Chapter 57

Ella cursed, Dima laughed, I grinned. Of course this was how they’d make it harder. Why not take on a boss fight for thirty or so people with only five? I mean, sure, it was smaller and probably weaker, and us five were some of the most powerful fighters anyway, but…

But, I thought to myself, this was a true test.

“Alright! Uhm, everyone remember the mechanics?”

The others peered at him for a moment, Cenna laughing as she recognized his reference.

“Safety Dance?” She grinned at him. Of course she was a gamer.

“Something like that. Don’t use any major attacks unless it’s pinned down, and when it splits, aim for the does, not the stags.”

“Yes, yes, we kill the stag and then the little ones until it stops coming back.” Dima raised his bushy brows at me, his tone playfully condescending. “Do hold hand too, or just tell how to wipe ass?”

“Oh yeah. Reminder for you Dima: Don’t get hit. I’ve heard it hurts a lot.”

He snorted in reply, but didn’t speak again.

The Starlight Stag seemed content to wait at the edge of the clearing, allowing us to gather ourselves for a moment. It tossed its’ head, and a trickle of light pulsed down the constellation that made up its’ horns, the tips flaring brightly.

“Oh shit,” Ella snarled, glancing upward.

My eyes followed hers, and I saw that same constellation in the sky above us, the stars burning so brightly that they seemed to drown out the daylight, the sky deepening from turquoise into nighttime blue, the stars brightening until the space around them seemed black, each one becoming an agonizing fleck of brilliance.

Dima was the first to react, drawing his hands apart, and then clapping them together with enough force to ripple the grass around him, the sound of the impact becoming a clap of thunder that rolled threateningly through the clearing, a wave of force flying toward the Stag like an arrow, parting the grass beneath until it reached the graceful beast, forcing it to leap aside to avoid the attack. The stars flickered for a moment, and then suddenly came racing toward us, growing brighter every moment. I began summoning and hurling firebolts, launching a few at a time to try and force a hit.

Cella and Ella sprinted toward it as Dima began chanting, conjuring forth his lightning dragon familiar. Alex seemed indecisive for a moment, but then began rummaging through their pouches looking for something.

Me? I remembered how evasive this thing had been last time, and I was awfully tired of things trying not to get hit. I conjured a firebolt, squeezing it down into a narrow dart, and then further condensing it with energy until it solidified in my hand into a Crystalflame spike. I reared back and threw it like a javelin, the bolt launching out of my hand. It missed the Stag by only a few inches as it twisted out of the way, but where it struck the dirt, it stayed, one end sticking up into the air like a lawn dart. I grinned as the idea took shape in my head, and began condensing more darts, launching them toward the Stag’s legs as quickly as I could summon them.

A half-dozen, then a dozen, more and more of them littering the ground in a slowly growing area as the Stag dashed this way and that, leaping out of the path of other attacks and carefully keeping its’ slender legs out of the way of my darts. Finally it hopped backward, away from one of Dima’s lightning bolts, and its’ rear hoof landed atop one of the darts. Like a caltrop, it stuck into the hoof for an instant before it took enough damage to break it, and it exploded like a small incendiary mine.

Ella gave a short, sharp bark of laughter as it staggered, its’ dodge turning into a stumble, and she planted a meaty punch into its’ side. It stumbled a few steps over from the force of the punch, and another dart exploded underfoot, igniting a patch of grass and the short, coarse hair around its’ hoof.

By this point, the ground around it was littered with these burning caltrops, every one a trap waiting to ignite underfoot. The Stag began to leap around more cautiously, choosing to take some smaller hits rather than chance leaping onto another one of my traps. It gave an enormous screech, the sound almost a physical blow, and bucked hard, kicking out toward Cenna. The rogue leapt out of the way, avoiding it neatly, but Ella wasn’t so lucky; the muscled bruiser had been sliding around the Stag’s flank to try and strike at one of its’ legs, and the kick caught her in the shoulder, sending her spinning backward into the grass.

Even at the cost of stepping on another one of my fire mines, the Stag turned toward her and lunged, moving to bring both of its front hooves down in a vicious stomp toward the fallen woman. She frantically rolled aside, out of the way of its’ attack, but it simply kept trampling forward, hooves alternating slamming dents into the ground just behind the savage woman’s body. Cenna lunged forward to attack one of its’ hind legs, and it paused for only an instant to kick at her, forcing her to dodge away. Ella nearly came to her feet, but then caught a glancing blow across her back, dropping her onto her chest in the grass.

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I pushed my hands together, trying to forge the chaotic energies of a fireball into a Crystalflame bomb, and then began charging toward the fallen warrior. She was struck again, avoiding most of the stomp but catching the edge of the hoof as it lifted, the attacks becoming faster and more vicious as other strikes littered its’ flanks. I frantically pressed the energy inward, condensing it tighter and tighter together until the edges of it licked and bit at my hands, shifting between fire and crystal so quickly that I couldn’t tell if I was being cut or burned.

I saw Alex pull a handful of ingredients from their bag and hurl them into the air. Flowers broke apart into paste, petals and stem separating in midair. A small stone almost seemed to unravel into a streamer of dust that surged into the paste, a thin trickle of water flowing around them in defiance of gravity, spiraling up to join the other reagents in the air. Their eyes were closed, moving as if somewhere between dancing and cooking. The mixture seemed to ignite for a moment, waves of heat pouring off of it as they blended together. The heat abated as quickly as it had come, and then plunged forward like a bullet toward Ella. Even as they released their first projectile, Alex kept pulling more and more items from their bag, throwing them toward different amalgamations in the air. One, I recognized as the glittery paste that turned into glue. Another filled with water and became a vibrant green orb.

The first projectile struck the savage woman and seemed to sink into her in an instant. She rolled to her feet in one smooth motion, moving faster than even my Haste had, lifting herself up and throwing herself away from its’ hooves into an acrobatic tumble, seeming entirely untroubled by the many wounds that littered her chest and arms. She met the next hoof with a punch of her own, and it forced the Stag to dance back a step on its’ hind legs; just the opportunity I’d needed.

I hurled the disc-shaped bomb in my hands like a frisbee, and it embedded in the dirt behind the Stag, throwing up a plume of soil where it struck. The Stag’s unsteady lurch took it backward onto the slippery surface, and it stepped down hard, tumbling onto its side as it lost its footing entirely. I reached out toward the bomb, mentally infusing it with my energy; not a lot more was needed, just enough to destabilize it and turn it back into-

I felt a sudden surge of lethal danger and abandoned my attack, infusing myself with Haste and throwing myself backward just in time for a hazy beam to coalesce in front of me. It didn’t come from the stag, but instead from above. In the instant before it struck, I could see one of the Stag’s constellation of stars wink out above it.

Sudden light was replaced by sudden darkness and a forceful heat, the sensation of tumbling through the void twisting my inner ear and sending my stomach off on its’ own trajectory. The world was consumed by violence and sound, feeling more than hearing the roaring thunder that nearly struck me. I finally tumbled to a halt, and nearly retched from the sensation of the world spinning beneath me. I could feel solid dirt beneath my back, but my inner ear refused to believe me, still tumbling and spinning. My vision refused to cooperate, a sheen of light clinging to the murky shapes that twisted and warped through my sight. Another bright flash left a thin streak of white scratched across my vision, such an unreal flash that it almost looked like dead pixels on a computer screen, my eyes misfiring in its’ wake. I felt the ground tremble a moment later, and a breeze blow over my body like nails raking over my skin.

I grabbed onto the dirt to pull myself up, anchoring myself against the ground as if afraid that the sky was going to steal me away. Only a handful of stars remained – bright shining orbs in the sky above, each one a painfully bright and still sun looming threateningly above. As I turned my head, I saw some kind of formless serpent sliding through the air toward me. It perched itself above me, and then slammed down toward my face before I could defend myself.

I lurched upward, my vision and hearing suddenly restored as a sense of vigor and vitality roiled through my body, the taste of copper and almonds clinging to my tongue thickly. Alex was standing a short distance away, their hands still moving as they rapidly mixed and discharged potions off in various directions. I stared in confusion and disbelief at the crater that sat halfway between the Stag and I, a perfectly burned ring that ate a few inches into the dirt, smoke still rising from it. Three other craters matched it nearby, one near a badly burned Dima, and the other two nearer the Stag. Cenna and Ella were in close, darting and weaving around its legs as if afraid to leave its shadow, the remaining handful of orbs lingering above, looming threateningly close.

I pulled in a deep breath, reaching out to feel that the enormous firebomb was still intact, and still close to the Stag. I knew there was only one way to set it off without hitting the two melee fighters, even if it meant getting a lot closer than I really wanted to.

I peppered the Stag’s hide with firebolts to gather its attention, and one of the orbs slid over to take position above me. I darted in closer, using its body as a shield against the attack, and the orb dulled back down, awaiting its’ opportunity to strike. “Pull back,” I shouted to the pair as I threw a flaming dart toward its’ stomach. “I have a plan!”

“Your plans suck!” Ella shouted at me before rolling away, Cenna already three steps ahead in the instant it took to speak. A hoof lunged toward my leg and I sidestepped it, feeling the impact nearly throw me over. It twisted and bucked, throwing a kick back toward me with both legs. I dodged backward, then stepped back in as the orb began to glow threateningly. It continued to twist around until it could lunge at me with the half-dimmed rack of stars, forcing me to drop to my knees for a moment and then launch myself backward just ahead of its ramming strike.

I punched inward as it lifted the starry rack back up, my punch hardly doing more than enraging it further. It attacked me in a frenzy, mixing attacks into dodging, sweeping around bolts of lightning and throwing knives, viscous serpents of liquid poisons. I looked inward in the scant moments I had between attacks, pouring energy into the idea of being immune to flame, the energy churning inward as if supplementing my [Heat Adaptation]. I wasn’t sure if passive skills could be overcharged like that, but I could only hope that it could. I was going to need every bit of that protection.

Finally, I leapt backward forcefully away from the rack as it lunged forward once more, landing atop the pillow-sized disc of crystallized energy. Even though its’ surface was slippery, I braced myself as best I could, and then looked upward toward the looming sense of danger plunging toward me like the Sword of Damocles.

Just before the lance of starlight struck me like an orbital laser, I bent my knees and shoved off of the bomb, leaping as far backward as my body could carry me, my skin drenched in a sensation like an instant sunburn as the two attacks joined, and I balled myself up as much as possible in preparation for what was likely going to be a very short, very violent trip.

And then the starlight detonated the firebomb.