magically managed to gather a passel of saplings, he would then have to go commit Fae genocide for fertilizer on a level that might get the Fae courts involved.

Vrax was pretty sure he and Vurune were already on their shit list. The last thing he needed right now before he had even managed to build a damn road was to have an army of pixies knocking on his door. Asking him to answer for cris against everything winged and pretentious.

So the simplest solution was a tree. He could start with a more natural tree like he had with the mangler and change it into sothing special. Or he could go find another bunch of already hungry trees and get them to change teams, but again, that led to more ti acquiring said hungry trees.

Vrax wandered out of his workshop while he thought about making his way out of the city towards where the road would actually run. He was scanning the trees along the way, looking for sothing plentiful that jumped out at him with inspiration. There was a smattering of crystalline willows over in the direction of the old grove.

Vrax didn’t really want to ss with them again after last ti. His first grafting attempt with the butterflies had gone poorly… and there was still a half-tree, half-murder butterfly running around here sowhere. Assuming nothing had killed it yet.

The normal willows were everywhere, and there was, of course, a smattering of pines. In the field, though, were the untended rows of an orchard where Vrax found his devourer flocks.

Wait, that’s where I found those weird hissing orange trees. I never really sorted through it. I wonder if there is anything else really weird in there.

Vrax wandered across the field to the orchard. Wandering rows of trees spiraled out from the base of the windmill. Dots of bright red and orange were scattered at random. The trees had long ago won against any semblance of order that was imposed on them. Vrax shrugged and started slowly strolling through them, really inspecting the trees as he walked by.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

He slowed down around an especially twisted patch of the orchard. The trees here are all bent at slightly odd angles. Their branches twisting slightly to obscure sothing in their midst. When Vrax stepped back slightly and really stared at it, it was jarring. Every tree in a five-stride circle was perfectly positioned so he couldn’t see whatever was in the middle unless he was right next to it.

He had passed by this spot innurable tis, even camped here, and never even noticed it until right this mont. That alone was concerning.

That’s…weird. That’s the kind of thing my talent does. Alright, let’s see what we have here.

Vrax pulled his spear and dropped his pack to the ground just in case. There was no guarantee this was just an especially crafty plant. It could be damn anything out here.

His forest specter talent t surprising resistance as he stepped forward. Branches shuddered slightly as they made to twist slightly from his path but stopped after only a slight shift. For the first ti since he got his class, he really had to work getting through a tangle of brush.

Ducking under low branches and practically crawling through a nearly tunnel-like path of roots that gave just enough for his passage. He pulled himself out into a tiny clearing only two strides across. In the center of it was another tree.

It was thin, only as thick as his armored leg, perfectly straight until the halfway point where it suddenly split apart like the pattern of a lightning strike into thin, leafless branches. Each branch held a single plump purple fruit that dripped with juice. The tree had a simple brown bark with a slightly reddish undercurrent to it. Where leaves would normally go, it had tiny divots in the bark like it had been stabbed by a fine dagger.

Alright, what? It hasn’t suddenly tried to eat , but this thing is odd… even forsaken lands odd. Hmm, I wonder what awful fucking thing it will do if I grab one of the pieces of fruit.

Vrax approached with exaggerated slowness; each of his movents was a graceful slow-motion display of martial fluidity before he abruptly thwacked one of the dangling fruits with his spear. It wobbled briefly, but nothing else occurred. “Huh…” he let out.

Up closer like this, he could feel it; this tree had a slight ntal effect. Not a pull but the opposite; his gaze wanted to just slide over it and ignore its presence. It wasn’t terribly strong, and he could easily overpower it with his defenses as they were, but it was there, and it was probably a big part of why he had never noticed it before. Unless you were looking for it, you would almost certainly just wander by.

He still really didn’t trust those divots all across the tree branches. Especially now that he could hear squirming stirring within. On a hunch he used the predator’s gaze on it; he was starting to suspect this thing wasn’t even technically a plant. He was right. [Dispora Lurker Tier-1] (lvl 50) [Threat: ?].

Vrax frowned; the fact it didn’t show its threat confird it was sothing weird. He looked back and made a clawed hand gesture towards the patch of the orchard he had crawled through. As he twisted his hand, the cistern ripped the life from the trees in a line leading away from him, reducing a ten-stride patch into a ragged, dripping hole in the orchard.

Well, if this goes terribly wrong, I have a clear escape path at least.

Vrax tabbed one of the dangling fruits with his spear, leaping back the mont his strike plucked it from the Dispora. The response was unsettling all across the branches: bright red fleshy creatures that looked like the bastard mix of a butterfly with petal wings and so kind of parasitic tentacled horror squeezed themselves from the divots, briefly pausing to flutter their moist wings dry.

For just a mont the entire tree had the most beautiful writhing verdant ruby red leaves, then as one, they scattered from the diaspora in a sudden fluttering burst. Vrax stepped a bit farther back, spear held low, ready to stab, and miasma dancing between his fingertips.

One individual fluttering abomination alighted on his gloved hand. Its strange probing tentacles gently touching his armor as if inspecting him. He held off on smiting it, curious what would happen. It popped, suddenly and without warning, splattering his hand in gore. It did no damage and wasn’t obviously poisonous. Instead, every other one of the flying creatures paused, then reoriented back to a point right in front of the tree.

They blasted past Vrax in a storm towards their eting point, piling together in a disgusting, flailing pile of wings and aty sounds. Vrax’s eyes grew wide, and he stepped a bit farther back as more and more of the red forms slid free from the “tree” into the growing pile in front of him.

Slowly the pile began shifting, forming as the creatures bound themselves to each other in embrace of wings and feelers. Pulling so tight as to nearly fit together like puzzle pieces. The pile pulled apart more and more, forming into four rough limbs, and then an elongated feline head rolled into place on the front of the too-long torso. The final touch was a tail that extended out into the “tree” like a strand of sinew pulled taut.

The feline monstrosity made of innurable smaller organisms opened its throatless mouth to roar at Vrax soundlessly. The entire thing was eerie, the only sound was that of the tiny monsters shifting against each other. Then it struck, and not in the way Vrax expected. The whole damn cat in front of him was a distraction.

Behind him, a second thin piece of sinew had extended to form another figure, this one in the shape of a man wielding a spear in barken armor.

***

Slev Richter: Hopes End

Slev sneered at the Dutchy forces as he walked down the street. They were all damned dead n walking and just didn’t know it yet. If Vrax didn’t kill himself with his insanity, he would have this place and probably the entire duchy buried in laughably evil horrors before the decade was over.

And Slev had managed to place himself on the winning side no matter what. If Vrax suddenly died doing God knows what, he could just walk away back to the inquisition…a job he didn’t exactly enjoy but one that afforded him protection and power.

He spent far more of his ti than he liked being forced to investigate…nobodies, a whisper of heresy here or insubordination there. Sure, he got to break the occasional traitor, but…more often than not, it was boring, and he had to temper his responses so as to “not leave them broken”; at least that was what the inquisitor had always said about the few paladins he had the pleasure of dealing with.

Vrax had made a simple, honest offer. He knew what Slev was, and he didn’t sugarcoat it. He would send Slev after the “evil fuckers” that started problems within his borders. And it ca with the general promise that if Vrax explicitly pointed Slev at them, he could do whatever the hell he wanted to get the job done. As well as an understandable threat that if any innocent got hurt, his soul was getting fed to tranquil.

Slev knew he ant it on both counts.

But if this all went the way he expected it to, especially with his machinations. Well…he would be leading a force to rival the Inquisition before he hit thirty years of age. Backed by nightmares and soul-eating monstrosities. Either way, he lived, and nothing ate his soul.

He hadn’t been found out after his rather…inglorious reality check and defeat by the Forsaken paladin. Instead, he had spun it as a brutal but fruitful capture. His official reports said he was captured by the paladin and questioned fruitlessly. Of course, he stated that he had learned much of his foe and his capabilities during his bondage before escaping.

So back in his role as the high inquisitor's promising protégé, he had been entrusted with an important task, and he had honestly carried it out to the best of his abilities. Arriving with him were a pair of the most vicious, murderous, and competent parties he could find to hire. Each with the ill-fated goal of hunting down the paladin in his very own forest.

The first were brigands in all but na; he had used his underworld contacts to hire the cream of the crop available. Assassins, slavers, and hunters to a man. None in the inquisition could fault him for his choice because it really was the best for the task at hand. Murder in a violently hostile enemy territory.

The other party, he actually wished he had failed in hiring. He hadn’t expected them to accept the purse he offered for such a task, but he had to offer or else the church would ask so uncomfortable questions. He had misjudged; they had sent a handful n instead of politely decining. He looked nervously at the robed n following behind him, trailing quietly behind the loud brigands.

They weren’t much to the untrained eye, shawled in deep black robes that obscured much of their features. But if you looked close enough, you could see fine tattoos glowing subtly across palms and knuckles. Occasionally a limb too many creeped up to adjust a cloak.

The Rictus order had solved quite a few “problems” for the Inquisition lately, and it would have raised alarms if Slev didn’t at least inquire about their services in dealing with such a prominent enemy. He cursed quietly to himself again. They would undoubtedly be a problem.

They worshipped an ancient deity that was classified as a god of magic and knowledge. Slev was almost certain that was a blatant lie. You didn’t get extra limbs, eyes, and exsanguinated victims from a god of magic.

They and whatever dark patrons' power they wielded would find more than their match in the forest. Slev expected they were here because they wanted to know if the demon-worshipping rumors about Vrax were true.

Probably want to stamp out any growing competition. I wish he just commanded demons; if that were the case, he would be easier to deal with. As it is, if the fleshcrafter dies, I think his entire legacy just keeps spreading…feasting and multiplying.

Slev shivered; he rembered what happened when he sealed Vrax’s skill…absolutely nothing. That ant whatever changes it wrought were permanent.

Now Slev needed to report to the archbishop and get himself settled in. Then find a way to get a ssage to Vrax without getting himself killed. Hunters were here, very skilled hunters that could well be his match if they caught him unprepared.

The Brigands were all near the second tier; Slev wasn’t even sure what level the Rictus were. Their cloaks obscured…everything, levels, class, even magical items. He couldn’t tell a single thing about them.

Slev split off from his charges and headed towards the market, hoping to get sothing decent to eat after days of hardtack and reheated soup. Last ti he was here, there was a baker that had quite impressed him with her goods. Even if he hadn’t liked the way she stared at him like he was one snarky comnt away from being a victim.

He plastered the false, modest persona he used most of the ti across his features. The stall was right where he was expecting it, near the center of the square next to an especially broken patch of cobblestone. There was so older battle mage ahead of him leaning heavily on a staff and blathering at the baker.

Her smile faded slightly as Slev shuffled right next to the battlemage and interrupted sothing. “Oh, one second, Leyland. I have an actual custor.” Martha said and turned to Slev.

“I don’t count? I have bought more sweet buns in the last few weeks than any other passing rake!” Leyland joked back with a wry smile.

Slev rolled his eyes at the prattling elders and turned slightly to look at the old man interrupting his ability to get lunch. He froze in rigid terror for the briefest of heartbeats as their gazes t. It took every bit of his training to pass off his shock as a small nervous chuckle and snap his gaze back to the baker.

The man he was next to was fucking King Chronus, and based on the way his body suddenly felt like it was slipping into quicksand that wore away at his existence, that monster knew he recognized him. He must have looked more frightened than he realized because Martha swatted Chronus on the back of the head. “Leyland, stop scaring the boy! You were staring at the poor thing like he was a challenging suitor!”

Chronus chuckled. “Sorry, sorry; he just reminded of an old friend of mine’s boy, a nasty sort.”

Slev chuckled. “Oh no, sir, not . I’ve never seen you before in my life!” He squawked out.

Chronus bead a smile at him. “Of course, of course. I’m sorry, young man. Try the honey buns; they are to die for.” Slev suddenly felt the pressure that had been wrapping around him ease away.

He had in no uncertain terms just been politely told by the king that if he gave away his identity, he was going to get dusted.

What the hell is going on in this place?