We are all teleported into a vast grassland. Only a few trees are spaced throughout the plain, but there is nothing to note right off-hand. The chains holding Mom and Dad from doing anything stupid disappeared as we were transported. From what I can tell, my father wants to take to the skies, while my mother has her head darting back and forth, trying to find something.
Hearing a heavy flapping of wings, I see my father finally get his wings under control and take to the air. Not long after, Mother follows his shadow. Looking at Xelyphe and sighing, we both follow behind them. It appears my father is headed in a specific direction, and it doesn't take long before Xelyphe points out a creature moving through the grasslands. As we approach where we see it, no trace of any creature is in the area. Continuing following our parents, we hear a jarring buzzing sound.
It doesn't take long before three giant wasps fly out of the ground and intercept Xelyphe and me. I took a moment to analyze them before they got too close and saw some basic details for the wasps.
- Giant Wasp Level 5`
HP: 16/16 -
I quickly inform Xelyphe of this information as she stands before me, shield in one and hand sword at the ready. They approach us quickly, trying to hit one before they approach us, but my arcane shot goes wide. Cursing my bad luck at firing magic, I see Xelyphe swing at the wasps. The sword takes on a red hew as it cuts one of the legs off one of the wasps and bites into its carapace. Two of the wasps got their stingers into a position to swipe at Xelyphe.
Blocking the incoming attack from the left, the right one stings Xelyphe's side. Thankfully, the new armor protects them.
Taking a moment to cast a shield on Xelyphe with a golden glow around them, I cast another arcane shot shortly after onto one of the wasps. My spell lands as one of the wasps is flying away, and it blasts the wasp into a green goo. Xelyphe was also able to get another swing off onto another. Clearing the wings of the next one and then following through to stab their sword into the head of the wasp, killing it. The third wasp that could sting Xelyphe flies in a large circle. On its return, we both tried to hit it again, failing to hit it as it passed. Using its stinger as a lance, it can charge into Xelyphe. Thankfully, with the shield on, the stinger can't penetrate her armor. Quickly flying away from us, Xelyphe can get another slash, and with the red light surrounding the blade again, they clip the wings off of this wasp as well.
It takes less than a second for the wasp to be killed and for us to receive a notification.
- You have killed 3 X Giant Wasps Level 5. Experience awarded 2. -
We look around to see if we can see our parents. Thankfully, we can see Dad flying in the sky. He is now much further away than we could have anticipated. Charging forward, we continue to chase after them. As we run, Xelyphe stops us. Instead of continuing our breakneck pace, they hold up their hand to get me to stop. It doesn't take long for me to figure out what is happening.
- Party Quest: The Folly of War
You have stumbled upon an ancient war site and disturbed the inhabitants of this battleground. You must pick a side and help that side achieve victory.
Tasks:
Pick a side: 0/1
Kill all opposing parties: 0/1
Rewards:???
Failure: N/A -
Seeing the quest pop up makes me curious about what we will be fighting for and against. That's when my vision clouds over, and we are transported to another spot. We aren't in a grassland anymore. Instead, we are on the outskirts of a small village. Ghostly corpses surround us; some appear to be wearing armor, and others have simple, ordinary clothing. The metal ringing sounds out from the distance, and as we approach the sounds, we see the two sides fighting. On one side is a group of 20 commoners; on the other is a group of 10 soldiers and what appears to be four mages in the background. They haven't cast anything yet, but they are chanting.
"Who do you think we should side with?" I asked.
Giving me a look that says, "Are you stupid?" Xelyphe points to the group of commoners. "Of course, we are going to help the commoners. They obviously shouldn't be the ones fighting, but it seems they are forced into this combat."
"Why not the soldiers?" I ask more out of curiosity than anything else.
"Look around, Drake. There aren't that many of their corpses around in comparison to the soldiers. They must hide strength that could easily crush us if we join the soldiers. Also, I don't like the way those mages are summoning. I feel like they are siphoning something off."
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Following the trail of thought mentioned, I focus on my mana control to see if there is anything I can see from that. Slowly falling into a meditative stance, I can feel the flow of mana. And from those flows, I can feel the mana in the air heading toward the chanting mages. Most of the mana being pulled in is death mana.
Popping out of the state, I turn to Xelyphe, "The mages are pulling in death mana. Nothing good will come based on the amount of mana being pulled in. We need to stop them before anything can happen."
With that proclamation, we both head into the battlefield. As we get closer, our intent for which side we plan to fight with shows, and ghostly tendrils of mana start to wrap themselves around our bodies. Slowly, my mage robes and wand change into a simple set of clothing and a shepherd's staff, while Xelyphe has the same dress the other ghosts wear. Their sword and shield remain similar, but a ghostly aura radiates.
Approaching the front lines, Xelyphe heads straight into the battle, swinging her sword and removing the sword arm from one of the soldiers. The commoners slowly started getting the soldiers from their flanks with their superior numbers and hacked down two. As the bodies fall to the floor, they disappear. Casting my spells at the soldiers, I missed one by a hair's breadth because I was aiming at their heads, and they could dodge out of the way.
We continued to fight. I wanted to use Nature's Grasp, but I was concerned that it would affect the battlefield too much and that my allies would run into it. In several instances, Xelyphe attacks one of the soldiers, and the blade phases through them. The soldiers continue to fall, but something feels wrong. I can see as one soldier falls, another appears near the mages. When the new soldier appears, some of the mana that has been gathering diminishes slightly.
Calling out, "Xelyphe, we need to take out the mages. They keep summoning more of the soldiers!" They don't hear me over the rest of the battle. Taking matters into my hands, I cast a Nature's Grasp underneath the mages. They don't seem to notice the brambles underneath them. Analyzing the mages, I find out why.
- Ghost Mage Soldier (Elite)
HP: 80/80
MP: 60/100 -
My spell doesn't seem to do any damage to them. Thinking about why that could be, I looked closer at the spell.
- Nature's Grasp: Creates a layer of rough brambles in a 5-meter area, causing enemies to take 1 - 4 + 5 damage while walking through them. -
There are two options that I can think of that would be the reason for the lack of damage. The first is that they aren't trying to move through the brambles. The second is that the damage dealt is physical and doesn't affect them as it would someone else. Grumbling about the lack of effect, I changed my form of attack and instead went with arcane bolts.
Hitting one of the mages, I looked at the damage dealt and saw that I managed to take out a quarter of the health from one of the mages. Wanting to keep piling on the damage to the mages, I keep casting at them. While I was doing this, Xelyphe and the commoners pushed the soldiers back to the point of their spawning. Sadly, during this process, they had lost several of their own, bringing their numbers down to 17. The amount of mana in the pool of death mana has taken a noticeable dent, but it is still not enough to stop the mages from chanting, and with every death of a commoner, the pool is bolstered by a considerable amount.
It takes several arcane bolts before the first mage is slain. The moment they perish, the mana pool rapidly grows, but the edges of it also start to shake, and instead of maintaining the mana, the mana isn't being collected anymore. And it is just being stabilized by the other three mages. The number of soldiers that appear after every death slowly dwindles; it takes a moment to realize, but the amount of soldiers has dropped from 10 to 8. With fewer soldiers, they continue to push them hard. Noticing the change in the battle tempo, I continue to focus on the mages.
As I start casting my spells at them, instead of sitting and doing nothing, a barrier appears around them, preventing my arcane bolt from doing any damage. Casting the bolt several times, I saw that nothing was working. The barrier was the same pale blue color as my arcane bolts. I try to think of something that I can do to start damaging the mages again. Looking over my spell list, I begin to narrow down my options. If my arcane bolt won't work and nature's grasp is ineffective, only a few other options are available. I have Smite and Corrupting Bolt available, but I don't have another spell type available to deal with a fourth type of damage. Shrugging my shoulders, I decide it is better to get started before we lose all the commoner ghosts we are fighting alongside.
When I first start casting smite at another of the mages and want to try something else, I try to damage all of them before killing one more. It takes me three casts of the spell to get used to how it is projected. Unlike the other two bolt spells, the spell comes down like a sword strike from the heavens. Having no prior knowledge, the first of the casts gouged a small groove in the ground far from one of the mages. After learning how it looks when cast, the second cast ends up just above the head of the mage since I started the spell too high for it to hit before it dissipates.
And just like the saying goes, the third time is the charm. It strikes the mage, and while it doesn't do as much damage as my arcane bolt, I could at least hit the mage again. With that knowledge, I continued to cast while most of the spells hit; several instances were missing because I wasn't concentrating enough on where the spell should start, or I had it start either in front of the mage or behind them as I misjudged the distance.
When I get all three of the mages down to around ten health remaining, another three commoners have perished, further bolstering the spell the mages are chanting. I can see Xelyphe starting to tire of swinging their sword, so I try to hurry up and clear the mages. I start casting at the image with the least amount of health. My strike hits, and they fall to the ground. Once again, the spell becomes more unstable, but unlike what I was hoping for, the other two mages have fully replenished their health. Looking at all the damage I dealt, being instantly healed frustrates me. If I had known that, I wouldn't have spent so much time trying to bring each mage down to a lower health threshold.
In my frustration, I cast one more smite at one of the remaining mages, only for it to be absorbed into the barrier surrounding the two. Seeing that my theory for the shield is correct, I can't help but be frustrated; I should have learned how to cast death or nature affinity spells. Putting those thoughts behind me for the time being, I see that after the second mage has died, the number of soldiers everyone faces has dwindled to five. This makes things easier for the remaining 14 commoners and Xelyphe.
When they try to approach the barrier with the space they have now received, they cannot pass through it. Xelyphe looks back at me and smiles tiredly. "I can only deal with the soldiers; you must deal with the mages alone. I know you can do it, Drake."
Hearing her praise bolsters my resolve to figure out a solution to the predicament that we will be in shortly after I use my corrupting bolt to take out one more of the mages. Looking at how much mana I have left, I sigh, knowing that if it were anyone else in our position, they wouldn't be able to leave this situation alive.
- MP: 196/300 -