~~~
Being buried underground was surprisingly not as bad as Wyrmwood had momentarily feared. It was definitely crushing, but not enough that he felt he’d need to worry about it.
What he did need to worry about was the fact that the rumbling around him hadn’t stopped even after the sound of the distant explosion was felt through the earth around them.
He’d, thankfully, managed to shield them in time within his coils. Even managing to end the wrapping with the tip of his tail on the inside of the bundle so that Veronica would be safe too.
Gloriosa and Bixxy were both panicking, Bixxy was breathing so fast that she seemed to be getting paler. That did worry Wyrmwood a bit. Veronica was instead focusing inward, trying to do something inside him that made his breath hitch for a moment as his lungs shuddered. The moment quickly passed and he suddenly found he could breathe again.
How he was able to breathe dirt he didn’t know, but Wyrmwood decided that he wouldn’t worry about it until after he’d managed to properly get away.
As he tried to wiggle a bit to give himself enough room to start digging upward again, he didn’t pay attention to the strange thing happening on his chest. The easily forgotten tuft of leaves and embedded wood grew roots deeper through his body, until finally reaching the coils Wyrmwood’s current companions were invaded in.
Soft green leaves began to grow out from under each brown scale. Each one pulsing faintly with soft bioluminescence. The magical sight was enough to slow Bixxy’s hyperventilating and make Gloriosa let out a cry of joy!
It also, however, illuminated Veronica’s visage of a tiny pixie-naga body connected to a giant draconic tail, changing. Veronica’s efforts to affect Wyrmwood’s side of their body and help his friends had inadvertently loosened the transformation magic that had affected her.
The magic wasn’t completely dispelled immediately, but Gloriosa jumped when she regained a bit of sight and one of the first things she saw was flesh forming over Veronica’s eyes and two fluffy looking antennae sprouting from her head!
As for Wyrmwood, he wasn’t having much luck at the moment. The constant earthquake meant that anytime he managed to wiggle himself a bit of space, more dirt would shift into said space, fully invading him once again. It was very frustrating and he was tempted to just fly into a rage and really start throwing his weight around. He managed to hold back though, since he was worried he might hurt his friends somehow if he did throw a tantrum.
Taking a moment to think of potential options, he thought about how Veronica had focused within themselves to help them sometimes. Deciding to try doing so himself, he focused inward. However, instead of his many symbiotic parasites responding to him like they did to Veronica, what he found instead was a deeper response.
He never had touched upon his magical affinities much. The water affinity wasn’t going to be too much use here unless they ended up being trapped for a substantial amount of time. The earth affinity, however, was practically thrumming in his magical veins right now.
Leaning into that feeling, Wyrmwood pushed that affinity aligned earth mana out into the dirt and stone surrounding him and with a wrenching feeling, commanded the earth to make room for him and solidify.
Although the earthquakes still didn’t cease, the dirt around Wyrmwood stilled and slowly began to do as he demanded! When he had enough free room around his face, Wyrmwood coughed and hacked out large clumps of soil and… was that fungi?
Looking closer for a moment, he found that he had indeed just coughed up large patches of dirt and fungi. He watched in slight amazement as the hacked up fungi’s roots actually squirmed around a bit before digging into the hardened earth and going seemingly dormant again.
He was honestly a little disturbed that that had just come from his body, but decided that escaping was still more important right now. He was about to start digging again, but stopped as he was reaching for the stone and instead tried to will the magic saturated earth around him to take them up to the surface.
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The stone let out a deep groan, followed by the slight feeling of vertigo, yet for now, that’s all that happened.
Turning to his friends, Wyrmwood uncoiled himself from around them. He was pretty surprised to find his lower body had sprouted glowing leaves under his scales! Just the sight of it made them itch a little.
Looking at Gloriosa, he simply asked, “Did you do this or did my sister?”
Instead of Gloriosa, it was Bixxy that instantly replied, “Look what they can do!”
Bixxy then brushed a hand across the leafy scales. The place her hand brushed across glowed brighter for a while before slowly dimming down again.
I did it. Veronica replied in his mind. We were about to run out of air.
Impressed. It was Veronica! She concentrated and all of this happened! Gloriosa said excitedly, not able to hear Veronica’s mind speak.
“Why not say that out loud?” He asked Veronica, confusing Gloriosa.
Befuddled. I did? Gloriosa replied.
Because… my lungs are gone. Veronica grumbled to him.
That was when he noticed she was changing back to her original form.
Instead of focusing on that though, he turned and explained to Gloriosa, “I was talking to Veronica. She says she’s got no lungs anymore.”
Bixxy looked at Veronica in concern, yet Gloriosa’s expression became one of having finally solved a puzzle she’d been stuck on.
Understanding. So that’s why you were always talking to yourself!
Before he could say more, however, the top of the tunnel opened up! Yet instead of the blue sky he remembered, Wyrmwood was greeted with a hellish scene.
The air was choked with smoke and ash. It was so thick that Wyrmwood could barely see ten feet in front of him. The only thing that could be made out was the trees burning in his surroundings.
What could have happened on the surface for it to be like this now?! Did they actually die when his hastily dug tunnel collapsed on them?!
As he looked to his friends to see if he was just hallucinating or something, he saw Gloriosa had begun to cry inconsolably when she saw the burning forest. Bixxy had worriedly tried to console her, but had choked on some inhaled ash as the thick stuff covered them at an alarming pace.
“Which way do we go to get away?” He asked all of his companions.
The two temporary fey were indisposed as they choked on more ash, so Wyrmwood wrapped them up in his leafy coils again and directed the question more purposefully at Veronica.
“I need a direction to flee! We can’t just wait here!” He growled.
How should I know?! This ash is messing with my sound and scent based vision too! Just pick a direction and-
They both paused their arguing as a whistling sound echoed from somewhere nearby. They tried to locate the noise as it got louder and louder until a large burning rock came suddenly screaming down at an angle!
Wyrmwood ducked just in time as the rock just narrowly missed his head and slammed into the ash covered ground nearby, creating an explosion of still hot ash to wash uncomfortably over Wyrmwood’s face.
Try heading in the direction that rock was going! Veronica suggested.
“That works, you try to make sure I’m going as straight as possible!”
~~~
They had quickly lost track of time as Wyrmwood trudged through the thick burning ash storm, but somewhere between 10 minutes and ten hours, Wyrmwood happened upon a magical wall of some kind, he knew it was magical because it was shimmering and seemed to repel the ash that stubbornly clung to everything else.
Looking closer, he could see that everything inside the barrier had been untouched by the devastation currently being wrought upon the rest of the surroundings. Also, this was where the fort was. He testingly poked the barrier and it thankfully let living things through it, yet Wyrmwood didn’t step into the magical dome himself.
Instead he moved his coiled up section inside and released Bixxy and Gloriosa.
“We somehow made it back to the fort! Bixxy, you should return, but do you still want to try and escape with me Gloriosa?!” He asked, shouting over the ash storm on his side of the barrier.
Bixxy was hesitant, but looked between the fort’s comforting walls and her friends about to brave that terrifying storm again. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay till this is over?” Bixxy asked.
Still crying, Gloriosa clutched at the leafy section of Wyrmwood’s coils like a lifeline and sobbingly said, sorrow. Please take me far away from here! Pain. I… I can’t stay. They’re all screaming. The trees, the plants. Everything. Everything is dying here…
Without wasting any more time, Wyrmwood wrapped Gloriosa’s still tiny sobbing pixie form in his coils once more, nudged Bixxy towards the fort one last time and with a simple, “goodbye friend!” Turned and sped off around the outside of the barrier.
As he circled to the other side, he was of course, spotted by some of the watching soldiers, but even as they shouted in bewilderment and surprise about how he could have escaped, they couldn’t currently do anything to chase after or catch him. The current hellish environment outside of the magic barrier would likely kill anything weaker than a dragon relatively quickly.
Once he got about halfway around the barrier, he quickly dashed back into the blinding storm of hot ash. It took at least a day of constant travel before the ash storm began to slowly die off as he finally cleared the area the ash covered. It might not have taken as long if he wasn't semi-awkwardly dragging someone around while having them wrapped in his coils, but he didn't care about inconvenience when he could still occasionally hear Gloriosa crying both in real life and subtly within his mind. Climbing to the top of a nearby hill, Wyrmwood could see far off in the direction he was heading was an endless amount of sparkling blue water.
Is that the ocean? Veronica asked, looking through Wyrmwood’s eyes.
~~~
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