Tilly stood ready to make his move as Shuji reached for one of the scrolls and began to mutter. The snake warriors wove forward through the debris but were unable to jump over anything because of their serpentine anatomies. This keyed Tilly in to just how well thought out the inconspicuous barricades were. As they approached Tilly’s Identify kicked in:
Level 22 Shadow Hunter
Level 23 Shadow Hunter
Level 21 Shadow Hunter
Level 28 Shadow Hunter
Ok, not great, but not too bad. With his damage multiplier, he still stood a chance to actually make a difference in this fight. Then as they crossed the halfway point of the large room, Shuji's voice rang out, “Librarian Arts, Flying Forms, Endless.”
Several crates the warriors were passing exploded into glowing circles that shot out streams of paper at the nearby combatants. The forms unerringly flew towards their targets and the warriors tried and failed to dodge, getting pelted with rivers of paper covered in meaningless script.
Assuming that was his cue, Tilly immediately let his two enflamed hatchets fly at the sword-wielding pair. He marveled at his increased accuracy as they both flew in easy arcs, the momentum arresting violently in the chest and back of the distracted creatures. They hissed in pain and reaching for the painful new additions to their bodies. Tilly immediately recalled and let fly again, deciding to keep the pressure on the same two targets. They however changed strategy. Instead of continuing to try and dodge the endless stream of paper projectiles the two wounded hunters sheathed their swords and faded into shadows, becoming intangible to the paper barrage.
The spear-wielding pair realized that paper was more distraction than dangerous and powered through the barrage. At about 20 yards they hissed something and thrust out their spears.
Tilly watched as the first two shadow figures shot forward through the air, the passage made visible by fist-sized glowing blue embers lodged in their incorporeal forms chewing hungrily on their shadowy substance. As Tilly's follow-up attack neared them, they ignored the spinning projectiles, which turned out to be a mistake. As soon as the flame-covered stone axe heads touched their shadow forms, they were knocked back into normal existence, with hatchets lodged deeply in their torsos. Having their ability interrupted like that caused them to reform around the hatchets. The morbid sight caused Tilly’s grim mask of focus to crack, a small smile peeking through as he recalled both weapons back to his hands. Both warriors collapsed with blue fire consuming the black ichor that poured from their wounds.
“Librarian Arts, Restricted Section!” Shuji shouted next to him, bringing his focus back to the more present danger as the other two attackers extended their reach with two shadowy spearheads. The ability elongated the shadow hunter's weapons, which slithered through the air toward the two defenders, effectively tripling their reach in a moment.
Enormous bookshelves exploded from the floor in front of them, sounding with a satisfying thunk as the attack was absorbed into the thick wood. Hiro’s voice emerged from behind them, irritatingly calm.
“Do not allow yourself to be distracted, you are losing the initiative.” He called from a relaxed kneeling position. Tilly realized that with the barriers in place, he could no longer see the approaching spear-wielders and jumped to move.
He randomly decided to break left, rounding the shelves to try and get ahead of his attacker. Only to find one of the shadow hunters almost upon him. Tilly’s Dexterity was high for his level, but the shadow hunter must have had a Dexterity build and reacted to his appearance much faster than Tilly planned.
“Librarian Arts, Dictionary Inquiry, Endless.” Shouted Shuji from the other side of the shelves as Tilly dove to the ground under the spear wielder's thrust. Several thunks sounded from the other conflict followed by an outraged hiss, as Tilly felt the bite of his enemy's weapon rip into his thigh. The tip of her hooked spear elongated and twisted, slashing along Tilly’s thigh mid-dive, and easily parted his protective leathers.
He attempted to roll upon landing, bringing up both his hatchets in a crossed block of the anticipated follow-up thrust. As expected she was already upon him bearing down with her spear. Unfortunately, even though his instincts had been right, Tilly's block was woefully out of position and her glazed black eyes flashed with elation as she stepped into her thrust.
Then a dictionary the size of Tilly’s torso crashed into the shadow hunter’s side, knocking her thrust off course. The dictionary was followed by another and then another, pounding the creature into the ground. Without hesitation, Tilly leaped towards the prone shadow hunter, some part of him reveling in the weakened position of his opponent. The burning sting of his wound drove up his adrenaline and his breathing quickened.
His heartbeat pounded in his ears as he brought down both hatchets empowered with blue flame on his opponent’s unprotected side. They landed like cleavers into the sides of soon-to-be butchered meat and he gleefully ripped them back to hack again.
“More are coming Jonathan Tillman,” --Hiro called in a flat voice.--“That was only a test of our defenses. Ready yourself!”
Tilly looked down and saw that his opponent was already dead. He had been so caught up in... something, that he had been about to butcher a corpse. He stumbled back from the grizzly scene with a creeping sense of horror. The throbbing in his ears reduced in volume and he realized that the heat glowing in his chest was mingling painfully again with the pleasurable throb emanating from his side. He felt a tingling urge to abandon all constraint, like an itch at the back of his mind.
'When had that started?'
He looked towards the entrance and saw more forms emerging from the deep shadows pooling around the broken gate. His notification log was blinking, but he knew he didn't have time to read through it. Without pulling it up, he could sense that he had gained a level, so he just urged the free Stat points towards Wisdom, hoping to stave off whatever was happening inside him. He hadn't done the math on keeping his [Resolute] title, but he would worry about that later.
Ten more forms were disgorged from the shadow, slithering forth eagerly.
Shuji's voice broke into his stunned state,
“As soon as they reach the outer perimeter, throw one or two flame strikes at the surrounding crates. Then take cover!” Tilly could tell he was yelling, but the words barely reached him. Nonetheless, he channeled more flame into his weapons and threw them hard at the perimeter. The charging warriors dodged easily, weaving around the crates that had caught fire. Tilly recalled and threw again, before ducking behind the large, newly erected barricades. He didn't know if his hatchets landed on target or not, but then he felt a huge woofing boom reverberate through the building. The silence effect muted most of the noise, but the force of the explosions rocked Tilly back, rattling the thick shelves.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The charging warriors however were thrown by the blast like rag dolls, Tilly looked over at Shuji aghast. He sure could have used something like that in the temple a few days ago! Shuji just looked back with a huge smile on his face.
“Those were our final gnomish explosives. Now we go out and finish off any still alive!” He punctuated his words with immediate action, rising from behind the barricade and swiftly jogging out among the flaming wreckage that was the front half of the room.
Tilly mirrored the move and saw that Hiro was already gone from his spot, choosing to take the opportunity to take down easy opponents as well. Then a voice cracked like a whip through the space, “Enough.”
Tilly's eyes narrowed through the glow of smoldering debris and the haze of smoke. There at the shadowy entrance was a human snake hybrid twice as large as the others with four arms coming off her distinctly female torso. Each holding a scimitar with a barbed tip. Her eyes pooled with that same onyx-black substance, but none of her tattoos showed the running ink that the warriors before had displayed.
Level 58 Venom Assassin
Her eyes were focused in the middle distance of the debris field where Hiro stood over the dead body of another soldier. He turned towards her with a naked blade at the ready, darker even than her eyes.
“Always with your tricks and running. You should have died years ago on our glorious eastern march, yet here you stand caught hiding in another one of your warrens.” She spat, revealing two wicked-looking fangs.
“I see your people have given into the abomination… Your shadow hunters are much weaker than they once were, Apepi.” He replied cooly. The sound of a loud thud rang out from Tilly’s right and he shot a glance in that direction to see Shuji standing over another mangled snake warrior. He looked up sheepishly as he realized that his silence effect had been broken.
The Snake Lady however didn’t even flinch as another subordinate was killed, “This is but another path to power.” She said, lifting her arms to fully display her body covered with the dark disturbing tattoos.
“With it, I have broken through the first bottleneck and now it will be my pleasure to end you, prey.” She said, her eyes glazing over with anticipation.
“You know nothing of power.” The level 52 Samurai Lord declared, lazily bringing his sword back as if preparing to sweep it in front of him.
Her eyes flashed in response to his movement and she sucked in air, inflating her abdomen to a disproportionately full state.
“Do not breathe in any of her filth!” Hiro shouted, before stepping forward and swinging his sword with unbelievable force. Tilly felt the blade pull the entirety of the room forward with its movement, before suddenly tearing free of the tension and ripping the air around it creating a sweeping arc of jagged darkness.
“Waxing Shadow!” His shout reverberated through the space like the thrum of a particularly deep base note.
Tilly watched stupified as a jagged arc raced through the air towards the Venom Assassin, growing to the point where it could not be dodged. The Assasin crossed all four of her blades in a blocking motion as the leading edge of the arc crashed into her. She seemed to catch the majority of the damage on the blades but the attack did interrupt her inhalation and she prematurely released an explosive breath.
Out of her mouth flowed a torrent of sickly green smog populated with disturbing, wriggling black shapes. It rushed into the space filling the room and rolling towards Shuji and Tilly’s position like an oncoming wave. Hiro exploded forward up out of the roiling smog with a downward swing aimed at the source of the breath attack, and Tilly flung his head around looking for nonexistent options to counter the atypical attack.
Shuji muttered something and scattered papers rose up around him and started spinning around him forming a vortex of disrupted air. The clangs of metal hitting metal started to fill the space, cutting off the breath attack. But the sound was far heavier than you would expect from a sword strike. These reminded Tilly of the time he had heard a steel I-beam accidentally detach from a crane and strike the steel frame of the building stories below.
Tilly took a deep breath in just before the wave reached him, ready to hold it for as long as possible, and was surprised to feel his armor changing once again to its yellow sun salamander form. With its protective covering over his mouth and nose, he hoped it would make some difference. His eyes began to water and his exposed skin started to sting and then burn.
A shout of vindictive triumph sounded from the Venom Assassin, and Hiro grunted with pain before answering with a snarl of anger and a bellow laced with power. Blackness bled out from the epicenter of the conflict and overtook the poison area effect in moments.
Tilly felt like there was nothing more he could add to the fight besides hunkering down and trying to survive the increasingly deadly environment. He stumbled in the unnatural darkness towards the sound of a hacking cough in Shuji’s direction. The snake woman's boastful voice filled the room. “You think I need to see you to kill you, little rabbit? How much longer do your companions have do you think?” She cackled gleefully.
The only answer Hiro gave her was more crashing sword strikes. Each one somehow sounding heavier than the last. He was obviously now holding his breath too, but Tilly was sure his Endurance was more than high enough to last a few minutes more. Unfortunately, Endurance was one of Shuji’s lowest stats and his coughing grew more ragged as Tilly approached. Tilly’s chest had just begun to tighten with discomfort at the lack of oxygen, and he marveled at his body's new ability to take punishment. At the same time, something in this fog seemed to be trying to worm its way under his protective layers of armor, focusing on his side, where the throbbing sensation seemed to almost wriggle in anticipation.
Then, even amongst the clanging strikes, the sound of Shuji’s shuddering exhale and the absent follow-up inhalation stood out in Tilly’s dark world like a beacon. The soft whirling sound of the paper vortex died and Tilly groped forward for his companion.
Of all the things Tilly had experienced in his life, the sound of someone struggling to breathe still hit him the hardest. Particularly, he had fallen asleep far too many nights to the sound of a pair of small lungs fighting for air. It is a sound that comes back to you late at night when you are alone in your bed, too tired to sleep. A soundtrack that had played incessantly in the background of Tilly’s life ever since he had lost his daughter to lung cancer. He hated hearing Shuji's last struggling breath.
He was the one who was supposed to die nobly in the line of duty. He had entered environments filled with carcinogens too many times to count and yet had never once popped positive on the yearly cancer screenings. Then, by some ironic twist of fate, his daughter had developed a persistent cough when she was 6 and it had only gotten worse and worse over months.
Some deep part of himself, the wounded animal that had been backed into the corner too many times, snarled and lunged forward. He had always wished he could do something… anything to make a difference in his daughter’s struggle and now here he was in a magical land with his friend dying right in front of him!
It couldn't end here.
The warmth in his chest that accompanied his flame ability, compressed into a fiery pinprick before exploding into a nova of bright blue heat. Suddenly the darkness in the area around him was banished, and blue flame rushed out from him in every direction, eagerly consuming all of the black shapes and patterns that had sustained and intensified the smog’s effect. For just a moment, Tilly saw that the twisted black shapes around Shuji had formed some sort of eldritch creature, and it had been busy trying to shove itself into Shuji’s mouth.
The flames pounced onto the creature, and it curled in on itself in the silent impression of a scream as it was consumed by righteous fire. The air left behind the fire's wake was hot, dry, and completely clean and Tilly smiled as he heard Shuji take that long-awaited breath.
Suddenly he felt his brain being pierced by an ice pick and his legs buckled beneath him. Darkness crept in on the edges of his vision as deep bone-wearying exhaustion overtook his body. The last thing he remembered seeing was a Mana: -10% flashing at the top of his receding vision. Then a different kind of darkness overtook him. Not some magical domain, or the fretful darkness of nightmare-filled sleep.
Rather it was the peaceful darkness of long-awaited rest. Only available to those who give all they have and hold nothing back. His body was forcing him to shut down after burning far past his reserves, and Tilly no longer had any will left to fight it.