If the only thing ahead of us was PvP, I might’ve sought to kill the psychics—I was still afraid of Invert Hostility, and Fragmented Spell along with Moment of Mastery could throw out a pretty strong crowd-control.
But we were attacking Haroshi’s ability to PvE, also. And stripping them of the main healer class, along with the accompanying blessings, miracles, and basic heals, would serve to make them weaker there, as well. Sure, Haroshi could still cast miracles and blessings and heals—and so could any pilgrims, I guessed—but he could only have four blessings across his fourteen-man-squad, and surely the heals would spread him thin.
Plus, in terms of PvP: fuck these miracles that they kept throwing around. Good lord.
“So you know,” I told Cuby, opening my interface. “The only way I can do this is by replacing my armor spell.”
“Your source of Defense Rating.”
“Yes,” I said, learning Warped Spell in place of my Reactive Armor. I began to cast my Warped Fragmented Supercharged Implosive Missile as Cuby answered me:
“We just said that Defense Rating—oh, nevermind. Just don’t get grabbed out of the air by a warrior with Mighty Leap and that impale thing they keep using.”
“I should still be out of range for that.”
“He’s coming back,” Cuby said, pulling out the spyglass.
For a brief, stupid second I had no idea who she was referring to—and then I realized that the Spire Wyvern Patriarch was obviously male. It was also obviously stronger than the wyvern which I had fought earlier—perhaps because of its higher defenses, it had only lost about a quarter of its Hit Points to the opening volley.
“Valiosh, a dwarf,” Cuby said, still looking through the spyglass. “Closer to us, on the right.”
I finished my spellcast. “Going,” I said, pulling myself up out of the crevice and throwing myself into the air without using my Mighty Leap.
As I glided toward the camp, the patriarch came in for another swoop—only this time the camp didn’t focus on damage, as before. I saw the spear, tied with a cable, launch forth and impale the patriarch, who, moments later, seemed to twitch and thrash in the air as if struck by another psychic crowd-control spell. These two things combined seemed enough to make it land—and from there all of Haroshi’s crew began to focus their fire, bringing down the patriarch with a speed and fervor that might have made Andrea Dworkin proud.
It was at 20% by the time I closed in, but it was determined to have its last gasp: the wyvern roared and swept its wings, throwing many of the players around it backward, then drew a steady sweep with its head, spewing out a cloud of acid-green poisonous gas.
But I had acquired my target, standing at the edge of camp and spamming a damage spell:
Valiosh – Level 8
I cracked my Moment of Mastery, then cast my spell, originating it from 20 meters below me and sending the missile straight into the unaware priest.
It crushed him like a pop can, dealing 685 damage against a target that I realized had probably no resistance to my pure lightning damage whatsoever—not if their mage had just died. I had almost certainly overkilled him by more than 100.
I was stupefied for a moment, shocked at how high the number had gotten compared to what I’d seen in town. I gained as much Hit Points per level from my two classes as a warrior did with their one—and I had 780 HP.
I turned and began to fly back to the cliff—only to see a second, smaller wyvern soar just over my head, apparently ignoring me in favor of the large group of people under the sound of the screaming baby. It had looked as if no-one had spotted me, but I knew this was too optimistic—Haroshi probably knew who had thrown the illusion, and once someone saw the body they’d know exactly what had been done. I landed, scrabbled up a climbable slope, then leapt the rest of the distance between myself and the crag where I knew Cuby hid and scrabbled back inside.
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“Anyone chasing me?” I said, turning to see that they had downed the patriarch and were now dealing with two adult wyverns. I started charging up another combo, casting Moment of Mastery first.
“Not yet,” said Cuby. “But that gas some of them at 60%—and we’ve got more incoming.”
She jerked her head at the horizon. At first I didn’t see it—it was only the motion of the shape, dark against darker mountains, that let me pick it out—it, and a second, smaller wyvern further behind it.
“And look,” she said, pointing toward the other end of the valley, the direction of the dungeon. That wyvern was easier to spot—the glowing red eye gave it away.
“One of the new wyverns dropped one of their people, but I don’t think it killed them—it dropped them early because of a spell. And your next target is called Tyla, a beastfolk of some kind. Close to the middle, sort of hard to spot.”
I finished my casting and moved to climb out of the crevice.
“Wait,” Cuby said, putting her arm on me. “Wait for the next pack—these are almost dead.”
I looked and saw that she was right. The lower-level wyverns had seemingly done some damage, but not much, and their defenses weren’t holding up for even moments. I watched one of them fall to an assortment of attacks, then the next.
A brief pause in the illusory baby-crying left the night air clear, Haroshi’s voice barking orders into the night.
“I’m coming with you,” said Cuby. “I think some concussive grenades might send a few of them tumbling down the rest of the slope.”
“Oh,” I said, looking down at their positioning—Haroshi’s camp was in an uneven patch of slope that was just barely flat enough to fit so many tents on it. It was a good fifty meters of steep, rocky hill if one started to fall.
“The patriarch destroyed some tents when it landed,” she said. “We might be able to break them with the grenades, too—and I don’t know, but that might keep them from recovering experience.”
“Okay,” I said, swapping my grappling gun for a grenade. “Tents, or people?”
“People, for now,” said Cuby. “Let’s go.”
We launched as the two darkened shapes descended on the camp—one patriarch and one adult from what I guessed was a different nest.
If we pull some of them out of the combat, they’ll spend more time fighting—more time for us to take advantage of, she explained as we approached. You shoot, then I’ll throw, then you throw.
Got it.
I found the priest she’d spoken of fairly easily once we were in the air—it was hard to tell, but at this distance they looked like a racoon beastfolk. They were also at 70% HP, and level 8, and so I decided not to use my Moment of Mastery as we swooped in—closer than I’d come last time—and loosed my Warped Fragmented Supercharged Implosive Missile.
It spawned in the air twenty meters below me, shot downward at an angle, then struck the priest, dealing 458 damage and killing them instantly. A moment later I saw Cuby’s grenade explode, throwing two players off of the patch of walkable ground and tumbling down a long stretch of craggy slope.
I took in the camp, trying to figure out where to drop my grenade, and spotted two more players near enough to the edge—one with a bow and one casting spells, then lobbed my payload. I was turning away from them before I got to see if they were throw free of the camp, eager to get out of there, my eyes already on a landing point on the slope ahead.
Dodge! Cuby screamed suddenly, voice panicked inside my mind.
I cracked my Moment of Mastery, time seeming to slow as I dropped out of my glide and twisted in the air, trying to find the incoming attack. As Haroshi’s camp came back into view, I saw them—two characters seemed to hang in the air in my moment of slowed time. One, a shifter: close to a gorilla in form but with visible claws and fangs like a saber-toothed tiger. And the other, a human warrior—I could tell because they had launched a chain-bound spear straight at me.
Oh, I thought. I continued twisting in the air, trusting the Defense Rating bonus from Moment of Mastery—but then the spear came closer, and I saw that it was wreathed in the familiar silver light of a miracle.
Oh, I thought again, realizing that I didn’t have an armor spell on—that my Defense Rating sucked.
Time sped back up. The spear shattered my Mana Shield and impaled me through the side. The warrior and I both fell through the air to the ground below.
I was about to be dragged directly into Haroshi’s camp.
And something told me they would be more interested in focusing me than their current pair of wyverns.