Chapter 34 - The ICB: Base Race

Seline led the group from the front with her bow raised and ready, protecting the heavily injured Palinus and Bruchts as they healed slowly on the run with Vesuvia casting her healing ars as soon as it came off cooldown.

There was a palpable tension as they ran, a sense of desperation made more raw by a glimmer of hope.

“We’re coming, Rufi!” Seline said with her finger to her ear. “The three left up are unaccounted for, be careful!”

“I think they may have stayed to push the lane.” Vesuvia added.

“Why would they do that?” Palinus questioned the girls.

“They might be accepting the base race?” Seline speculated.

“What’s that?”

“We learnt about it in our Advanced Rift Tactics class, but it is rare. Basically it's where the teams don’t fight, they just push separate lanes and hope to destroy each other's Nexus faster.”

“Oh, I can’t believe the 111s would risk that.”

“It makes sense if they are under orders to rush a result so they can get out of the overworld tower.” Seline dropped back to talk to Palinus as they exited the forest path and continued to jog along the top lane. “Things would be uncomfortable for even the first century holding a hostile tower for the 20 minutes or so we have been in here.”

“Hmm, that makes sense. Things were pretty desperate around the overworld tower.” Bruchts added thoughtfully.

“They are also arrogant enough to think that they will still win if we accept the base race. Or at least Marnus is.” Vesuvia said with a laugh.

As they jogged they passed a wave of minions in the top lane trundling around the rubble of a destroyed outer tower.

Once they rounded the corner to look down the lane towards they nexus they could finally see the work that Rufian was doing. Their friend was currently trying to dismantle the secondary tower with his bare fists.

He didn’t acknowledge the team as they approached and joined in the effort to attack the tower he was so focused. He was an absolute monster, rhythmically punching as fast as he could with each blow blasting out two waves of force that added extra damage and dismantled the wave of enemy minions as they approached the tower.

As they did their damage the tower fought against them, quickly taking out the wave of minions that protected them and added their minimal damage.

Palinus and Bruchts were quick to turn and run out of the tower’s range.

“Come on Rufi!” Bruchts grabbed their friend.

“Huh!” Rufian only just seemed to notice them as he brushed away Bruchts arm and punched twice more quickly into the tower. The bolt from the tower slammed into his back as he finally turned to exit it's range.

The rest of the team shared a look as he barely reacted to the powerful bolt.

Rufian Ramuro 602/788 | Level 4

Strike Enhancer - Fighter

“What?” He asked, unconsciously wiping his face as if to clean a smudge.

“You look like you are having fun.” Vesuvia commented.

“Hmm,” he acknowledged non committedly as he checked the progress of the next wave of minions they waited for. “I got levels so fast and level 4 was a big jump in power... but then level 5 has been really slow"

He turned to face Seline.

“You were right, if we let this drag on we are going to lose with their tier advantage.” Rufian spoke with a fierce intensity that took the rest of the team aback. "Lets go!"

It was Bruchts that reacted first to the order by stepping under the turret’s range to let the team start to take it down.

They worked quickly and smoothly, but couldn’t do enough damage to take out the tower in this wave so they found themselves waiting again for the minions to walk painfully slowly down the lane.

“I’ve never seen Rufi like this.” Palinus whispered to Bruchts, who knew him best.

“He gets really focused sometimes,” he responded with a shrug. “When he works in the workshop he can get so focused he forgets to eat… or he doesn’t do any work at all and just messes around.”

They knocked the tower down to rubble in the next wave of minions and surged towards the Nexus towers. This rift had three towers protecting the nexus and the wave of minions was demolished quickly.

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The next wave of minions lasted marginally longer as the next set of minions had one more melee minion as the rift progressed. The team also adjusted their tactics and dispersed the damage of the towers amongst themselves to try and maintain their attack for longer. They focused on the rightmost tower and made some progress.

“This might take a while… I wonder how the 111s are doing?” Palinus thought aloud.

As if summoned by his question a figure appeared from within the nexus.

Vel strode out of the nexus room with a withering glare on his face. He seemed surprised to see Palinus and the team.

“They are all alive… and on the nexus towers!?” He didn’t bother to conceal what he was saying as he spoke to his team with a tone of disbelief. “I’m on my way-”

He started running away from the nexus as far from the team as he could but suddenly stopped.

“They got Arruns too!?” He stared at the team in bafflement before his glare settled on Seline. His piercing gaze hardened and he began to whisper as he ran around the nexus plateau as far away from the team as he could, relying on the protection of the towers in the untouched lanes.

“Do we need to be worried?” Palinus asked Seline.

“Hmm,” she watched the retreating captain of the 111s, ”He’s hard to read and he is the captain of the most successful team for a reason…”

A few moments later as they pushed for another attack on the towers Arruns came sprinting out of the Nexus, he barely spared a glare at Palinus as he ran away as fast as he could.

“Well this is anticlimactic!” Vesuvia commented as they continued to work on the towers.

They had taken down the first tower finally and were picking up speed as they took out the second. Something tickled at Palinus’s senses as he began to get a feeling of unease.

“I wonder how close they are to destroying our tower?” he wondered as they took down the second tower, leaving only one to go before they could finish off the rift. The team were tense, all focused on their damage and roles as they moved in and out of the final tower. Pushing a bit harder and taking more damage to try and destroy it faster.

“Ah!” Seline cried out from behind them causing the whole team to whirl around.

Palinus panicked and struggled to find something he could do. It was too late to do anything about it as Arruns and Agrippa were already right on top of her, his one big ars was still on cooldown and he knew that Bruchts area of effect crowd control ability was also going to be unavailable.

“Shit,” he swore as he did what little damage he could with his stick whip as he tried to find a good moment to launch his fireball.

Seline screamed again in frustration and pain as her health points were rapidly depleted and her avatar was killed.

*An ally has been slain*

Feeling the hostile gaze of their powerful enemies turn towards them Palinus sensed several ars being thrown around as he and Vesuvia were struck with several and the two melee warriors closed in on them.

“Focus Bakano!” The yell came from Rufian who was running a looping route around the fight to avoid the area effects being targeted at Palinus and Vesuvia.

It was hard to think and switch with the now familiar cruel eyes and axe Arruns focused on him closing, but Palinus did throw a few strikes towards the dark mage and blasted them with a fireball that managed to catch Vel as well.

The damage he was doing was not inconsiderable and what the team managed in those desperate moments might have been enough if they could only themselves survive. Against the full might of the 111s targeting them Vesuvia ran out of health points with a shriek of rage.

*An ally has been slain*

The burning of Vel’s fire ars was scorching Palinus from the inside. He knew he was next as he waited for the huge axe to descend and trigger the ridiculous debuff consuming effects. He accepted his fate and part of him finally accepted that they were never going to be able to beat the 111s. They were too strong and had too much experience. They had put up a good fight and they had done what they could with the small advantage of surprise and the arrogance of their opposition, but it was never going to be enough.

As the heavy axe blade descended in slow motion, Palinus could see Rufian and Bruchts fighting. They hadn’t stopped to attack Arruns and Agrippa and for a moment he felt a spark of frustration that they hadn’t tried to block their attacks to keep himself and Vesuvia alive for longer. He let go of his momentary frustration as they managed to beat down Bakano and get a small amount of vengeance.

*An enemy has been slain*

The axe struck Palinus and the overwhelming damage of the ars instantly sent Palinus reeling. His final health points fled as the sensation of burning abruptly stopped.

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“See, of course they weren’t going to win.” Centurion Armiger laughed and dismissively patted Optio Magunnus on the shoulder. “As if a pack of street rats could beat a hand picked team from the 2nd hill.”

It was moments like this that made Magunnus really loath the Centurion.

They had been bombarding the 1st cohort 1st century standing around the river tower for the past twenty minutes. They had managed to take down a couple of their youngsters but had made no moves to truly attack the tower despite the advantage of the tower buffing their conscripts and draining the essentia of their opposition.

“They did well to last so long I suppose.” The centurion commented, sounding more condescending than generous with his meagre praise.

In truth the 2nd Rift team had done well, the flow of essentia on the battlefield had been indicating that they had been in the lead from early in the rift. They just hadn’t been able to convert that to a decisive advantage though and the optio knew that this would inevitably just mean a slow loss.

“They did do well… and we should have followed up their dive and attacked-” Magunnus started before he was cut off by his vindictive superior.

“This was just a waste of time really. We were never going to hold the River Tower against the 1st century…especially with a rift team that is better suited to a game of Harpastum than a rift battle.”

The centurion laughed at the wit of saying a group of children were better suited to playing a ball game than fighting and he was joined by the first rift team who had been lingering nearby.

“Get started with the retreat.” Armiger ordered tersely, he must have sensed the disgust that the optio felt or at least noticed that he did not join in the laughter.

Accepting the dismissal as an opportunity to hide his frustration he gave a salute and walked away. A part of him wondered if there was a chance for the 2nd team to turn the rift around, he liked that they were a bit different and not the same generic teams that the Erulean empire seemed to churn out. As someone born from the third hill he also shared a disdain for the arrogance of the men of the second hill with their obsession with maintaining their status as the best in the legion, it would feel so good to rub dirft in their prideful faces.

“Maybe they can win?” He whispered to himself, but couldn;t quite bring himself to beleive it.