It wasn’t exactly likely that when the opponent opened in lane, they would take a shot at the humans on the other side, but Nathaniel was still on edge as he watched the man stand there, not using anything at first.

He was even considering in moving closer to Jessica in case he needed to cast his defensive wall by the time the shields of the minions fell significantly enough that they moved.

Instead of casting the bolt he’d expected, the guy pointed the wand at the ground beneath the minions’ feet, followed by the grass visibly caught fire– most likely Ignite.

Immediately following that, he flicked the wand up several times, pointing at each of the low-shield minions in turn.

Nathaniel sighed.

“Salamander Bolt,” he and Jessica said at the same time.

Salamander Bolt was essentially a slightly more powerful version of Fire Bolt with the added condition that it couldn’t be summoned from the air, only from another source of fire. It was part of a series of similarly modified “Bolt” abilities that required a secondary condition to be used.

“Guess you win then,” she said, “It’s flame.”

“Not his first ability. I’m gonna call it a tie. Do you think you can clear the melee wave with another ten percent off the top?”

“Mhmm. You think it’s safe?”

He paused at that. “It’s not likely that it’ll get me killed?”

She laughed at that. “Go ahead then, I’ll follow up.”

Nathaniel nodded, focusing in on the front line of enemy minions. They were down to about twenty percent of their shields left, as evidenced by the changes in color and deformation of the shield when hit. It was possible to buy items that would tell the user that information more specifically, but given that it wasn’t a necessity, most people who didn’t have shield-integrity threshold abilities wouldn’t waste the credits.

Picking a point behind them, he prepared the series of actions in his head, then took a running step forward, activating Blink as he did.

He could hear the electric humming of his passive tearing at the shields of the nearby minions before he even fully appeared or could see. Already running, he used that to take a swing at the backs of all of the mechs with the Riftblade, an upgradeable sword he’d bought as his starter item, along with a few wards and the Viewfinder.

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It didn’t have any of those primary upgrades yet, so aside from it’s cooldown-reducing “loadbearer” capability, it was basically a normal sword, wielded by someone with below-average strength.

Strawmen weren’t that much weaker than mechs, though, so it, combined with the damage from blinking in, was enough to reduce their shields by an additional ten percent.

He could see from his carry’s perspective that she was taking aim, taking them down as both sides’ second waves arrived and the enemy’s focus turned onto him.

A quick glance backwards confirmed that the opposing carry had, in fact, already lit a fire behind him. Instead of trying to dodge both that and the incoming support at the same time, he threw up a wall of nothingness behind him.

Like all the other abilities in this kit, it was essentially a portal into the “Void”, Arrows’ conceit for teleportation abilities that didn’t move through space.

Unfortunately, while Void Wall was powerful it was also limited in scope. It reserved a significant amount of his concentration, and was also completely stationary.

And the enemy support was already charging him, physical shield up and supplementing the more ethereal primary shields.

Probably Shield Charge, but it could just be running fairly quickly if she was on the higher end of tank supports’ agility. To test it, he took a small step to the left, then back, watching her angle.

It changed slightly, both times.

While he was figuring that out, however, the carry hadn’t been idle. Unable to hit him from behind, the flame-caster had instead started a casting of Flame Wall, wrapping around Nathaniel and preventing him from seeing much of anything while also burning away at his shield strength just by being near.

His passive was mitigating that somewhat, so close to an active void ability, but it wasn’t doing so entirely and the man both could cast and was casting Salamander Bolt, even if blindly.

Luckily, Nathaniel wasn’t entirely blind. He’d have to thank Jessica at some point, because while she was still methodically taking down the remainder of the minions, she was also very specifically looking at the approaching support and the carry’s arm.

The time gain from seeing the arm move was enough for him to manually get out of the way of most attacks, and the visual on the support gave him a very clear idea on when they would be entering the small arena with him.

He waited until the last minute to Blink again, this time only a short distance to the side.

Shield Bash’s limited turn angle struck with a vengeance, carrying the enemy support directly into the Void Wall.

The ability couldn’t be cast offensively very well, given its stationary placement, long cooldown, poor damage scaling, and primarily defensive purpose most of the time.

But if someone ran into it, like now, void abilities could do base damage like few others- The support’s shield bubble nearly popped in an instant and she cancelled their shield bash to turn and face him.

A blue bolt hit Nathaniel’s shields from the front and ate a third of them, while the step towards the Flame Wall and away from the Void one turned up the degeneration of his shields.

Luckily, Blink’s cooldown was relative to distance travelled, and he had a very clear view outside.

Nathaniel teleported out immediately after Jessica shot the last of the enemy’s first-wave minions, dropping Void Wall as he did so.

“See? Not dead.”