Freya’s skill choices definitely helped set the tone. She came out swinging with her main skill choice.
Howling Gale: The Tempest Warden calls a small hurricane into existence. A swirling vortex of wind envelops the battlefield. This effect does small amounts of continuous damage. Debris and projectiles can be picked up by the wind, increasing the damage dealt. This effect is enhanced in the presence of storm essence.
She’d also evolved Attuned Bite and it was now Fangs of Fenrir
Fangs of Fenrir: Channel the power of a God among wolves. This passively allows the tempest warden’s fangs to ignore armor and supply a small amount of healing based on the damage dealt. This skill can be activated to lengthen the fangs and apply a mark to the target, increasing all periodic damage done to the target, redirecting a portion to the tempest warden as health. This skill is a continuously evolving skill, having many options to evolve and grow with the wielder.
Howling Gale was extremely welcome in their party. While they had defensive options in the group, they were either relatively localized or on a long cooldown. With the bird, they didn’t have a fantastic solution against her flurry of feathers, and something like this would have made that fight significantly easier.
A loud boom echoed out over the town and the group looked out toward the rune. The rune suddenly erupted, sending a brilliant green meteor shooting towards Tank’s old settlement. Shortly after, there was a second boom as the impact was felt. It was time to go.
They’d have to look over the other upgrades on the road. So off they went.
They crossed through the forest at a breakneck pace. If there was one thing about this system that was certainly a marvel, it was the stats. With their stats as they were now, their stamina was much higher than pre-system. They could run in a full on sprint for hours without feeling tired. With stamina potions, they could keep this reckless pace up indefinitely.
Five hours had passed, and they finally reached the outskirts of the old settlement, greeted by the scent of aged wood and crumbling stone. It was in ruins. The walls lay in ruins, reduced to a pile of rubble, and only a handful of buildings remained intact. In the crater left behind by its fall, a large, green stone, slightly bigger than a man, sat omitting an ominous presence. Waves of energy pulsed from the object, directly feeding into the base rune.
This couldn’t be good. Calvin looked out toward the epicenter of the massive green rune in the sky. It was expanding now and likely within an hour it would be encroaching upon this area. He figured they could get to the mountain in another two or three hours. First, they needed to deal with this, whatever this was.
He carefully approached the object, being sure not to get too close to it. Calvin picked up a pebble and tossed it over. The pebble contacted the boulder and dissolved into a green dust that flowed down into the base rune.
“I think this thing is corrupting the surroundings.” Calvin said.
Ian had been examining everything with his nanovision. The corruption energy was strange to him. It was practically invisible to his senses, but that on its own made him able to see it in a roundabout way. He could see large voids in the space around them where no nanite energy was present, and that was consistent with where the corruption likely was. To everyone’s dismay, he could see that the base rune had been significantly corrupted by this point.
“Everyone, get back. I’m going to try and crack this thing.” Ian ordered.
Everyone got way back. Like more than 100 feet, and behind cover. They had their mental fingers ready on defensive options in case this went sideways.
Ian called for Stalagmite. The spike erupted from the ground and immediately dissolved into green dust. He followed up with Combust. The flames wreathed the surface of the stone and melded with the green flames, with the energy dissipating rapidly.
“This thing just gobbles up everything I throw at it.” Ian remarked.
Amy had an idea though. She pulled out one of the obsidian feathers and sent a concentrated volley of Stinging Swarm at the object. The obsidian feathers slammed into the surface and embedded deeply into the stone. They were unaffected by the corruption.
Thinking back, this made sense. The bird was covered in these feathers and used them as pylons to create the corruption cage it cocooned itself in. Obsidian had been a central theme of many of the encounters they’d faced. Calvin had received obsidian weapons, and the artifact that led them down this path was the Obsidian Heart.
Amy relayed this information to the group and withdrew another obsidian feather. This time she enchanted it with corrosive toxin from her bandolier and sent out a flurry toward the sinister rock. Again, the blades embedded deeply. The corrosion had a mild effect. It could be seen sizzling away on the surface of the stone. She went to work, repeatedly sending corrosive obsidian feathers into the object.
Calvin pulled out his obsidian spear and activated Techlancer’s Arsenal, creating two copies of the obsidian spear. He immediately let them fly. Both slammed into the stone with incredible force. The impact caused a crack to appear on the surface and spread. The green flames winked out, and the stone cracked in half, falling inert, no longer spreading corruption.
“Ian, get a door open and let Olympus know how to deal with this. Have Seth start working with any obsidian we have.” Calvin ordered.
As Ian relayed the information back to Olympus, Calvin approached the rune. He placed his hand on the surface of the rune and was prompted to take ownership of the base. He did. He wasn’t sure what would have happened if the corruption had taken over, but his working theory was that it would use this rune to further spread corruption. He would start the process of removing this rune from the playing field entirely.
Another boom echoed out from the sky, and another meteor went sailing off into the distance, to impact a large distance away.
“We need to move, things are getting worse. We can’t let many more of those stones get loose.” Calvin said.
The group had no complaints and continued their breakneck pace toward the epicenter.
They realized their approach had not gone unseen. As they plowed their way through the thick foliage, a doorway opened up, dumping another Mantis Lord in their path.
It hissed and slashed its scythes at them, ready to dismantle the approaching humans. The poor creature picked about the worst time to assault them.
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Calvin slashed out with two empowered wind blades with his Primal Rage. Both blades struck the creature’s arms, severing its scythes in a single attack.
Six corrosive daggers buried itself in the Mantis lord’s eye, followed by a Flash Bomb that briefly incapacitated it.
Without even bothering to slow down their charge, the group swept past the creature. Calvin slammed his spear through its throat, killing it as they passed.
Just a few days ago, a creature such as this was the final challenge of a quest. It had given them a hard time and had actually stretched their abilities to the limits. Now they brushed it aside as if it was a mere cockroach.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the last encounter. Doorways opened up repeatedly along their path, dumping horrifying corrupted creatures in their way. Some were more challenging than others and the group had taken small wounds as they sprinted through the fights. They were also consuming resources. Nothing they could do about that now besides hope that these doorways were also consuming the resources of whoever was watching them.
They arrived at the base of the mountain just a short while later. The scene was certainly what they would expect from a universe consuming corruption monster trying to devour the tutorial. Obsidian pylons stretched out in a ring around the base of the mountain. Extending from each pylon were beams of corruption energy that reached up into the rune above.
Runic script was etching itself from the pylons, moving slowly up the mountain. This process had covered nearly 3/4 of the mountain in the strange language and Calvin figured that when it reached the top, this whole thing would get much worse.
“We need to destroy these pylons, and we need to get to the top of the mountain. I hesitate to use up more resources, but I think we need to call in backup on this one.” Calvin said.
Ian nodded along with him. If he used his portal skill now, it would be on cooldown for a couple of hours. It would also severely drain his MP and he was still on a potion cooldown. He’d be weakened for a little while.
“Alright, I’ll get a doorway up. I won’t be able to fight if more doorways drop monsters on our heads.” Ian said.
Ian cracked open a portal to Olympus and relayed their need for serious firepower. Tank, Crash and Reaper came through. Seth poked his head through and examined the situation, sending a few scout bots through to gain some data before recalling them.
“I’ve got some stuff in the works. I hooked up Tank’s crew with a limited supply of obsidian ammo. They don’t have much though, so use it sparingly. I’ve got my employees working hard at getting some more stuff prepared.” Seth said.
“Thanks. We gotta move. Call us if something happens, we’ll get Tank’s crew back right away.”
“Will do. Tank has a half charged portal grenade. It’s enough to get them back if needed. I’ve set up some defenses here, so we can hold monsters off for a little while if need be. Be careful Cal.”
Seth waved them off and disappeared back through the doorway before Ian dropped the connection.
“Looks like you need some assistance.” Tank said, looking out at the scene before him.
Tank was a Juggernaut now, and while Calvin wasn’t sure what skills that came with, he was quite certain it came with a big fucking gun.
Crash still had his standard Plasma Rifle, but he was also adorned in several grenades lining a sash along his chest, with more on his belt. Turns out he was something called an Ashbringer now, and he dealt in all matters of high explosives.
Reaper was an orbital operative. He retained many of the qualities of his previous sharpshooter class but gained a whole lot more tactical command of the battlefield. His scouting had been improved, and he’d gained some additional powerful abilities in the way of a kinetic barrage to supplement his ion strike bombardment skill. He also gained some skills in the drone control department. Calvin figured he and Seth were going to get along nicely.
“You’re not wrong there. We need to get our asses up this mountain and we need someone down here to take out those pylons. I think destroying those should slow down the process of whatever the fuck is happening on the mountain.” Calvin said.
He gave Tank a quick rundown of their experience on the way here, including the corrupted stone that landed in his old settlement. Creases of worry formed on Tank’s brow as Calvin got further through the explanation. Bad things were compounding on top of more bad things and this truly felt like a do or die situation.
“We’ll take care of things down here. Get your ass up there and deal with whatever you find.” Tank said.
Tank turned and leveled his cannon at a nearby Pylon.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
With each shot, huge pieces of debris sailed off of the pylon as cracks spread along the surface. Three shots later, the pylon was shattered to dust, and the beam stopped. The runic script also stopped receiving energy from this pylon and it dimmed slightly on this section of the mountain.
“Good work. You guys know what to do.”
Tank’s crew tossed Calvin a salute and went to work.
Calvin’s team hauled ass up the mountain. Fortunately, there was a nice easy path right to the top. Unfortunately, that path was jammed to the brim with corrupted Nightclaws.
Ian was out of the fight for a bit. He needed to recharge, so the rest of the team had to work overtime.
Calvin’s spear was a blur as it slashed back and forth along the path. Wind blades sliced through the corrupted wildcats like butter. Every swipe of his spear was a declaration of death that the Nightclaws were forced to obey.
Freya was another apocalypse descending on these maddened creatures. Her teeth and claws were unmatched as she darted around the path. Say what you will about cats and dogs, but this was completely one sided on the dog’s end. She gleefully separated heads from bodies. Legs were ripped from the creatures as she slashed out with incredible strength. Many of the poor cats were flung from the mountain by her powerful jaws. They went sailing out into open air and plummeted all the way down to the bottom. Calvin briefly wondered if they would land on their feet.
If the death that Calvin and Freya brought to the battlefield was a nightmare for these Nightclaws. The combo that Amy and Marshall brought forth was absolute hell for them.
Amy dumped every last toxin into a creature before Marshall activated Patient Zero. The pulse of energy spread out, infecting dozens of cats in a single skill. As the toxins took hold, blight blooms began their deadly lifecycle. The flowers would grow and mature while the shadowthorn toxins would sprout deadly paralytic thorns from the creature’s bodies. The corrosion dissolved their flesh and ultimately would force the blight blooms to explode, sending their toxic spores to infect new targets.
The group synergized very well in environments like this. Calvin’s Storm Fury lashed out, sending arcing tendrils of electric death bouncing between the cats. As they took damage, their blooms were destroyed, perpetuating the cycle of pain. This had the wonderful effect of severely weakening foes who had yet to engage them. By the time they entered the fight, they would have already suffered considerable damage to their health and stamina. They would be under the throes of paralytic toxin and already have two paws in the afterlife.
Calvin peered over the edge to the base of the mountain. He could see and hear the destruction Tank’s crew was waging on the pylons. He also saw doorways opening up down there and hoped Tank’s crew would be able to manage the task while fighting off whatever insane creatures stepped through.
Calvin doubled down on the sense of urgency and sprinted forward, cleaving a way up the mountain.
As they approached a plateau near the peak, they truly understood the magnitude of the fight ahead.
The plateau was about 200 feet wide, covered in large boulders and stalagmites and littered with corruption stones. Beams of green energy reached down from the rune to wrap their tendrils around a stone, drawing it up toward the rune. The stone rapidly ascended and locked into the center of the rune. Seconds later, it fired out from the rune at high speed out into the land below. This mechanism was launching these corrupted stones. From up here, Calvin could see a few other blue settlement runes in the lands further out, as well as a few red ones. These other settlements must have had their own missives to complete. Calvin wondered how that would affect Earth if they didn’t get around to completing those.
Looking back at the plateau, Calvin scanned for other dangers. He couldn’t see anything immediately but felt a presence that warned him of pure, unadulterated evil.
“Cal, my nanovision is spiking hard behind those boulders over there.”
Ian motioned toward an area about 70 feet away where the larges of the rock formations blocked a section of the plateau.
“Calvin! My main man. I was wondering when your slow ass would get around to getting up here. I thought we would have to get the party started without you.” a familiar booming voice echoed out from behind the boulder.