After a pause, the melee fighters resumed their attacks, chipping off the crystalline armor of the Devourer, but Vultressant saw Vanya slump and stumble as if concussed. The scream attack had affected her. He desperately wanted to go help her, but she was just under the influence of a stun debuff, and he needed to continue peppering the creature with spells to keep it distracted and drop its HP as quickly as possible. He did keep an eye on her as he began to cast his spell again. Isla had switched from the defensive buff to the offensive one, and his next few shots packed an extra punch. Although the opponent was heavily armored, they slowly reduced its health. It looked like this would be manageable. Vanya had recovered from her stun condition, and she was able to survey the fight, but she made no attempt to shoot her bow. When the monster had dropped below 40% of its health, it began to shrink back down to its normal size, which allowed them to damage it more effectively.
The Devourer began to glow again, and Vultressant knew that it was about to unleash its electric attack for the second time. He ducked around the corner of the passage to avoid the attack, but he had to go back for Vanya, who stood there a bit stupefied and made no move to run. He pulled her out of harm’s way a moment before lightning hit where she had been. He had not averted his eyes, so even though he had avoided any damage, he was struck with a partial blindness debuff that he could barely make out on his HUD—everything was awash in bright yellows and oranges. As the images faded, there was a distinct thumping sound that could be heard in spite of the ear protections, and the sounds were getting closer.
Vultressant motioned to Vanya to stay where she was, and after she nodded, he went to have a look at what was happening. He rounded the corner to see the Crystal Devourer running, albeit slowly, in his direction. Maroftis, who had been in front of it, was down, and Taloc was standing, pointing Shadowbane at the enlarged creature, readying its magical ranged attack. Ewtain stabbed the Devourer from behind as it lumbered towards the passage. Isla had been hit by the electricity spell and struggled to follow. It was unclear as to whether the Devourer was trying to escape or if it was coming after him personally. As he was easily dealing the most damage to it, Vultressant thought it likely that the latter was the case. Either way, he had to think fast, and he instantly rejected the idea of running, as tempting as it was. There was no upside to running except to save his own ass, and that would only work if he left Vanya behind. He was no hero, but he had a problem with leaving his friends for dead. He could cast his bolt of fire spell at the Devourer, but without pouring extra mana into it, it would do little to slow the mob. His wind wave spell would be perfect if Ewtain and Isla weren't behind the Devourer. Ewtain could dodge the spell as he had when the Gnoll captain had cast it on them, but Isla was close enough behind him that she would be hit as well.
Believing it to be his best option, Vultressant cast his new spell, jet of steam. He had a few seconds as the hulk lumbered towards him, hefting its war hammer and eyeing the Wizard as if he were a large nail to be pounded into the floor. He tried to give his spell as much mana as possible, but he also wanted to start it before the monster was upon him. He had no idea what to expect, and he wanted as much coverage as possible. Just hitting the head could distract it for longer, but if the stream was wide, then much of it might be wasted. In the end, he opted for aiming the steam at its chest, hoping that it would also hit the face.
The result was less spectacular than he had hoped for: steam shot out of his outstretched hand and expanded, forming a tight cone that struck the creature in the upper chest and neck area. The crystals in the affected area began to glow brightly, and several cracked—there were even a few in the center that shattered from the heat. All of that was good, but the beast never slowed. Unable to dodge while maintaining the spell, Vultressant was struck in the side with the war hammer. His personal shield absorbed some of the blow, but blue lightning spread out from the point of impact. It looked similar to a toy plasma ball that focused electricity where you touched it. The shield winked out, and Vultressant felt his side erupt in pain. He had lost a whopping 77 health points from that attack, even though his shield had been undamaged before it. Another hit like that, and he was dead. Vultressant had no idea how the melee fighters were able to last as long as they did.
He cast his personal shield spell again in the hopes that its added HP protection would be enough to prevent another hit from dropping him, and as the blue light coalesced around him, he saw Ewtain leap up at the Crystal Devourer with his weapons drawn. The Night Stalker disappeared from Vultressant’s view, and the Devourer screamed in anguish. It attempted to see what was attacking it, but Ewtain was out of its sight. It reached around with its free hand to try to grab him. The distraction allowed Vultressant to run deeper into the cave passage. When he reached Vanya, he stopped and put himself between her and the monster. He was about to ready a spell when he felt his side go cold; the pain lessened, and he saw that he had regained most of his lost HP. He turned to see Vanya next to him with her hand on his back, still casting her healing spell on him. She looked exhausted, but when she finished, she gave him a small smile before retreating further down the passage.
Vultressant checked his HP: he had 189 out of 200 health points. He couldn’t see the battle from where he stood, so he was going to have to go back to the entrance of the cave to be of any use. That meant that he would be in close quarters with the Devourer unless they had somehow lured it elsewhere. Vultressant quickly considered: he still had yet to allocate his four remaining stat points for having reached level ten. He put the points into Vitality which raised his total health to 240, and his current HP went up by 40. This would allow him to survive two hits if they did the same amount of damage as the previous one had, because his shield would absorb the first 60 HP of damage. The cooldown on his shield was two minutes, though, so if he were struck quickly, he would not be able to cast it again immediately. He briefly thought about waiting until the cooldown was finished to go into combat, but he knew that they might lose the battle if he delayed, so he headed towards the cavern.
Rounding the corner, Vultressant saw the Devourer fighting with Ewtain and Isla. Taloc fired arrows at a distance, and Maroftis was now sitting up but not moving to stand. Vultressant began readying a bolt, and he put as much mana as he could into it before sending it at the creature’s back. It exploded on impact, and the Devourer stumbled forward, leaving it vulnerable to the two melee fighters. Ewtain launched a special attack on its midsection, striking deep with a spinning short sword. Isla took the opportunity to move to the side and struck it on the back of the knee. That flurry of attacks reduced the Devourer’s HP from 20% to just under 10%. It roared in fury and swung its war hammer at Ewtain, who dove out of the way, rolling twice before coming out of it in a standing position. The Devourer then turned around, and ignoring Isla, it took a swing at Vultressant. He was hit hard on the shoulder, and his HP dropped to 142 after his shield absorbed some of the damage and winked out.
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Vultressant was in the same situation that he had been in just moments before. He had no time to sufficiently charge a bolt that would have any real effect, so he came to the same conclusion as he had before: cast the jet of steam spell. Low on mana, he used his enhanced mana regen ability to fully replenish his mana, then cast right after that. Now that he had a better idea of how the spell worked, he focused the spell on the head of the Devourer, and it instinctively closed its eyes to protect them from getting scalded by the blast. Ewtain and Isla were able to get in some free strikes as it flailed its war hammer around blindly. Maroftis got up and headed towards the fray, and Taloc used his three-arrow trick to pelt the monster’s back. Its health was dropping rapidly, and Vultressant began casting a bolt to fire spell when its eyes opened. The spell was just over half of what he considered maximum safe capacity, but he let it fly anyway. It immediately connected with the creature’s stomach, and Vultressant turned and ran down the passage to avoid another hammer blow.
A short time later, Vultressant heard what he assumed to be their foe falling to the ground. Isla had her party leader focus on the creature, so everyone in the group could see its status bars without needing to see the creature itself. Vultressant could see that its HP bar was empty, so he relaxed and made his way towards the cavern.
Ewtain had already started removing the crystals from the fresh corpse, and Maroftis and Isla were standing nearby watching him work. Taloc was searching the cave, likely for other hostiles, but also looking for any loot that might be around. The Ranger had stashed the war hammers from the other two Crystal Devourers in his inventory, but the war hammer that had belonged to the downed monster was still lying on the ground next to it. While the other weapons had been worn and rusty, this one was pristine. The weapon gleamed in the dim purple light of the cave. Vultressant created a few globes of light and hurled them around the cave for added light. He wanted to cast more, but his top priority was to extract the essence of the Devourer, so he needed to conserve mana until he was finished. There was only one creature, and while the extraction took some time, it wasn't too difficult. He could monitor the strength of the essence as he waited for his mana to fill.
Once he had extracted its essence, Vultressant wanted to inspect the Devourer’s weapon; he used the method that Rena had taught him to see if he could learn the properties of the hammer. He held a hand over it and focused his will. For a while he sensed nothing, but after nearly a minute of study, he felt some of his mana extend out of his hand and surround the weapon, and then he knew its secrets. The war hammer bolstered any energy magic spell damage by 25%, and it reduced the mana cost of all energy spells cast by the wielder by 20%. The latter ability was undoubtedly the reason that the creature had been able to cast its spells more often than the other two Devourers. The other two Devourers had needed to wait for their mana to replenish to recast the lightning spell. This one had the war hammer, so it only had to wait for its cooldown. Vultressant closed the message containing the weapon's abilities and opened the next one in his queue. The message informed him that he had learned energy magic identification. He had spent some of his mana, but it was well worth it for learning yet another spell. The identification spells were supposed to be easy to learn, but you needed to be able to cast the right magic type in order to be able to cast the corresponding identify spell.
As Vultressant identified the weapon, Vanya busied herself by healing the rest of the party. When he finished, she came over to him and touched his shoulder, and once again his wounded areas grew cold from the magic. After she finished, he thanked her and turned to the others and said, “I don’t know how you guys do it. I have 240 HP and a 60-point shield, and that thing could have legitimately dropped me in two hits.”
“Well, you have no armor, and you didn’t even try to dodge,” Isla said.
“What do you mean?” Maroftis asked. “He stood there and took it like a man! Well, until he ran away and hid, that is.”
They laughed at that. When it quieted again, Ewtain looked up from the crystal that he struggled to dislodge and said, “It’s true—dodging mitigates the damage that you take, and wearing armor can also reduce the damage. You should also try to pace yourself when casting in battle.”
“What do you mean?” Vultressant asked.
“You did so much damage that you pulled agro. Your DPS is the highest in the group—or at least it was. I just hit level ten, and it looks like I get a specialization bonus as well as other perks, so I might be able to top you now. Look, you know how to be a wizard: big blast, pause, big blast, pause, rinse, and repeat. When you do too much too quickly, the monster gets pissed and turns on you, and you can’t take a punch.”
“I was trying to help out more after it blasted you all with its lightning, but I made level ten earlier today, and I was doing more damage in this fight that I used to do.”
“Yeah, your fire arrows were larger than normal,” Ewtain said as he examined a crystal in his hand. “A lot of these were damaged in the fight; I think that steam spell of yours was the cause.”
“The crystals did glow in the area around where the steam struck,” he admitted, “but it was my best option.”
Ewtain nodded. “This one has more crystals than the smaller ones had, and I haven’t even checked his back yet. The steam didn’t hit his back, so those might be fine.”
“Yeah, about that,” he said sheepishly, “I saw plenty of crystal fragments break off when I was blasting bolts into its back. Why don’t you let me try to get the essence, and then we can roll it over and check.” The rogue nodded and moved away from the body. They spent another ten minutes harvesting the Crystal Devourer and were rewarded with a sapphire essence and one crystal that was of good enough quality to count for the quest. They also ended up with another six crystals of lower quality. Taloc found a small area with a hidden cache of coins and jewelry as well as a passage behind it.
As they were deciding on what to do next, there was a distant rumbling that they all agreed signified that the geyser was erupting again. “That’s two hours and forty minutes since the last eruption,” Taloc said. “I say that we go topside and find a place to rest. We have a few days before we need to be back, because they won’t be ready to enchant Maroftis’ armor any time soon. Also, I want to be at full strength before we do any more exploring here.” They all agreed and retraced their steps to the main entrance. The light globes were useful until they came to an area where the duration of the spell had elapsed, but Vultressant’s handy cartography skill led them the rest of the way out of the caves.