Zalia stood quietly as the new dome built over the top of the two unconscious undead before the door to the armoury. She was feeling pretty exhausted and knew she should probably sleep before even attempting to get past the Silver ranked guards further down. Not only were they a much higher rank they were also awake.
As the dome finished, Zalia stepped inside and prepared much the same as she had last time creating traps and performing quick rituals. As the undead woke, the battle began once more.
Much the same as last time, the two guards split and focused on one target each. The fight went well up until the guard Zalia was fighting sidestepped her strike and shoulder rushed her, throwing her backwards through the dome wall into a roll. She nimbly rolled to her feet using the momentum of the fall and moved forwards but she was too late as the guard broke through the wall and rushed her.
Frantically, Zalia started building a wall in the doorway towards the rest of the keep with her ritual, knowing that a whole horde of undead lay just metres away in the kitchen. As she did that, she jumped inside the reach of the undead in front of her, grappling with it. They wrestled back and forth, Zalia managing to slam the undead against the wall with a clatter, its sword dropping to the ground with a loud clang. Quickly acting as she stunned it momentarily, Zalia literally threw the creature back into the dome, beginning to repair it straight away as she strode back through the wall.
She summoned her sword and made quick work of the disarmed undead, disarming it for real before she took off its head. Boreal had already killed her own, now calmly cleaning herself as she waited for Zalia to finish.
"Could have helped me," Zalia whispered.
"Warm one strong," Boreal said.
"Yeah yeah, still could have helped," Zalia replied.
At that moment they heard the clattering of boots coming down stairs, just one set from what Zalia could tell. It could only be one thing, the Silver ranked that waited at the door upstairs.
A moment of indecision passed through her as she debated holding her ground, hiding or running. Both her and Boreal were able to take down a Bronze ranked with relative ease due to their reduced strength so together they might be able to take down a Silver. That was assuming these were reduced in strength as well, something she didn't know whether it was true or not considering they seemed to play by different rules. These guards were awake unlike most other undead in the city before she arrived.
Her moment of hesitation cost her the luxury of decision as the Silver rank undead came around the corner in a flash. She had already let go of the magic holding together the dome and wall, though she still had the protections on herself and Boreal. Acting quickly, Zalia applied Hunter's mark to the undead and began trying to cast her ritual rebuffs on it. Unfortunately, the undead was fast enough to step out and away, dodging everything she threw at it.
She added her arrows to the mix as the undead avoided the ritual circles she was mentally commanding into existence between them. She used ice creation to block off the hallway and Boreal began charging her pounce, the shard protruding from her back glowing a soft blue. Boreal pounced at the creature, appearing from a shadow behind it and landing with a crash. The undead didn't even miss a step as it ripped its feet free of the ice and slammed Boreal with its sword, throwing her across the room.
Zalia let out a choked cry in alarm but Boreal was safe due to her Bronze ranked pounce ability. Zalia managed to activate the spreading ice curse ritual in its moment of stillness to strike Boreal so she decided to go on the offensive to protect her friend. She rushed through the wall and engaged the undead in armed combat, finding herself thoroughly outmatched immediately.
Within seconds, she received a cut down her right side from shoulder to hip. As she stumbled from the blow, her healing activated but it didn't stop the blade that impaled her through the chest. She let out a gasp of pain as the Bathar pulled the blade out and struck at her neck.
The blade hit but in the last moment, a green glow emanated from within her, shrouding her in a skintight shield of magic. She could feel the healing energy from her anti-death ability, the shell normally created by Protection of the Wilds covering her. It was enhanced by the wind element granted by Zephyr, pushing the undead back.
"I would have died," Zalia thought.
Pushing her thoughts aside and focusing on the moment, she made the best use she could of the temporary invulnerability she received from the ability.
She stopped worrying about blocking and blows and went completely on the offensive, landing not a small number of strikes as she brutally assaulted her enemy. Despite the relentless nature of her attack, the undead managed to bring back the momentum of the fight slowly as her invulnerability ticked down.
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Searching desperately for an advantage, anything she could do to win the fight, Zalia thought about the nature of the corruption that caused these undead to exist. She thought about the effect her healing had on the corrupted soldiers previously and the way it fought with the aura in the very atmosphere around her. With a desperate thought she pushed her healing aura into the undead and it stumbled as if hit by a tangible force.
It slowed, no longer able to outfight her as she regained the upper hand and got in hit after hit. Gritting her teeth, she slammed the blade out of its hand and began methodically dismembering it as it tried to protect its head and body. With lethal efficiency, she finally destroyed the Silver ranked undead Bathar with a brutal strike to its head, cutting all the way through into its body.
The body slid backwards off her blade, falling to the ground with a clank. Zalia ran over and picked up Boreal, scooping Delphi off the wall where he waited and sprinted up the stairs as the remains of her magical constructs turned to dust behind.
She took the stairs two at a time on silent feet until she reached the top of the tower above. She gently closed the door behind her and sunk to the floor with her back against it. She gently lay Boreal on the floor and pushed her healing into her. She brought out a little bit of Frozen Heart and fed it to the still breathing feline. She had been protected from the initial strike but had hit the wall pretty hard. She wouldn't be in any mortal danger but it seemed like Boreal had a few cracked ribs, maybe some broken.
"Death comes."
Ro-ak had said so and she had thought it forewarning of the monster she had seen flying across the land. Maybe it had been but she had a feeling that this was what he had meant. Death had come for her but she had denied it.
She felt dizzy, the ghost of the blade impaled through her chest sitting cold in her heart. She put her hand to the skin, now fresh and healed due to the nature of the counter-execute healing her Protection of the Wilds ability provided. Her whole body shivered as a tear made its way out from her eye. She sat there petting Boreal for a while until her friend woke up from her unconscious state.
"Mreow," Boreal complained.
"You're lucky to be alive," Zalia told her, "we both are…"
“That memory is not one I would wish to repeat,” Delphi added.
Zalia gently pulled Boreal close into a tight hug, making sure to be careful of her still healing ribs.
“You gave me a little bit of a scare there, little one,” Zalia whispered.
⪼ ⪢ ℋ 𝒶𝓃𝒹 ℋ ⪡ ⪻
They were still sat on the floor by the door some thirty minutes later. Their combined healing abilities had well taken care of their physical injuries but the mental strain of the day's events weighed heavily on them. They were lucky that the sound made by their conflict had not awoken the many undead unconscious in the kitchen area.
Despite the mental exhaustion and the knowledge that they would both be dead if not for their recently acquired abilities that prevented such, Zalia felt hope. Through the pain there was light in the information she now had, the knowledge that her healing could stop the undead. Just the use of Healing presence alone had been enough to allow her to take down a Silver ranked undead. The ability that had been one of her most powerful from the start, as all her Druid abilities were, could be used as a weapon against her enemies here.
She would also now be able to explore the section of keep that was blocked by at least one of the Silver ranked guards on the second floor. She didn't know what was in there but was looking forward to finding out. The last sections of the keep were the only places she realistically thought she would be able to find anything of use on this island. If she didn't manage to then she would need to begin exploring other islands around for anything she could use to make her way out of here.
The only other option she really had was staying in Cormaine for such a long time as to rank up and hope she got an ability that would allow her to return home. She didn't think anything of the sort would be possible until much higher ranks, Emerald or Diamond even. Possibly so far as the mysterious further ranks above.
Still, she didn't resign herself to that future just yet. There was still hope within her, a belief that she could find some way out of Cormaine if she only tried. She had the ritual that Juniper used that sent them both here in the first place, after all.
Finding herself nodding off to sleep, Zalia morphed the stone into a small cot for herself and Boreal. It wasn't comfortable per se but she was used to sleeping in trees and on the ground so she wasn't bothered. She quickly drifted off to sleep and found herself in a dream.
She was floating through the sky of Cormaine amongst the countless shades doing the same. Below, an endless dune of red sand swept across the horizon broken only by the sight of dozens of stony islands held aloft by pillars reaching to the ceiling above. It was undoubtedly the same world Zalia now slept in within the waking world but it was not the same place. She didn't recognise the islands below though they weren’t the biggest discrepancy. Floating between the islands on the air alone was a monolithic structure made of a pitch black stone.
It was shaped like a huge three dimensional deltoid, like a kite, only with the top flattened. Flying around the large structure were many of the creatures that now apparently haunted her dreams, the four legged monstrosity flying on bat wings lit with a dark flame. Amongst them were many other horrific creatures she didn't dare describe, turning her gaze away lest the vision of them be burned into her mind forevermore.
“Find the prison”
The voice spoke within her dream, the entire vision distorting as if it were painted upon a vibrating mirror.
She awoke with a gasp for the second night in a row, managing to avoid throwing Boreal across the room this time. Her thoughts turned as the voice echoed within her mind.
Find the prison