Ariyana slapped the back of Roman’s head, causing him to swiftly turn with his hands up.
When he saw Ariyana’s glaring look, he realized why she had slapped him. “I know, I know. My bad guys,” Roman stated as he turned back to face the man who was slowly dropping down to his feet.
The man flexed his hands and arms, making it seem like he was testing his body.
“Foolish people,” The man started.
The Possessed Askith Beast Tamer’s voice was a bit deep, but it also sounded strange.
“To think you would foolishly enter this domain I have claimed for myself. Was it you who drained it of all the water?” the Possessed Askith Beast Tamer questioned as he looked down.
Liam listened to the way this man spoke. It sounded like it was forced and had a gurgle with each word that escaped his lips. It was almost like the man had some sludge stuck within his throat.
Could it be because of the water that filled this place? Liam thought.
“And if we did?” Mercer questioned as he stared at the man.
“That was a foolish thing for you to do,” the man stated. “You have freed me from the one thing that was keeping me trapped here.”
He let out a cackle that sounded more like he was gargling water in his throat.
Liam grimaced at the sound.
“I might not have all my power back, but as thanks for freeing me; I am going to kill you so I can add you to my collection. The more bodies I have the better chances I have at surviving,” the man stated with a wicked smile.
With a quick spin that caught everyone off guard, the Possessed Askith Beast Tamer turned to where the four levers were and pulled the last one on the opposite side.
After doing this, he did something that made everyone very confused. His body suddenly dropped to the floor.
“What the fuck?” Blair questioned as she witnessed what had happened.
“What is he doing?” Avery asked as she looked around the room.
Liam was even more confused, since his Perception of the Control Tower leveled up it gained the ability to have the enemy’s health and mana bars stay out when he assesses them once. However, after this body dropped so did the health and mana bar, almost like the being died.
Before he could think any more about this, a loud screeching and grinding noise filled the air, making Liam look around the room.
Behind them, an iron door was rising, opening the cage up. This caged door was the smallest out of the four, but still stood about two inches taller than Artem.
The group stared at the opened cage and into the darkened area.
At first they didn’t see anything, but before they could move, a pair of beady ethereal red smoky eyes opened up. A threating growl crawled out from the shadows as the eyes moved.
A paw, slightly bigger than the size of a man’s hand, entered the light. The skin that ran up the hind leg looked leathery. However, when the creature fully revealed that the leathery skin only covered its four legs and stomach while fur ran from the head, down it’s back, and tail. Most of the fur was short, except for the top of its head and mid back. The hair there was longer.
This creature stood almost as tall as Artem on all fours.
Drool slipped out of its mouth as it barred its fangs at Liam and his group.
Liam assessed the creature.
----------------------------------------
“Possessed Vicious Askith Hyena. 1,500/2,500 HP. 0/0 MP.”
----------------------------------------
Liam stared at it with confusion. This things health was already down some? And what’s with that Possessed part? Is something possessing it?
As Liam was thinking this, the feral looking creature lowered its body some before pushing out into a charge. When it was a few feet away, it jumped for the middle of the group.
It reached out with its two front paws, claws extended, and its mouth wide open, revealing two rows of razor sharp teeth.
However, during its jump, Blair swung her new battle axe covering it with hard stoned scales, right into the creature’s stomach.
The force and momentum of her battle axe crashing into the hyena’s stomach, caused it to follow the weapon’s trajectory. The place it was falling towards was right where Artem was.
Artem swung his shield around, timing the swing with when the creature would land and guided it right into a pillar.
The Possessed Vicious Askith Hyena let out a whimper sound as it crashed into the stone pillar.
As it slid down the pillar and fell to the ground, the hyena got back onto its feet and started making a laughing sound.
It started running away. It ran around the pillar it crashed into and then charged back at the group. This time, however, instead of jumping it lunged forward towards Artem.
Artem readied his shield as he watched the creature speed towards him. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out as he stomped forward and readied himself for the collision.
As the Possessed Vicious Askith Hyena crashed into Artem’s shield, Artem dug down as hard as he could, but still felt his body slide backwards.
The hyena lifted its right paw and went to swipe its claws across the shield, but faltered as Avery appeared on one side of it and Roman on the other.
In unison, Avery and Roman struck.
Avery slashed the creature’s side with her rapier while Roman punched with his new gauntlets on the other.
After a few strikes, they both jumped back, barely dodging the attempted bite attacks the monster used as it moved its head from left to right.
“We’ve got a feisty one here,” Roman stated as he grew a smile.
“Be on your guard!” Liam shouted out. “Something doesn’t feel right about this creature.”
Mercer released an arrow before turning to Liam. “What makes you say that?”
“It has the word Possessed just like that Askith Beast Tamer did,” Liam stated. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but that one word has me worried.”
Mercer nodded before looking back at the creature that was jumping around, dodging the Leaf Projection spell Ariyana shot at it.
The Possessed Vicious Askith Hyena ran around a pillar on the other side of the room before turning back towards the group.
It jumped to the side to dodge an arrow shot at it, but continued forward without losing speed.
It leaped forward and aimed his claws at Ariyana, but was stopped as Artem sprinted with his shield in front of him right into the creature’s rib cage.
As he collided into the creature, thick wooden spikes protruded from Artem’s shield and pierced into the hyena’s ribcage.
Artem didn’t stop after skewering the creature and kept running, pinning it against another pillar.
The Possessed Vicious Askith Hyena let out a howl of pain as it felt the spikes dig deeper.
Avery and Roman didn’t let this opportunity slip as they charged in and started attacking as fast as they could.
Liam watched the creature’s health drop with each strike from Avery’s Rapier, and Roman’s punches.
However, once when the creature’s health dropped to one thousand, the name, health and mana bar suddenly disappeared. When this happened, the body suddenly went limp.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“What the fu…,” Liam muttered with confusion as he heard that nasty gurgled cackle from the back of the room.
He spun around to see the Possessed Askith Beast Tamer standing back up, his health and mana bar reappeared.
----------------------------------------
“Possessed Askith Beast Tamer. 923/1,000 HP. 450/500 MP.”
----------------------------------------
His health and mana dropped? Liam thought, still trying to figure out what was going on. What the hell? Is it because we damaged the hyena?
Artem dropped his shield down so the hyena could slide off of it as he turned to look at what the others were staring at.
“I can see your defenses are solid,” the man said as he moved to the next lever. “However, can the same be said when facing something faster?”
After pulling the lever, the Possessed Askith Beast Tamer once more, dropped to the ground, making his health and mana bar disappear.
Liam clicked his tongue as he spun to look for the next iron door to open.
As the familiar sound of loud screeching and grinding noise echoed, the group was able to find which door was opening. It was the door exactly opposite from the one the hyena came out from.
This door was slightly bigger and a little wider.
Once when the door fully opened, a creature hopped out from the darkness hidden within it.
It was a bird with sandy brown feathers that ran down its body and wings. The feathers covering its face and neck were a cerulean color. Its beak and talons were a golden color.
Liam assessed it.
----------------------------------------
“Possessed Askith Roc. 1,000/1,850 HP. 75/100 MP.”
----------------------------------------
It moved its head to look at the group through one of its eyes, let out a loud ear splitting screech and expanded its wingspan.
Without waiting for the creature to make a move, Mercer swiftly grabbed an arrow out from his quiver, pulled back on the bow string, aimed, and released.
He watched as the arrow sailed through the air towards its intended target. However, right before it struck into the creature, the Possessed Askith Roc disappeared.
“What the…,” Mercer started to mutter, confused as to where the bird disappeared to.
The sound of flapping caught everyone’s attention causing them to look up.
Close to the ceiling above where the bird once was, was the same creature flapping its wings staring down at them.
Liam and the others took a defensive stance as they got ready for anything.
Liam’s danger sense suddenly flared up all around his body as he stared at the creature.
“Shit! Scatter!” Liam shouted as he sprinted away from the spot where he stood.
As the others ran in different directions, the Possessed Askith Roc dived down at them.
As soon as the others were a couple feet away from where they stood, the ground erupted.
Everyone turned around to see the giant bird ascend back into the air as the dust disappeared.
The spot it had dive bombed into had and indent. The stoned tiles cracked, revealing dust and broken pieces of stones scattered.
“Everyone, take cover behind the pillars!” Liam instructed. “If it gets into eye view then run as fast as you can to the next one! Do not stand still!”
As soon as Liam finished, the Possessed Askith Roc started flying in Avery’s and Blair’s direction.
Avery and Blair sprinted left for the pillar closest to the hyena’s open cage.
As soon as they moved, an explosion of dust burst up.
“Shit its fast!” Roman shouted as he hid behind the left pillar closest to the back of the room. “What do we do?”
“We need to restrict its movements somehow,” Liam yelled back as he hid behind the pillar opposite of Roman. “My Grasp of the Shadows ability won’t work since it’s in the air and doesn’t have a shadow under it to grab it.”
Liam turned to Roman and questioned, “Do you think your Lightning magic can paralyze it long enough for me to trap it?”
Roman’s face frowned as he stared at the creature. “I’m not sure.”
“Try and see if it can,” Liam suggested. “Everyone else try and see if we can keep its attention on us while Roman tries to paralyze it!”
The others let out a grunt or a word letting Liam know they understood the plan.
Liam hid his body behind a pillar and started to channel as much arcane mana as he could. When he reached the amount he was satisfied with he began chanting his Shadow Orb spell. He got about half way through it and stopped the chant.
He then started to focus on manipulating the Shadow mana in front of him into his hands, but was stopped as someone shouted, “Liam! Look out!”
As the words escaped their lips, Liam’s danger sense lit up all over his body while his eyes looked up to see the giant bird turn around the corner and locked its ethereal red smoky eyes on him.
“Shit!” Liam shouted as he started running around the pillar.
The moment he got around it, he felt a tremor shake the ground around him as dust flew around the pillar.
He then looked back at his hands and noticed the Shadow Mana he was accumulating had disappeared.
Having to do this like this is more of an inconvenience than helpful. Liam thought with a scowl.
Before Liam could do anything else, he heard Roman finish off a chant and throw two Lightning Orbs at the Possessed Askith Roc that was on the ground behind the pillar he was standing at.
He then saw purplish-yellow light explode as arcs of lightning shot out from the other side of the pillar.
Liam was excited, thinking it had hit the target, but scowled as he heard Roman curse, “Stupid fucking bird. Stay still and let me hit you!”
The Possessed Askith Roc was back in the air. It glanced at Roman who was cussing at it but paid him no mind and began to fly around again looking for a target.
“Did you just…,” Roman started as his eye twitched. “Did you just ignore me!?”
Ignoring Roman, its eyes locked on to two targets that had moved behind a pillar that sat in the front of the room. It quickly soared over there with its speed and saw Ariyana and Blair trying to go to the pillar on the left side of the room.
Without hesitation, the creature dove down as fast as it could.
“Blair!” Liam started.
“Ariyana!” Artem began.
“Look out!” they both shouted.
Blair grabbed Ariyana around her waist and started to swing her Battle Axe over her head, bringing both of them into a front flip with the momentum, to try and get out of the way.
This move allowed them to dodge the attack just in time, but the aftershock created by the Possessed Askith Roc, was too powerful and made Blair lose her grip on her weapon. After losing her grip, both Blair and Ariyana went flying into the open cage that the Possessed Vicious Askith Hyena was in.
Liam watched as both of their health bars dropped.
Blair lost more than a quarter of her health while Ariyana lost almost half.
“Holy shit!” Liam let slip, but then turned his gaze around the room.
He was looking to see where Mercer and Artem were.
Which should I send? Liam started thinking. Both have the capability of healing, but who should I have go? Artem is a defender, so his movement is slower than the rest of us but can at least take a hit. However, Mercer is able to run faster and can get behind a pillar faster, but if he gets hit then he’ll take major damage.
While Liam was thinking about all this, something caught his eye that helped him make a decision.
It was Mercer. After the Possessed Askith Roc dive bombed the area, he readied his bow and shot an arrow.
The arrow sunk into the bird’s leg before it could jump back into the air.
After seeing this, Liam shouted, “Artem! Get in there and heal both of them!”
Artem didn’t waste any time and sprinted as fast as he could towards the opened cage doors Ariyana and Blair were flung into.
The Possessed Askith Roc noticed Artem running as fast as he could for the corner of the room. It chose Artem as its prey and started to turn, but had to halt its progression as two arrows flew pass it.
It swiveled its head to find the ant that dared to attack it and saw an arrow release from Mercer’s bow.
The bird then flapped its wings to dodge the arrow and decided to go after him instead.
Mercer lowered his bow and sprinted for the pillar on the opposite side of the room in the back.
The Possessed Askith Roc flew as fast as it could and saw him almost reach the pillar. Without wasting any time, the creature dive bombed towards an area close to Mercer since it was out of its range.
It wanted to toy with this creature that dared to strike it.
As soon as it hit the ground and sent a shockwave in Mercer’s direction, the creature watched with glee as Mercer flew head off heels and slammed into the wall.
Blood spewed out of Mercer’s mouth as he slid down.
The Possessed Askith Roc let out a screech of triumph as it started to make its way for Mercer. It opted to hop instead of fly because it believed itself a superior creature compared to these pathetic struggling beings.
As it hopped and emerged from behind the pillar closest to Mercer, it suddenly hopped back as two Lightning Orbs flew pass its head. After dodging the attempt, it peered its head around the pillar to see Roman, who had fired his magic.
This puny creature that resembled a small fox looked pathetic in its eyes and wasn’t worth the effort to give it any attention. It watched as the short male fox gritted his teeth with what looked like frustration and clenched both of his fists and pulled them back to his sides.
No matter how hard it struggled he was unworthy to ever land a strike on the proud creature.
However, as it turned to look back at Mercer, it failed to notice the two Lightning Orbs it had dodged, rushing back towards it. The two orbs collided into it, sending arcs of lightning throughout its entire body.
The Possessed Askith Roc let out a shriek as it tried to open its wing span.
As it tried though, the muscles throughout its body clenched and prevented it from moving.
Shortly after the paralyzing debuff took hold of the creature, shadowy tendrils shot out from underneath the bird and wrapped around it.
A second after that, vines suddenly shot out from the ground around it and doubled over the Shadowy tendrils.
“Great job Roman!” Ariyana shouted as she, Artem, and Blair rushed out from the caged area they were in.
“Everyone strike it as fast as you can!” Liam shouted as he rushed over. A shadow hand trailed behind him griping hold on one of his Black Widow Matriarch Throwing Daggers.
During the time the Possessed Askith Roc didn’t have its eyes on him he tried to summon his Shadow Hand. It took him three tries to get it to work, but as soon as he was able to he was able to watch Roman use Mana Manipulation to pull his Lightning Orbs back to hit the massive bird.
He had noticed Ariyana emerging from the cage and gave her a look.
Understanding him, she nodded and started chanting along with him thus being able to release their spells almost simultaneously.
Mercer had gotten back up and was using his violin to play his Health Pulse song on himself.
Liam watched as the Possessed Askith Roc’s health started dropping.
However, once when it reached four hundred and ninety one, its status bar disappeared.
Liam clicked his tongue before looking over at the Possessed Askith Beast Tamer as it stood back up.
He stared at the man’s status bar.
----------------------------------------
“Possessed Askith Beast Tamer. 871/1,000 HP. 399/500 MP.”
----------------------------------------
“I must admit,” the Possessed Askith Beats Tamer started. His voice still gurgled, but had a hint of annoyance. “I didn’t expect you to be able to handle the Roc’s speed the way you did. However, this next creature should be harder for you to handle.”
After pulling the third lever, the man dropped again.
The group turned their heads to see the iron caged doors on the back right side of the room start to rise up. This door was the second biggest and widest out of the four.
Loud clicking sounds echoed the room.
As soon as the doors fully opened a massive creature walked out from the darkened caged room.
This creature was big. It wasn’t as big as Binky was, but was close in height. It was as big in height and length as a tank. It had a long black shell covering its abdomen with six skinny legs. It had two pincers it opened and closed menacingly as the stinger on the end of its curled tail flexed up and down.
Liam assessed this Creature.
----------------------------------------
“Possessed Askith Battle Scorpdread. 2,500/4,750 HP. 0/0 MP.”
----------------------------------------
“Holy shit,” Liam muttered as he drew the words out.