There was a narrow choke point to get the civilians out of harms way of the district, the adventure society representatives were busy fighting the strange augmented monsters so the Mitchells took to crowd clearance.
Teddy marked a section of the map for Lucy and James to head to and teleported himself and Kyra to a building top next to a short curved bridge which was one of the exits from the main area. They were lucky that most buildings had shelters and the non-essence user workers knew to take refuge there, the bulk of the people they were dealing with were those who were outside their buildings or visitors. As soon as Kyra’s feet touched the floor on top of the building next to the bridge Teddy shot off, still almost a blur to her bronze rank eyes.
Kyra immediately used her earth shaping powers to cause another bridge to flow over the gap for people to cross. One of the monsters had been sent to the commotion of so many people trying to get over the narrow bridge, Kyra earth spiked it and threw a wall in its way while she helped people over.
Lucy held her hands up high for Lechuza to grab, just before the huge familiar grabbed her hands her husband transformed himself into a snake a few feet long, he twisted up one of her legs just as she was swept up by the massive owl. When they were at their peak above the fray James as a snake let go.
James was doing a lot of research into different animals in Pallimustus, many of them were magical and had benefits that weren’t immediately obvious. The snake he was imitating now had a very clever camouflage and a very nice defence. He instinctively knew how it worked and he felt like he was sucking in air, the snake rapidly got bigger, soon it was over ten feet long, huge bat like wings uncurled from its sides and arrested the rate of fall, it couldn’t fly and he wouldn’t have been able to get this high on his own without Lechuza’s help but now he was here he could try his other idea for his attack. The Cloud Snakes lived high up in the mountains unlike what their names suggested, they needed this high vantage to fling themselves from the rock to glide down when attacked, they would then shrink to normal size to not attract attention to slither back up. Whilst they were airborne they had an excellent defence against would-be predators which James now sought to use as offence. Looking below he chose an augmented monster with obvious metalwork bolted into the top of its back, right in the middle of the pack. Moisture had started collecting around the snake as soon as he had unfurled his wings, now he had a small dark storm-cloud around him. Imbuing the strike with his vambrace power he released the collected energy from the cloud and a lightning bolt crashed down into the monster. The metalwork on top exploded, sending shrapnel flying into the monsters around it, flammable liquids from tanks attached to the contraption splashed onto its neighbours setting them alight and into a frenzy.
………
Genevieve stood on the top of the society administration building watching the fight evolve. As a one time adventurer and a silver ranker she knew her contribution to the fight would be significant down below, her contribution as the Director of the society was critical however, large teams of adventurers needed guiding as they tended to be solo operators, her frustration at the moment was that getting messages out was so slow.
She felt the intrusion of a mind power and prepared her defences until she recognised the aura behind it. Following the tendril of aura she saw one of the Mitchell women high above the fight dangling from a giant bird that had been spotted numerous times above the city, she had received the report of this monster across her desk a few times and had to check the records to ensure it was a familiar and shouldn’t be shot down. She allowed the power recognising it as a telepathy communication.
[Director, thankyou for letting me in, it’s Lucy Mitchell.]
[Mrs Mitchell, what can I do for you I’m a little busy.]
The Director sent an icy blast of wind out to catch some thrown masonry headed towards a building, send it crashing to the open ground.
[It’s more what I can do for you Director, I’ve set up a Tactical network page for you to… damn it, the map wont work but you can better organise and communicate with your people, hang on. There, you should recieve it…]
Genevieve Picot (Director) (Guest) has been added to the tab [Tactical Net].
Genevieve Picot has administrative rights over [Tactical Net].
The Director look appreciatively at the screen in front of her. And started mentally writing onto the page cutting the telepathic connection.
[And what does this allow me to do Mrs Mitchell?]
Lucy gave her a brief tour of the functions that were available to her including the freedom to create groups and add members to that page only without having to ask permissions. She got busy adding adventurers, organising her people and making a more cohesive plan to beat back the monsters.
[ATTENTION ADVENTURERS. Anyone already embroiled in the fight make the monster controlling enemy essence users your priority before falling back to your assigned positions.] she wrote.
Lucy took this as her cue to drop down from the sky. She angled her descent and shot Kyra a message. As she was about to hit the ground she borrowed a power and they saw the interaction on the battle log tab.
(Lucy Mitchell) has used the [Encased] power from (Kyra Mitchell) [Diamond Essence].
[Encased] has been used at a lower power than is available to (Kyra Mitchell).
[Encased] will surround (Lucy Mitchell) with impenetrable diamond for 3 seconds.
They saw through Kyra’s tab on the interface that the power availability had gone on a two minute countdown.
Lucy smashed into one of the monsters like a diamond bullet. When the diamond dissipated she was whole and clean in the midst of the gore of a monster that looked like it had exploded from the inside.
All the monsters were large hulking beasts, mostly iron rank with a handful of bronze. There were two silver rank monsters that had a handler each and were keeping Vincent very busy as the only silver ranker present. Lucy looked about and tried and found to her dismay that her mind powers wouldn’t work on the monsters, they were being controlled from somewhere else. She shrugged, in too close to use her runes and missile combination she pulled a sword from her inventory that definitely hadn’t been put in there by her and started cutting her way back out the pack.
Teddy had been zipping about as fast as he could, not trying to have the most impact on the fighting but trying to make the start of the fight as clean as possible. The chaos meant that exits for civilians weren’t clear and they were hounded by the ever expanding source of monsters. He made escapes possible and tied up monsters or corralled them back to the main fight, when he saw Lucy fighting ‘manually’ as James put it he made his way to her.
“Nice frog sticker you’ve got there Lu, looks familiar.”
“Yeh yeh, thankyou for the loan. It works ok against the iron rank monsters but its struggling against the bronze.” She said as she cut a tendon on a big rhino looking monster.
“The biomechanical attachments seem to all be one rank lower, the machines that is. Normal rank on the iron rank monsters and iron rank on the bronze monsters, thats the weak point, go for those.”
Between the two of them they cut their way out to where Kyra had made her way forward. The adventurers that had made their way to the commotion showed all the signs of being organised well by the Director and Vincent. They met up and turned to look at the situation, they were faced with a semicircle of adventurers enveloping the block of monsters that had their back to the breach they had made to get into the courtyard. They could see within the roiling mass there were two white coated men holding the apparatus that seemed to be controlling the monsters.
[ATTENTION ADVENTURERS. We are about to make our counterattack. By now individual adventurers should have been divided into Section A and Section B. Team Razor you are to form a wedge in the centre to divide the enemy. Team Amber Mist, you are to strike the essence user on the left while Section A holds the line. Team Mitchell you are to strike the essence user on the right while Section B holds the line. Capture is desired but not essential. On my mark.]
Genevieve was still on top of the campus administration building, content that she was not needed to intervene yet.
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James came swooping down to his team, flaring his giant bat-like wings and as soon as the bottom of his tail touched the floor he morphed back into himself, stepped smoothly out of the dive. As soon as he was with them Teddy opened their private team chat.
[OK team, as we’ve been given the strike lets see if we can go for the capture. Kyra and James, you’re going to be on monster wrangling, watch our backs. Lucy you’re with me, we’re on strike, you tie him up in his worst nightmare and I’ll make sure he can’t get away.]
[How’re we kicking it off?] James asked.
[Going to try something a little different, I’m going to be tapped out for mana so will need you to be ready to go Lu.]
[I got you.] Lucy replied, Lechuza hit the ground in front of them in a burst of feathers, before any of the adventurers could see the scary bush witch in the middle of the feathers Lucy absorbed her familiar to boost her mental mojo.
[James, I’ll take the girls, you be ready to follow a beat after with my rift power, that’ll save me a bit of mana to use the other end.]
[Oh damn, you gonna try and teleport all three of you? Also, sweet, been wanting to see what you rift power is like.]
Teddy suddenly looked uneasy about him using the power. […When you enter, just keep moving as fast as you can, whatever happens, you set the destination before you entered so follow it through on the path, don’t leave the path.]
[err, ok dude, thats no worrying at all.] It was slightly disconcerting that Teddy felt the need to add the ‘…’ to the interface conversation.
[Don’t think about it, it’ll be fine.]
They were saved from future discussion of the consequences of dimensional rift travel from a notification on the tactical net.
[ATTENTION ADVENTURERS. All teams, GO.]
Teddy looked at Kyra and Lucy in front of him and they both nodded, he stepped between the two of them looking at the man with the coat in middle of the monsters, with a slight strain he managed to teleport all three of them to the other side.
Where he was left James saw the others appear, Kyra slammed up a wall to help separate the sides of the two essence user enemies and Lucy blasted a monster with a missile from her right hand while her left was wreathed in shadow with ash motes rising off while pointing in a claw at the man. Teddy took a knee for a second to deal with the largest amount of mana he had ever spent in one go. James knew he needed to get in there as soon as possible.
“Well, what’s the worst that can happen…” He said to himself.
He opened Teddy’s tab on the interface and saw the Dimension Rift was available. He selected it nervously and saw a notification.
WARNING. Unstable dimensional travel. Use with caution.
(James Mitchell) has used the [Dimension Rift] power from (Teddy Mitchell) [Dimension] essence.
[Dimension Rift] will be used at a lower power than is available to (Teddy Mitchell).
[Dimension Rift] will form a dimensional tunnel for (James Mitchell) to travel to over a short distance.
Selection destination of [Dimensional Rift] now or /Cancel.
James was not thrilled to see that the power came with a caution before using it for the first time, especially during a battle. He looked over the area where the others were battling and noticed his gaze felt like a curser. He saw the edge of the clearing around the essence user and where a monster kept being rocked backwards by an attack from the adventurers on the outside. He knew he could place the destination rift just behind the monster and he would be able to step out and away from the hulking beast. He mentally clicked to select where he wanted it and it formed, before he could re-think if he wanted to do it he stepped through.
Teddy recovered from his teleport, he had a spike of a headache at the big burst of mana used, he saw the girls had jumped into action straight away and he stood up throwing shards of darkness. Kyra’s golem was out and hitting the rear of the surprised monsters and she was a blur of golden hair as she stabbed out with her diamond spear.
James stepped out of the rift, he had placed it well and a monster stepped back into it causing it to shear off half of its leg and the rift to collapse. James was shaking and his eyes were wide and white. He released Koda and had the big bear stand over him for a moment while he tugged his beard and slapped his cheeks to get his act together. When he’d had his moment he dived into the fray.
Lucy was standing almost motionless staring malevolently at the man in front of her. He was obviously fighting whatever she was doing to him and his control over the monsters was suffering, the silent coordinated beasts were becoming slightly incoherent in their synchronised attacks that were testing the adventurers on the outside of the semicircle. Teddy saw Lucy smile and, quiet as a whisper but loud enough to be heard over the raging monsters he heard a bone chilling sing-song chant.
“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. And never mind that noise you heard. It’s just the beasts under your bed, in your closet, in your head.” The spell causing the black motes of dust to peel off her arm towards the man.
The mans back went rigid, his mouth open in a silent scream, his head and hands started to shake, the instruments he was holding clattered to the floor and the monsters on his side went wild. They attacked each other and the adventurers on both sides. Teddy wondered what the man was seeing, Lucy claimed not to know what each victim of her spell saw and he didn’t envy the man.
Ability: [Enter Sandman] (Illusion) [ENHANCED by (Lechuza (Bush Witch))]
Special ability
Base cost: High mana.
Cool-down: 5 min
Current rank: Bronze 0 (00%)
Effect (iron): When activated enables the caster to cause a moment illusion in front of an enemy. This illusion is what is most likely to terrify the target causing them to panic.
Effect (bronze): Bronze rank lengthened incantation produces an extended duration illusion. Illusion strength is much higher. Multiple uses of short incantation may be used instead with no cool-down.
[I’ve got him, lock him down.] She said.
Teddy didn’t need telling twice, he rushed in, pulling a length of chain from his storage rift and racing around the man.
[You’ve only got a moment, we need to get him to the society, they’ll have a collar.]
[Roger that, Kyra, James, it’s cannonball time, straight at the administration building.]
[Happy with that.] Kyra answered.
[On my way.] James said.
They had come up with a series of quick action plays they could enact without a detailed chat. Cannonball was a move that took all three of them, Kyra got her diamond golem to move to where it needed to be, Koda taking up its place. James then came in, using his standing strength bonus and his prehensile tail to boost and still he barely managed to pick up the massive golem, he wrenched his body in a spin and threw it. Teddy was standing in the path of the throw and using every scrap of his bronze rank strength and speed he deflected the golem mid-air. The Fly like an Arrow power from his swift essence boosted his throwing of projectiles. At iron rank it had been twice as fast, at bronze it was a staggering five times as fast. The golem was for some illogical reason recognised as a projectile and accelerated like a rocket on a booster. It hit the back row of the now wild monsters, Kyra snapped her fingers before it lost momentum and the golem exploded. Three smaller golems rocketed out at the same speed plus the speed of the explosion carving a corridor through the monsters. Teddy picked up the chained man and ran with him. Lucy and Kyra got behind James who absorbed Koda for the extra size and they all ran through the gap. Teddy was out in a flash and with James barrelling any monsters out the way the others weren’t far behind.
The man started to recover from his nightmare and started to squirm, Teddy dumped him on the floor behind the friendly lines. Without waiting James walked up to the prisoner and gripped the end of the chain with his vambraced arm and sent a pulse of lightning through the metal. The man spasmed where he lay and any time it ended and he struggled James hit him again.
[Star Command this is team Mitchell. Right hand meteor is caught in orbit, I say again, the right hand meteor is caught in orbit.] James wrote on the tactical net.
[Mr Mitchell, as wonderful as this network is it needs clear concise communication. I regret that you cannot see the look I am giving you right now, what in the gods are you talking about.] the Director wrote back after a pause.
[Director, the target that team Mitchell was sent in for has been captured and is restrained at the base of your building, requesting a collar be sent.] Teddy jumped in before James could put more nonsense up on the busy tactical net.
Vincent was with them not long after and pulled a collar from a dimensional satchel he had with him and snapped it around the chained mans neck.
“I thought you were tied up with the silver rank monsters?” Teddy asked him on handing over the prisoner.
“A few of the resident silver rankers of Greenstone were rallied, the silver rank threat is dealt with and this should be cleared up shortly.”
The fight was indeed mostly over, the deterioration of the monsters control had lead them to their base instincts and they went berserk, attacking each other as much as the adventurers. The second man in a white coat that was directing from the left looked like a melted waxwork, there was a sickly orange mist knee-high over the entire area, when they asked Vincent they discovered that team Amber Mist was a traditional team built around an affliction specialist, a heavy front line and specialists in buffs plus the dedicated area affliction specialist at the back. They had contained their half and had gone straight for the kill, wiping out the monsters and the man controlling equally.
Off to the side was a misty hazy area, the Mitchells had been no where near that area, thats where the two silver rank monsters had been, one was already dead on the floor and two older men stood watching the mist close-up. They realised with a shock the two old men were some of the silver rankers that had been rallied to the defence, the beautifying effects of silver rank meant that they must have either got there late in life or they had been silver rankers for a very long time. Judging by their clothing and posture they were wealthy aristocrats and so it was a safe assumption they had achieved silver rank for the prestige then retired a long time ago. The mist abruptly disappeared. The carcasses of multiple monsters hit the floor with wet thumps and the two watching silver rankers had to use their enhanced speed so as not to get splashed. In the middle of numerous monster bodies including the silver and a few bronze stood the handler of the silver rank monster abominations with a haze around his head, his whole body was slack as if he was being held up by the haze. Next to him was the wraith man the Mitchells knew from the church who was returning from solid to his usual ethereal form.
He spotted the team standing next to Vincent and walked over to them, stopping briefly to share a few words with the other silver rankers before they left the scene. His prisoner floated along behind him, towed by the mist around his head.
“Well met Deputy Director, well met Mitchells.” He handed over his prisoner to Vincent who clamped another collar around his neck and the mist disappeared, the mans head looked far older than his body, the skin was sallow and drooped, a thin line of drool came from one corner and his eyes were milky white.
“Wraith dude.” James nodded to the scary adventurer.
“My god would like to congratulate you on your ascension to bronze, you are well on your way to being ready for his purpose and he urges you to not let up in your progress.”
“Well speaking of what your god wants, I think it’s time we came to his house for a little chat.”