For a moment, there was a lull in the fighting, Adra was just preparing her next shot, but waiting for me to add my own attack, in an attempt to overcome the water-barrier. For a moment, I considered splitting the group, sending two people around the lake so Adra and I could coordinate our attacks to come from two directions at once. But it would mean that Rai would have to face the shambling crawlers on his own, even with his new strength, his fighting-style was not suited for that. Still, it might be a necessary tactic.
Before the next wave of shambling crawlers got out of the water, Adra and I tried to get another attack against the bolotnisa in.
“Let your attack fly, right after my javelin hits.” I quickly told her, getting a nod in return. I took the time to properly cast the spell, saving Astral Power by drawing all runes as fast as I could, but also adding two additional Liquid Moonlight runes, while using my Ice-Magic to coat the Javelin with it.. Hopefully, it would freeze the water used to defend, letting me use it as a weapon in itself while giving Adra an opening to get a clean strike in.
My Javelin, trailing glittering dust was met with another wave, just as I had expected. The Liquid Moonlight instantly mixed with the water, turning a block of it into Ice, which I shattered, using Ice-Magic to propel the attack forward. I felt my lips curl in a smile, only to let a curse slip out when Adra’s arrow, shot right on time to exploit the opening, was met with another wave.
“That didn’t work as planned.” I muttered, lashing out with my icy vines, giving Rai an opening to strike at one of the crawlers, while trying to come up with a good way to get the bolotnisa in the middle of her pond. Remembering the last wave of attacks, I conjured up a sheet of ice, as smooth as I could make it and rounded, hopefully allowing me to block a water-jet like she had used earlier.
She wasn’t as predictable, instead of the jet, a wave of water swept towards us, breaking on the shore, forcing us all to leap back. Sadly, its effect was similar to the effect of the wisp’s green fire, it healed the shambling crawlers, luckily only those still moving, otherwise the encounter would be even worse. I kept Lenore’s eye open for another Mind Magic-Attack, but there was none. Again, Adra and I tried to get an attack past the water-waves defending her and again, we were blocked.
“They came faster this time!” Sigmir called out, just as she cleaved the last shambling crawler apart, making me focus on the ones coming fresh out of the water. I considered to call a retreat for a moment, putting the fight off for later.
“Let’s try something else. Rai, with me, we go around the lake. Adra, help Sigmir, once the crawlers are dead, get ready to attack. Lenore, stay here and lend me your eyes, so I can attack at the same time.” I ordered. Lenore left her comfortable Hallow and I felt the stream of Astral Power she infused into me vanish. As she landed on a branch next to Adra, I started to move, with Rai hot on my heels.
”Abandoning your friends? Oh, they will have so much fun with me!” the bolotnisa taunted, cackling as we moved. This time, two orbs of water were launched at Rai and me, forcing us to tuck and roll. I felt myself gasp in pain, the earlier wound still painful, but managed to make the move and keep running. Checking what the orbs did, I made a note that getting hit by one of those would be seriously bad, the vegetation seemed to die, just from getting wet.
“We are almost ready.” Lenore said, using her connection to me for coordination.
“Good. We’ll get ready now.” I messaged back, while telling Rai to stop and get ready.
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This time, I decided to pull no punches and activated Overflow, letting as much Astral Power surge into a nine-rune formation, not a Javelin this time but a stream of Liquid Moonlight combined with a mix of Dark Magic, using Twilight to carry a curse of magic devouring. I had no idea if it would truly work, but my plan was to retreat afterwards anyway, so getting as much information as I could was the name of the game.
Lenore let me see through her eyes and I watched Adra draw her bow, an arrow glowing with magic nocked, just as I finished the last rune. Thanks to the visual, I was able to activate the formation at the perfect time and from two sides of the lake, magic arced out, trying to annihilate the bolotnisa. Adra’s attack, supercharged as it was, managed to get through the water-wave, albeit massively weakened, striking the monster just as my magic tore into her. A shrill scream echoed over the lake but I could see that, while the bolotnisa was bloodied, she was not dead yet.
“Let’s run.” I told Rai, just as I gripped the Shambling Crawlers with my Eisblumen, chucking them into the lake with another surge of Astral Power.
At the same time, Lenore used my voice to tell the others to run and simultaneously, as the bolotnisa was screaming behind us and causing a massive wave of foul water to burst from her lake, we turned tail and ran away. Thanks to Lenore, who stayed with Sigmir and Adra, Rai and I could simply move in a straight line, without needing to keep track of the others. We only had to make sure that we didn’t stumble in one of the many holes and furrows. As soon as we were maybe a hundred meters away from the pond, we joined up with Sigmir and Adra again and kept running. Lenore, no longer needing to guide us, landed on my shoulder so I could use her sight without losing balance due to the shifting view-point. In addition, the extra Astral Power regeneration was something I needed, the fight had taken a surprising amount of power out of me, especially the last spell.
While we were out of the immediate range of the bolotnisa’s water-based attacks, I had no idea just how far the mind magic could reach or, maybe even worse, if she had some way to use the waters of the swamp to track and hunt us. With that in mind, we simply turned towards the edge of the swamp and kept running, ready to evade any shambling crawlers that might try to slow us down. I felt an attempt to call us back, using Mind Magic, but distance and our firm intent helped a great deal. For me, the throbbing pain in my side might have helped focus my mind, but I wasn’t sure about that. I knew I had to push it away, at least until we got out of the swamp.
I made a mental note, planning to go through the whole encounter, to make plans for later. Maybe I’d even release parts of it as a stream, simply to drum up some more excitement, it seemed like the right thing to do. Boss-battles and dungeons were, for some rather obvious reason, something few people released and shared, for now, they seemed to prefer hoarding the prime-information on them for their own use, maybe even to get a headstart in the official release.
A few shambling crawlers tried to stop us on our flight, but we were having none of that. I had regenerated enough Astral Power to use my Eisblumen some more, using their interesting property of gaining strength with more applied Astral Power to simply toss our foes away. It was incredibly useful but the amount of power needed was just as incredible. Part of me was curious if there would be a limit to their power, so far, it didn’t look like it, the more power I used and the higher my Ice-Magic got, the stronger they became. I was still unable to replicate them, using just my magic, but it was an interesting idea I experimented with from time to time. So many things I wanted to learn, so many experiments to try and so little time.
Finally, we managed to step out of the misty swamp, without running into any serious problems, just a few more crawlers and the usual magic attacks, only slowing down once we were a hundred meters away from the mists.
“Why did we have to run away?” Rai asked once we were safe, sounding a little disappointed.
I tried to answer, but I felt the adrenaline fade from my system and as it went, the pain from my ribs returned with a vengeance, doubling me over. I felt Sigmir's gentle arms steady me, even as I heard Adra answer that we might have won the battle but it wouldn’t have been a sure thing. In the meantime, I started to draw blood-runes, focusing on healing myself, ignoring everything around me. Sigmir was with me and would keep me safe, that much I knew.