Kirabell couldn’t help but grin as she tucked her wings back, using them to guide her descent. Wind rushed through her hair as she let gravity take her. She could never get sick of that feeling. She flexed the virtual spellwork that ran through her body, and it twitched like a muscle tethered to her mana, sending her wings into motion. She leveled off and darted towards the party, who were still clinging to life in the chaos.
A mixture of surprise and confusion met her from the ground as she passed by overhead. She snapped open a caster and tossed out a couple of Pulse spells that she always kept ready in her quick-cast queue. The spell delivered almost no real damage, but it carried enough force to shove the beasts away from her landing zone. She didn’t want them pouncing on her the moment she touched down. That would be embarrassing.
Kira darted back up in a spiral that sent the canyon spinning around her. She tensed the imaginary muscle in her shoulders and released a wave of energy into her skin that erupted from her wings in a burst of shining energy, like a sprinkler watering a dying lawn. The sparkling dust fell like rain across the lucky party. The act cost twenty percent of her mana, but because she couldn’t open her spell-craft menu while airborne, it was the only way to get their health out of the red fast enough. She cut off the flow of mana, and her wings winked out of existence with a sound like wind chimes in the breeze. She dropped. “Make a hole!”
Eyes widened as the players all dove to the side to give her some space.
Kira twitched her spellwork one last time, flicking a single point of mana into the magical constructs that grew from her back. Her wings only blinked for a fraction of a second, but it was more than enough to stop her fall. She came to a graceful stop as if she’d weighed nothing at all, which was close to accurate since, as a fairy, Kira was not only small but also weighed about half as much as a normal person her size.
The instant her bare feet made contact with the ground, she swiped open her spell-craft menu and set up her strongest area effect heal. She combined it with a heavy protection bonus, sending a cloud of energy through the group that brought each of them back up to full health and boosted their defense stats. It was a powerful mix of spells that she almost never used together, not because it was hard to set up on the fly, but more because it was as bad as panic-casting in terms of how much attention it drew. But that wasn't the problem right now. One thing at a time.
A few cavefangs chittered and squawked as they prowled closer. Kira responded by emptying the three remaining pulse spells from her quick-cast queue to buy a few more seconds. Of course, it would have been nice if the party surrounding her had helped out a bit, but they were too busy staring at her with their dumb mouths hanging open. They acted as if she was their savior. Like she was some kind of high-level badass that had already rescued them simply by showing up. Kira glanced at the fifty hit points inked across the underside of her wrist and swallowed. They didn’t know how wrong they were. She took in a breath and tried to live up to their expectations. Of course, she started by stumbling her first step. It was always hard to adjust back to using her feet after flying. She shifted what little weight she had and clutched at the small bone charm that hung from her item bag. A sigh escaped her, putting an end to the illusion that she knew what she was doing. Sure, if she had Max to lean on, things would have been different. But alone, well, there was a reason why not many players chose to play as the fairy race, though that didn't matter right now. The first wave of cavefangs was already closing back in, outnumbering the group three to one.
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Kira gave up on trying to impress, settling for limping along until Max could get his ass down to her. "I didn't fly down here just to get killed. You’re gonna have to do some fighting here, people!" She held out her hands to draw attention to the fact that she wasn’t even carrying a weapon, not that she could anyways with her body being too weak to even lift one, let alone wield something. But that didn’t mean she was out of options.
She raised both arms, revealing not one but two casters. They snapped open in unison, a tranquil white glow coming from both that almost seemed soothing. Or at least it would have if the group wasn't about to be torn apart by ferocious slobbering mouths. Numerous sets of teeth lunged at her all at once. She avoided three with some quick footwork. Considering she could be one-shotted by everything in the world, she’d gotten good at dodging. She set up another five Pulse spells at the first opening and dropped them all into her queue. They were gone in under a minute since she was still receiving the focus of every cavefang in the canyon.
She glanced around the party, checking the emblems on their hands to see what classes might be helpful to her. Their leader seemed to be a blade, though he wasn’t doing much damage, probably due to his low level. Let’s change that. She swiped a caster up and set up an Infusion spell with a spark element that carried a buff to his strength stat. The annoying thing about northern cavefangs was that they had the ability to change their elemental affinity. She didn’t have time to check, but she assumed at least some of them would be too weak to spark. Infusing the blade class with it was better than nothing. The spell activated with a swirl of yellow energy that trailed around his body. It got her a thumbs-up in return.
Eventually, a shield class player, the one whose gaudy gear made him look like a golden blowfish, got his act together. He slammed his armored fist against his chest to activate his Taunt skill and yelled a string of obscenities at the cavefangs that would have made a sailor blush. The words he used didn’t matter, but the skill added more weight to them regardless, drawing the attention of a couple enemies.
Kira cringed at the man’s use of vocabulary. It wasn’t that she was bothered by swearing. Sometimes she loved it. A well-placed F-bomb or an interesting combination could be pretty funny, if timed right. But more often than not, it showed a lack of creativity and throwing away such a great opportunity like a taunt seemed like a waste. Even worse, was that most of the cavefangs ignored the player altogether, still focusing on her.
Jaws snapped shut, missing Kira’s toes by less than an inch as she hopped out of the way. She might have stood a better chance if she had at least picked a combat mage class such as a venom or a cauldron. But had she picked either of those? Nope. She had gone with breath mage, which could heal. And that was pretty much it.
"Any time now, Max," she grumbled through her teeth as she swiped open her spell-craft menu and set up a Mirage with one hand while casting another pulse at a hungry cavefang with the other. Two transparent versions of herself appeared, bracketing her on both sides and mimicking her every move. They were taken out after a couple more attacks, buying her precious little time. That was when a drooling mouth clamped down on her left arm. A dull, simulated pain spread through her wrist, followed by a numbness that radiated from her elbow to her hand to keep it bearable. She pivoted using the beast's momentum to swing her attacker off. She looked to her forearm where teeth marks glowed red across the digital ink of her stat-sleeve before fading away. The bone charm at her side did the same, taking the hit for her and leaving her feeling vulnerable without it. It was an item that only worked once, meaning that the next hit would be her last.
"Crap!" She regretted her decision to jump into the situation alone. Without some reliable back up, it was only a matter of time.