Before the Astyrrian Lightning Elemental could charge to the attack, the Mick accelerated to slam into it, stopping its run and holding it in place atop its Spawn Point. Arcs of emerald energy hewed through the structure of the Elemental with great speed, electricity bleeding out of the wounds as the acidic energy cut through the powers that held it together, spattering and cracking like leaking electrified blood to the ground. The Mick met its bashing fists of solid voltage with Clan, or forced them into the walls with a tap of Bunita so that they lashed across the patient stone and did not mark it at all.
The enhanced Elemental was down in under twenty seconds, its amorphous form unable to dodge him or bend its internal currents away from the attacks of his Claymore. It collapsed, discorporated, and vivus whooshed up to claim it and stain the stone below it white.
We both heard the humming, and retreated around the corner as the virindi came up the stairs inside the tunnel behind the Elemental. It caught just enough of a glimpse of the Mick to charge after him in pursuit. Consequently, it turned the corner just fast enough to nearly have its head chopped off by Bunita instantly, then three Darts seething with powers it had no resistance to drove through its shell and detonated inside it, dropping it crumbling to the ground as vivus devoured the dancing energies confined within its armored shell.
The Mick glanced at me, and I just shook my head as I Sifted a couple glittering crystals of zircon and quartz up from the powdered coalesced remains of the Astyrrian, letting the Summoned virindi Burn en vivus.
There was a lot of background popping, snapping, and crackling, along with the hum of arcane machinery and occasional ripping snarl of a major line of voltage going up or down the primary shaft. It made listening for Elementals or virindi interesting, but also more reliable than my Detects, which were running into large amounts of static. Forget sensing stuff through the stone, I was having trouble verifying that a snarling mass of living voltage standing right over there with clear line of sight was actually present.
Happily, the virindi geomagnetic hum as they levitated was slightly off and discordant to the energies flowing through this place, so a good ear could make out the break in the pattern and hear them coming.
This one had come off its Spawn Point, however, which meant we had to wait for its respawn to find where it came from and shut that down.
The Mick ghosted ahead, Bunita shrunken and held low so as not to impede movement in the tighter quarters. I glided after him, making sure nothing was coming in behind us, while slowly bringing up Darts again.
He halted abruptly at the corner, not turning it. If the design were right, we were down another level, and this would run out into yet another square level, although we were getting close to the bottom. They were usually guard points for the Directors and attendant guards.
I attuned to the Sublime Chord, which was nearly overwhelmed by the Note of Lightning here, looking for a disharmonic addition to its chaotic dance.
Yeah, there were… at least two around the bend there, and who knew what else. Looked like the Master had been dispatched up the stairs by the boss to see what was going on. We’d kept low and out of sight behind the railing as we made our way down, so the virindi could see the light of the Elementals above winking out, but not what was doing the job.
Also, they might have noticed the fact the Lightning Elementals weren’t respawning, and it was rather quiet and still above and behind us.
There was no way their attention was anything but focused on the way down here by now, anticipating trouble.
2? 3?, the Mick’s fingers came up, a questioning look on his face. I tilted my head slightly, but there was too much static. I could only shake my head, and hold up three fingers to be safe.
Three virindi meant I had to shoot them down, or a triple salvo of War Magic was likely coming in, or a double with a Vuln laid down right in front of it.
I brought up the Paired Shards slowly, slapping the Split on there so all of them would get the attention they needed. Crown had two sets of hand-long Shards revolving around him as I nodded, and we stepped around the corner in tandem, the Mick in front of me with Clan in full kite mode.
A purple-hide Hollow Minion covered in metal mesh with lightning dancing over it jerked its slender head around and fixated on us. It snapped into alert status as the gazes of three virindi—a Master, a Director, and one with an ornate Rune on its mask and worked into its armored robe—also fixed their gazes on us.
“Ah, fuck,” the Mick muttered.
“Charge the Fulguris!” Crown lowered, his Soul Blade snapped out in a foot-long Soulspear, and I blew the two Split Shardrays, one to each Master and Director, and two to the Fulguris.
The Mick didn’t even hesitate, even as the Minion raised blunt arms swirling with the magic-ignoring energies of chorozite AND the purple energies of lightning, and charged in with awkward, jerking steps no living being could possibly have.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
I did have the three Spear-line Feats of Hold the Line, the Archer Stands Thrust, and Steadfast. Despite me Casting a spell, Crown snapped instantly into line, the Way of the Sun at x3 lining me up perfectly despite its herky-jerky erratic movements, and the glowing Electrum Spear point drove right into the center of its chest.
The Mick flowed right around the Minion, up the wall and past the two lesser virindi in front, coming down with an emerald Claymore trailing the Lost Light as the Fulguris reeled back, two holes driven through the thick metal draped over its energy form, while its two servants writhed, popped, and collapsed en vivus almost instantly as the Shardrays bored into them.
I stomped down on Crown’s heel as the Hollow Minion impaled itself completely, hardly an impediment to the Construct, and I heaved back and let go, backing off as a crackling blur of arm-swipes burned past my nose with skull-crushing force and trails of thick purple lightning.
The force-quillons extending out of the Orb on Crown prevented it from advancing, and now Crown was angled up and through the thing completely, meaning it couldn’t back itself up and off from the shaft, either.
Crown hung there in the air, Inertia-Locked, as the Mick descended on the Fulguris with Cuts the Waterfall, ripping the front of its shell open completely, then crisscrossing the near-vertical stroke in less than a second without conscious thought.
The Virindi Fulguris shuddered and imploded, collapsing as the acidic Lost Light ripped through it, and vivus rose to devour it completely.
The Mick whirled about, paused for a second as he saw the purple Hollow Minion trying to force its way through to get at me, impaled and blunted feet scrabbling stumpily from above the ground on an unmoving glowing Spearpoint of Soul energy. It was lashing out at incredible speed as it tried to reach me and batter at Crown, who took the impacts with casual Hardened disdain.
The Mick came in behind the Minion, and before it could rotate its head and arms around to strike at him, it had already lost both arms to swirling green arcs of acidic energy. Then the Mick removed its legs and finally severed its head, avoiding the torso covered in metal mesh and clearly the source of the lightning pulsing out into its limbs. Crackling bolts of electricity that leapt up along Bunita grounded out against emerald whorls uselessly instead of lashing at his hand and arm.
As the brittle conduits of power destabilized and shattered, its limbs jerked, bent in on themselves, and its torso literally snapped itself in half at the waist from the tension of its binding cables before our eyes.
Vivus ignited on it, chasing the virindi magic empowering it, but not with the speed of something discorporating. Only the Master was falling apart with that much speed, while we waited there for something to happen and I carefully materialized another set of Shards and began to Pair it.
“Nae a good sign, is it?” he asked, bending down to the two Burning real virindi and rummaging through their split open and rapidly crumbling armor shells. He came up with two more of the Amulets, which I waved off and he dropped inside a pocket of his vest.
“Did you clock the speed of that thing?” I asked the Mick warily, letting Crown’s Spear snap off and returning him to a Staff.
“Aye. Arms were just a blur o’ motion.” He tamped out the vivus on the limbs and torso so he could inspect them more closely, especially the metal mesh. Bunita cut through the links of the mesh slowly, drawing more sparks she neutralized as she did so, peeling the mail away from the crystallized wooden fibers of its body.
“Copper wiring.” I showed him the wire wound about the dull and heavy crystal that formed the crude skeleton of its right arm. He turned the torso over and found the matching wire where its arm had been severed. Opportunistic, he first verified the same wiring was present on the other limbs, including the neck stump, before Bunita started carving into the tough body of the thing, following that wire to a sparkling purple Jewel bound up in coppery Runework.
He tore the Core of the thing out, dragging out the useful copper wire by expediently shattering the frameworks they were attached to.
I just nodded at his unspoken exclamation, certain he recognized it. “Yes, that’s definitely a Major Shocking Stone by the energy signature.”
He tossed it to me, Runework and wires and all. I caught it to examine as I asked, “Did you happen to Assess that thing?”
“Aye. A Hollow Lightning Servant,” he confirmed. “Two-twenty, one o’ the most elite levels o’ the Hollow Minions. Ain’t seen anything like it in fifteen years. Bodyguards and servants of the most elite among the virindi, like the Fulguris there.” He gave me a look. “Ye’ve seen Fulguris afore?”
“No, but I memorized every known type of virindi as a matter of course, and they are ideal for working here with their focus on lightning and mental power effects. I was expecting them.”
“Hah! Anything special about that?” He nodded at the thing in my hand.
“It’s like giving the minion Lightningphasing, Weapon Buffs, and enhanced Speed, almost like Haste,” I informed him. “Use an Item Dispel on it.” I presented it back to him.
Intrigued, the Mick ruminated for a moment as he recalled a spell he had almost never used outside a teaching chamber, and had learned just for sake of being a completionist. “Never used this in combat,” he remarked, as the magic swirled up around his hand, clear and disjointed, disruptive influences meant to be Infused into a target and eliminate Enchantments upon it.
He touched the Shocking Stone, and the whole thing immediately dimmed down, a barely-noticeable hum from the thing dying away as the purple glow receded to a spark in the center of the Stone.
“Ho. I imagine it would work on the Stones in me Bunita too, then.” A thoughtful expression crossed his face for a moment in consideration of the potential of this move.
“It would indeed, and any magical Weapon in general. Like the Quiddity and other virindi Weapons used by the Lugians and the Hea, if you’ve the need for neutralizing them.”
We’d obtained samples of the new versions of those Weapons after the disaster at Dryreach, as the Hea had thrown them away in droves after the event. Unfortunately, the Virindi Slayer effect attached to the upgraded versions of the Singularity Weapons had so far eluded us, and we’d not found an intact version of one of the older Weapons as yet. Extremely specialized as they were, that was not unanticipated, but it was still annoying.
On the other hand, Candeth Martine was free, so directly questioning him about how they were made was completely viable now. I’d have to be doing that soon.
“I be wanting t’ see how well this thing fights straight up, but I be thinking having the Dispel ready to go would be quite the good idea.”
I couldn’t hide my smile. Typical melee mindset, seeing who was better in a fight…