Isla pulled her sword free and turned to run back to the rest of the group. Maroftis followed her, but Ewtain lagged behind, slowed by his damaged leg. Isla saw Vultressant cast his wind spell at the fresh Devourer, causing it to take a few steps back. When Isla targeted it, she saw that it was barely injured—down less than 10% of its maximum health.

Vanya drank a potion and unleashed a frost attack on the Devourer before it could strike again. The breath, enhanced by the offensive buff, did significant damage to the creature. This was an emergency, but repeated use of that potion could incapacitate the healer, and they could ill afford to lose anyone, especially if more Devourers were lurking around. Hell, they might even be within the walls right now.

Isla risked a quick glance at the walls, scanning for any signs of movement.

After the breath attack was finished, the Crystal Devourer began to change; as the other one had, it too increased in size by 50% and began to attack in earnest. Isla hugged the wall, fearful of a lightning attack, and she held her shield at the ready. Taloc had switched to his sword and was trying to put himself between the mob and the casters, but Vanya was having none of that. She drank another potion and sent another blast at the monster, causing it to shield its face in a vain attempt to block the freezing gases that were far stronger than the previous blast had been. Vanya staggered from the effort, and she wisely backed away before the Devourer could smash her. There was no need for Vanya to use a third potion and risk harm to herself. The breath attack had done its job; the Devourer was under 50% health.

As Isla approached, she saw Taloc had closed in on the Devourer while the two casters had moved away in different directions. Vanya had circled around and positioned herself behind the now-giant monster, while Vultressant had run towards the wall on the opposite side of the cave from the healer. The Wizard was tucked into an alcove, which Isla hoped would provide him cover against a lightning attack, but she doubted it would protect him from the scream that the other creature had used.

The Devourer began to glow, and Isla yelled, “Incoming!” It pointed its hammer toward Vultressant’s hiding spot and aimed its free hand at Taloc. Isla dove to the ground just before two bolts of electricity erupted from the hammerhead and one from its palm. Thankfully, Vultressant was well protected in the alcove and escaped harm. Taloc, however, was not as lucky. With no cover, the Ranger took one charge square in the chest, sending him flying several feet backward before hitting the ground. The last bolt targeted Ewtain, but he just jumped away and completely avoided any damage.

How can he dodge lightning? She was relieved to see that Ewtain had found a way to do it—his foreknowledge ability was amazing.

Maroftis continued his advance and was able to charge the Devourer and divert attention away from the fallen Ranger. Isla sprinted towards the melee. She checked the Devourer’s mana level, and it was under 25%. Taloc still had health points remaining, but Isla could see that he was not moving when she approached. She tried to administer a potion to him, but most of the liquid spilled uselessly out of his mouth. She had to hope that some of the fluid had made it to his stomach, and she left him to aid Maroftis with the Devourer before they lost another fighter to injury. The two of them prevented the monster from getting to Taloc. Vultressant stood and cast his fire spell, aiming it at their opponent’s face. This successfully distracted the thing. Isla was somewhat annoyed that he hadn’t done that earlier, but she supposed that the head was a smaller and more difficult target than the body.

Vanya appeared to be staying out of things, and she was not even firing her bow at the back of the Devourer. Isla noticed that the blessing buff that was normally active had stopped; Vanya was obviously affected from the second use of a frost breath potion and might not be available for the rest of the encounter. Isla glanced back to locate Ewtain, and she saw that the Night Stalker had his hood thrown back, and he was wrapping a cloth around his head. Isla thought that he must be trying to protect himself from the scream attack, but she thought that short of ear plugs or cotton balls, not much would work. Thus far, the second Crystal Devourer had followed the same script as its predecessor, so she assumed that the scream would be coming up. If they could down this one quickly, they might not have to worry about the scream unless it was a threshold attack. She believed that the previous Devourer had made the attack at right around 25% health, so that level of health might trigger it. She made a quick check to see the current health of the mob was just under 35%, so they would find out shortly.

Ewtain finally entered the battle by diving between the legs of the giant-sized crystal-clad monster. He rose and began to attack from behind. They had it surrounded, and Vultressant was still sending spells from the side, so the fight seemed well in hand. That was until the keening scream erupted from the creature. Isla dropped her weapon and lowered her shield as her mind became muddled, her ears rang, and she was deafened. She could see Ewtain covering his ears and Maroftis shaking his head as if to rouse himself from the stupefying effect, but she was unable to make herself move to help them. The Devourer struck Maroftis with its hammer, and the Korak staggered back from the blow. Ewtain leapt at its back and lodged one of his daggers between two large crystals. The Devourer whirled around to strike back at him, but the rogue was still attached to its back and swung with the move.

Ewtain used his weapons to climb up the back of the Devourer by removing them one at a time and stabbing a higher position. He had sheathed his sword and took out another dagger, and he looked like a rock climber, but instead of looking for hand holds, he used the daggers like a pair of claws. The creature looked to be in a panic. It moved to back up to put its back against the nearest wall, looking to pin or dislodge Ewtain. Maroftis recovered enough to distract the Devourer with an attack. It fell to its knees and shrank back to its normal size. Ewtain embedded a dagger into the neck area and followed up with a strike to the other side, killing the creature.

Isla slowly recovered her hearing. She set the loot options to ‘open’, so that whoever was going to do the skinning and essence extraction could do so. Each of the Crystal Devourers had four crystals that were able to be removed with the use of the skinning skill. Ewtain removed all eight, but only three of them qualified for the quest; one was of excellent quality, and the other two were good. The other five were either of normal or poor quality, so there was no update for the quest for those, but they kept them anyway. Vultressant was on extraction duty alone, as Vanya was in no condition to do much of anything. The Wizard was successful both times, and both of the essences were emerald.

“I don’t remember hearing anything about that bellow attack when we were briefed on these things,” Maroftis said sourly.

Vultressant shrugged. “You’re right, Oeister didn’t mention it. Just the lightning.”

“I thought that it was threshold-based,” Isla said, “but it went off at different health levels. It still could just have multiple thresholds, but I think that it was mana-based. It’s either a cooldown issue or its growth and lightning abilities sapped most of its mana. It had to recover some before it could use the scream again.”

Vultressant had been angry after the scream attack, but now he thought about it. If the Crystal Devourers needed to recuperate mana, then it would be possible to avoid the keening attack if they were killed quickly. Oeister and whoever he was with might have simply been more efficient in their killing and avoided the attack all together. “Oeister might have killed them before the keen.”

“By himself?” Maroftis asked.

“Maybe,” Vultressant replied, “but he also might have had some help.”

“Well, we might want to vet the information that we get from him in the future,” Taloc said from a seated position. He had recovered from the lightning and, for some reason, had not been affected by the scream at all.

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“Duly noted,” replied the Wizard.

Ewtain had lifted the head wrappings up over his ears and was sitting next to Taloc. “You guys might want to plug your ears the next time we run into one of those things.”

“You’re probably right,” Isla agreed, “but why wasn’t Taloc deafened?”

“Because he was out cold?” Ewtain said, shrugging.

“But his ears still work while unconscious,” Isla countered.

“The scream might come out in a wave that we can’t see, and he was on the ground at the time,” he reasoned. “You do what you want, but I didn’t look like a drooling fool like the rest of you.” He motioned to Maroftis. “I know that the big guy normally looks like he doesn’t have a clue, but you only look like that when you’re drunk. Wait, are you drunk?” Isla’s eyes narrowed, and Ewtain held up his hands defensively. “Not judging, just checking.”

“Ass,” Isla said, annoyed.

“Anyway,” Ewtain said, “are we going to hole up here or go topside?” he asked. “We’re down a healer and a Ranger, and this cave just loops around back to the passage we came in. There is this wall dividing each side of this cave, so the other Devourer must have been on that side.” He motioned behind him at the wall he was leaning against. “This might be a nice place to rest.”

“The creatures can go through walls,” Taloc reminded him, “and this area is covered in crystals; it’s like a buffet for these things. I don’t think this is very safe.”

“Oeister didn’t say how far they could go into walls, and we haven’t seen one do it yet,” Vultressant countered. “It might just be a few feet, or it might be for miles.”

“Maybe a question that you should have asked?” Taloc asked admonishingly, and Vultressant nodded in response. “I say we stick here and post a guard in view of the tunnel entrance.”

Vultressant had made his case and was in no mood to argue. Vanya would need rest before she was functional again, so this was probably the best plan. He wanted to talk to her about using the frost spray potions recklessly, but she did stop after two doses, so that was progress. He worried about her, but he was unsure of the best way to broach the subject with her. Taloc walked off to take the first watch on the entrance, so Vultressant sat down to check his notifications; he had achieved level ten but had yet to check to see what that entailed.

He found that he had learned the skill energy magic and a spell in that field called forked lightning. This was not due to the new level, but from the lightning spell cast at them by the Crystal Devourers. The spell allowed him to send a lightning attack, which he could fork to hit an additional target. He wanted to know the reason he was able to learn spells and even new magic types from spells that he observed in battle, but for now he was just grateful at the new knowledge. Oeister had not heard of that sort of talent in his three years here, so it was likely rare, or at least uncommon. He thought about the two instances of this occurring now, and the common trait was that he was hit by the spell in combat. His attempt to replicate this with Oeister fell flat, but he was glad that it happened again. The alcove had protected him from a direct hit, but the lightning had penetrated his shield. He hoped that he didn’t actually need to be struck by the spells in order for the ability to work, but even if that were the case, he was very grateful for the talent. He looked at the messages regarding his new level, and most of them were the same things that he had seen when he had attained other levels; his Intellect had increased by one due to his Gnomish race, and he had four more points to spend for level ten. What was different was that he was also allowed to either choose a new magic type skill to learn or upgrade the rank of one of his known magic types. In either case, he would be able to choose two new spells in the chosen field of magic.

While Vultressant had decided to enhance one of his known spells because he had the ability to learn other spells or magic skills simply by experiencing them in combat, he did want to see what sort of spells were offered if he chose one of the magic skills. Earth magic offered mainly defensive or utility spells, and his options were stone skin, wall of earth, fertile soil, alter ground, tremor, and hidden passage. He believed that he knew what the spells likely did from their names, but he looked at the descriptions of each just to make sure.

Stone skin was a defensive buff that mitigated physical attack damage. Fertile soil enchanted the ground and increased the yield of plants grown in the area. Alter ground could make small changes to the ground in a short radius around him. The later spell could be used to disguise a trap, cover their tracks, or slow an attacker charging at him. Wall of earth could only be created from materials in the ground where it was created, and only soft materials could be used—so mud, sand, and clay would work, but rock would not. The tremor spell was the only one that had any real offensive use because it could make a creature lose its footing. This could cause it to fall or make it less able to dodge attacks for the duration of the spell.

He had thought that hidden passage could show him where secret doors were or something similar, but the spell’s actual use was to remove the tracks. This could be useful, but thus far there has been no need to do so. Vultressant thought back to their encounter with the Gnolls, and he revised this last thought; they could have tried to move away from the camp that they had made for the night and covered their tracks with the spell. This still might not have worked if the Gnolls could indeed track by smell, but it would have potentially made things more difficult for them. Also, the spell itself might magically remove their scents, so it could have helped them avoid a tough battle.

He focused on his other skill option, water magic. His options were ice strike, scry, find water, and create fog. The last two did exactly what he expected them to be when he checked. Ice strike was a ranged attack that sent a hail of projectiles at an area, and the spell pummeled the target with ice. The victim would be injured by the force of the objects hitting it as well as from the freezing cold.

The scry spell was used for viewing something in the range of the spell by concentrating on it and using a source of still water as the focus. It reminded Vultressant of the witch using the mirror in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

The spells that he could choose from earth and water were underwhelming. If he had to choose between the two, he would opt for earth magic and learn the wall of earth and stone skin spells. Stone skin was obviously defensive in nature, and putting up a wall could provide cover from ranged attacks as well as being an impediment between himself and any attacking creatures trying to get close to him. The water spell options just weren’t that interesting; ice strike was an AoE spell, but he already had that with wind wave. On the other hand, it could be cast at a range of up to 30 meters, which was much better than wind wave. It would be nice to have it, but he needed to see what focusing on fire magic would do.

He accessed the interface for information on increasing the rank of a magic skill but found that the benefits varied by the spell in each field. The general information given was that as the rank of a magic skill increased, the spells in that field became more potent and their mana costs decreased. It did say that upon reaching rank two in a magic field, he would have access to rank three spells in that field.

If the only way to increase the rank of a skill was to reach a level threshold, then it would be even more crucial to choose the increased rank. If you could rank up a skill by reaching a certain level in the skill, then it would really depend on what that level was. If the threshold for the next rank was level 20, then it would be a waste since his fire magic was already at level 13. If the threshold was level 100 for the rank increase, then it was far more efficient to do it now than to wait. If level thresholds were the only way to increase the rank, it would be much better to choose an existing skill to focus on. There was no guidance on that, so he was flying blind. Oeister might be able to shed some light on the subject, but he was already leaning towards the rank increase, and after fighting the Crystal Devourers, he knew that any damage increase would be a great help against these formidable foes.

His decision made, Vultressant mentally clicked on the option to increase the rank of his fire magic skill. He was immediately instructed to choose a spell to upgrade among his three known fire spells: fire resistance, bolt of fire, and summon fire Sprite. He was worried that the rank increase would only affect one spell, but when he checked the descriptions, all three had their mana costs lowered and the damage of bolt of fire and the protection of fire resistance had both increased, but there was no indication as to how it might make his summon spell stronger. He thought about casting each spell to determine the net benefit, but he had no target for the offensive spell, and it made a fair amount of noise when cast, so that was too risky. He cast fire resistance on himself and viewed the buff information on his HUD. The resistance had improved; its damage prevention went from 30% to 33%, but the duration of the spell remained the same 10 minutes that it had been prior to the increase in rank.