Downtown Druid

The Viscent ships ceased their bombardment, leaving only a pregnant calm that hung over the docks. The sailors that had survived expected them to start loading men onto rowboats to bring them ashore, but instead, the ships simply began to to turn until their prows faced the docks, and moved forward.

The sailors had no cannons left with which to counterattack as the Viscent ships own cannons were more accurate and had a longer range, allowing them to devastate the defenses while not suffering any losses themselves. Most of the sailors retreated to the defensive points further back where the guard and their recruited prisoners had begun to reinforce the barricades they’d already put in place. Only a few remained to watch the landing and report back.

Dantes watched as well, standing on one of the piles of rubble left by the bombardment and holding two massive seeds in his hands. Two had been all that Clay and Hema had been able to get for him with all the supply issues that had been hitting the city non-stop since the plague. He could feel them pulse, almost like the beating of a heart in his hand as he held them. He should be grateful, he supposed. Clay had gotten him twice as many as he’d managed to when he was in prison, and that one he'd had before had a tremendous impact on his fortunes. The two he held at that moment had to do the same thing.

He tossed one to Jacopo.

“The two in the lead?” he asked.

“No, we should target the row behind them. I hit the second from the middle, and you hit the one further down. That should do the most damage.

“Some of them will land though,” noted Jacopo tossing the seed between his hands back and forth.

“That’s inevitable. We need to maximize damage while they’re over the deepest part of the water.

Jacopo shrugged. “Wish we had eagle forms or something. Having to shift into a two-leg just to drop these is painful.”

Dantes nodded. “Yeah, it's a risk, but it’s what we need to do,” he looked at Jacopo. “Ready?”

Jacopo nodded.

They both shifted into pigeons and took off, heading toward the incoming ships. As the flew, the first two Viscent Steam Galleons reached the docks, actually hitting them with their prows causing the concrete to shatter as the ship settled. Once it was still, the front of the ship opened and a massive metal bridge slid down and slammed onto the ground. Viscent soldiers wearing black and gold marched out, guns lifted, bayonets gleaming as they started to form a beachhead. Mages stood in the center of the formations, muttering incantations under their breath that caused the air to shimmer in front of the soldiers, some kind of forcefield.

Dantes broke away from Jacopo and moved toward the ship he was targeting. He wished he could sense exactly which of them contained Godfrey, but he only had the vague sense that he was in the area. He stayed subtle, moving to fly toward the back of the ship.

A Goldmask saw him, and raised a pistol to fire at him.

Dantes shifted into himself a full twenty feet above the ship, cursing as he fell, but the bullet that the goldmask fired bounced off his new amulet’s protection, he wasn’t sure if it would’ve protected him as a pigeon and this wasn’t the time to test it. He aimed his wooden hand at the ground and extended it as a pole at an angle to strike the boat and slow his momentum a bit. He rolled across the deck, and held the Mother’s Reach seed against the deck of the ship as he came to a stop.

Another Goldmask was leaping toward him with a sword drawn as he gave his command to the seed.

“Grow.”

The Goldmask landed against a branch that extended from the seed as it began to grow rapidly. Dantes stood at the top of it, rising with it as it grew, and began to slam into all of the people on the deck of the ship even as its roots began to wrap around the vessel, and impale it, the metal not strong enough to resist its power.

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Soon Dantes was standing more than forty feet above the deck of the ship, and he began directing the grow more toward the starboard side. The weight of the tree was starting to make the ship capsize, and he wanted to make sure it fell in the right direction.

The ships on that side realized what was happening, but it was too late for them to change direction. Dantes noticed the Dragonkin soldiers who were on the deck quickly rally and leap into the water, swimming for the shore, but the others were too heavily armored to make the swim, though they did make a few futile efforts to shoot at Dantes as he rose higher and higher above them.

The ship started to tilt in full, and Dantes leaned back in the opposite direction of its tilt, enjoying the sensation of the fall that was starting for a moment before leaping off it with a backflip and shifting back into a pigeon. He watched as the massive trunk of the Mother’s Reach fell, and slammed into the ships below. Even their metal frames weren’t enough to withstand the sudden impact and shift in balance as the weight of the Mother crashed down onto them.

Across from him, Jacopo had equal success, his own tree slamming into two more ships as it struck the water. Together, they’d sunk half the enemy's fleet before it could reach Rendhold.

Dantes and Jacopo met back up on the shore a distance from the enemy. They watched as men drowned, or struggled. The ships that hadn’t sunk didn’t spare any time trying to save those that sank beyond dropping a few rowboats to recover what they could without even slowing their approach. They were professionals, if Dantes had destroyed that many Frasheid ships, then the war would’ve been won, but with half of a well disciplined force still heading for the city, it was a different story.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He started to think about how he could further damage them before they started to push toward the barricade, when he realized something.

“Jacopo, do you sense Godfrey with the fleet anymore?”

Jacopo was quiet for a moment, cleaning his whiskers a bit. “No, he’s still nearby, but his presence feels diffuse. He’s definitely not among the fleet anymore. Could he have died?”

Dantes shook his head, “There’s no way it was that easy.” He closed his eyes, rapidly shifting through the different rat’s and roaches he had watching things. Jacque was fine, along with everyone else hiding away, Syn was testing the blade of a Javelin as she stood on a roof with Jayk, Vampa was standing calmly alone in alleyway with his sword drawn and resting gently against the ground, Jayson and a dozen men were hidden in a building with the windows broken out, aiming bows and pistols out of and awaiting the arrival of the enemy, Argenta was still arguing with Belman loudly in uptown, Pacha was barking orders to the criminals and guards at the main chokepoint leading to Midtown, and Wane was inscribing a number of things on a building wall near where the Viscent ships were unloading.. He could feel the seeds he gave to all of his men pulsing, waiting for the moment when they hit the ground so that they could grow and consume as they desired.

Everyone seemed to be safe, so he turned his attention to the Vixen, which was also empty, and then he turned his attention to his gardens. Every single garden on the surface had a goldmask standing in the midst of it. He hadn’t sensed them entering them, but they all stood with their grinning masks shining in the light. They all began to glow with golden light.

Dantes sent his will to the gardens, having all the life within them surge at the goldmasks.

All of them spoke in unison.

“See you soon, Dantes.”

They exploded, all at the same moment, filling his gardens with heat and golden light that burned away everything living within ten yards, and set fire to everything ten feet further than that.

Dantes and Jacopo howled as they felt all of that life extinguished. Dantes fell to his knees and slammed his wooden fist against the ground hard enough to make it splinter.

“That fucking bastard!” he yelled. He must’ve been able to teleport his people in the same way he himself could teleport. Dantes had been prepared for that, thinking that he’d target important people in the city, but didn’t expect him to target his gardens.

Dantes pushed himself to his feet. The emptiness where that life had been in the city hurt, and made it difficult to focus and see everything he was tracking just a few moments ago. He pulled his attention back to himself, breathing deeply. This was why he’d spent all that time in the Pit. So that he could develop gardens and create life in Rendhold that was safe from all threats. He focused on that life, using it to salve that part of him that now felt empty. He tried to check on all of his people that he’d checked on before, and was able to do so, but the pain made it much harder and checking as far as Argenta or his people in hiding made the corners of his vision blur and darken. He'd have to keep things more focused on the front. Once he was done he pulled back. He turned his attention to repairing and shoring up what he could as he and Jacopo made their way toward their people.

He may not be able to find Godfrey or his Goldmasks that had infiltrated the city until he recovered, but there was no reason not to fight off the Viscent soldiers and mercs while he did so. Multitasking had always been a talent of his.