Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 58: Completion

Toren Daen

Jared conjured a shield in front of us, planting his feet to resist the outpour of power. The dark plates of metal rose in an interlocking weave, sheltering us from the wave.

The pressure stopped momentarily, and I felt myself blanch when I looked at the scorpion. It was leaking bodily fluids from cracks in its carapace, Darrin's blow having shattered several of the plates. Where its eyes used to be was a bloody mess, the hilt of my dagger protruding from its face with a gleam of silver. It was undergoing some sort of change, its dark armor beginning to drip like ink on a page as it streamed along the scorpion's body, slowly leaking toward its stinger.

It didn't move, staying huddled on the far side of the cave. The room seemed to hold its breath as man and monster braced.

And then parts of the armor reforged around the tail, the long appendage beginning to glow darkly. A small, thin spine of carapace began to solidify on the end of the stinger.

I felt dread as I watched the inky armor cement itself once more, a foreboding sense telling me exactly what would happen next. The sharp end pointed at us, after all.

I stepped forward and threw both my hands out, sending out a telekinetic push with a diameter as wide as I could manage. An area in front of Jared's shield glowed white with power, a visible effect of my spellform.

The darts of the re-solidified carapace streamed toward us like a hive of hornets seeking retribution straight from the scorpion's poised stinger. I held my telekinetic force as the swarm of needles approached, a second layer of defense in front of Jared's stalwart shield.

I could feel the momentum in each tiny spike. Instead of pushing me back, I dispersed the aftereffects with my telekinesis shroud, keeping myself firmly anchored to the ground. As the black shards hit my makeshift barrier, my constant pushing force diverted many off course. Some swerved erratically upward at their change in momentum, punching holes into the ceiling. More were deflected on either side, my spell like a rock in the midst of a raging current.

But those that were aimed straight enough blazed right through my makeshift defense, swimming through the force like a fish in a river. They pierced through Jared's barrier with the sound of shearing metal. A few pencil-sized shards embedded themselves into Jared's pauldrons, causing him to grunt in pain. One of the carapace slivers pinged off my telekinetic shroud, cracking it and spinning away. Then another punched through that crack, the pain making my spell falter for a moment.

Alandra and Darrin ducked as more shearing carapace shards blew past Jared's barrier. He reformed it as fast as he could, summoning more interlocking plates to replace those destroyed, but it wouldn't be able to keep up.

"I can't hold it long!" Jared cried, a dark sliver glancing off his metal armor. "We've got to get it to stop!"

I grit my teeth as a thin spike cut a line of red on my cheek. The slice stung, making my eyes narrow. I spared a quick glance behind me. Alandra's breathing was heavy, but she wasn't outright panicking. Darrin seemed to be considering jumping around the stream, but I knew that would only get him peppered like a pincushion.

I felt my mana wavering. Though I had gotten far more proficient at maintaining a telekinetic push, I was forcibly stretching the surface area and holding the effect. I was losing my reserves at an accelerated pace.

My mind was almost entirely occupied with maintaining my spell. As each black blur sped through my shield, I felt my telekinetic shroud weakening slightly. It dispersed the effects of pushback at the price of its own durability.

I cast my eyes about another option, searching frantically for a way out of this. Darrin's spells didn't have enough range to reach the scorpion. Alandra's weren't powerful enough. Maybe I could get a fireshot off, interrupt its concentration-