Nerien – Level 9 Chosen
Haroshi – Level 10 Chosen
They led their group forward into the spirefiends, but by the way that each of them was looking around, I could tell that they were suspicious. Nerien would have thought speech, and doubtless the two were speaking to one another, but soon she raised her voice to address the whole party.
“Clear these beasts!” she cried in a stern, commanding voice. “Either the enemy chosen has somehow skipped to the boss, has run, or this is a trap—it’s too convenient. Everyone keep your eyes open!”
As she spoke, she and the group behind her began to attack the spirefiends. The combat was efficient, just as we’d seen while watching them from the cave. I did nothing as they killed a few, noting that a psychic had been assigned to the task of loosing a Fragmented Unnatural Terror on the patriarchs whenever they were about to use their area-effect fire breath. They were careful in their style, Nerien and Haroshi both tanking and also healing themselves with the attack-based spellcasting typical of hybrids—which meant that Nerien was psychic / pilgrim.
Then, as one, all of the remaining four spirefiends lifted off and retreated back up the road.
“It’s the voice,” Nerien called out. “The boss. He’s recalled them—likely for help with the other chosen. Onward!”
The group moved forward, passing over the rough-packed snow of my rune traps….
And then I heard the sizzling, crackling sound of Axxonni’s mount, and a moment later he appeared, fog whirling behind him as he made a pass at the enemy, loosings not two, but five of the red bolts that I’d seen before, striking and stunning several enemies, including Haroshi—Nerien dodged, possibly using a Moment of Mastery.
“Stay calm!” she cried. “This is it—keep your eyes peeled for an ambush. I want that horse brought down!”
“It was immune to my fear!” someone cried.
“Damage it, then!” Nerien barked back. “Here we go!”
No kidding, I thought.
A line of wyverns had appeared in the fog, each swooping toward the party from the direction of the steps. But before the two forces met, Axxonni appeared, overtaking the wyverns on his superfast mount, throwing out five more bolts of red, then using the very same AoE blinding ability that he had before.
I’d raised my arm to block the blinding light, but this was as futile as I’d expected it would be—I took four seconds of blind much like I had before. But it didn’t matter: I was casting Intuitive Devour Magic into the rear half of the group anyway, aiming blind but hopefully still able to get some buffs while they were distracted.
As with all spells that added, healed, or used HP, Devour Magic illustrated perfectly why the chosen were so overpowered—it ate spell levels, 2 base + 1 per level, though this was affected by my massive Power boost to give me 48 spell levels worth of devouring. Against level 9s, it was eating four buffs in an aoe—and giving me 300 more hit points.
My Mana Shield was at 1000 before the blind had worn off… on me. On the rest of their group, who had no Empyreal Aegis and far less Divine Resistance than I, the blind kept lasting as I ate more and more of their buffs in two-second increments—longer than the 2.4 seconds that my aegis reduced, and then another two seconds for Nerien, more for Haroshi, and yet more for the rest of the party.
It wasn’t good for them. The wyverns weren’t landing to attack—they were grabbing people in their talons and then turning to fly off the mountain. There were two extra spirefiends than what had retreated, and by the time the massive blind had worn off on the party, six of them were being carried off.
My Mana Shield stopped gaining points of absorption at 4280—ten times its base value. I knew, sadly, that it wouldn’t be regenerating these at a rate of 428 per second, instead waiting until it was below 428 to start again, but it hardly mattered to me. I had a total of over 5000 Hit Points—as long as it didn’t get dispelled.
“Get those wyverns!” Nerien was shouting before the blind had worn off on most players. “Bring our people down.”
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As the group regained their ability to use single-target abilities, they executed her command with a startling degree of skill—warriors leapt to use their impales, psychics cast their crowd-controls, and I saw a Hardlight Tether go out. Only one player, grabbed by the furthest spirefiend, was carried out over the side of the mountain—but this meant that the remaining spirefiends landed to attack the group from the back while Axxonni came in for another pass.
Only now he didn’t cast his stunning bolt spell—he simply swooped in and smashed his way through the group, his horse taking some attacks and losing 15% of its Hit Points as half of the enemy party took damage and knockdowns. A moment later, one of the patriarchs at the other side of the party breathed its poisonous fire, engulfing more than half of them, the spell extending past my rune trap.
Don’t trigger them yet! Cuby said.
—And so I held off, not triggering my runes while the players that my spells would hit were knocked down and burning with a heal debuff right in the killzone. I was already casting an Intuitive Supercharged Invert Hostility, aiming for the closest player to my position to give as few people as possible a chance to notice the spell’s projectile.
And as I did this, one of Cuby’s concussive grenades fell through the air to land on the safe side of our trap, knocking three more players into the killzone.
Not yet! She said, and I realized she’d used Flurry, and maybe even her Technique Augment—though whether that worked on grenades, I couldn’t say. I loosed my Invert Hostility, taking what appeared to be a dwarf warrior—and they immediately let out an interrupting shout, halting their entire party for a second or so.
I started casting a Intuitive Supercharged Destructive Wave—over 5 seconds, but I had the warrior for 10.
A second grenade fell, knocking more into the radius of the cone. It was followed almost immediately by a third.
Now!
And I loosed both Supercharged Destructive Wave Rune Traps on what was more than half their party.
As a spell, Destructive Wave left a lot to be desired in terms of damage. At 4 seconds cast time, it did a little less than Magic Arrow, and hence around 40% of what an Implosive Missile did.
Hence, what it left to be desired in terms of damage, I made up for by being overleveled and stacked with Power. The first two waves dropped almost ten members of their party, deprived of buffs like Mana Shield and Elemental Aegis without their notice, dead.
And I heard a sound: a scream of horror torn from the mouth of Nerien, their commander.
A moment later, I invested my inverted warrior with a third Supercharged Destructive Wave—and they dropped four more players by leaping to a good position and loosing the spell on the wounded. Almost everyone who had been struck by the trap had fallen.
What was more:
Congratulations, you are now a level 12 Hierarch/Psychic!
You have a new Spell Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Spell.
You have a new Spell Slot. Open your Abilities pane to choose a new Spell.
Your Hit Points have increased by 85 and your Energy has increased by 120.
Human Adaptability increases each of your Strength, Agility, Focus, and Spirit by 2. You gain 2 stat points to distribute.
And as I started casting an Intuitive Invert Hostility, not wanting to wait to supercharge it, I quickly opened my character pane and spent my stat points. Then I invested it in the warrior, and he turned and threw it at a priest as I began casting another. The priest cast a miracle on the warrior—who turned and struck an ally for massive damage.
“He’s here!” Nerien cried. “Heal up, quickly! And find that mage!”
It worked! Cuby cried. Now get out of there!
Are you sure? I asked. I still had more than 5000 Hit Points.
Cuby must have thought of what I had, because she simply said: be careful, then. And give me a tether.
I obliged in between castings of Invert Hostilities, enjoying the sight before me—the enemy was in utter chaos. Even as Nerien cried out for them to find me, and even as some of them confusedly attacked their own inverted allies, Axxonni came in for another pass, loosing five more reddish bolts and bowling through them, killing another player while his horse took almost no damage—the players were busy with the wyverns.
Then my rock disappeared.
It must have been a dispel effect, maybe even a Devour Magic—and it ate the lowest-level effect, Cuby’s illusion, rather than any of my juicier buffs. One moment I was perched on the mountainside, enjoying the destruction of my enemies, and the next—well, the same thing, but now they could fight back.
“There!” Nerien cried out, her voice shaking with fury. “There is the mage! Everyone—everyone! Kill Alatar!”
And she leapt through the air toward me, a flaming two-handed sword raised about her head, as twenty sets of eyes turned toward me.
I knew what they were thinking, or should have been:
It was boss fight time.