She unleashed a simple tier three spell, Windblade, that was supposed to chop off their legs and chests at the same time. Although deep, the wounds opened by her spell turned out to be far from lethal, stopping even before reaching the bones.
The bugbears stumbled just for a second before swallowing their pain and resuming the charge.
"Seriously? A tier one spell?" Friya was flabbergasted.
"It was a tier tree!" Quylla rebuked her while unleashing a second Windblade, aimed exactly where the first had struck.
The air spell managed to cut the bugbears' femoral artery and pierce their lungs, making the creatures drown in their own blood.
"First, you shouldn't have let them call for reinforcements. Second, there's no way that a tier three didn't kill them on the spot from that distance." Friya spoke as softly as she could, but the annoyance in her voice was unmistakable.
"I know I messed up, but that's also because of your false information. As for the spells, I swear that I only prepared tier three…" Quylla was cut short when one of the maces struck Friya's head, sending her sprawling on the floor.
Quylla turned around just in time to dodge the one aimed at her. The two bugbears were standing up, the wounds on their bodies were barely visible.
'Since when do bugbears have regenerative powers?' Quylla thought while unleashing the tier three Frost Cutter spell. Icicles the size of an arm pierced the creatures' heads and chests, turning them froze solid in the process.
This time she also used first magic to alter the ground so that they would fall onto rock spikes that easily penetrated through the frozen meat, destroying the brain and the heart at the same time.
Afraid of the bugbears' recovery abilities, this time Quylla cut off their heads before worrying about her sister.
"Friya?" Quylla asked, incapable of making heads or tails of that situation. Her sister was wearing a Skinwalker armor and the mace was just a piece of wood. It wasn't supposed to do her any harm, no matter the amount of strength behind the hit.
Lith was amazed as well, but compared to his friend he had more clues. Quylla was right about everything. Bugbears weren't supposed to regenerate, nor wood could harm someone wearing an enchanted armor, let alone one of his making.
The problem was that it wasn't wood and that those weren't bugbears, or at least not completely. The two corpses stood up again, uncaring for the missing heads or the gaping hole where once a heart resided.
"Undead?" Phloria asked while unsheathing her sword.
"No, plants." Lith replied. A split-second later roots and vines filled the empty space in the creatures' chest and a sapling grew out from their necks.
Quylla had enough of that madness, so she used the only tier five spell she had at the ready. Volcano was a mix of fire and earth magic that turned the ground below the monsters into molten lava swallowing them whole.
The creatures died in an instant, without the time to emit nothing but the smell of sandalwood incense.
"What the heck happened?" Friya's vision was still blurry but she was otherwise uninjured.
"Your information network sucks!" Quylla replied while checking that she didn't have a concussion.
"And you are sloppy." Lith said, throwing the clubs into the still fiery pit. The wood split and germinated into small tendrils that tried to escape death, but the lava turned them into cinders before they could reach the safety of the ceiling.
The screeching sounds of agony cleared all doubts about how Friya had been stunned.
"Those things were not their weapons but part of their bodies. Once you saw that we are not dealing with bugbears but with some kind of parasite, you should have disposed of all the wood in sight."
"What the heck?" The three women said in unison.
"This doesn't make sense! Plants creatures are rare and I've never heard about them being parasites. I work with them for years at the White Griffon, some of them are my good friends!" Quylla's brain felt as if it was burning.
"Why would plants damage vegetation and how the heck did they took over the bugbears?"
"I have no idea." Even according to Lith's books, the entire situation was simply absurd. He had understood the nature of their enemy only because the clubs had the same life force and a mana flow that coursed under the monsters' skin.
"What do you want to do?" Lith asked Quylla. "This isn't a learning experience anymore, but a frigging mess."
"Which makes it perfect as a learning experience." She replied. "Nothing ever goes according to plan and not only must I learn how to handle high-level spells, but also how to keep my cool when the unexpected happens.
"The enemy has called for reinforcements, so we don't have much time. Remember that plants are not weak to fire like most people think since they are not made of dried wood but from living tissues rich in water.
"On top of that, they have an outstanding ability in manipulating both their bodies and earth magic. Their real weaknesses are water and darkness magic. The cold blocks their regenerative and shapeshifting abilities, so focus on that."
Due to her job as Assistant Professor, Quylla knew a lot about plant creatures compared to her companions, Lith included. Knowing their real enemy and its weakness, it took the four of them just a few hours to kill all the infested bugbears.
Quylla even made a few attempts to communicate whenever they isolated a single specimen, but they proved to be unwilling or incapable of explaining their reasons.
By the time they were done, they had more questions than answers. Sentient plants had coexisted with Mogar's other races for ages, and their existence was well-documented.
The appearance of a new species, and one so aggressive at that, was a bad sign.
"We have to report this immediately." Phloria said. "If they can take over bugbears, they might do the same with humans. We need to put people on alert before the phenomenon becomes widespread."
"Yeah, too bad that we can't examine a body. It would greatly help me to understand what's going on." Quylla said.
She had gained a lot of experience and her learning rate was terrifying. After just a few tries, she had become able to use some tier five spells in confined spaces without harming her allies.
"What do you mean?" Lith had collected a few bodies precisely to study their altered physiology.
"Sorry, I forgot to tell you earlier. Plants don't leave any corpse behind. The moment they die they also wither, reverting to their original form. So if these things started out as flowers, you'll only get a flower.
"It's the reason why plants cannot be turned into undead." Quylla said.
'Fuck me sideways! I could have played a little with them and used Invigoration instead of wasting time speaking. How was their core, Solus?' Lith thought.
'Sorry, I have no clue. By invading the bugbears' body in the form of vines, they also spread their core, making it invisible to my mana sense. It's the same thing that happened with the plant Abomination.
'We needed to force it all in one place to see its core. What I can tell you for sure, is that it couldn't be very strong since if it wasn't for the animated clubs, their mana flow was perfectly eclipsed by their victims' weak ass core.'
'Finally some good news!' Lith inwardly sighed in relief. 'Luckily we picked a city with a Gate, so whatever this is, the Kingdom can take care of it on its own.'
