Ivan made it. Barely.
He raced that damn Owl-knight through its dive and leaped into the air, weapon ready, chest nearly bursting from the stamina boosting potion he had taken. Dagger Parry wasn't very practical for parrying the knight's halberd, but the new martial skill held up, and unlike if he used Shield Counter or other typical weapon counters he took no damage from the crazed power dive the knight had made.
Ivan's stamina tanked, his vision dropping to a tunnel as Quixla's dagger turned the diving Owl Knight's halberd high into the air about three and half meters before it would have skewed Andy. On reflex Ivan spun with his momentum in the air, and used Riposte. His body writhed like a snake, and he planted Quixla's heavy dagger into the Owl-Knights eye before they both crashed into the back of the boss and passed them onto the side of the field.
Ivan rolled, somewhere in the ordeal thanking whichever of his allies had insisted he wear some kind of helmet. He lost it in the roll this time, but the bump that took it probably would have claimed a good part of his brain instead of the helm if he hadn't been wearing it. On the upside though he held onto his sword this time, and didn't seem to have stabbed himself with it, and thereby inflicted himself with the deadly poison on it. So that was good.
In a blur he saw movement, and threw himself out of the way, the knight's bronze halberd crashing into the stones and exploding them into dust where he had been laying. The Knight screamed at him, flaring its wings as Ivan fell mostly onto his back, head spinning too much to stay on his feet let alone gain them. His head hit the ground and for another moment he lost everything.
The next thing he saw was the Knight above him, one eye gone, and its ugly hawkish howl face screaming and covered in blood. He drew on Quixla's dagger again, soaking in the blood and power, feeling it reach up his arm and spread through his blood to heal him. The halberd was coming down and there was no way to deflect it, but he was in the shadow of the thing, the moon, high above, right behind its damn head.
He smiled at it, and vanished, while being pretty sure he heard someone screaming as he did.
Ivan's perception of time slipped as he went into the Shroud entirely for the first time since Samiel had gifted it to him. Ivan's arm where Quixla's gift and mysterious tattoo-like ritual mark lay ached and pulsed on his arm.
He looked about, seeing the Parish garden, dark and gloomy as lit by Azalea's lantern poles. Their cool light was soothing against the pulsing in his arm and the seething hunger that was growing somewhere deep in his mind. He stepped inside, and stood beside Tanya's grave, all the dungeon loot spread around here and there in the dark and somehow lonely grass.
The grass wasn't as bright as it should have been. And it was too trodden. Flat. He would have to fix that. The garden was fine as a resting place, but he needed more. He needed something like the armory that had been in the Parish. A little enough room, but one packed with shelves and organized tools and-
Ivan looked up, suddenly made aware of a door that might have cut into the armory once from the garden. He eyed it suspiciously, and just about walked over to it when he remembered the aches in his body, and the wobbling uncertainty that had filled his mind outside.
He blinked, and drew on Quixla's dagger a little more. The stolen vitality rushed into him, restoring him, and at the same time Azalea's lanterns flared and spat, and hissed at the air as the room suddenly turned red as blood.
Ivan nodded, remembering and understanding what Penelope had warned him about. Using the power would corrupt him, but his friends were out there. They needed him. They needed him now, and they needed him to be as strong as he could be. So he pulled on the dagger, his link to Quixla and the energy stored inside the ritual weapon until he was whole again.
The lanterns were flaring violently, but that was okay. Azalea would return, and when this was done he would sit in the cool and cleansing light of her lanterns. Even if it hurt.
“There's the resolve I want to see. You're doing well Ivan. Very well.” Said a voice from the shadows.
Ivan knew it even if he hadn't heard it in a while. It didn’t exactly make him jump, but he hadn’t been aware of the fallen angel until he spoke.
“Thank you Samiel.” Ivan said, and bowed.
“Forgive me, but I need to get back.” Ivan said at once, bowing again to shadows in the direction of the main parish hall.
There was a window there that didn't match what had once been. It looked like a cottage window oddly enough.
“Of course. Back to battle now.” Samiel said, his voice filled with mellifluous laughter.
Ivan slipped out of the Knight's Shadow as Myrn was trying to keep it from flanking and overwhelming Andy. There was no way Andy could hold up to the Boss and a Knight hammering him. The rude alchemy of hedge doctoring didn't provide buffs that strong and at the end of the day these giant birds were strong as hell.
Myrn was screaming at the thing, arrows, and longbow darts flying from vines spread all over the ground as she dodged loose slave warriors that Davian kept from her by the skin of his teeth. Marvin was putting down the last Watchman as Ivan appeared from the shadow of the Knight.
Myrn's eyes went wide seeing Ivan the moment he appeared, and he winked at her. The slow motion seconds of combat clarity gave way to sudden chaos again as Ivan acted.
Ivan turned and lifted his left hand toward the towering Owl-Knight, dropping his longsword to the ground, and taking up Quixla's Fang in his right in a singular smooth motion. Before the longsword clattering to the ground, webbing dripping with blood and vampiric energy exploded from Ivan's hand, ripping through the leather of his glove to show the mark upon his hand. Ivan cast the Blood Reaper Webbing forth and the stuff struck with a malicious will, binding around the Knight's arms and face, and wings.
Myrn's vines and roots grabbed its ankles and legs, and with a hiss of pure satisfaction Ivan wrenched the damned Knight's head back with all his strength. He was somehow able to control which strands of the Blood Reaper Webbing to pull, and he used it to bend the thing into an arch. Ivan snarled at the thing as the webbing clung to the thing's skin, burning and peeling through feathers and armor to get to the conjured dungeon flesh and meat below.
Ivan dragged the thing back all the way to his left hand, bending it totally backward was the strands on its wings pulled it tight to the ground, and with a single efficient movement Ivan slammed Quixla's Fang into the thing's heart. It took only moments, and Ivan felt the thing die, felt all of its vitality get violently sucked into the Fang's murky depths.
“Plunder.” Ivan muttered, and bent to pick up his sword.
He stood and watched Andy, backed up by Marvin now, as well as Penelope's ranged attacks. Ivan saw Penelope's logic. She might not have seen if Ivan was injured or not, and if she managed to kill the boss, even if Andy and Marvin were down, the fight would be over. That or she had expected Ivan to deal with the knight as he had or in better or worse fashion to berate or praise him about later. He nodded at that, feeling cold and remote inside as he stepped forward, taking a moment to sheath his longsword in the shadows of the Shroud before extending his left hand down to the living conjuration of webbing.
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The Blood Reaper Webbing returned to him and he juggled Quixla's Fang between his left and right for a moment before deciding to keep it in his right for now.
Andy and Marvin were working in unison to counter the thing’s every martial skill, and seeing it now Ivan realized it likely had some passive skill that made its cost less and reduced its cool downs the more hurt it was. That was an incredibly useful skill. It would also blow its horn again soon.
Ivan circled, patiently, watching the fight, as Penelope slammed home a casual Shadow Bolt now and then. Myrn began binding its legs, yet the boss was strong enough just to break free of them. Still that allowed Marvin a chance or two to strike, and Myrn's arrows now decorate the things wings and back like stubborn ruffled feathers. Ivan waited, the webbing writhing about his hand, as he circled, and when he got on its right flank he shot out his left hand.
The boss fought its arm free of the webbing, ripping and tearing at it, and then went back to fighting Andy and Marvin. Ivan nodded, and flipped Quixla's Fang to his left hand again, now down with the webbing. He drew his Knight's Longsword once more, and muttered a quick chant.
“Inspect Person.”
Inspect Person: Marvin Annatel, Inspection Successful
Overall Condition: Moderate, declining
Status Conditions: Suffering Piercing Force Damage to Skeleton
“Inspect Person.”
Inspect Person: Andy Portvine, Inspection Successful
Overall Condition: Sustaining Damage at a rate counter to recovery effects
Status Conditions: Suffering Piercing Force Damage to Upper Torso, Multiple Bone Fractures in arms.
Ivan nodded, and readied the proper remedies, doing all this in a matter of moments.
“Administer Medicine. Administer Medicine.” Ivan chanted, targeting his new friends with healing tonics.
Ivan looked to Myrn and Davian.
“Inspect Person.”
Inspect Person: Myrn Owlfeather
Overall Condition: Moderate
Status Conditions: Several small light wounds, scrapes, mana and stamina fatigue.
“Administer Medicine.” Ivan cast Mryn with a light regenerative tonic that would boost her recovery, amplifying the effect of the additional stamina tonic Ivan sent with it. She shivered and gave him a startled look as he took her arm and pulled her back from the fighting.
“Inspect Person.”
Inspect Person: Davian Middlefellow
Overall Condition: Poor
Status Conditions: Several Bleeding Wounds to Extremities, Concussion, Stamina Fatigue, Extreme Mana Fatigue, Several Blunt Trauma injuries to torso, minor internal bleeding
“Administer Medicine, Administer Medicine, and get back Dav, or you'll get blasted again and probably pass out.” Ivan said, corralling them all back with a calm they didn't share.
Soon enough the two got it as Ivan joined Penelope more or less at a distant skirmish line right as Marvin ducked behind Andy's shield. Andy braced, and used a Militia skill that used Marvin's strength in combination with his own. Together the wind blast hardly moved them even when the blast was probably intended to send them both flying out of the maze.
Ivan and others just had to brace themselves and shield their eyes. Myrn and Davian panicked, but as the Boss lifted his horn it made no sound. He tried again, but the horn did not blow. Ivan lifted his hand as the Boss opened its mouth for another long breath, and made a violent backwards wrenching motion with his hand. The Blood Reaper Webbing exploded over the things head from inside the horn, and into its mouth and the holes of its beak nose. It struggled in vain for a few moments before it went absolutely mad, abandoning its weapons and clawing at its face.
Ivan dashed forward, eyes flashing to the Ring of Fire for just a moment where Azalea may or may not be fighting for her life inside. The wall of jetting flames was over eight feet high, and the damage they would take even sprinting through the flames would require serious healing. The others took only a moment to follow Ivan in the only course of action they could take without undue risks.
They all fell upon the boss, as it struggled, mostly blind, unable to breath, poisoned, and wounded. They dashed in as the dangerous creature swiped at them in desperation with its claws. The answer was to adopt wolf pack tactics of striking, and dodging away, striking and dodging away until it was weak enough to fall and be taken all the way down. Marvin's blade found its neck once in a lancing thrust, and Andy's halberd too ripped into vulnerable neck tissue. Myrn's arrow found one of its eye sockets, and her longbow pod darts stuck out from the joints of its armor in such a number that it was like some kind of strange feathered decoration.
It fell, slowly, and painfully its hands and knees in its armor with blood pouring from its strangely beaked mouth. Marvin took off one of its arms at the elbow in a spray of gore, and then Ivan struck its neck, burying Quixla's Fang deep into its throat and skull in an upward strike before twisting and ripping the weapon in further upward motions. Quixla's dagger drank eagerly, but the wound wept blood down onto Ivan's leg too full to take any more. The beast fell then, truly dead, and Ivan staggered back from the kill barely able to chant.
“Plunder.” He called, and more mana left him.
He swayed and nearly fell, but Penelope stayed his descent and brought him to a gentle seat on the ground before calling out the Shroud for him, and draping her wings about him besides. She was smiling, smiling widely as she led a tired and ragged form to Ivan's lap. Azalea fell into Ivan's lap like a crumpled laundry heap soon after, smelling smoky, but she was unbroken. Her lantern flame spat and flared, but its fire still burned with its same ghostly strength.
Ivan touched her face, feeling drained and exhausted, and like he needed to sleep for days all while being more awake than he ever had been or wanted to be again. Azalea looked up at him, her eye lights flickering.
“Inspect me.” Azalea demanded, in a somewhat drunk and tired manner.
Ivan raised an eyebrow and smiled at her.
“Inspect Person.” Ivan chanted.
As always his scroll appeared, and rolled out the details at his will.
Inspect Person: Pathfinder Azalea, Limited Job Description
Basic Jobs: Pathfinder Neophyte Level 5, Pathfinder Militant Level 5, Apostle of Fire Level 1
Standard Jobs: Pathfinder Priestess Level 2, Pathfinder Cleric Level 1,
Ivan lifted his eyebrows at Azalea. She started to giggle madly.
Davian staggered over and sat down as the boss literally unwound into dust, ash, and strange sparkling fibers just as all the rest of the mobs Ivan looted did. A huge pile of loot remained there appearing slowly as the boss disappeared, and where Ivan had Plundered the other Knight. There was lots of gold, and what looked like armor pieces, and other 'fun' stuff. None of the transformations took quite as long as the Night Watch Commander’s did, and it was a decent spectacle.
Ivan just couldn't bother to get up yet or look at it. For a moment he was just glad he had survived the fight.
He looked over at the other dead Knight. Penelope had blasted that one, and the other Knight, and its body hadn't disappeared as the boss's body did. Ivan would have to loot that.
Azalea giggled again, a little drunkenly.
“That was fun.” She chuckled.
Davian groaned.
Ivan laughed and patted the demon spirit gently.
“You're okay?” Ivan asked.
Azalea nodded.
“I might try sleeping. I know I cannot, being a spirit, but I might try.” She said, making her joke sheepishly, which only made it all the more charming for Ivan.
He opened his arms and the pathfinder demon clawed into his lap, actually dragging her tall pole mace along to crumple against his chest. Myrn came by during that, kissed his cheek, and then went to check on Marvin and Andy.
Both were laying on their backs, chuckling, and talking about the fight, and how much they hurt and how bad the healing fatigue was going to set in later. Ivan smiled hearing their chatter, but focused on putting his arms and Shroud around Azalea.
Myrn came back to him, kneeling down in front of him, and looking him in the eye once before letting out a breath.
“You can..Ivan..You can teleport somehow? Or disappear?” She asked, her nerves clearly on edge.
“Shroud.” Ivan answered, making the thing flutter about.
“We need to have a talk about that, I think.” Myrn said, but her eyes focused on him, and she touched his face and cheek with one hand.
Ivan leaned into it, and took a deep breath through his nose. He had defeated the boss. Azalea was safe and in his arms. Penelope was close enough for him to get her scent, and Myrn's soft touch on his skin was a reminder of the lovely nights he had spent with her. He let out the breath and smiled at Myrn.
“Sorry I scared you. It takes a lot of mana for me to dip into the Shroud. I learned that lesson a while back, but I can sorta shadow jump with it as you might have seen.” Ivan explained.
Myrn smiled at him and nodded.
“Thank you two, by the way.” Myrn said, talking to both demons.
Azalea partially raised her lantern pole in acknowledgment before she crumpled against Ivan again. The lantern clattered back to the floor thereafter and Azalea sagged against Ivan. Penelope gave a small curtsy toward Myrn, and bent enough to ruffle Ivan's hair. Ivan closed his eyes for a moment, relishing the success as much as some not quite dead part of him wished that he were here with Thomas and Tanya in brighter days.