Meteor Shower [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczNekbza53gQ3C9SQFgLZi5mM2sCJm6SRdd3_-JeHMNrTsVsd0UBUW7Sr6oEK9mhvHHwaFEcwSFDYUXKSsJF0wJeo9tfpu9PiFUQCXCp0rf4pEM8nWO-qKwIXxr_3q8puO0ED_HeA4dzA_J9zsePjAWx=w639-h959-s-no-gm?authuser=0]
“We’re playing it nice and safe this time, alright Phoenix?”
“Why are you specifically asking me?” she mentally questioned her leader.
“Because if I don’t, you’ll crater the road again.”
“Hey, I can totally avoid the road if I want to. There were just a lot of monsters on it last time, and I was not letting those face-suckers get anywhere near me.”
“How many monsters are there this time?”
“Well… are you sure I can’t blow them up? I’ll be nice and safe about it.”
“Blowing up a dozen meters of tundra is never safe. No exploding things.”
“Fine…”
“And that includes meteors.”
“Oh, come on! I’m never gonna hit Emerald if you never let me use my abilities. This one is all new and shiny and can actually level up too.”
Phoenix and Dazien continued arguing back and forth over his communication ability as she ran through a particularly rocky area of the tundra near the Eastern Trade Road just beyond the city walls while dragging a trail of various-sized Crystal and Sapphire Caste monsters behind her.
She was able to keep ahead of them easily with her [Ruler of Relativity] ability pushing herself away from the ground as she spent a little mana with each step. Using the ability was almost second nature to her now and had become even more natural-feeling to use after hitting Sapphire Caste.
It had also recently been unlocked by her Abyss Spirit Gem and wasn’t trapped at Sapphire 1 like most of her other abilities. Phoenix had been hesitant to use that particular gem since it was a reward from the god, Destruction, but she couldn’t say she was displeased with the unexpected result.
Ability: Ruler of Relativity
Type: Utility (channel, magical, covenant)
Cost: Variable mana.
Cooldown: None.
Current Caste: Sapphire 1 (1%)
Crystal Effect: Change the gravitational relationship between you and a target within sight with mana cost dependent on the distance, speed, size, and Caste difference from the target.
Sapphire Effect: Cast a miniature black hole for variable mana per second at a target location that draws nearby creatures towards it. Enemies that come into contact with the black hole are periodically afflicted with [Mana Siphon].
* Mana Siphon (bane, drain, magical, arcane, stacking): Drains a low amount of mana over time.
It felt similar to using her meteor by picking a target location within range to act as the focal point for the ability. As she practically skated across the icy terrain, she conjured one of the new black holes directly behind her and in the path of the monsters, hoping to catch them all together and slow them down a bit.
Phoenix chanced a glance back to see how effective the new usage was and felt her heart sink slightly. Floating in the air was a tiny sphere of void-black nothingness about the size of a quarter that she doubted she would have even noticed if she hadn’t been the one to conjure it. It made no sound and didn’t seem to affect the environment at all, which was a nice change for her.
The miniature black spot managed to snag a single pebbling that rolled into it, almost cartoonishly squirming as it seemed to hover in midair, but even that one was on the smaller side for the monsters. She grimaced, realizing she would need to channel a bit more mana into it next time for greater effects. Similar to the Crystal Caste effect, it depended on pouring enough mana into it to get the right size and strength, it seemed.
“Just one little meteor?” Phoenix asked in her best pleading voice. She would have totally whipped out the puppy dog eyes if she could, but she would have to hope the mental begging would be enough to convince their leader, “I’m plenty far away from the road now, right?”
“She has a point, Daze,” Uriel’s low, smooth voice came over the mental chat, and Phoenix grinned to herself. If anyone could convince the man who would be king, it was his long-time partner and closest confidant.
“You too, Senesh? This is starting to feel like a mutiny…”
Phoenix laughed as she launched herself through the air to jump forward a couple of meters further from the main road and made a straight line towards the rest of her party that was awaiting, “Viva la revolution!”
“We have no idea what that means except for the revolution part, which I am all for,” Rayna replied before directing to Dazien, “If you don’t take risks, little lord, then you’ll never get to be awesome like me.”
“There’s a fine line between taking risks and being reckless. We don’t need Phoenix to end up killing herself, again, just to handle a couple of monsters…” he trailed off as she came into view with a small swarm of what appeared to be small boulders rolling along after her. The pack of Crystal Caste pebblings was massive, considering they normally spawned in packs, and the blood moon had made the quantity exponentially larger. There were also a few larger Sapphire Caste versions mixed within that her layered aura was able to sense.
Dazien quickly changed his tone as he said, “Perhaps, one meteor wouldn’t be terrible. Just try not to hit any of us. Group, time to scatter and clean up.”
With the order given, King’s Dream split up into different directions to surround the intended impact location. Phoenix needed to time things just right if she didn’t want to hurt them or herself while taking out as many of the rocky monsters as possible.
She focused on the location where they had been standing, Uriel’s little [Home’s Hearth] acting as a beacon of light in the dark night, and began to chant as she moved. No longer able to use her other ability to boost her speed, she had to use all of her concentration on leading the pack to the target while incanting, dodging, and praying she didn’t trip on a stray rock, “From the depths of the universe, I summon forth the shards of annihilation.”
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Phoenix dodged at just the right moment when one of the smaller pebblings sailed through the air where she had been a moment earlier as she feigned direction at times to keep the horde from catching her. She was fairly certain a Sapphire one had literally launched that tiny one at her somehow.
“May the wrath of the cosmos descend upon all who dare to oppose me,” she finished incanting, and everyone saw the air tear as a trio of small holes in reality appeared to conjure forth the summoned [Meteor Shower] from directly above Phoenix’s head as she paused for a moment to lure the monsters into the cleared area.
She pushed her own combat abilities she had gained long ago from her Weapon Wielding Warrior Knowledge Tomes. By weaving between them while trying to minimize the damage of the inevitable hits the moving rocks managed to land, she tried to wait until the last minute and take out as many of the monsters in one go as she could.
The pebblings were not smart monsters, luckily, as they crowded around the small redhead fighting with only a pair of daggers. One was her [Night Blade], and the other was the dagger Paul had given her long ago that she had been using since her Caustic Floe was shattered. The poor sword’s sacrifice gave her [Meteor Shower] its newest effect, though, by bonding to her Fracture Spirit Gem, which she now activated the Sapphire effect on to finally witness.
Class Ability: Meteor Shower
Type: Spell (summon, elemental, fire)
Cost: Severe mana.
Cooldown: 1 hour.
Current Caste: Sapphire 1 (0%)
Crystal Effect: Summon a meteor to descend on a target location inflicting massive Fire and physical damage and nearby enemies gain [Burning].
Sapphire Effect: Three meteors are now summoned at once. The summoned meteors can be fractured any time before impact to hit a wider area and additionally inflict an instance of [Fractured Vision] to all nearby enemies.
* Burning (bane, elemental, fire): Inflicts ongoing Fire damage.
* Fractured Vision (bane, magical, light): See quadruple for a short time.
As the three molten balls of roiling magic seemed to crack and splinter in the air, shattering into dozens of smaller meteorites, her eyes went wide as she realized that she had vastly underestimated the area of coverage.
She barely registered Dazien shouting at her over the chat, “Get out now!” but felt the slightly magical tug of the Familiar-empowered words. It made her know that he fully believed she would die if she didn’t move that instant.
Phoenix complied, leaving a black hole anchored in the air in the center of the group and pushing herself from the largest monster boulder among them. It rocketed herself away and made the giant rock slide a few feet back but easily still within the impact zone.
She wasn’t fast enough, it seemed, as the ground shook from the multitude of impacts, and one of the large shards grazed her, knocking her off course and sending her tumbling into the rocky ground. Luckily, the Banes only affected enemies, but it still freaking hurt.
“Phoenix!” she heard Dazien yell aloud from somewhere nearby before saying in her mind, “Lady Saiya’s coming to heal you up. We’ll take care of what’s left.”
Despite the Healer already on the way, Phoenix decided to use the low-cost version of her newly upgraded healing spell that had bonded to her Regrowth Spirit Gem, “See the dawn.”
Ability: Dawn Rises
Type: Spell (magical, life)
Cost: Variable mana.
Cooldown: Variable.
Crystal Effect: Can heal a touched target by activating for Low, Moderate, High, or Severe mana cost. The amount healed and respective cooldown time increases with cost.
Sapphire Effect: Grants a number of instances of [Life Regen] based on the cost spent. Can be infused with an amount of [Starlight Qi] equal to the cost to additionally replenish mana and stamina.
* Life Regen (boon, magical, life, stacking): Increased health regeneration.
She poured her [Starlight Qi] into it to basically cover the cost of the spell itself and felt her energy return after fighting so hard among the melee. She liked that this method gave her a more modulated version of using the resource that had only been all-or-nothing before.
“Were you trying to kill us again?” Tala asked in her mind.
She groaned in response to both of them and managed to see Uriel’s equally devastating area of effect spells begin to appear atop the inferno she had created, dealing even more damage to anything that might have survived.
“I’m never trying to kill us,” Phoenix retorted finally, “I just… miscalculated.”
“Really? The death by self-decapitation was a miscalculation?”
“Okay, now you’re just being pedantic. That was a carefully executed plot on my part to avoid becoming Caged. Wait, why am I explaining this, you were there… oh wait…”
“Oh, you remember that I wasn’t actually there because my vessel was broken?”
“I’m sorry, okay! I’ll buy you a shiny thing when we go shopping again, alright?”
“Deal! Can we get it in purple and black? I’m getting rather fond of that combination.”
Her Healer was beside her a few moments later, clicking a tongue slightly in disapproval as the motherly voxen scolded, “That was a bit more reckless than normal, and you’re normally diving head first into trouble.”
“I mean… I didn’t think it would spread out that far.”
“Which is why we should have tested it from further away first,” the sandy voxen pointed out, her amber eyes leveling her with a knowing look, “I half wonder if you did it just to get Dazien to yell at you.”
She blushed slightly in embarrassment, “It’s not like I enjoy getting yelled at by him.”
“No, you just like making your brother mad,” Saiya called her out with a grin, “I think you’re enjoying this little sister role a bit too much.”
“Is it that obvious?” she asked, returning the smile, then added, “I didn’t mean to get hurt, though. I just thought it would be funny to see everyone’s reaction to the new effects.”
“Well, it was pretty in a terrifying sort of way. However, it’s definitely something better seen from afar.”
“Yes, mom,” she teased and got a face full of tail fur as punishment, causing both of them to laugh.
“This does help me level up my own abilities, though,” Saiya added unexpectedly, “Between Dazien’s new armor and shield and Rayna being too fast to get hit most of the time, I was beginning to worry my regular [Heal Life] would stagnate from under-use.”
Phoenix laughed in response, “So what I’m hearing is I need to go find a pack of scary monsters to half-kill us all so we can get you to the next Caste.”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Saiya replied cheerfully, causing Phoenix to laugh even harder.
“I’ll remember that next time you scold me for doing something reckless again,” she poked back, “Maybe find an Emerald monster to give us a real challenge. These little pebblings were too weak.”
The woman scowled at her, “If you found something Emerald that would mostly-kill us instead of half-kill us, and I would do more than this light scolding. Half-kill I can handle, mostly-kill I’ll need a few more Castes for, I’m not some miracle worker.”
“I’ll try my best not to get us mostly-killed then,” she replied, then froze as a new voice spoke from behind her.
“You said just one little meteor,” Dazien pointed out, and she glanced up to see him with his arms crossed over his chest, “And I agreed to ONE meteor…”
“Well… it was one cast, and they ended up little individually…” she weakly argued.
He gave a heavy sigh and asked, “Are you alright, at least?”
“She’ll be fine,” Saiya answered for her, standing up from healing her, “Just a scrape, really.”
Dazien held out his hand to help her stand up, and she hesitantly took it as she asked, “No yelling?”
“I doubt it would keep you from doing it again,” he grumbled and then flicked her forehead as she finished standing before laying down his final judgment, “You get to explain what happened in the damage report this time.”
“What? NOOOOO!” she cried out as he turned to leave and get back to Uriel, “Please, anything but paperwork! Oh! I know! I’ll buy you a shiny new Spirit Gem when I go get Tala something shiny too! Please, just don’t make me fill out more of those forms!”