Victoria sat cross-legged on a small ledge, in the shadows of a rocky overhang above. In the shallow canyon before her, a battle raged between her teammates and a furious tyrannosaur -- but her eyes did not linger on the battle. Instead they glazed over with a white-grey mucus, as her outstretched hands cradled swirling clouds and tendrils of blue and purple magic. Within the field of magic above her hands were two floating tarot cards, each depicting a different scene.
The first card was the Hanged-Man, which she targeted on the beast her party was fighting. While channeling her power through this card and onto a target, the Hanged-Man imposed a looming, imminent surrender to the inevitable and represented a futile, unsustainable effort to continue on. It was a card that broke the targets morale and weakened their resolve. It was a hope crushing curse that she disdained to use unless necessary. The second card, the High Priestess, was targeted on Eli. This card bolstered an individual's intuition and subconscious, providing them with heightened instincts, increased reaction time and spiritual connection to self.
From behind her glazed over eyes, Victoria observed the battlefield from an out-of-body perspective high above the battlefield. Each living being within her birds-eye field of view was cloaked in a colorful glowing aura. To an untrained eye these auras held little information, but to Victoria they revealed intimate insight into a being's magical power, life force, and emotions. The tyrannosaur was surrounded by a powerful, deep red storm of aura that represented its immense strength and unbridled rage. Tendrils of dark purple encroached in on it from all sides, tainting the aura with fear and hopelessness imposed by Victoria's Hanged-Man curse.
She watched with panic as Titus conjured a spear of vibrating life force and launched himself with a powerful leap towards the tyrannosaur. Even while roaring in pain from Autumn's devastating axe blow to the neck, the beast whipped around and slapped Titus from the air with a swipe of its tail. The strike sent Titus rocketing into the ground, where he bounced and tumbled in clouds of dust before coming to an abrupt stop against the base of the canyon wall.
His aura was weak and fading. Quickly, she summoned another card. This was the Six of Cups, a card that brought peace and healing to its target. She focused it on Titus, whose aura was now wrapped in tendrils of pale blue magic that came from within him before twisting back around him like a loving embrace. She knew it wouldn't get him back on his feet, but it would keep him alive.
Outside her out-of-body perspective, an observer could have seen her eyes widen as another aura appeared next to Titus. This one so faint it was almost drowned out even by Titus' waning aura, but the mark of an entangled soul was unmistakable. A new adventurer had just entered the battle. The strength of Titus' aura grew slightly and the deep red blots of pain and injury within it faded slightly as the stranger placed something in his mouth just before the new aura disappeared.
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Eli winced as the beast whipped Titus across the canyon with its tail, then again as he watched one of its massive feet crash down on and crush his fallen staff to splinters. He allowed himself only an instant of regret, and then refocused. The griffin swooped down and landed for only a few steps, long enough to tuck its wings and let Eli swing himself onto its back before taking flight again with a whoosh.
He had the griffin bring him close to the beast, orbiting around it in a tight circle. He held himself in the saddle with his legs as he outstretched both arms, pointing his index and middle fingers from both hands at the beast. The runes on his gauntlets lit up once more, and a barrage of small red streaks of magic blasted out from his finger tips on either hand to pepper the beast's scales. The small blasts did little more than annoy and distract it, but that was enough to keep its attention off of the now incapacitated Titus.
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"Hi!" A cheery voice spoke in Eli's ear.
He jolted, almost falling from the saddle before the griffin tilted to keep him upright in response. A hand was on his shoulder and the mouth at his ear continued talking.
"Don't freak out!" she said hurriedly, reaching past him with her free hand to hold out a gnarled wood staff, "try this, it shoots fire."
His hand grasped the staff before he formed a response, and then the girl was gone. Watching as the tyrannosaur barreled towards Autumn with a roar, he had no time to dwell on the stranger. The traditional shape of the staff prevented him from shouldering it like he would his own, so instead he tucked it beneath his armpit and pointed the head of the staff towards the beast before dumping magic into it.
Autumn scurried across the rocky desert floor, slipping and catching herself multiple times as she scrambled away from the charging monster. Her stone battleaxe lay on the ground behind her, tossed aside in the flurry. The canyon briefly illuminated in an orange, fiery light as a heavy shockwave knocked her to the side and a wave of heat washed over her. She glanced up to see Eli encircling the tyrannosaur on his mount, a thick trail of smoke ripping off his staff in the wind.
She climbed back to her feet as the tyrannosaur staggered to keep its footing, its head hung low and now marred by scorched black scales along one side. It seemed dizzy from the impact of the blast but quickly recovered its balance and settled its angry gaze on Autumn.
"Hi, I'm Iris," a girl said, suddenly standing beside her.
Autumn yelped in surprise and stumbled back.
"Don't freak out, why does everyone keep freaking out?" the stranger said.
"Who the fu--"
"There's no time, you got another big attack in you? I'll make it vulnerable."
Autumn blinked and looked around for the stranger who she had just been staring at.
The tyrannosaur lost interest in Autumn, instead gnashing its teeth and shaking its head as if annoyed by gnats around its face. Another fireball from Eli's staff slammed into its hind quarters, an echoing crack of bone filled the canyon followed by a pitiful, desperate roar. In the light from the fireball and its lingering flames she saw the strange girl from before rapidly disappearing and reappearing at different points on the beast's head, which reared back either from pain from the fireball or annoyance at the stranger's antics.
Autumn smiled and held out a hand. A shard of rock erupted from the ground, placing a handle shaped formation in her hand. Magma poured down its length even as she clinched her fist and pulled the conjured greatsword from the ground. She brought it to bear in both hands, leveling the magma-dripping tip towards her target.
A surge of power filled her body, the familiar sensation of Victoria stacking multiple buff cards on her aura, and her smile widened. Eli erupted another fireball on the side of the beast's gut which sent it into a stumble, and then she charged.
With a superhuman leap faster and higher than even Titus could manage, she hurled herself towards the beast's exposed throat as it gnashed about and roared towards the sky. Her momentum suddenly slowed as the blade impacted the thick scales, but the glowing hot tip of the sword still pierced and burned its way through. She buried the full length of the greatsword into the beast's neck, clinging to the handle and bracing her feet against the beast to hold her place as she put her full upper body strength into twisting the sword in its wound.
The roars of agony gave way to gurgled gasps and groans as the tyrannosaur swayed, stumbled, and finally collapsed. Its massive body slammed into the ground like a landslide, sending an echoing boom through the suddenly quiet desert.