Wyn cast Shield again, blocking another sharp slice of wind. The blob of enemies their group was currently fighting was a strange enemy that made him more annoyed than anything.
The monsters were small, fluffy cloud-like creatures that didn’t appear to have any defining features. They just floated in the air like miniature storm clouds, gray and dense, packed together like a swarm of rats but each the size of a bucket. There were at least two dozen of the monsters that formed one large pack though they acted like a singular unit. They were incredibly magic resistant but weak to physical attacks. The problem was that the melee Climbers couldn’t get close enough to attack without suffering wind elemental damage. Lucy pushed through at first and took out several clouds with a couple of strong swings of her axe, but even she backed off afterwards. Every exposed piece of skin on her body was cut in what looked to be hundreds of small gashes, and she said it felt like standing in a storm of sharp blades.
Even John’s new equipment didn’t seem to be helping much against them. His new chest piece and boots from the guild’s vault had helped deal with the other ice elemental enemies easily since it was two pieces of a set of fire elemental armor. It was called Blacksmith’s Brand, and it improved his overall strength and defense while providing a substantial fire and ice resistance. The boots gave him improved mobility in snowy environments as it melted the surrounding area with each step, and the set bonus gave him a heat aura that caused fire damage to enemies within a small radius around him. It was an excellent set of equipment for the tier, and it looked equally as intimidating. The chest piece was black and red with harsh jagged pauldrons and ribs, and the boots were mostly red with black trim. Wyn thought he looked like a fiery demon.
Wyn extended his weapon longer than a standard spear to attack the enemies but it was a slow process to kill them. They still fought back, and their only active attack was firing small but fast moving wind slices. He wanted to have Tasha coat him and the others in Arcane Aura before wading in, and Wyn figured if that wasn’t enough then another layer of Regen would keep the warriors healthy and healing if they became injured. He thought about using his Wellspring trap or even coating himself in Drain but theorized that since the enemies were resistant to magic they might be equally resistant to those effects. So, his next solution was protection while fighting them in direct combat. It was the next plan he came up with while keeping some distance from the monsters.
The problem with that strategy was that John was leading the group this week, and Wyn knew he would be overstepping if he said the idea. He wasn’t their current leader. John needed to have a chance to succeed.
But John also needed to figure it out in his own or possibly one of the others could think of it. Wyn just didn’t want it to come from him. It was John’s third day of leading the group and this was his first real test as they hadn’t encountered this enemy on the sixth floor before. So far he was doing okay, but it was obvious he easily became frustrated with himself when something didn’t go exactly as planned. He tended to be slow to announce formations, make calls on the fly, and adjust as needed. John was a good Climber fighting monsters and keeping morale, but he was proving to not be the best leader.
In the current engagement, his lack of coming up with an idea or trying something different meant they struggled. Marcy continued to shoot arrow after arrow at the group, slowly but surely taking down the individual clouds. She grumbled about her dwindling arrow count but mostly kept her thoughts to herself. Wyn figured she didn’t want to add to John’s stress.
Lucy had no such reservations.
As the mass of monsters thinned, she recklessly charged in with her axe, swinging it wildly with a yell of rage. Wyn could see visible cuts form on her legs, arms, neck and face, but the Barbarian pushed through. She started killing one monster with each swing, but then was able to killed multiple at a time as her strength and power increased. When the final one dissipated in a gray puff, she stood huffing as blood run down her body.
Tasha promptly healed her but Lucy stomped over to John. Wyn could tell something was about to be said, and it wasn’t going to be good. He moved to intercept her along with the others.
“What in the fuck are you doing,” Lucy said, holding her bloodstained arms out to the side. She looked like a bloody angelic tribal warrior due to the white aura coating her body from Tasha’s healing.
John stared at her but stayed silent. He looked like he was about to fight her.
“Calm down, Lucy,” Wyn said. “Those enemies weren’t here before. They were a new threat and unlike anything we’ve faced before.”
“That’s the whole point of climbing! We find threats, and we kill them. Simple. You should have been able to manage those damn clouds better than me, too, with all your armor and your shield. And you!” She pointed a finger at Wyn. “You should have healed us with your Regen spell or something so we could at least absorb the hits. Or you, Tasha, protect us with some of your defensive spells. ‘Cause that shit hurt.”
Wyn wanted to argue but kept his mouth closed and jaw clenched. Lucy was right and said what was on his mind. When he looked over at Tasha, he saw she had a pained look on her face. So she likely thought of the idea, too, but also didn’t say anything.
At this rate, if they advanced further into unknown territory they’d be at a distinct disadvantage. John would either make the wrong call or no call at all, and Wyn would be forced to intervene in order to keep everyone safe. But that would cause a major rift in their group and he knew it.
Was that the point of this exercise? To keep them checked on climbing further or risk the group becoming divisive?
No. He didn’t think Gregory and the others were that malicious. He took a deep breath and calmed down while Lucy vented with the others before stomping off on her own. The guild was going exactly as they said - they were taking the first month of a new group to get them sorted. Before, while having no one to keep them accountable, they had to make decisions as a group and trust each other. But that also meant if someone stepped up as a leader, either the rest of the group would trust them or rebel. They were lucky. Wyn knew that was not always the case.
But having a guild enforce rules and direction helped. Maybe someone had better ideas than him. Maybe he was better taking direct orders than giving them. He certainly took his share of orders while in the military, so he was used to that much.
The final conclusion was that it felt like a team-building exercise while becoming acquainted to new ways of climbing. The problem was that they were so used to climbing with Wyn giving orders, and only climbing with five of them. Having responsibility was hard, and that was obvious with John. And Lucy being a short-tempered new member was complicating it.
But Wyn had faith. John was more resilient than that, and he could talk to Lucy to get her to calm down.
“She’ll be fine,” John said, walking over beside Wyn. “She’s just angry about getting hurt like that.”
“I know,” Wyn said. “We can do this. You can do this. Just keep your head up and be positive. Two things I know you can do easily.”
John smiled and nodded. “I’ll keep trying. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t ready for this week to be done.”
Wyn laughed, causing John to laugh, too.
Tasha stepped up beside John and put a hand on his back. She walked off with him back to leading the way, encouraging him with each step.
Wyn knew they would be okay. But it would be one hell of an experience in the meantime.
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The group continued on after Marcy recovered a blue rarity belt from the monsters. It was called a Storm Surge belt, and she went ahead and identified it. It was wide, looking more like a sash, with a dark gray buckle on the front and a lighter gray cloth-like material making up the rest of the piece. Marcy said it passively improved magic resistance and could activate a similar wind aura as the monsters that made a miniature storm that would slice and cut. It also provided a levitating effect where the wearer could hover and control their movement for up to one minute at a time for ten minutes total in a day.
Cedric said the levitating effect alone was incredible, as the wearer could bypass traps or reposition themselves well, but the storm cloud effect didn’t differentiate between friend or foe. It made it less desirable to use but still a worthy item. It would be a good one to donate to the guild’s vault.
The rest of the climb went better until the reached the boss. They had only finished the sixth floor twice before, and both times the floor was manageable if not challenging while the ice wyvern boss was difficult. Even only being one monster it was still hard - it had an aura effect that slowed the melee fighters around it along with minor ice damage, and was strong both physically and with magical attacks. The group had to work together well to overcome it with good strategy.
Wyn was worried John’s lack of decisiveness was going to be costly during the fight, but he hoped for the best.
That hope was gone almost immediately.
The moment the group stepped out into the snowy clearing where the boss was, something was different. The ice wyvern flew down from a tall, blue crystalline tree and landed with a crash, spewing up snow and cracked ice in all directions. It roared at them with a fierce yell, and snow and ice immediately began to swirl around it as its aura kicked on. From the deep recesses of the outer snowy barrier, though, more monsters slowly made their way into the area.
Wyn cursed. It was normally a single monster fight. Now at least a half dozen monsters that looked like ice-elemental Zalman-dos were crawling quickly from the edges of the clearing, lashing out with blue tongues that cracked like whips in the air. Wyn hoped there wouldn’t be more, but he was prepared for the worst.
The group spread out a bit, ready to engage, though waiting on some direction. John stood there with his shield and sword ready, confusion plastered on his face. Wyn mentally yelled at him to act, to do something. Anything. But he stood there frozen as though he was trying to process the right course of action.
If there was something Wyn learned being a leader, it was that often times it was better to act and do anything than nothing at all. Action that may not be the most optimal was still better than inaction, and experience and training usually helped that directed action to at least be somewhat effective. They had been climbing together for months and even previously cleared this floor. John should be able to put together a few basic instructions so they wouldn’t be caught.
Instead, everyone moved according to what they thought was best. Wyn thought not doing giving any type of order at all would be bad, and this was usually the consequence. He made a mental note that if their situation was going to go bad quickly he was going to take over.
He desperately hoped that wouldn’t be the case. The gods only knew how John would react to that.
Lucy attacked the nearest Zalman-dos with a furious yell and axed a large gash in the monster’s side. It was a sixth floor monster, though, and lashed out with its tongue at her in retaliation. She raised an arm to block but the hit cracked against her forearm with a small, faint plume of blue mist. Lucy immediately cried in pain and axed the creature again with one hand, nearly bisecting it as a deep, blood red aura of power surrounded her.
Her left arm stayed curled against her fur-lined chest armor, now colored a deep blue from her elbow to her wrist.
Tasha immediately cast Cure on her from a distance. Her arm slowly returned to a more normal color but remained bent and slightly blue. Wyn rushed to her side and blocked a last-ditch effort of the dying monster with his expanded shield, then watched as it slowly dissipated back to the tower.
“Don’t get hit by their attacks!” Lucy called, backing away from the next Zalman-dos that was nearly in attacking range.
“Attack the wyvern!” John yelled. “I’ll join you with Cedric! Wyn, you take care of the Zalman-dos with Marcy!”
Tasha immediately cast Arcane Aura that coated John, Lucy, and Wyn, then sent another cast of Cure onto Lucy as she ran away. Lucy, John, and Cedric all took off in a sprint directly at the wyvern, avoiding and rushing past the Zalman-dos. Which was easy for them as the creatures instead focused on the other three climbers.
“John needs to get his shit together,” Marcy said, immediately firing a glowing red-tipped arrow at the closest monster. The projectile exploded in a red puff, causing the monster to screech in pain as burn marks covered its entire body. It wasn’t dead but stopped its advance, and Marcy already had another arrow nocked on her bow.
“Tasha, get a calling ready,” Wyn said. “Fly up and support them if needed. Marcy and I can deal with the other monsters.”
Tasha immediately began summoning her newest Calling. Zoraquin was useful last season but his water-element wasn’t useful now. Instead, Tasha found a similar Calling who was called Infernadin. She was a more nimble melee Calling that emitted waves of embers in an area and fought with fiery punches and kicks.
Marcy used her Inferno magical arrow to blast and stun another close Zalman-dos. Wyn activated his Speed Up skill and Decay spell. He was going to be the primary combatant here, and he didn’t figure trapping some was worth the mana cost. These secondary monsters needed to die quickly so he could go and help the others with the wyvern, not be trapped to be dealt with later.
Wyn activated his shield and changed his weapon to a short sword. He thought about using a spear but realized that the creatures had more of an advantage than him with their fierce tongues and magical damage. If he could get close to them, their tongues wouldn’t be as useful, and he could protect himself from their claws while slashing them quickly with a short sword.
The first creature he met tried to lash at him with a long blue tongue, but Wyn blocked it with his shield. The hit cracked with a small boom, but his shield was unaffected. Closing the distance, he stabbed and slashed at the monster three times before it recovered and struck back. Wyn then repositioned himself and made a large gash along its side, letting his Decay spell weaken the monster and kill it quicker.
The monster quickly died and Wyn rushed the next one. His plan was working, though he needed to use a quick Shield spell to prevent a second Zalman-dos from hitting him from the side. There was a slim chance he could outright dodge or avoid their tongue attacks, even with his enhanced speed. So he opted to block them instead.
Between Wyn and Marcy, the eight secondary monsters were killed in about a minute. They both didn’t see any more coming, and followed the others to the ice wyvern. They ignored the small piles of treasure left behind. For now.
Tasha already went on ahead to the true boss monster, and she was flying in the air on translucent wings sprouting from her back. Marcy soon joined her, activating her Master Avian Cloak and flying in the air to rain arrows from above. She launched another Inferno arrow that pelted the wyvern in the back, causing it to screech in pain.
They learned on their first climb of the sixth floor that most of the ice creatures were both heavily damaged from the fire element and stunned from the small blast that Marcy’s magical arrows caused. She needed to use two or three mana potions during the floor clear but it was worth it knowing how effective they were.
Now, both Lucy and John tried to take advantage of the monster’s distraction and attack it. Unfortunately they were on the same side of the large beast, and Lucy’s wide axe swing nearly hit John’s shield, causing him to stumble to the side and lose his momentum. He glared at her before stepping back and raising his shield as the wyvern’s tail came swatting at him and Lucy. She threw herself to the ground but he absorbed the blow as it knocked him back several feet.
Wyn rushed the other side of the monster and placed a Wellspring on the ground under its feet. It was so big its body was as large as the glyph on the ground, and Wyn could sense the draining effect in addition to his still-active Drain spell.
The wyvern locked eyes with Wyn and roared in his face. Wyn was shocked to see it still moving, and more shocked when he saw a flurry of blue and white shards of ice fly from the creature’s mouth all over Wyn. He threw up his shield in front of him in a desperate attempt to block it, and was too slow to activate Shield.
His legs felt like weighted blocks, ignoring him when he told them to jump to the side to avoid the stream of ice. In what felt like an eternity, icy cold washed over him as the monster’s magical attack completely surrounded and captured him. His Arcane Aura protection was reduced to nothing in seconds, though his own equipment and John’s Squire Aura provided the only protection behind his shield.
When he was able to muster up the strength, he eventually leapt out of the breath attack and fell to the ground. His entire body was numb, and he realized his vision was blurry. A cough escaped his lips and blood sprayed on the ground in front of him.
He tried to wiggle his toes and fingers but wasn’t successful. They were likely frozen. If they were even still attached or functional.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying not to panic. For the first time since that fateful climb in the second floor cave he feared he might not make it back home.