Novels2Search

78. The Stand (I)

Amara

Though she didn’t feel the sun hit her brow, she knew morning had come.

Instead of the monotonous droning of a cockerel, the roar of a Scorpirex, triumphant over its breakfast, signaled the coming of dawn.

She opened her eyes, and felt the Everloft’s blazing sun even through the layers of catacombs between her and the surface.

She felt it whenever it was strong. The eternally burning engine that was always hanging above her head, imbuing her with strength.

With fire.

[GLANCE: 40/40]

Incantation List SEEKER Level Flickering Ember Firebite Infernal Cloak

Fireball

She was back, re-energized, and ready. Her merciful mood had abated with the dawn. As she looked at her Gnoll brethren beside her, testing their weapons, readying their magic, she nodded to each one silently.

“When do we start?” she asked Kimon.

He looked from Lokar to Mendax. Nothing but silent glances of trepidation past between them.

“We wait on your command, Amara” he said.

She paused to feel the sparks flowing down her wrist like ripened flower petals. She was strong, yes, but against a horde of those beasts outside? She wasn’t invulnerable. The trappings of the Catacombs above had shown her that.

So, she’d have to play smart this time.

“What can you do?” she asked Kimon, feeling drawn to him, sensing the Glance that was raging in his own frail bones.

“I am of the Windcaller class, Amara,” he replied. “I could tell you of my abilities – but you would be better served in seeing them yourself.”

He took her by her arm then and pressed down, hard. Before she could rebuke him, she saw what she needed to see.

Class: Glancer (Windcaller) LVL 3 GLANCE: 30/30

Incantation List SEEKER Level Air Bulb Healing Wind Aura of Storms

She ran through each one quickly, her mind appraising them with the speed of a practiced mathematician.

Air Bulb (WIND, SEEKER Level) Channeling Cost: 2 You hurl a mote of concentrated winds directly at a single opponent. Effect: 5 DMG vs Target + Repulsion (40ft)

Healing Wind (WIND, SEEKER Level) Channeling Cost: 5 You imbue your hands with the restorative energies of the air itself, closing wounds and oxidizing hampered blood flow. Effect: Restoration vs Target: 10 pts/sec

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Aura of Storms: (WIND, SEEKER Level) Channeling cost: 3/min You hurl a stake of lightning into the ground before you. A protective sphere of electrified energy crackles around you for the duration of this Incantation. All incoming damage is halved while this Incantation is maintained. You cannot take any hostile actions. Effect: Sphere of Protection in 60ft (circle)

A most versatile setup, her mother whistled in her mind.

She paused for a second to regard his eyes, sinking into his wrinkled cheeks, and was taken aback by the power that dwelled beneath that face.

“You are surprised,” he said, matter of fact. She did not deny it.

“That is the beauty of the Glance,’” he smiled. “Even an old beast like me, well past his prime, can still be of use. Some call the Glance the great Equalizer between beings.”

“Maybe if everyone had it…” Amara wondered.

The old Gnoll nodded, understanding. “Maybe if everyone had it…”

He used his staff to hoist himself up and hobbled over to the ornate door. A single, veiny arm stretched out from under his robe and he looked round at the rest of them, fixing his eyes finally on Amara.

“I can provide a defense,” he said. “But the Aura of Storms is a taxing incantation. I cannot promise it will last if I am maimed.”

“That’s what we’re for,” Mendax replied, cracking his neck and drawing the greataxe from his back. “This thing was made for cracking Scorpirex skull. Just point me in the right direction.”

Though he didn’t look directly at her, Amara saw his eye flicker in her direction for a fraction of a second.

It was enough to know that she might just have gotten through to him last night, after all.

“We have barred all entrances,” Lokar nodded vigorously. “We should hunker down by the main shrine. Then, when the door opens, we can fall back and through!”

Amara nodded. “Can you hide us from them again?”

Lokar gave an impish grin that (she assumed) he thought was charming. “M’lady, I can give us the cloak of night only once before the battle begins. Enough time for us to strike the Wave unawares. It will be they who are surprised, not us!”

She let the ‘M’lady’ title go for once and turned back to Kimon, already priming the first fireball she’d hurl at whatever came crashing through the barricaded church door.

“Then we’re ready.”

As if on cue, a howl of rage roared through the dead city. Their enemies were waiting. Patiently. Interminably.

They each readied their weapons and closed ranks beside one another, and Kimon raised his hand once more.

“Scared, Lightbringer?” Mendax snarled beside her.

“I used to be,” she replied. “Not anymore.”

“Then why can I feel your heart beating against my arm?”

She shirked away her embarrassment and tried to hide her blush.

Blushing? She scoffed. Who’s the boss here, anyway?

She ignored him and nodded back to Kimon, who finally palmed the scorpion sigil on the great bronze door.

And with a surge of alien energy, all hell broke loose.

Outside, the meandering Scorpirex were enjoying a day of relative peace in their dim realm. Their razor-claws tore through the dirt and the corpses of their fallen scarab meals – here and there one of them broke away from their group and tried striking at the lumbering shades that moved between the broken walls of the city. Every time, they tore through nothing but air.

Then: a call in the dark. Something resonated in their brains with the pulse-pounding sharpness of a razor blade slicing the inside of their eyeballs. They each drew up, arcing their angular heads to the sky, and their pupils dilated as though a spectral needle of adrenaline had just been pumped into their bloodstream.

---WAVE TRIAL ACTIVATED: BHASHERA---

They opened their toothy maws in a collective roar that awoke all their sleeping cousins – even mothers engaged in feeding their hatchlings, or infants barely able to move. They felt the compulsion rage through their systems that they hadn’t felt in years. The drive to kill. To hunt. To extinguish the life that drew breath in their realm even if it killed every last one of them.

And, converging in the alleyways and streets of the old, forgotten city of the sands, they surged as one towards the ruined church.

----------------------------------------

“They come!” Lokar shrieked.

Amara shot him a stare of silent fury, shutting him up just in time for the first pair of beasts to begin tearing at the door.

The outside world had become a space filled with the maniacal, bestial roars of a hundred hungry mouths, descending on the church in a flood of claws and teeth.

“Make ready!” Kimon shouted over the din, seeing the beasts attempting to scale the church walls and launch themselves through the reinforced windows at either side.

“They shall hold,” Kimon explained, seeing Amara’s growing fear. “The telekinesis of a Windcaller is tougher to break than any pane of glass. They can throw themselves against it all they want – as long as I have my reserves, we need only fear attack from the front.”

Amara had just enough time to nod as the first Scorpirex poked its gnashing, thrashing head through the door barricade.

<9 minutes> a voice boomed in their heads.

“G-going well so far!” Lokar shouted from his hiding place.

The claws of the ravenous Scorpirex started tearing at the wooden panes, dislodging them with ease, sending their splintered remains flying across the entrance floor.

“First minute’s free,” Mendax growled. “Now, the real fight begins.”

Amara readied her fireball as the first beast finally broke through the door, sprinting towards her like it had been commanded to strike her down specifically. She was ready to throw her spell – she had it in her hand prepared – and yet the speed of the thing was beyond her focus.

“NOW!”

At her command, Lokar launched his first arrow from the shadows, his projectile spearing the beast through its eyes and causing it to crumble, hitting the ground with a hard thud and thrashing about, trying to dislodge the arrow from its face with its hind legs.

Amara took her chance – she appraised the thing, smiling at its pain:

HP: 20/35

Then she let her fire fly.

Glance incantation: Fireball

She launched her projectile at the salivating head of the beast and watched its scales blister apart as her conflagration consumed it, leaving behind nothing more than a pile of charred bones.

EXP: +20

One down…

“As expected from the Lightbringer!” Lokar called from the shadows of his corner of the church rafters.

“Don’t rest on your laurels yet!” Mendax howled. “That was the vanguard – here come the rest!”

Amara watched the rest of the door barricade disappear in a haze of splinters, and the storm of fangs and stingers were upon them.