timewalk
Sometimes you just gotta hit it more than it hits you.
- Aurin ‘Stabby’ Wizzlek, Assassin, Leader of the Crimson Sprockets, an all-Gnomish dungeon group operating out of Thorel Moldur.
Aliandra
Ali’s friends were in good spirits, chatting happily while tag the fully respawned Emberfe Mines. Well, Mato was r more than he was chatting, but he looked ei how he took on the elementals.
He and had taken a fair while to plete the quest on the southern road, and it had given Ali an excuse to work on the library: ing up, making more bookshelves for their expanding colle, copying the books Ryn had collected, and studying her mother’s book. She was beginning to realize ce was unruly by nature, but for some reason, he had allowed her some quality time with the tent he tained – even helping direct her searches with an intuition for her questions that was frankly uny. Unfortunately, the material was so plex aeric that the mai of her studies had been a long list of books and subjects for Ryn to hunt down.
Not that more books is ever a problem, mind… Ali grio herself, spping up a swift barrier to deflect a stray spray ing e-yellow fme. It might be tiny, but I love my little library.
When and Mato had returned, it had spawned a flurry of activity as some of the adventurers returo her duo gather mushrooms rind out a little experienore likely, to search for the two new bosses she had made.
Inspired by the powerful adva she had earned for Domain Mastery, she had created two new raid bosses a a h Mieriel at the guild. Despite the substantial reserve costs for supp bosses, she still sported more than five thousand free mana. It was a rush; for the first time in ages, she had more mana free than reserved, and it gave her a heady sense of freedom while the four of them tore through the early tunnels and chambers of the mines.
“Double pull ,” called over, weaving his words and the a of his bow seamlessly together. Malika and Mato split the two Living Fme elementals effitly, allowing Ali and to destroy them with unpreted speed. It was remarkable just how much faster they were now pared to the first time they had tentatively stepped into these passages. She had gai levels sihen, and her friends even more. bined with good strategies, and the best elixirs and equipment they could buy, they positively flew through the dungeon, clearing out the Fme Broodmother and the ed Living Fmes in record time.
“The Landing is cleared,” observed the moment the boss was defeated, “but the door is shut.”
Ali used the eyes of her Hobgoblin, and sure enough, the massive stone doorway leading to the Inferno wing – as they had started calling it – was closed and the Rune of Living Fme burned brightly once again.
“Do you think it respawhe entire wing?” Malika asked.
“Almost certainly,” Ali answered. Almost all of her own dungeon monsters were now attached to her domain mana and automatically respawned in several hours. There was no reason to believe the Emberfe Mines had different abilities. The respawn time for these monsters seemed a little lohan hers, but it had been a couple of days already.
“The distilte has more charges, right?” asked.
“Yup,” Malika said, “But we don’t o clear the Inferno again if we don’t want to. Probably. I have the new potion.” She retrieved a rge vial that glowed with a deep, frozen blue light and flickered from within with an eye-squintingly intense core of white fme. “If Morwynne did this right, we should be able to open the middle door now.”
Rubbing his stomach, Mato said, “I’m hungry.”
“Again?” Ali asked. They had stopped for a snack break just a few caves back.
“You need a bigger ste entment for all those supplies?” snickered.
Joining in, Malika teased, “He is a walking ste entment, didn’t you know?”
“Am not.” Mato turned pink. “I have a healthy appetite, that’s all. The other day my mother accused me of wasting away, you imagine? She said all this fighting in the mines is… burning off the fat.”
They all groaned on cue and Mato bent over to sp his knees, chortliily.
Although Ali had little insight into the alchemy that powered the potion, she stared at the fasatingly plex iions of several different mana affihat really had no business being pressed together in the same vial, a were. She held her breath though, caught up in the exaggerated caution with which Malika was treating the vial as she painstakingly deted a single drop onto the Rune of Inferno.
Fire and ice mana fred in flig eddies and the rune abruptly froze over as the fmes sputtered and died. There was a moment of exquisite stillness, and then the fire mana barring the doorway faded. A jarring click echoed through the empty chamber and a perfectly vertical line cracked down the ter of the stone door.
Mato leaned in, brag an armored furry shoulder against the doors. His muscles bulged and the Landing filled with a deep grating sound as stone ground across stone. Bck sooty smoke billowed out into the Landing and Ali took a step backward, c her mouth and h a hand to protect herself from the acrid chemical stench.
Through the widening gap, she saw darkness lit by glowing red. Webs of fme lihe roof and walls and the darkest nooks and crevices crawled and shifted at their intrusion.
“Spiders on the roof,” said. “Big ones.”
“Area damage?” Malika asked, her eyes narrowing at the sight.
“Agree,” said, drawing his bow. “Mato, back up a bit. Ali, help me out here.”
While Ali hadn’t had the time to fiune her minions, she still had a couple of Sparkling Oozes. She and immediately filled the tunnel with an assault of arrows and explosions of light magi a tinuous barrage. Through the chaos unleashed, Ali kept a close eye on the mana itself.
“Clear,” Ali said once she was certai knots of fire-affinity mana had been snuffed out. When the assault faded, nothing moved except for a few lumps that dropped from the roof making disgusting sptting noises as they struck the rocky ground. Most of the smoke had been blown away by their magid the way down was revealed to be a dark, rock-strewn passageway with tendrils of smoke still curling up from somewhere ahead.
The floor… well, she was just gd she could fly. She paused only to add a few of the more intact Fme Spinner ks spotted to her imprint. Mato tromped through the gore and burnt spider bits with gruesome squelg and g steps as he led the way deeper into the dungeon, moving with an air of cautious viginow that they were once again in uncharted territory.
Ali followed along as they picked their way downward through the dark, winding tunnel, sweating as the temperature grew steadily hotter and the air progressively smokier. Breathing grew harder and harder in the acrid atmosphere of sulfur and other strange chemical smells until she felt her lungs had grown raw from the abuse.
Past the gore of the spiders, the cavernous passages grew strangely quiet. The clig of sharp Kobold talons striking the hard rocky ground rang out jarringly in the a and undisturbed sileheir scaled tails made soft swishing sounds as they slid across the stone. Even the Sparkling Oozes she had retained for their unique senses were not quite as silent as she had thought, making soft sloshing noises as they wobbled and poured themselves along the rocky tunnel floor. Or the ceiling. Oozes seemed equally at home upside down on the roof as on the ground.
“Where is everything?” Malika whispered.
“Keep your eyes open,” advised, tension visible i of his shoulders and the iy of his gaze.
In the darkness, Ali found herself relying more and more on the impressive low-light vision of her Kobolds, and the unusual Tremor Sense of the Oozes. had his Motes of Light drifting down the passageway, but she found that the bright light made it harder for her to see anywhere else other than wherever the light orbs floated. Her Kobolds were signifitly less invenienced by this, being able to see clearly despite the brilliant light and dark shadows, but Tremor Sense ignored all of it, feeding a wealth of information directly into her mind from the immense weight of rod stohat pressed in on all sides.
The dark tunnel widened dramatically, and Ali suddenly found herself standing upohreshold, looking out over a vast cavernous space. The entire area – dropping away, extending out a distahat had to be several kilometers far – seemed to have been dissolved out of solid rock. Instead of the typical limestone cavern with stagmites and stactites, it appeared to have been hollowed out by some intense flow of va or a fme so hot it could make rock run in rivulets and puddles. Enormous pilrs rose out of smokey depressions like giant, half-melted dles surrounded by puddles of solidified stone.
Throughout the space, visible among the pockets of smoke, were rivers and pools of thick, bubbling bck viscous liquid. Tongues of dark bck fme danced upon the pools; a fme that reminded her of the Rune of Hellfire she had touched. The roof above was pletely obscured by thick billowing clouds of smoke that swirled in the eddies formed by the heat rising from the tar pools.
Waves of oppressive heat smmed into her face, overwhelming even the powerful resistance of her crafted robe. Her ears filled with the distant roar of superheated fmes. Ali took a breath and instantly choked, overe by a coughing fit that sted until an Acolyte infused her with a Restoration. The very air oisonous, or the heat was slowly destroying her lungs in the same way that her skin burned and bed.
Perhaps both. Maybe Morwynne make a smoke breathing potion? If anyone had helpful tricks for breathing in toxic smoke it would be the Gnomish Alchemist with a pent for explosions.
“Ining,” said, his voice sounding unnaturally calm given the enviro and his words.
Malika
Malika eyed the slithering, serpent-like beings drawing rapidly closer to their position at the entrao the cavern. The four of them looked almost identical at first gheir powerful snake-like bodies driving them sinuously along the ground with upright torsos that seemed to be a nightmarish cross between a Kel’darran, a human, and a serpent. Every part of their bodies was covered with tough-looking dark e-brown scales that glistened and shimmered with inner heat, and spinal ridges and spikes protruded from the back of their upper torsos and formed a crest along the back of their necks and heads. She did notice a scar running down the left side of the slightly rger one in the lead.
It'll be hard to hit them from behind.
Each creature wielded a long-bded, red-hot, glowing spear, gripped with the sharp gleaming talons that pleted their powerful scaled arms. Deeply recessed under heavy bres, their ing eyes gleamed with a yellow inner light that flickered like the nearby fmes they ignored.
Snake men? Fire snakes? Whatever they were, they looked extremely powerful and dangerous.
“Fmecaller Elementals. Fifty-o sixty-three,” announced. He had never onpined about having to call out level ranges for her when everyone else could see them directly, and for that alone, she was eternally grateful. He also seldom fot.
Mato stepped forward, taking a stable fged defeance, and Malika took her pce beside and slightly behind him, ready to ehe creatures were deceptively far away, hard to judge irange fming bd-red ndscape, and she found them growing ominously rger as they closed in.
They must be eight or niall, she thought, not ting the bulk of the snake-like body slithering along the ground. And have incredible perception skills.
The scarred Fmecaller shouted something sibint and unintelligible, forked tongue flig past wicked-looking fangs, and the white trails of energy within its body twisted and stretched. Its immense body suddenly blurred into a forward rush as it tore across the ground, spear petently gripped with both cwed hands. Ominous bck fmes flickered in its wake, persisting like a deadly slug trail. At the st moment, the spear thrust powerfully, and Mato blocked against its crossbar, but the deceptively long bde still bit deep into his shoulder, spraying blood aalika’s arm and the side of her face. She spped his right hindquarters reflexively and healed the damage. Oh, uh… oops? But her flush of embarrassment was short-lived as aical energy signature flickered and stretched within the bodies of the other three, and they all shot forward, spears set to strike.
Malika flew into a, accelerating with Diviep. She wasn’t sure how well Mato would be able to block all three ining spears, nor how fast Ali’s Acolytes would be able to react, so she fnked Mato and pulsed a heal into his bht as the crash of spears smmed into him. She felt the shock of the impact as Mato hysically pushed back several feet, but he roared immediately in response, grabbing their attention with his Taunt.
Ever sio had learned his Challenging Roar skill, she had stopped needing to hold back early in the fight. The taunt ability that came with his roar skill effectively glued most melee attackers to Mato, better even than that nasty fmiuff. Unless she was unreasonably persistent and used her mana-leeg attacks, it was nearly impossible to tear monsters away from the angry armored bear. This was one such occasion.
She tore into the Fmecaller with a powerful flurry of blows, all charged to do maximum damage with her Soul Strike and accelerated by her powerful Diviep momentum trol. She studied the energy flows within the serpentine creatures as their spears flickered and struck.
What have you learned from this fight, Malika? The memory of Rezan Jin’s voice echoed in the background of her mind as she followed the rapid strikes. She knew now that he had meant well, but, at the time, such questions had been profoundly frustrating, as if he were taunting her for being weak or g uanding.
Arrows and magic filled the air as Ali and engaged, but Malika tu all out to focus on her chosen oppo. She nded a powerful double kibination and the Fmecaller whirled to face her. Her heart quied as she ducked and dodged the blurring spear. The twisting energy of its stamina flickered so fast that she struggled to follow the details, ae her incredible speed, the sharp bde found its mark several times.
Three bck-scaled Kobolds materialized right behind the Fmecaller, looking positively tiny beside the massive serpentine elemental. Dark daggers gleamed in the firelight, stabbing with respectable speed. The monster hissed angrily and the scales along its torso fred with an intense heat that made them glow. Her punch smmed into a much denser, scaled armor, burning her fist. Most of the strength of her punch was rebuffed by the suddey, with only the magic of her Soul Strike getting through.
“Armor skill,” Malika announced. Rezan’s relentless insisten focus, attention, and learning about her enemy had ged the way she fought. She had not seen any energy usage prior to the heat and glowing scales, meaning it had to be a mana ability. The only time she had felt something simir was when she had tried to punch through Basir’s rock armor – this was a little more yielding to her attacks, but no less problematic.
In respoo her words, the elemental’s energy surged in a brief strange formatioered around the throat and it let out a loud hiss that thrummed with power, tearing painfully at her ears. A powerful surge of fear coursed through her and the Fmecaller suddenly seemed to grow impossibly rge and powerful. She diminished, shrinking into insignifice, c against the overwhelming might of the mohe impcable stillness of her Crity settled within her mind and suddenly the vision of fear and intimidation snapped, banished, presumably by the strength of her high wisdom and bloodline skill.
“Malika!” Ali yelled.
Malika stumbled as pain repced the illusion and she suddenly noticed two fresh spear wounds, burning punctures deep in her left thigh and ribs, earned while her mind was distracted. Shit. Quickly, she healed herself, ever grateful that her armor skill assive.
You have gained Crity.
“What was that?” shouted.
“Intimidation skill,” Malika yelled back. It had to be that – or some fear-imbued war cry variant. Mato appeared to have recovered quickly, but Ali’s three rogues cowered where they stood. Stamina bzed a radiant white within the monster and the Fmecaller’s spear let out a deafening whip-crack as it cleaved through her guard in a blindingly quick arc. It seared through her flesh, leaving hungry bck fmes lig the edges of the gash and tinued on to slice all three c rogues.
She pulsed her Healing Mantra, but her magic struggled to heal her while the fmes fred angrily. Fuck. She healed it again. That felt like pure fire damage, she thought, healing a third time to stem the persistent and agonizingly painful ing power of the bck fme. She gnced over, but it seemed Ali’s Acolytes had noticed the same thing – at least judging by the focused expressions on their faces and the frantic gesticution of their hands.
Malika focused on dodging, blog, and terattag the unily agile spear, meanwhile, in the background, she was categorizing all the abilities she had observed. The heat of its scales dissipated, and she found she could punch it again, meaning it must be a short-duration defensive ability boosting its armor. The cleave attack was nasty, and Ali’s rogues were still struggling with the aftereffects of the intimidation.
Oher hand, she was quickly getting used to seeing the monster’s stamina usage with her Soul Sight, and as she became more familiar with its patterns of thrusts, blocks, and sweep attacks, her blog and dodging became that much more effit. She resisted another intimidating hiss from one of the nearby Fmecallers, but again Ali’s rogues were reduced to c by the overp mental attack.
Cleave!
She saw the attaing by reizing the spike of stamina usage withihick muscles of its torso and arms. She dodged, but the strike tinued, smming through the rogues, aing their bodies on fire. One of them died ht, while the others survived long enough to get a restoration or some other healing spell from the Acolytes.
Suddenly, and without warning, the rgest Fmecaller switched its spear tht-handed grip and a great shield of bck fme appeared on its other arm. It sprang backward, gaining a surprising amount of distah its incredible feat of strength. Malika responded, accelerating to close the distance, but the Fmecaller had simir ideas. The energy pattern from its inal attack flickered powerfully through its body, and the entire bulk of the serpentine monster blurred across the intervening rock, smming its spear through her side, up to the crossbar, and out through her back. She wi the searing pain of fmes tearing through her as she was flung bodily off the creature into the air. The energy pattered.
Shit! she thought, followed immediately by the echo of Rezan’s voice reverberating through her mind once more. No excuses, did you learn nothing? ge the attack vector, unbahe foe!
She pulsed mana into her Diviep, blue-white soul magiifesting in the air beh her feet as she pushed off the force of her skill in mid-air, redireg her trajectory up and over the blurring spear and the trails of fme it left in the scorg air. She tucked her legs to clear its head, wing at the still-burning wound under her ribs, and aimed a powerful kick at the back of its head, accurately striking the spot between two of the spinal ridges. Only then did she spare the mana to cast another Healing Mantra, nding behind the creature as it struggled to reverse its enormous bulk and momentum in the face of her feat of agility.
That’s how to do it, she realized as she studied the monster from behind. As it wheeled to strike her, she decided to not be there, pulsing stamina into her Diviep and sprinting around to the side, not even a siep toug the ground. What followed was aended aerial dance where barely oep iouched the ground. She twisted and spun, flipping and dodging around the creature, all the while striking out with rapid punches and kicks. Despite her speed, the creature still mao block with its fming shield, and it scored regur hits with its rapid spear strikes, each block or cut searing into her, fueling the dark fmes that ed her flesh and bed her skin. She could tell her body was on fire in several locations, but she just eled more mana into her Healing Mantra to keep up her relentless attacks. It owerful upward kick to the throat that finally did it. Her foot ected with a full extension supplying maximum power to the blow, bypassing the shield of fme, and her Soul Strike fshed straight into the monster’s head. The light in its eyes dimmed and it slowly toppled sideways, hitting the ground with a loud thump and she finally rexed, easing her prodigious stamina expenditure to a more reasonable amount.
“Good!” shouted, redireg his stream of arrows. “This o!”
Aargh! He was right, of course. This was no time to rest.
The Restoration magi her slowly pushed back the fmes that still burned on her body, and she looked out at the rest of the battlefield, trying to ighe pain. Mato was burning from tless already healed wounds, still tanking three of these creatures. Behind him, three lightning totems were pulsing out lightning novas, and arrows and magic surged in the flickering light of the fmes.
I’ve learned how they fight, Rezan. Watch this, old man! she thought, a big grin on her face. She hopped ond tore into battle, targeting ’s favorite monster.
***
Malika sat beside the burning bear, taking a few moments with Crity tee her stamina and mana and then pulsed Healing Mantra into him once more. She hissed as her fingers brushed the persistent bck fmes that burned away at his wounds. He grunted unhappily, still uo shift back to normal as he was taking far too much damage to release his prodigious vitality boost. The little kobolds chirped anxiously beside them as they too tio heal him.
Why am I regeing so much?
She opened her mana regeion information, hoping for some insight, but the only thing it showed was that she was receiving substantially more mana and stamina regeion from Mato’s Sanctuary aura than she normally did.
Mana RegeionPertage of maximum mana regeed per hour.+100% Racial (Human).+470% Crity.+335% Sanctuary.Total: +905%
This is ridiculous. It’s like his battle trariggered, but it usually only works for stamina… She opened her stamina regeion, finding identiumbers. But then the amount dropped for no apparent reason.
Stamina RegeionPertage of maximum stamina regeed per hour.+100% Racial (Human).+100% Relentless.+470% Crity.+100% Sanctuary.Total: +770%
She sat and stared at it in fusion for a little, and then automatically healed Mato again, and suddenly the amount jumped back up.
Oh! She opened up her Crity skill and then suddenly had her answer.
Crity – level 13Your proficy with meditation is enhanced by your Ahn Khen bloodline. Your mind has reached a perma state of crity, during which mana and stamina regeion is increased by +235% [40 + skill x 15]. Bonus is doubled if you sit and focus.Soul, Bloodline, Wisdom, Endurance
The amount her regeion had increased recisely her own skill’s regeion rate. And it had e through Mato’s aura. Sanctuary shared all of his regeion with nearby allies. Including his Battle Trance. But her healing had just given him her own Crity regeion buff for a few seds, and his Sanctuary appeared to be sharing that with her too.
Curious, she pced her hand on Mato’s fnk, deliberately putting it in the fmes and holding it there while she grimaced at the pain.
“Uh, Malika?” Ali asked, a worried look in her eyes.
“Just testing something,” she muttered and then healed both herself and Mato in rapid succession.
You have gained Crity.
Her regeion jumped yet again.
Stamina RegeionPertage of maximum stamina regeed per hour.+100% Racial (Human).+100% Relentless.+705% Crity.+335% Sanctuary.Total: +1240%
“What the heck do you o test that requires burning yourself?” Ali asked.
Holy shit. Without b to say anything, she just shared her stamina regeion with her friends.
“What the heck!” excimed, sitting bolt upright. “How…”
“Crity,” Malika said, grinning at him.
“Did you get an adva, Malika?” Ali asked.
“Nope,” she said. “I’m just using it four times.”
“You… what?” gasped, and Malika was treated to the half-elf being literally speechless for a moment.
“I get double Crity for sitting and fog,” she expined. “And I give Crity to anyone I heal for a bit more than sixteen seds. It works on myself… and Mato.”
“Ooh!” said, scrambling for his notebook, and then immediately st it again with a look of chagrin on his face as the pages caught fire. “And…”
“Yes, his Sanctuary reflects it bae for the fourth instance.”
“Ok, that’s… really ridiculous,” said. “But… we use this!”
“You’re regeing your eamina pool every five minutes?” Ali said, still staring.
“Four minutes fifty seds,” corrected absently, his eyes taking on a faraway gze.
Now, that’s a bloodline skill! No wonder Rezan said they were important.
Her mana regeion was nearly as good, just not getting the advantage of Relentless. And to make it even more useful, Sanctuary reflected her Crity boost to every member of their team in range, including Ali’s minions. All she had to do was heal Mato when he was damaged – and that was nearly always.
Finally, having resolved her fusion to her own satisfa, she turned her attention back to the results of the fight. Ali got up and resumed her destru of corpses and the no-llowing spears.
“Those Fmecallers have a temporary duration armor boosting skill,” she said, thinking about the most important skills she had seen during the fight.
“Yup, when the scales glow, the only thing that gets through is my nature magic,” Mato agreed, finally shifting back to his Beastkin form. “By the way, that Crity thing is awesome, Malika.”
“Thanks!”
“They also do pure fire damage with those spear attacks, and it leaves your wounds burning fes.” Malika had spent a substantial portion of her resources tinually batting the persistent fmes.
“Yep, I noticed that one,” Mato said with a wry grin. “They figured out that I have a lot of armor and sed to that very quickly. I was burning a lot. What is that fme – it’s very not fun.”
“It’s hellfire,” Ali said, joining them on the rocky ground. “I identify their mana affinity. I ’t see that hiss thing, so I’m not sure what it does. But it’s really bad for my rogues – they couldn’t fight.”
“It’s a martial arts intimidation skill,” Malika answered. Both she and Mato had high wisdom, and her Crity helped her keep her mind calm under pressure. “Yues are probably not high enough level to resist a level sixty Intimidate.”
Ali twisted her mouth and frowned. “I o find some higher-level minions soon,” she said. “This is being a real problem.”
“What about these Fmecallers?”
“Not sure,” she answered. “They seem to be some cssed variant of a hellfire elemental, so I’m thinking I probably ’t summon them. I will try though, if we get enough.”
“You didn’t get it for your elemental imprint?” asked, looking surprised.
“No, and I really have no idea why,” Ali grumbled. “This stupid cssification system makes no sense.”
“That’s too bad, they’re very tough,” he said.
Having something like this oeam would solve a lot of Ali’s challenges with low-level minions. Malika tinued sharing the insights she had learned by the monsters and their stamina patterns and bat behavior. The others all listened with i and active questions – even Ali, who she knew was now a highly motivated student of bat. Malika didn’t hold back – every little bit of new information may provide her with some help for her other minions, or even choosing whies might work the best.
Aliandra
Ali sighed. The Fmecaller Warriors were unreasonably powerful and incredibly durable. Their scaled hide was so extraordinarily tough that more often than not, her Kobold archer’s arrows just bounced off. When they activated their defensive skill, making their bodies glow with radia, there was no ce her Bone Mages or archers could even scratch them.
Her rogues were a lost cause – she stopped summoning them. All the Fmecallers had a powerful intimidating hiss that pletely incapacitated the bck-scaled Kobolds, rendering them quivering and helpless, uo even dodge or attack. They just became a mana soak for her Acolytes’ healing magic.
The only minions she had that seemed to do any damage at all were her shamans – from a distance – and that seemed to be entirely due to their lightning vulnerability curse. The Sparkling Ooze also seemed effective, but of course, they hurt Mato and the rest of the melee with their explosive area damage, making the fight uably dangerous.
“This way,” said, his voice a low whisper.
They crept forward following the path had picked out, winding through the desote, heat-fused ndscape past the vigorously bubbling bck pools spewing sulfurous bck smoke and the pilrs of bzing bck hellfire.
“Give me a moment,” Malika said, halting their progress as she studied the bubbling pools before retrieving ay vial from her ring. “I want to collee of this for Morwy looks iing.”
Healing mana flowed through her arm tinuously as she reached out through the hellfire and dipped her hand and the vial into the boiling bck goopy stuff, ing back with an arm afme, a grimace of pain, and a vial full of the bck stuff.
Abyssal Brimstoar (Hellfire)
“What is that?” Ali asked curiously. The substaank of sulfur and even in the vial, it tio boil and burn with the intense bck fme.
“It seems to be a reagent, useful for explosives,” Malika answered.
“And you want to give that to Morwynne Fizzlebang? Is that really a good idea?” Ali asked. It seemed that every time she entered Pretty Powerful Potions, something was in the process of exploding. The Gnomish Alchemist seemed to need ra help blowing things up.
“She’ll be ecstatic,” grinned.
Mato snorted, “Best warn… well, the ey of Myrin’s Keep!”
“Hmm…” was all Malika said, but she stored the foul-smelling stuff in her ring.
“Ining,” said, interrupting them and raising his bow to aim at the three rapidly approag reptiliaals.
“Same strategy?” Malika asked, getting an affirmative nod from .
Warrior – Fmecaller Elemental – level 60-63 (Hellfire) x3
This time Ali had nues, and instead sent in her Hobgoblin, along with all her shamans and the Sparkling Ooze. She still had no idea what to do with her Bone Mages and archers, but she made them shoot anyway, deg that even the paltry damage they were able to do might be worth it.
The first intimidating hiss caused the entire melee group to stagger, except for her ooze which, to Ali’s surprise, seemed to be immu was not like it had a lot of wisdom. A few tense moments passed while the fmecaller had free rein to stab and slice at Mato, but Malika twitched, rec her wits quickly, and healed him. Mato was the o respond, blog two sweeping spear strikes on the baeel of his armor.
The Hobgoblin attacked, shaking his head as if trying to dislodge a bug from an ear, but her shamans remained down and out, c he ground. The simultaneous spear cleaves from the fmecaller warriors cut down two of them in an instant.
Ali wi the snap of her reservation and tried to pull the remaining shaman out of melee rao save it, but it was still incapacitated and uo respond. It fell quickly to the reaping strikes of the long-bded spears.
Well, that didn’t work. At all.
“Keep shooting,” Ali instructed, gng at her archers and mages, but it was arguable if they were having any effect. She ighem for now, turnitention to her Sparkling Ooze, impressing on it her iion to aim its shots near, but ly on top of the enemy monsters. The bright balls of light shot up, arg over the battlefield, but most of them missed entirely, and the ohat hit caused Malika to have to dodge and she almost killed her own Hobgoblihe bst synized with a particurly nasty spear cleave.
“Argh, stop,” she told it, and instead enced it to go try eating the Fmecallers, or at least hit them with a pseudopod. But that only increased her frustration as, without any fire resistahe ooze struggled against the molten armor and the fme. Eventually, she had it disengage so that her healers did not have to worry about keeping it alive and instead fired barrier shards at the fmecallers.
Her frown didn’t go away even after the Fmecallers dropped – mostly as a result of and Malika’s damage.
There must be something I use, she thought, paging her Grimoire, but she had the ehing memorized already, and nothing new could be found lurking somehow undiscovered among its pages. She walked over and destructed the corpses while she sidered her options.
Imprint: Fmecaller Warrior pleted.
Oh, maybe… The warriors were strong, and their spear attacks were powerful, and she sidered the possibility of using them against their own kind. She didn’t hold too much hope though, given that they identified as some type of elemental monster. I don’t have a spear impriher. Still, they were a high-level, robust monster, so she had to at least try it.
“You got it?” asked.
“Yes…” But what do I repce? Her Grimoire was currently full, and as she ran through the list, her eyes stopped at the chapter eng s. Do I really his? She was loath to create money directly because it would disrupt the ey of Myrin’s Keep in a much more devastating way than what they were already doing to it with their essences and massive demand for potions. Besides, she could create all the metal directly, now. There wasn’t any pressing need for them to be created into the shape of a specifically, other than the nostalgia and historical value of the Dal’mold . And she still had several of those in her ring so she could learn them again if she wao.
Ali made the decision, quickly repg the imprint with the Fmecaller Warrior, and then summoned one. But to her dismay – and not wholly surprisingly – it colpsed to the ground like every other elemental besides her Forest Guardians, destroying her hope of using the powerful snake-like monster against the denizens of the Emberfe Mines.
“It was worth a try,” Malika said.
“Yes, I know,” Ali answered, but it wasn’t much sotion. In a fit of frustration, she created everything that might eveely have a ce of w, and then, when pulled the patrolling group of Fmecallers, she systematically tried out each of them.
The first thing that happened was one of the Fmecallers hung bad threw its spear with enormous force at her flying Lux Drifters, retrieving the spear with some ridiagical b skill and flinging it again, wiping out the entire flight of the swarm oozes she had made in a matter of seds. The Scalding Slime and the Lava Lurker did not struggle with the ambient fire damage in the dungeon, but they did the wrong type of damage, steam and va both being based o and thus proving iive against the hellfire elementals. The Brine Oozes hung back out e firing their water bolts, but they struggled in the fire of the mines and took aire Acolyte’s mana pool to keep them alive for the duration of the fight. Her wolves just died to the fire, her non-fire-based spiders were all way too low-level to be useful, and her giant bats were simply skewered out of the sky by the thrown spears.
“This is stupid,” she announced finally as they took a break. “I need better minions, everything I have is useless.” Without fire resistance, most of her beast minions were worthless, and the ones she could equip were simply far too low-level to have much effe the level sixty monsters.
“Still struggling to find effective monsters?” Malika asked.
Ali nodded. It was depressing that she was the highest-level member of their group, and they were basically carryi this point. All she had was her shards and her Acolytes.
“He’s pretty effective,” Mato said, plopping himself down nearby, pointing at her tall pte-covered Hobgoblin. “Why not make more of those?”
“He’s level forty-ohey cost too much…” she stopped suddenly. She had been about to say her Hobgoblins would cost her too much mana and she couldn’t afford it, but that had been an automatic respo’s not actually true anymore, she realized, gng at her substantial free mana pool.
“I guess I afford them now,” she admitted sheepishly. She had not sidered it because she had been struggling with mana for so long. It took only a couple of minutes for her to summon some new minions, most of her others having been wiped out i fight.
Warrior – Hobgoblin – level 42-44 x3.
Your reserved mana has increased by +595.
“What kind of ons do you prefer?” she asked, speaking in Goblin.
“Axes, mistress,” the female Hob replied. She wore her long, coarse bck hair up in a topknot and was the highest-level Hobgoblin of the group.
“Sword and a shield,” one of the males answered, echoed by the sed.
“Easy enough,” she replied, making each of them a Firefed hybrid pte armor to repce the leather items her skill had automatically chosen. Thuli’s work will be far better than that junk. Then she created a pair of nasty-looking Eimuuran steel axes for the female Hob and shields and swords for the males.
“There you go,” she said, pointing at the heavy equipment she would have struggled to even lift.
“Thank you, mistress!” The three new hobs swarmed over the gear, equipping it immediately, and soon she had the new hobs and the one from earlier standing in a nieat row before her. It was almost eight-hundred mana for four Hobgoblins, but as she saw them standing in the burnished Firefed- and Eimuuran-steel she felt her spirits rising and the frustration of the day beginning to fade.
“Here,” Mato said, handing her a tray of fire elixirs.
“Wait, these are the expensive ones,” she excimed looking at the potions he had just given her for her new minions.
“They’re high enough level to use them,” he answered with a shrug. “Might as well have the best defenses on our team. We want them to live, right?”
“I guess so,” Ali said, nodding and then handing out the elixirs.
One of the Hobgoblins s his neighbor, puffing up his chest and raising his sword, but the female hob simply barked a sharp and, and the others immediately stood down. Theook the elixirs and distributed them.
I guess she’s the leader, Ali thought, recalling just how hierarchical the Goblin society was – even to the point of them having aptitudes and skills that were more powerful when fighting with oblins. The hobs in particur had the ability to pull the unruly members into line, as long as the hierarchy was clearly established. She checked each of their skills and abilities, finding minor differences in masteries and on skills, but all of them had det defensive abilities and an impressive-looking Rallying Cry skill that she had liked the look of.
With that thought fresh in her mind, she resummoned her Goblin shamans. I always keep them out of melee range, she thought, deg to think of them like rept mages. They wouldn’t be quite as effective, but they wouldn’t die during the intimidation, and their lightning was det damage still. And they were Goblins, boosting the power of her Hobs.
“Are you making the beginnings of your own Goblin horde, Ali?” Mato observed with a grin. “How about we try them out in battle?” As was usual, Mato did not like sitting around when there were eo fight, but Ali was just as excited to see her new army in a too.
“I’ll go scout,” announced, grinning with eager anticipation.
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https:///DungeonOfKnowledge
https:///series/1135403/dungeon-of-knowledge
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