“Thorn,” Crag started, “We’re coming up on the fifteen minute mark are you about ready to start casting?”
“Yeah, I’m at full mana. I’ll start charging my attack now. I'm going for a big first strike so I'll put about a quarter of my mana pool into this one. Should do some damage to everything in the pond but I doubt it’ll have enough umph to take even one out without a direct hit.” Thorn replied.
“Oh, I’m excited to see a strong lightning affinity attack.” Mary said energetically. She then turned to face Thorn. “Lightning is one of my favorite affinities. It gets so loud and flashy and makes your hair stand on edge. Don’t disappoint me, kay?” She asked with a flirtatious wink.
“Oh, uh, umm, yeah…” Thorn fumbled nervously. He then gave a quick shake of his head and looked back at Mary with his best effort to conceal the nerves he felt. “No problem, just don’t blink.” With that said Thorn raised his staff to point the crystal on the tip at the center of the pond. The tip first started to glow with the blue white light of raw electricity, as the intensity grew brighter arcs of power started leaping and cracking from the crystal at the tip of his staff and looped back to connect to the inlaid enchantment running along the upper portion of the shaft. While he focused on charging the skill his face quickly shifted from being red and flustered to a much more serious and focused expression. This shift then allowed the light being cast off from the sparks and flashes to dance across Thorn’s face.
Mary watched Thorn’s expression shift while she also got slightly distracted by the dancing lights and shadows that accentuated his stronger facial features and hid his softer ones. “Oh…” Mary slipped out quietly to herself under her breath.
‘Oh? Does Mary have a thing for Thorn?’ Ember thought to herself as she wanted her friend’s skill charging. ‘I haven’t seen her give anyone that look yet. Eh. Maybe.’ She lightly shrugged to herself. ‘I definitely get the attraction to lightning affinity now though. Just the act of charging his skill looks badass.’ Her eyes then shifted downwards. ‘Do any of mine look cool like that?’ she pondered as Thorn charged his attack. ‘My aura skill is invisible as far as I can tell and I only have a vague idea of the perimeter of it. I guess my newest skill looks cool… well at least I think so… and maybe Thorn.’ She pictured the last time she cast ensnare and visualized the image of when hundreds of thousands of strands of mycelium ripped themselves out of the soil and started to wrap around the legs of the jackalope and get embedded and tangled into their fur. ‘Okay I can see where it could be gross. It's cool… But I do see how they could be mistaken for worms.’ Ember shuddered at the thought. ‘Nope. Eww.’
Crack!
Ember was ripped out of her own thoughts by the sound of thunder. She instantly remembered Thorn’s attack was being charged and looked up to see a steaming staff tip and a flash of blue white light about to crash against the surface of the pond. “Woah!” She yelped in shock from the sudden sound.
The group then watched the attack make impact with the water. It was less impressive than Ember expected. Instead of a large splash and water being sent everywhere when the electricity made contact with the surface it just disappeared. Other than a few ripples she could see on the surface there was no evidence of an attack ever hitting.
“W…was that it?” Ember asked nervously, not wanting to accidentally offend Thorn.
He gave a small laugh and used his head to motion for her to look back at the water.
She did. What Ember saw shocked her, it brought back the memory of when she first found this place and how the pond itself seemed to rise up after her before she ran away. The pond before her looked very similar except instead of seeing the water rise and flow out like normal she watched as the surface rose, it would ripple and break apart giving form to multiple crystal jellies all clambering out of the electrified water source. “Woah…”
Thorn smiled as he readied his next attack. “I got them out of the water, your up next Crag.”
“Got it.” Crag said with a grunt as he pulled his shield to his front and started to make his approach. “Thorn, behind me.”
“Yep.” Thorn agreed.
“Ember, keep an eye out of the left. I’ll cover the right and call out anything I see coming close.” Mary said as the group started to near the gathering swarm of jellies.
“You got it!” Ember replied. “Do y'all think I should run ahead a bit? My aura skill has a range of about six to seven feet and I would rather not be responsible for breaking your equipment.”
“Yes.” Said Crag.
“No.” Answered Thorn.
“Yes, just keep your back to us so they can't surround you.” Mary interjected.
“Ah, yeah, what Mary said.” Thorn agreed.
The outpour of crystal jellies started to slow down so Ember took the chance to try and count how many there were. Right as she counted her twenty fifth jelly she heard another loud crack ring out as Thorn released his volt into an approaching jelly. It hit the jelly and was absorbed into it just like when it hit the surface of the water. Only this time there wasn’t nearly enough material to distribute the energy throughout to disperse the heat building up in the body of the shocked jelly but as soon as the thought of the skill failing crossed Ember’s mind the jelly exploded like superheated distilled water.
“You exploded it!” Ember yelled at Thorn.
“I know! Wasn’t it awesome!” He replied with the biggest grin on his face she had ever seen.
“Just be careful. No one wants to be splashed by super hot slime.” Ember rebuked.
“HA! That was nice.” Crag butted in. “Think you have another…” He turned his head to get the full battlefield in sight. “Thirty or so more of those in you?”
“No.” Thorn answered matter of factly. “That had to be a lower level one because that was the same casting of my skill I used earlier, but even so I may have two more in me. I put a quarter of my mana into it.”
“I’ve got it!” Mary spoke up, “Thorn cast for the cheapest you can, don't try and kill just weaken them. Your attacks will do double to quadruple damage compared to my brother and Zaz. Jellies are weak to magic and weak to lightning but have high resistance to physical damage.” She said quickly. “If Crag hits for what would normally do twenty damage he will do ten instead, maybe even less depending on the grade of the resistance.”
“Oh!” Ember spoke up. “So if Crag swings for ten and Thorn casts for ten Crag would do around between five to two and a half damage while Thorn’s ten damage would actually count for twenty to thirty damage?”
“Correct!” Mary answered happily.
“Enough talking! They are on us!” Crag yelled as he took a step forward to attack. “Shield bash!”
“Right!” Ember shouted picking up on the seriousness of the situation. She then made a sprint about six feet away from the group and close to the right flank of the approaching group of five jellies. “Rot aura!” She yelled out as the adrenaline started to course through her veins. ‘Metatron, vitals and five mana per second please.’
[Lifeforce: 50/50
Mana: 100/100
ki: 70/70]
[Rot Aura - Active]
[Rot Aura - 5Mp/S]
Ember felt the drain on her mana as soon as the skill activated. With that she watched her group of jellies for any signs of damage. At first she didn't notice anything happening to them and they continued to draw closer but after only two seconds of activation she noticed bubbles forming inside of the bodies of the jellies. “Mary! Let me borrow your eyes.” She shouted across to her.
“What is i- oh.” She started before stopping to observe what was happening. “Is your aura active? I don’t see any visual signs that it's on but it looks like your group is boiling.” She yelled back to Ember. “Whatever it is you're doing, keep it up, they are all taking the same amount of damage and dropping equally.”
‘Metatron set up an alarm for when I hit fifty mana, I don’t want to over-expend at the beginning.’ She mentally requested.
[Notice]
[50Mp Alarm Set]
‘Thank you!’ She thought to her system.
“Volt!” Thorn yelled.
“Shield bash!” Roared Crag.
Ember’s eyes grazed the battlefield; she could see popped jelly spots across the grass from Thorn and Crag’s shock and smash method of fighting. Thorn shifted from casting a few high damage attacks to casting many more low damage attacks which increased the chance for him to get off a stun on any of his targets. Whenever one of the jellies would fall victim to the stun chance of Thorn’s volt skill Mary would point it out to Crag so he could in turn hit it with his shield bash skill.
“Ember watch out!” Mary yelled. “Your group is going to blow!”
Ember looked at Mary confused for a second but then an alarm chimed in Ember's head letting her know she was at half mana now.
[Notice]
[50/100 Mana remaining]
‘Dang, already at half.’ She thought to herself while she was making an attempt to put some distance in between her and her group of jellies without letting them out of her area of influence.
Pop!plop!splat!pop!sploosh!
Ember looked horrified when the bodies of the five jellies she was fighting all popped, melted, and burst in an explosion of cold foul smelling gloop. The wet mass flew out from where it originated and spread out to cover around twenty feet of ground. She ran away from the sickening mess, while running she tried to scoop and brush off as much of the goo as she could, luckily for her it only got on her face a little bit, just a few drops across her cheeks and forehead, while most of the remaining residue ended up on the left arm sleeve of her hoodie, splatters across the side and back of her shorts and her shoes were drenched. Once Ember finally made it back into the comfort of her group she let her complaints fly. “Ew ew ew ew ew!” ‘Metatron aura off!’ She cried in her mind. When she got back into the center of the circle she shuddered and hugged Mary. “Why do they always explode?!? Bunnies, Slimes, anything my aura touches explodes into a foul pile of rotting corpse parts.” She complained to the girl.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Mary giggled lightly at Ember’s reaction. “Ember… Look, you have a really good skill. You might see it as gross now but look around us.” Mary gestured to the field around them. “You have taken down five jellies on your own while Crag and Thorn together have only just matched you.”
“But…” Ember started to say before Mary cut her right back off.
“No, no buts. Just because your skill isn’t cute doesn't mean you're not, and just because your skill is a little gross that doesn’t mean you are. Yes your skills are a part of you but you are in control of how your skill is put to use not the other way around so don't let the downside ruin the good.” Mary said encouragingly.
Ember let out a huff. “Fine. It’s strong, but this is why I need a team. Someone else needs to get the killing blow so I don't end up popping the corpse.”
“Have you tried hitting them with your staff when you see them start to look like they are full of bubbles and ready to burst?” Mary asked. “It might be enough to kill them without the explosion, but it could also cause them to pop earlier… maybe try it on one in the future when there isn't a field of fifteen jellies in front of us.”
“Fifteen? It was almost thirty not too long ago!” Ember shouted.
“Yeah, you killed five, my brother and Thorn killed five, so that’s ten, plus I see some popped jellies on the other side of the water so I’m willing to guess Zaz has gotten a few kills in as well.” Mary answered confidently.
“Oh wow, that's better than I had expected.” Ember replied. “Any sign of the Crown jelly?”
“Yes.” Mary said. “Look over there.” She pointed at a jelly that stood off to the back of all of the others with only one other foggy looking jelly beside it. “The big one is the crystal crown jelly, the one beside it though I'm not sure. It's not a crystal jelly, that I'm certain. For one, it is not clear like the crystal jellies are and that has me a bit concerned that it could be a greater jelly. On top of that is the way it looks, see how the jellies roll and scoot around; they have a fairly solid membrane. That new one is foggy and looks to be a bit saggy and droopy which I am really hoping doesn't mean that it is what I'm afraid it is.” Mary answered.
“And what do you think it is?” Ember asked cautiously.
Mary let out a sigh while giving the thing one more good once over. “Honestly, it looks like an ooze. Which, if I'm correct, is not good for us at all. It's a first tier beast or first evolution but if it came from a crystal jelly that would make it a mutation and not an evolution.”
“Okay but what does that mean? How is it an issue? Jellies don't have combat skill right? So we should be fine.” Ember asked with an air of doubt.
“No, we are not fine,” said Mary. “Yes, jellies don't have combat skills, but Oozes, Oozes are known for their affinity attacks. It can and will fight back. It is only waiting because the crown is ordering it too probably.”
“Did you say an ooze?!?” Crag shouted back over his shoulder.
“Yes, I think I see an Ooze standing off to the side of the crown off behind the pond. See?” Mary asked while she pointed at the Ooze and Crystal crown jelly.
“Wait…” Crag said with a touch of concern in his voice. He then put a hand over his eyes and tried to focus in on the distance. “Do you guys see that?” He asked while pointing off about twenty feet away from the crown and Ooze. “If so, what is it?”
Ember looked where Crag was pointing but couldn’t really see much other than grass and the occasional splash of jelly goo. She focused harder and finally something caught her attention, she noticed a lump or hill of grass that was a different color from the rest. It appeared to be green with a touch of yellow all over except on that one mound the ends of the blades of grass looked to be shifting from yellow green to more of a gray bronze as they spoke.
“ZAZ!” Mary and Ember both yelled as they realized what or rather who it was they were seeing in the distance. Ember dropped her staff and was about to start running in his direction when Mary grabbed her by the arm.
“No. You shouldn’t go. We don’t know what hit him and the only one of us four with the defenses to get him is Crag.” Mary said matter of factly.
“She's right.” Agreed Thorn. “A surprise attack would take any of us three mages out but Mr. Turtle here should be fine to take a hit or two… right?”
“Yes. I can take a hit way better than you could.” Crag said, while he looked straight into Ember’s eyes. “I’ll run and grab Zaz, Thorn stay close enough to give me cover fire with what mana you can spare.” He said all this while he also started strapping his shield to his back. “This will keep me safe from most sneak attacks or back stabs but a little cover never hurts.”
“No worries, I got you.” Thorn agreed to the plan without any argument.
“Now Mary and Ember, I would prefer if you two fall back to the halfway point between here and where we had lunch. Ember…” Crag looked dead serious. “Watch out for my little sister. She doesn’t have a single offensive skill to defend herself with.”
“Hey!” Mary yelled. “I can defend myself, I did learn to fight with my chain whip, remember?”
“Yes, chain whip.” Crag answered Mary as if the weapon was only as powerful as the belt she disguised it as. Then he asked Ember once again. “Please. Just rot blast or fungus trap anything if it comes close.”
“Yeah.” Ember replied, nodding along. “I’ll watch out for her. But you need to GO! Oh, be careful too! We don't know why Zaz is down.” Ember’s eyes started to water as she spoke. “You just need to hurry! Get him and bring him back so he can get healed.” In an effort to keep herself from jumping to the worst possible scenario she grabbed Mary’s hand and pulled her into a run. “We’re off, we will see it at the safe zone. Now go!” she yelled over her shoulder as she and Mary retreated.
“Thorn.” Crag shouted as they ran to Zaz. “To the right of his body, look.”
“Is that the Ooze?” Thorn asked.
“Looks like its trying to beat us to him. Can you slow him down?” Crag asked.
“On it!” He replied. “Volt!”
He shot a low power shot straight into the foggy yellowish body of the Ooze headed their way. On impact the Ooze shuddered as a hunk of it’s liquid body mass where it was hit formed a skin like membrane that took the hit, charred, and then sloughed off the things body like the melted cheese falling off of a fresh pizza.
“Blegh.” They both gagged at the sight.
“Almost there I have an Idea!” Thorn stopped running and pointed his staff just in front of the Ooze. “Hard light!” Right after he cast the skill a small two by two foot flat square sheet of light appeared before the Ooze, completely blocking its line of sight of Zaz and Crag. “Go get Zaz. I have its attention.”
“Be careful and get ready to fall back!” Crag shouted as he ran past Thorn and shot straight at Zaz’s body lying prone in the grass.
When Crag shot past, Thorn lifted his staff to point at the ooze again. “Are you ready for a second blast?” As he yelled sparks and arcs of electricity sprayed out from the tip of his staff. “Volt!”
Crag could hear Thorn taunting and attacking the Ooze behind him and when he finally made it to the spot where Zaz was he was able to notice the layer of goo coating the snake man's face and upper torso. “Thorn!” He started to yell out a warning for him but as soon as the words left his mouth he saw an attack get fired from the ooze straight in the direction of thorn. “Watch out for its attack! It took down Zaz!”
Thorn looked back at the ooze just in time to see what looked to be a ball of snot the size of a baked potato getting launched right at him from inside of the upper half of the Ooze. He rolled hard to the left as soon as he saw the trajectory of the mass of snot flying at him and barely made it. As his shoulders touched the ground in the beginning of his roll the blob of goop splattered across the ground right behind him. The scent that wafted off of this foul mass was worse than anything he could remember smelling in the past. The scent alone caused his eyes to water and each breath he took he had to fight back nausea and the lightheadedness behind it. “Foul hells that is rank!” He yelled as he righted himself. He then turned to see Crag running back at him with Zaz thrown over his shoulder like a sack of flour. “Quick, I can make one more barrier before I’m tapped out.” He yelled to the returning members.
“Great, Lets GO!” Crag shouted as he caught up to Thorn’s position.
“On it!” Thorn replied then with an evil grin he pointed at the Ooze one last time. “Hard light… Seal!”
He turned to run beside Crag who had to throw an arm around Thorn as well to keep him from toppling over after he cast his last spell. “The hell was that!” He complained to Thorn.
“Check… it… out… yourself…” Thorn replied haggardly between breaths.
Crag took a quick peek back at the ooze and saw what looked like a dome of light on the ground where the ooze was standing. “Did you kill it?!?”
“No… Trapped…” Thorn answered choppily.
“Okay we are all talking skills when we regroup. You and Ember alone hiding your abilities made this job harder than it needed to be.” Crag said.
“Fine…” Thorn answered angrily. “But… We… Hid… Nothing…”
“Sure.” Crag hot back. “You said you have hard light and volt but I have never seen hard light be anything other than a ball of light used to see in the dark. Yet you're trying to tell me that those barriers you made were hard light? Bull shit! That had to be the force shield or barrier skill! But what I saw you do was still more flexible than those two skills normally are. How in the four hells did you make it a dome?!?”
“I’ll explain. Over there.” Thorn pointed in the direction of the girls. He could see Ember and Mary off in the distance watching them get closer. “I’ll tell everyone. At the same time.” He then took a few slow deep breaths in order to steady his breathing. “But not until Zaz is awake.”
“Fine!” Crag spat out. “Mary will take a look at him. If it's worse than she can help with I’ll run him straight to the doc. I have the most Ki out of all of us, it will just be weird using it for distance running not defense.”
“Fine.” Thorn replied.
A few minutes later Crag and Thorn made it to where Ember and Mary stood waiting for them. Mary ran to Crag as soon as he was close enough and told him to lay Zaz down on the grass so she could take a look at him and find what the problem was. She used a piece of cloth out of her supplies to wipe the remaining goop off of him before she finally laid one hand on his forehead and the other on his chest. “Medical analysis.” She called out as she activated her skill.
Ember watched with bated breath while Mary was performing her analysis on Zaz. When she pulled her hands away from him Ember shot forward. “Is he going to be ok? What happened? Do we need to go back now?” She asked in rapid fire.
“Ember…” Mary said. “I can't answer you as fast as you're asking me. But in order yeah, he will be ok but he won't be happy about it. For what happened, I have to make a few guesses but I think I’ll be pretty close if not right on the money. From what I got back from my skill he has been afflicted with the debuff called toxin. It isn't deadly on its own but it sure is nasty.” She said while she shook her head. “When we get back to town he should be able to get some meds to help with the after effects but Toxin will reduce his Ki, his alacrity, his fortitude, and finally it causes fatigue and nausea. With him being sick like this, we will probably have an easier time carrying him back home than waiting around for him to wake up on his own.”
“Fine!” Crag said grumpily before he gently lifted Zaz back up into a carry position. “I’ll carry him, we will get him home, but then,” He turned to eye up Thorn. “We are having our group chat. Rather Zaz is awake or not.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t have a problem with re-explaining it for him once he’s feeling better.” Thorn answered.
“What chat?” Ember and Mary asked together.
“Skills.” Crag said flatly. “Thorn hid a skill from us and,” He shot a look at Ember, “She may have as well. We are going to talk about all we can do. Not just basics. If we knew more today we could have probably finished this fight today instead of retreating and being forced to return at a later point.”
“Even mine?” Mary asked.
Ember raised an eyebrow at that. “Your what?”
“Yes, if you like this group, fine, but I won’t put you at risk for their comfort. We need to know what they can do and they will need to know what we can do too.” Crag informed her.
“Umm…” Ember said while raising her hand.
“What?” Crag said while trying not to snap at her.
“I did tell you about both of my skills. I only have two for now.” Ember said softly.
“Still!” Crag started loudly before being cut off by Mary.
“Still names don’t give full descriptions of skills. Hell, skill descriptions don't always tell you everything your skills can do.” Mary informed her.
“Oh, Yeah, I can see that just from my first skill.” Ember agreed. “I’m in for this talk. Should we do it at the guild hall or head to one of your places?”
“Guild hall” Voted Thorn.
“Guild hall.” Agreed Crag.
“Aww I wanted to see the house of the city Lord though!” Mary complained.
“I’d rather we not disturb my father or his business. I'm free to do pretty much as I please as long as I don’t cause him, the city, or miss Willow any trouble.” Thorn answered.
“Fine.” Mary complained. “The guild hall is fine.”
“Works for me.” Ember said in agreement.
“Once we get to town Crag and I will run Zaz to see our Mom at the Doc’s office. Why don't we take a bit to eat and clean up before we all meet back at the guild hall? Say an hour after we arrive?” Mary asked.
“I Second that!” Ember shouted. “A shower sounds amazing!”