Sophia froze in place. The group in the distance was the first time they’d seen a group of corpsevines inhabiting anything larger than a turtle. Admittedly, they were large turtles, but a group of turtles where the largest one came up to a little higher than Dav’s knee was still more than a little different from a whole group of people.
Sophia took a deep breath and reassured herself. There was no reason for concern; Taika’s illusion should still work. That meant they had time to plan. They might even be able to slip past them if they wanted to, but Sophia didn’t think they would.
The group ought to be less powerful individually than the corpsevines they’d been handling outside, likely significantly less powerful since this was a Leveled Challenge. They would probably still be harder to handle because there were so many of them and the only multi-target attack they had was Sophia’s Force Blast. They’d have to be weaker than a human to be killed by that; it smashed the entire area but wouldn’t do much more than knock someone over. Admittedly, a human could be badly injured if they fell wrong.
Sophia, Dav, and Amy were all Level Two. Sophia wasn’t certain how strong Taika was, but her guess was Level One; he certainly hadn’t mentioned dedicating Wisps. He didn’t even know what that was when she asked, which made it weird that he had Abilities. Whatever Level he was, there were only four of them, so a group of corpsevines in a Leveled Challenge ought to be pretty weak individually, especially if the Guide expected them to take on other groups afterwards.
A series of fair fights was just a way to get killed; the fact that Leveled Challenges were rarely fatal meant the fights weren’t fair. Properly approached, they should be easy.
“I can’t even tell how many of them there are,” Dav whispered. “Taika?”
“Six. No, seven,” Taika answered Dav’s implied question. “They’re all in that flower-covered area. They don’t seem to think anything’s wrong, but I’m not sure I could really tell if they did. I don’t see any sign of multiple corpsevines on any of them, there’s just the one obvious corpsevine on each of them.”
Oh, that was the trick, wasn’t it? If they had fire, a single spell would probably be able to handle all of them. “Are the vulnerable parts exposed?”
“I think so,” Taika answered quickly.
Sophia started to grin. Maybe they were weak enough that they’d be really easy after all. She took a moment to confirm that the corpsevines had no mana spellforms visible, then turned to Amy. “Can you tell if they have shield? Not the spell the constructs had, the one the Guide provides?”
Amy shook her head. “They won’t have one. We won’t find one on anything animated, like these are. That has to be provided by the Called or the monster, the Guide doesn’t help.”
That would have been nice to know about a week earlier. Sophia started to say something, then stopped herself. She didn’t need an argument and it really wasn’t Amy’s fault. Sophia thought Amy hadn’t really realized the corpsevines’ “cuttings” fell into that category until later. It was probably common knowledge that Sophia and Dav simply didn’t have.
“Oh, they’re like summons?” Dav asked.
Sophia gave Dav a dirty look for not sharing that tidbit. She knew it wasn’t fair, but that didn’t mean she liked not knowing things.
Dav shrugged. “I asked Rensyn about it back at the Registry. I thought you heard, but maybe you were too busy looking at wands?”
Sophia grumbled internally.
“Uh, the corpsevines are getting pretty close. Shouldn’t you do something about them?” Taika’s voice was a little higher pitch than normal.
Sophia’s head snapped around, but Taika was getting nervous over something that wasn’t yet a problem. The corpsevine cuttings had covered about a third of the distance in their steady walk, which still left them a good distance away. He was right that it was no time to be distracted. “Are there any others close enough to hear some spells?”
“I’ll check,” Amy said before she hurried forward. She ducked behind an overgrown support and seemed to vanish, though Sophia occasionally caught a hint of movement headed towards the corpsevines.
Dav shook his head. “I’ll never understand how she does that.”
Sophia patted him on the back. “Well, if you didn’t walk like a lumbering ox…”
Dav laughed. Fortunately, he kept it soft.
The corpsevine-infested people had covered more than half of the remaining distance before Amy reappeared from behind a support on the opposite side of the path. “I had to keep it quick, but I didn’t see anything. Fire’s probably a bad idea; I definitely didn’t go far enough to check for anything that might come after fire.”
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Sophia shook her head. “I’m more worried about noise; my spells aren’t very visible unless you’re watching for magic.”
“Corpsevines don’t seem to react much to noise,” Dav pointed out. “I know we’re being quiet, but I think that’s because we know we’re sneaking, not because they can tell.”
Sophia blinked twice at that. She should have known that; she just hadn’t put it together. She had the feeling he was right, which was probably her Collected Knowledge Ability. She really ought to pay more attention to it, once she figured out how.
Sophia sighed. “Right, then. It’s time for me to use Force Blast for what it’s made for. Be ready in case we actually have to finish them off.”
Sophia waited until the other two were ready for a fight, then lifted her Animated Blade to roughly the same height as her eyes but moved it out to near the edge of her aura. She dualcast a pair of Force Blasts right next to each other. They’d be Hardened, since that applied to all of her spells, but Sophia didn’t expect that to make too much difference. The only real hope was that if the corpsevines’ central nodes were as exposed as Taika thought, she might break a few of them. That would be completely worth the spells, since it would make the fight afterwards simple.
All of the animated corpsevines fell in unison. Sophia stared in surprise and spoke slowly. “I thought that would be harder.”
“We should check that they’re all dead,” Amy contributed, “But we’re not that far in yet. As long as we stay smart, we should be fine.”
Dav picked up the basket full of prizes. “Why don’t you start searching for a magical plant while Amy and I check the bodies?”
Sophia shook her head in disbelief. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was too easy. Yes, she knew that everyone she’d talked to made it through the Leveled Challenge by charging forward and fighting each group of enemies as they found them, so even minimal strategy ought to make it really easy, but it still felt almost like cheating. No dungeon back home would allow this much use of a single strategy. At least, not after the first group to use it left. “Thanks, Taika. This wouldn’t be so easy without you.”
“Eh,” Taika sounded dubious. “I think that one would have gone the same without the illusion, you’d just have to hit them while they were running towards you instead of walking. We saw them with lots of time to spare.”
Somehow, that made Sophia feel better.
For the first time in the Leveled Challenge, the reward wasn’t a plant. Instead, the only magical thing Sophia found was a warm rock. That seemed to be all it could do, warm the surroundings just enough to be felt. To Sophia, that made it a reagent rather than a directly useful item; there simply wasn’t enough heat there to use it directly, unless all you wanted to do with it was have a pocket warmer.
The white-flowered archways quickly turned into a maze filled with oblivious monsters. Three groups later, they thought they’d finished exploring the maze and Sophia was starting to run low on mana. They found a door and decided to stop for a bit to rest; both Sophia and Taika needed some time.
Feather Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/JcKTy4K.jpeg]
Roughly twenty minutes into the rest break, Dav pulled Sophia out of her mana-recovery meditation because a single corpsevine wandered by. To save Taika’s mana, his illusion wasn’t present, but Sophia managed to kill it without getting close using her floating animated blade and save her mana.
When they searched it, they didn’t find anything of value and nothing had appeared in the area either. Sophia more than half wondered if it wasn’t a reminder to get moving. “Where did that guy come from?”
“No idea,” Amy answered. “Maybe we didn’t actually kill one of them?”
Sophia shook her head but didn’t say her thoughts out loud. She didn’t want to give the Guide, or whoever ran the Leveled Challenge, any ideas they didn’t already have. “I thought we confirmed them all, but maybe not.”
Sophia looked into the distance, trying to see any more corpsevines. Should she go back to meditating or should they go on? She was still low on mana, but she had enough for a couple of spells, even if they were Force Blasts.
Dav walked to Sophia and took a long look down the arched pathway. “It’s been about four hours, hasn’t it? I wonder what they’ll think when we’re late?”
“I think that was inside the Challenge, without the walk to it,” Sophia countered. She was happy to turn her attention to something other than being hurried along. “And Rensyn said that was the low end. We’ve got time before anyone starts to wonder. I’m not sure how much of this place is left; we haven’t even made it inside the building yet.”
“They’ll know we’re still in here when the next group can’t get in,” Amy answered. “I’m not sure how the Guide will manage it, but it’s supposed to be really obvious that you can’t start the Challenge. Maybe a message or something?” She shrugged. “You two ready to get moving? I don’t like sitting still.”
“Yeah.” Sophia had less mana than she wanted, but that simply meant she’d need to let the others do their thing for a bit and use her Animated Blade as a floating knife instead of a spell platform. “Who wants to get the door?”
“I will,” Dav volunteered. He seemed just as anxious to move on as Amy was. Bored was probably more accurate; Sophia had noticed that Dav was always doing something. Lately, his time was mostly spent on either sword drills or studying the material she’d found in her bag, and he couldn’t really do either in the Challenge if he was also watching for enemies.
Dav’s figure seemed to shimmer for a moment before he was once again covered in leaves. Taika didn’t cover Sophia or Amy in illusion. He was probably as short on mana as Sophia was.
Sophia made sure to step enough to the side that nothing would be able to see her through the door. Amy mirrored her on the other side of the door, then Dav opened it.
He was greeted with a roar and a rustling noise. He jumped backwards, out of the reach of a vine that grabbed for him. “I think the illusion isn’t working!”
Sophia couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her at that moment. It wouldn’t have been funny if the vine actually grabbed Dav, but seeing him dance away from it as it tried to reach him was hilarious.
The initial vine was joined by a second, then a third. None of them reached more than a few feet from the entrance, but there were plenty there to make this fight difficult if they just ran in there.