This is another thing I cannot tell the kids. I am shooting Tinker Bell. And so are Maria, Zora and Dalek-3H. Even Lidija gets one by just stabbing it. The shooters among the EOA men do not want to waste the limited capacity of their weapons on lesser monsters.
T: We seem to have entered a prefered habitat of theirs. Everybody, we detour north.
We are very eager to follow that order. These things are savage nuissances. They bite like hummingbirds on cocaine. The wounds they cause are not deep, but they hurt, though in one case, when one of them landed in somebody’s face, Lidija had to use [Regenerate]. I order my servant to delay in order to divide their attention.
I am fine. I’ve put my car into armour-form again. So I emulate my servant and we give the rest of the group a respite. The sheer number of these flying vermin, however, mean that the shooters other than me periodically are turning back and squeezing off fire bolts and rays from a staff.
Zora passes by a toppeled tree, whose roots form an overhanging shelter, from which a bear with peaces of metallic armour and vicious spikes emerges. Zora yelps, retreats backwards and stumbles over a root.
L: NO!
A diffuse violett light emanates from her right hand as a kind of black lightning bolt rimmed in blue light appears in it for a fraction of a second, before she casts it at the pseudo-bear, whose torso is sucked into nothing, flinging his severed limbs away. The utter silence everything happens in makes it a horrible display.
L: My head.
She cradles her head in her arms, while one of the EOA men shoves aside a severed leg that hit him and made him go down.
This is serious enough that Tihomir decides to order our allies with guns to participate in eliminating the last of the vermin, lest they endanger the wounded. This seems to me having in panic engaged [Eternal Moment], but too late, like a situation where the healer is down out of mana while we may have casualties. So I give her one of our few remaining mana potions.
T: Retrieve the wounded! All hale people form a circle!
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His breastplate has saved a man from serious injury or even death and [Regenerate] has cured a sprained ankle.
In terms of loot, this battle has turned into a major success. In exchange for a mana potion
we have gotten three tins of healing ointment, 25 pieces of radiant quintessence, a whole boat load of lesser cores, an iron rank core, and a lot of coins and – jackpot – a Shield essence
Branko: I guess that one goes to the lady emulating Zeus.
We all agree on that.
Zora is walking up to Tihomir.
Z: Sorry for being so stupid.
T: Mistakes happen. You learn from them. Next time, just burn the monster. If you do not, being sorry is useless.
Z: I see.
He turns to me.
T: We have lost time. Can you still blow down the forest?
P: Not unless we backtrack out of it. It would burn.
T: Can’t be helped then.
T: Everybody form up!
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We meet one more of the cyberpunk bears. If detected early enough, these monsters don’t stand a chance against multiple magic guns. We need to train our aura senses better.
We do detect the next adversaries by aura. Unfortunately we detect them as they drop their aura stealth. And they drop not only that. In the low light beneath the canopy that net had been as good as invisible. In principle they are using sound tactics. Their problem is insufficient reconaissance. Dropping a net onto somebody who has telekinesis is not a step on the path of success. Things get a bit tight as they rush us, but this time Zora turns into a fury who seems to be at multiple places simultaneously. A group without an cleansing power against spider venom from their prehensile tongues and a healer might still have been in trouble. But that does not apply to us.
Our allies can be happy about a lot of trap and net quintessence.
At the edge of the forest Maria burns down two of the bushes I encountered entering through the aperture. Then we are standing in front of the swampy part of the peninsula’s neck.
The joy begins by using the ropes I conjured as a precaution to pull the lightest of us – Maria – out of a pool, removing the lesser bug monster from her posterior and giving her an opportunity to experience [Regenerate] at that very place.
She hadn’t covered more than maybe fifteen meters before she became a human submarine.
T: Options?
L: We can use a car to take us over it. We can even do it in one trip if we put people on the roof.
T: Have you ever used it over a swamp and to break through thickets?
P: No.
T: That’s not an option, then.
Z: We have used it over water though.
T: We have no idea what monsters are in the water. Last resort.
P: They have pretty big tentacles.
T: Other options.
P: I can conjure a plankway and ropes to construct something. It would take hours, though.
He starts scratching his chin in contemplation.