Simon’s Soldier of Fortune

Simon pulled the butt of his halberd up, and brought it crashing down into Novos’ temple. Novos reeled backwards, barely dodging the blow, as it struck him across the nose but dealt no real damage. Simon followed up with a kick square to Novos’ chest, which he could neither block nor dodge, and sent him flying back a few feet.

Novos casts Wave Cutter

Novos recovered his balance, and crossed his arms over his chest. Ignoring the spacing, as he did not need to, he recklessly swung both of his swords at once. A vast arc of red light spread outwards from his blades, cleaving through the air directly towards the four heroes.

Simon casts Abyss Breaker

An advanced spell executed at superhuman speed. The user performs a combination front-flip and overhead attack, covering a great distance.

Mina casts Wall of Wood

Simon flipped over the wave of light, thinking to himself how much lighter his body felt compared to the recent battle underwater. The wave of light slashed through the wall behind him, stopped by the sturdiness of the wood before any damage could be dealt to those who sheltered behind it. In midair, Simon spun his halberd around, and struck Novos in the head with the back of the polearm’s axe blade. Novos’ head cracked under the force of the attack, but he was alive. Novos nearly collapsed onto the ground, but steeled himself and remained on his feet.

“You bleedin’ mother fucker!” Novos shouted, as he clutched the welt forming on the side of his head from which blood began to pour. “I’m gonna skin you alive!”

“You’re all getting ahead of yourselves,” Dianna cooed smugly, staring directly at Remus. “I wouldn’t be so confident in this spell of yours.”

Dianna casts Point Dispel

An advanced spell that unwinds magical spells at a fundamental level, causing them to fall apart. From the family of antimagic, this spell’s primary function is to end ongoing magical effects. Like all antimagic, it is useless against encrypted magic.

With an anticlimactic flash, the fisheye distortion burst, and the world was once again as it should be. Dianna began to casually stride towards the crystal, her face graced by a smug smile.

“Come on!” Novos shouted at Remus.

“Do not worry,” Remus assured him, “this is a mild inconvenience in the face of a grander plan.”

Lawrence casts Seashell Shielder

To aid her efforts, and to ensure her search goes uninterrupted, Lawrence summoned the mollusk guardian to Dianna’s side. Assured of his side’s victory, and armed with another shielder in the event of an attack being thrown his way, Lawrence mimed kicking his feet up and lounging in a chair, imagining a cocktail in his hand and toasting Novos and Remus, much to Novos’ frustration.

Mina casts Sleep Spores

An advanced spell that mimics the biology of mushrooms of the Soporifia family, whose spores are known to cause drowsiness. Releases a puff of spores in a cone directly forward, or showers an area with spores. The effectiveness of the spell is the same regardless of what form of targeting is used.

Yellowish-brown spores descended upon Novos and Remus, and Simon stepped backwards to avoid being caught in the area.

Vitality Check: 16

Novos and Remus pass.

Novos and Remus staggered in place, as they felt sleep beginning to take hold, but Remus shocked herself to consciousness with a spell, and Novos dug his finger into the welt on his head, and the two of them remained conscious.

Remus casts Void of Negation

A supreme spell, and one of the three pinnacles of the antimagic family. Creates a sphere of antimagic that automatically siphons magical energy from the surroundings. As a result, spells are absorbed by the void the moment they are cast, and lingering spells are gradually consumed. Additionally, the spell gradually drains magical energy from individuals, taking from their reserve of daily spellcastings.

A perfect black sphere appeared in the air above Novos and Simon, and immediately a blue aura around Simon and a red aura around Novos appeared. Like a flickering flame, these auras sputtered, and trailed upwards like smoke towards the black hole. Behind Simon, the other three were unaffected, safely outside of the sphere’s range.

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“How the FUCK does that help?!” Novos shouted, his Mana Body Talent being depleted before his spellcastings.

“Trust the process, dear,” Remus replied. Novos felt chills, and did not know why.

Novos shook off the sensation of the magic being drained from his body, and the ringing that persisted in his head from the wound Simon had left him. He gritted his teeth in anger.

Novos casts Annihilating Edge

“Not that one, and not right now,” Remus quickly chided Novos. “Try something a little more… mundane.”

Novos clenched his jaw so hard that he nearly popped a blood vessel.

“And why the FUCK would that be?” he belted through gritted teeth.

“Trust the process.”

Novos inhaled sharply, and exhaled. As much as he hated to admit, Remus was frequently right once she’d devised a plan.

Novos slashed at Simon with both of his swords simultaneously. He blocked Novos’ right sword with his halberd, while absorbing the impact of the other by blocking it with his armored back. The blow hurt, but not nearly as much as if it were to have connected fully. Simon grunted in pain, but shook it off.

Dianna finished her jog over to the crystal, and began to inspect it. She could find nothing either within the crystal or near the floor. It didn’t help that she didn’t know what she was looking for- a sword, an amulet, a ring- Deruthmoryx above she hoped it wasn’t a tiny ring in this massive room. She made her way around to the other side of the crystal, and stopped dead in her tracks.

“...Everyone?”

Simon pushed Novos’ sword away. “Yeah?” He said, alongside the others.

“You all need to see this. Right now.”

“The fuck I do!” Novos shouted as he attempted to decapitate Simon, who stepped out of the way barely in time.

“What is it?” Mina asked.

“Honestly?” Dianna answered, “I have no idea.”

This properly got the attention of not only Simon, Lawrence, and Mina, but Novos and Remus too.

“What do you mean you have no idea?” Remus inquired.

“It’s a… big… glass… something? With metal on it? Looks kind of like a whale? Seriously, just come take a look.”

Simon glanced over at Novos.

“Truce?” he asked.

“Truce.” Novos said disgustedly. “For now.”

The five of them rounded around the crystal, to where Dianna was. The moment the artifact came into view, they were overcome by a wave of shock and awe.

Resting upon a bed of bismuth crystal, the artifact could be best described at first glance as an armored glass whale. Its shape was akin to a whale in many ways: a large, bulbous, rounded body that drew to a sharp, angled nose, with two outstretched flippers on either side of its body that resembled wings, and a long tail that stretched out of the back. The top of the whale was completely flat, and seemed to possess a hatch by which one could enter the body of the whale. The body was composed mostly of glass in its front half, while the tip of the nose, the wings and the tail were composed of a steel armor plating. Looking through the glass of the whale within, there appeared to be a steel bridge that ran down the central length of the of the whale, both into the hidden nose and into the back half. Beneath the glass that surrounded the bridge was a steel body that seemed to make up the belly of the whale, and this belly stretched downwards with such width that the whale was nearly half belly, half bridge.

“...Yeah, okay, I don’t know what this is either,” Lawrence at last said after the six of them stared upon the whale for quite some time.

“So…” Simon turned to Novos, “you sure you don’t wanna split this? What the hell are you gonna do with a whale all by yourself?”

“Am I sure? You’re damn fucking right I’m sure!”

Novos quickly swung out with Grief, and Simon barely blocked in time, his cheek being scraped by the blade.

“You bastard!” Simon shouted.

“Truce is off!” Novos cackled “I want this big fucking thing!”

Novos brandished his swords, and prepared for their battle to continue.

“Novos?” Remus began.

“What is it now?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say the two of us are in an ideal position to continue this battle. The spell I had cast earlier has expired, leaving us with few options left for this battle. I do not doubt your strength, but in a battle of resources the four of them will have us beat.”

Novos’ face scrunched into a frown.

“So what?! We just leave? After all this?! Fuck that!”

“Novos…” Remus walked up to him, and put her hand on his. “Don’t forget… we have the most important piece. Whatever this whale does, they won’t be able to do without our piece.”

Novos was silent for a moment, his anger boiling over. He hated to admit that Remus was probably right, that between that and the wound on his head this was probably not a fight they’d win. But despite that, Novos felt that deep down, he could probably take the four of them on his own.

“...Fine.” He at last spat out. “Let’s go get our piece.” He turned to face the other four. “You fuckers better not follow us.”

“And what if we do?” Lawrence replied smugly.

Novos wound up his arm as though he were about to slash at Lawrence, but Remus grabbed his other arm and pulled him away.

“...We’ll be back for the whale,” Novos shouted indignantly as he and Remus left out through the entrance of the cave.

“...Weird guy.” Lawrence said once they were out of earshot.

“Was it really alright for us to let them go?” Dianna asked Simon.

“Of course. What else were we supposed to do?”

“Kill them,” Dianna answered.

“I’d rather we not, unless we absolutely have to.”

“...But there may come a time,” Dianna began, “where we will. And when that time comes, they may be even stronger than they were this time.”

“And we’ll be that much stronger when they do.”

“And if we’re not?”

“We will be.”

“...I don’t think you live cautiously enough,” Dianna shook her head.

“And I think you live to cautiously,” Simon smiled. Now come on, let’s get inside this thing!