Basil

  “Ten pert!” Aiden shouted.

  “Stupid Goblin!” Havok yelled, smashing the Storm Shaman in the face with his glowing Holy Shield.

  From the pristine ke of mana-purified water, yet another circur bst of water bolts shot out in every dire. Shields were raised, and defensive spells cast as the raid group reacted to the monster lurking down in the depths.

  “Seven!” Aiden yelled again.

  “Kill it!” Kaitlyn shrieked, her body sparking from eling excess lightning mana as she unleashed a massive bolt at the boss.

  The powerful Goblin, the st of its three twins, raised a sparking mad a huge bolt of lightning ripped through the mossy ground, knog several of the adventurers sprawling amid the massive crack of thunder.

  “Two pert!”

  Basil crouched behind his tree. As the only non-bat member of the team, his job was to hide and not get killed. All his work had been during the preparation phase, making healing and mana potions for the team – for this boss specifically – not a lot was needed on the spur of the moment.

  Devan did something spectacurly noisy with her Wind Bdes and buried her daggers deep into the Goblin’s back with a whip-crack of sound that might have been louder than the Lightning Bolt, and the monster keeled over to its left and colpsed. Its shield and mace cttered beside it, sparking as its potent defensive entments grounded into the dirt.

  “Yay!”

  “We did it!”

  The battlefield on the ke shore erupted with hooting and h, but it was short-lived. The lightning pulsed once from the final shaman’s corpse and then rapidly discharged along the ground into the ke. From deep within the pristiers, something began to glow. The waters swirled and began to bubble.

  “Oh, shit!”

  “That’s not good.”

  Basil backed up, even though he was the furthest from the fight. High above the ke, a sudden flicker caught his eye, and a bck shape appeared under a disk of golden magic. Immediately, he Identified it.

  Warrior – Skeleton – level 4.

  The ingruous undead skeleton plummeted upside down toward the water, with Basil uo tear his incredulous gaze away.

  Suddenly, the surface of the ke erupted as three epiters of water bolts bsted out at the adventurers. And then the ke began to glow as rings of lightning pulsed from deep uer, making the surface bubble and boil. Of the unfortunate skeleton, only smoking fragments of shattered bone rained down into the ke.

  Brine Ooze – Ooze – level 19 (Water / Lightning) x3

  As the ed oozes slithered up out of the water, all hell broke loose, and the raid colpsed. Lightning cascaded in all dires, like the monsters were the living inations of the former Storm Shaman totems, all the while bsting everything with tinuous waves of water bolts that shot in all dires.

  Basil ducked as o the trunk of his tree.

  “Run!” Teagan shouted.

  Basil ran. Screams and shouts faded as the pops of escape skills and potio off.

  ***

  “What the fuck was that?” Aiden said, still panting, as he threw himself to the ground. The monstrous water-slinging, lightning-ented oozes had retreated into the ke, and the sorry, battered remains of the raid group slowed to a halt in a small grove of trees.

  “The Brine Ooze picked up the e ability as soon as the Goblin died,” Teagan said.

  “It was more than that,” Devan added. “It added the lightning affinity, too.”

  “How the heck are we supposed to fight that?” Aiden said, throwing up his hands. “I still had that bsted vulnerability curse.”

  “I don’t know,” Teagan said. “It was so hard to heal as soon as they reached the group.”

  “At least everyo out safely,” Basil put in.

  “Yeah, but now we have to wait for the recallers to e back from town,” Aiden grumbled. “We need a full group tain.”

  “We’ll just get wiped out whe to the sed phase again,” Kaitlyn said. “That’s far too much lightning damage for us to handle right now.”

  The group fell silent, eaursing their bruised egos or sitting with their thoughts.

  Basil, however – his mind was abuzz with ideas. I wonder if Morwyraining would work on this? He had been studying the making of the fire resistance elixirs she supplied to Aliandra’s group, but there seemed to be no reason it wouldn’t work on other affinities. All he needed was a source of lightning affinity…

  “Hey,” Basil said. “I have an idea, but I’m not sure it will work. But, in order to try it, I need some ingredients from over there. Do we have enough people to kill a few wolves while I go collect herbs?”

  “Uh, I think?” Aiden said, seeming a little surprised as he surveyed the people left. “We don’t have a tank.”

  “I heal,” Teagan said. “And you have enough armor to handle a wolf or two, let’s go check it out.”

  “Ok,” Basil said, springing to his feet. “Over this way.”

  He led them around a few trees, back behind a ridge, and waited while they cleared out a low-level pack of wolves before he reached the flarden. If I remember correctly, it should be… “Aah, here it is,” he said, kneeling in the dirt and reag for a pretty white flower.

  Arc Lily – Wildflower – level 8 (Lightning).

  “Yht us all the way here to go flower pig?” Kaitlyn said, but when Basil gnced up at her, he found her grinning at him. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Uh,” he said, feeling a bit of a flush creeping into his cheeks. “It’s a lightning-affinity flower, you see?”

  It’s like I’m cursed with little-brother syndrome, he sighed inwardly. All the girls do that… so I happen to like flowers. What’s wrong with that? These are even her affinity. Mind, if he offered her a posy, he’d probably get his butt lightning-bsted. Basil sighed again. To work.

  Retrieving a set of protective gloves and his tools, he quickly harvested several and then began to prepare them for essera. “Three should be enough,” he muttered, crushing them together with sents from his ring and wringing the juice out into a vial. Then he pulsed his mana into bat Potions and began to distill the essence while he added the proper reagents acc to the recipe he had memorized. “It just needs a little ge here… and here. Hmm… yes. Here we go!”

  Suddenly, the co crystallized into a sparkling white liquid, and he knew he had succeeded. To his further delight, a familiar, vibrant green vine grew in his mind, the notificatioerily following its coils and curves as he read:

  Adventurous Collector has reached level 18bat Potions has reached level 17 (+2)Lesser Elixir of Lightning Prote – level 20e: +135 to resistance against lightning damage. Duration: 1 hourUnstable (This potion will lose poten 3 hours)Created by Basil WatercressPotion

  “Do you think this will help?” Basil asked, holding up his trophy for them to see. The tents of the vial glittered, casting bright white patterns of light that rippled across the ground.

  It was far from as potent as the creations Morwynne or Eliyen could make, and his bat Potions creations were always unstable. It was both a blessing and a curse – his creations ed more than three hours, which meant it was very hard for him to make money like a traditional herbalist or alchemist. But bat Potions was far more le when it came to ingredients, proportions, and taking the proper time to brew – and it was hardly a problem when they inteo use them immediately.

  “Ooh!” Teagan excimed.

  “Impressive!” Aiden agreed, his soot-streaked face losing its downcast mien in an instant.

  “How many of those you make, flower boy?” Kaitlyn asked, her green eyes widening as she stared at the potion as if it were an elixir of eternal life.

  “There’s a lot of Arc Lilies around here…” he murmured.

  “Let me help you!” she offered enthusiastically.

  Aliandra

  “I don’t hose anymore, if you want to skin them,” Ali told , pointing to the two remaining Hellfire Warg corpses. “Or the Fmecallers.”

  nodded, retrieving his skinning knife aing about his gruesome task.

  While Malika gathered up the various essences, and the items used by the Fmecallers, Ali tracked down the four imp corpses and destructed those also. Again, one of the imps dropped a lesser hellfire essence, so she called Malika over to collect it, rather than burn herself by toug it. She had just about enough of hellfire by now, but she was hopeful the unon drop would prove useful for opening the rune lod grant them access to the final wing of the mines and maybe – finally – they would eventually find the anvil and fe of Thovir Emberfe.

  Imprint: Hellfire Imp pleted.

  There it is. Ali looked at the notification thoughtfully. She had not gotten mu the way of useful imprints in here, so she wasn’t holding out too much hope for this oher. She opened her Grimoire, but she already knew she had no free chapters left, the st oaken up by the Fmecaller Elementals. It was also her least useful imprint, but she was loath to simply discard the powerful curses possessed by the Fmecaller warlock – a variant she had just retly recorded in her Grimoire.

  It’s not like I’m ever likely to be able to create them, she thought, staring wistfully at the imprint. Not unless something fual about her ana ged; they required fire-affinity mana to give them life. A memory drifted to the surface of her mind; Why not worry about the things you do, instead of what you ’t? Her father had liked that pithy quote, and she had always thought it to be a little annoying when he would repeat it after she had struggled and failed at something that felt impossible or out of reach.

  Now, however, she remembered his voice with mencholy and nostalgia. She missed him terribly, but she knew he would have been happy to know that his advice was helping her, even a little bit.

  Quickly, Ali selected the chapter to repce the Fmecaller Elemental imprint with the new one for the Hellfire Imp, but then she paused as a half-formed thought bubbled up into her mind from somewhere obscure. “ we stop here for a bit?” she asked. “I need a few mio test something.”

  “Sure, no problem,” said.

  “I’ll get some snacks ready,” Mato added.

  “Snacks?” Malika asked, incredulously. “We’re in a dungeon, it’s hardly a good pce for a piic.”

  “e on, piics are always a good idea,” Mato said, fruit and prepared bags of nuts to everyone. “You’ll fight better on a full stomach, Malika.”

  “Knowing your cooking, I’d… waddle!” However, she smiled, “I guess we’re burning through a lot of resources in these long, long fights. Bring it on. Something hotter and spicier than hellfire, please!”

  groaned, “Did you have to?”

  Ali nibbled on a slice of pear as she paged through her Grimoire, tuning out their banter. Now, where was that… Oh, yes, the Bamboo Crawler.

  She opehe Grass imprint to find the entry for the strange blowguure she had learned up in the jungle above the mines. It had possessed the stra property, something she had barely registered at the time. A single variant with pages of runes shared across two imprints. She switched to the elemental imprint, studying her Grimoire closely as it reshuffled the pages to ensure her Bamboo Crawler was offered here too.

  It's not a whole lot different than when I reordered the chapters, she thought. It had been this observation that had percoted up into her scious awareness when she had looked at the Fmecaller imprint. After all, she had never been able to figure out why the Fmecaller variants – which were also elementals – had required their own chapter.

  Idly, she reordered the chapters in her Grimoire, paring the process with the strangely migratory pages of the Bamboo Crawler variant. It’s almost the same… if I just… Hardly thinking about the details, she pushed some of the pages around. There was a little resistance as if her Grimoire was hesitating, but then Sage of Learning ped down on her mana pool, and with a little fre, the Grimoire responded with a surge of light.

  Variant: Fmecaller Hunter added to Imprint: Elemental.

  Wait, just like that? She stared at it in surprise, but then she sed bad forth between the Fmecaller and Elemental imprints and, sure enough, her Hunter variant flipped bad forth betweewo, just like the Bamboo Crawler.

  Excited now, she sat up taller and flipped back, and with just a few thoughts, she received two new notifications.

  Variant: Fmecaller Spear added to Imprint: Elemental.Variant: Fmecaller Warlock added to Imprint: Elemental.

  Wait, what else I do? Eagerly, she paged through her Grimoire, trying all sorts of binations, but the resistao her manipution seemed far greater. It would seem she either o get something with a greater degree of patibility or level her skill far higher. Still, she had just freed up an imprint, without losing anything that might one day prove valuable. Smiling, she removed the Fmecaller imprint, repg it with the Hellfire Imp, and verified that she had indeed retaihe other three variants.

  With her magical tome already open to the correct chapter, she eled her mana to create an imp. A few mier there , and a sizzle of fme along with a strong odor of sulfur, and a Hellfire Imp appeared in front of her, hopping up and down and cag wildly.

  Her friends’ heads all snapped around; their versation instantly fotten as their bat reflexes kicked in.

  Hellfire Imp – Demon – level 55 (Hellfire)

  Your reserved mana has increased by +355.

  Is it alive? “It’s mine,” she reassured them. She had been fully expeg it to behave like the elementals, after all, it was a creature of fme. But she supposed she was actually able to create the wargs, so perhaps this monster was simir.

  Up close, she could see its leathery hide and the dark fmes emitted from its small form. For once, she had a monster smaller than herself that wasn’t a cute lump of moss. Standing at full height, its horns reached only to Ali’s waist. If it wasn’t on fire, she could easily have patted the top of its head.

  Why am I imaginiing a demon burning with hellfire? Idly she wondered if it was healthy that she found terrifying monsters suddenly cuter as soon as she could summon them.

  Carefully, she slipped her mind into its awareness, reizing the strange shifting and blurring of heat-based vision, and she called up its status sheet.

  Race: DemonActive Buffs: Demonic Power

  Css: Hellfire Imp – level 55- Fireball – level 47- Hellfire – level 45- Fme Form – level 43- Accelerated Casting – level 35- Amplified Casting – level 35- Heat Vision – level 32- Demonic Power – level 35- Fme Shield – level 35- Fire Mastery – level 31- Ritual Summoning – level 22

  Aptitudes- Mana (Affinity): Hellfire- Languages: Demonic- Immunities (Racial): Fire- Vulnerabilities (Racial): +50% extra damage from Holy, Ice, or Cold- Imp's ing (Racial): +55 to Intelligeributes- Vitality: 65- Strength: 16- Endurance: 39- Dexterity: 227 (+113)- Perception: 72- Intelligence: 495 (+247)- Wisdom: 241 (+120)

  Armor: 385Physical Damage Redu: 20%Evasion: 462Dodge: 23.07%Resistance: 792Magical Damage Redu: 33.96%

  Health: 650/650Stamina: 390/390Mana: 1928/2410 (482 Reserved)

  Ali could see her panions staring at her new minion with curiosity, but they all waited politely for her to study it before interrupting her. She knew would be itg to get the specifics written down in his notebook so that he could help optimize their strategies even further.

  She browsed through the skills. Fireball – no surprise there. The sed skill, Hellfire, seemed to be a versatile bat support skill, adding more hellfire to everything the imp did. Hmm, two meta-magic skills, she thought, reading through the descriptions for Amplified Casting and Accelerated Casting. The skills both funed simirly, there was a small passive boost to cast speed and magical power, but the crucial part funed as a support skill accelerating or emp whatever spell the motached them to. It expined how it made the fireballs instantaneous or more than double damage occasionally. The two skills had a signifit recharge time which further expined why they hadn’t been doing it all the time. Something to study. Extensively. She had the feeling that metamagic would be very useful in the long run.

  She opehe details for the Fme Form skill.

  Fme Form – level 43Mana: Turn into a form of pure fme. While in this form you are immuo physical damage and ot cast any spells or activate skills. Teleport to any visible fme. While you are surrounded by fme, your mana regeion is increased by +538% [skill + intelligence]. Duration: At will.Fire, Movement, Shapeshift, Intelligence

  Oh, now this is amazing! It was a remarkable movement skill for a fire caster, and Ali finally uood how the imps were traveling within their own fireballs. It was quite an unusual mode of transport, but it granted signifit mana regeion and defensive prote. If it weren’t for the extreme speed of lightning, it was uhat they would have ever been hit in transit. Their Fme Shield ability meant they would do tinuous damage to whatever was standing in the viity of their destination upon arrival. Unlike most Fire Mages she had entered, these imps seemed robust enough to survive being up front in bat, and their Fme Form owerful escape tool if they . I ’t believe it has no recharge timer. The little demons could hang out in fire all day, regeing at an incredible rate while remaining immuo all physical damage.

  Its other abilities were mostly defensive enhas for resistances and attribute boosts. It had a simir reservation skill to Malika and , improving intelligence, wisdom, aerity, making the imp quite a powerful aive caster. I wonder if that expins its ability to tto a just-cast fireball, she thought. It was quite a feat of rea and timing.

  The st skill on the imp’s list, however, brought her up cold, causing a chill of fear to run down her spine.

  Ritual Summoning – level 22Mana: Summon an unbound Hellfire Imp from a nearby abyssal pne. Requires a pnar rift to an abyssal realm, or simir e within 22 [skill] km of the summoning. Cast Time: 15 minutes, Recharge: 5 hours. Duration: 24 hours.Fire, Ritual, Minion, Intelligence

  This is dangerous, Ali thought. As she rapidly read through the ability, her mind jured an image of Myrin’s Keep overrun by the cag, pyromaniac demons as they summoned more and more of their kind. And they use Accelerated Casting on this to make it instant. She had, in fact, actually witnessed one of the Imps do exactly that during the fight.

  But why isn’t this dungeon full of them then? It didn’t make any sense. She read the ability one more time. Perhaps that 24-hour duration means the summons are temporary? Still, they could likely summon a literal army of the imps if they o.

  Still worried, Ali sed through the remainder of the abilities. The imp had weak armor, but stroances, making it most vulnerable to physical damage. But given its powerful movement skill, her Hobgoblins had had a difficult time pinning them down. would like to know this though, she thought. Physical damage with ventionally crafted arrows might kill them even faster than his jured ones.

  Her eyes paused, sing through the imp’s attributes, and then widened in surprise. Her heartbeat quied. It had a staggering 495 intelligence, which surpassed her own by more than two hundred points! Gra was boosted by its Demonic Power skill, but still. She did some quick arithmeti her head. It must have a base of almost 240 intelligenbsp;Obviously, it was heavily enhanced by its Imp’s ing aptitude – a massive racial boost to the attribute.

  What are you doing, Ali? she thought, as she realized she was being stupid.

  “Hey you, turn off your Demonic Power for a sed,” she instructed, taking care to form the images and visuals of her i due to the ck of a shared nguage. It cocked its little head at her and then the mana around it shifted. I was close. Its actual unbuffed intelligenumber was 248.

  Mine is 204 before my Empowered Summoner buff, she thought. Curious, she switched her minion target from her trusty Kobold Bone Mage to the Hellfire Imp, and her intelligeribute leapt from 294 to a whopping 479.

  “Holy shit!” she excimed and then cpped a hand across her mouth as her friends stared at her in shock. It reserved a prohibitive 355 extra mana just to keep the imp around, but the gigantic boost to her intelligence percoted through every skill she had, and nearly every single ability. It was more than a sixty-pert improvement. Are Insight was the only skill she possessed that did not explicitly list the intelligerait. But the feeling of all her magic swelling with neas what brought her up short. Ali dismissed the status sheet and looked at her panions.

  “You seem excited,” Malika observed flippantly.

  “This is a scary creature,” Ali answered. “We are fortuhey seem to be chaotid disanized, otherwise we would probably be knee-deep in hundreds of them. But I have a new walking buff – it is increasing my intelligeribute by more than a hundred ay points.”

  Mato gave a low whistle of surprise, an expression echoed on the faces of both Malika and .

  Ali shared the status sheet with all of them and a few moments ter, ’s fached, paler even than his normal pale skin.

  “I see what you mean,” he said. “Accelerated Casting with that Ritual of Summoning – if they ed those, they could have an instant army of imps, as many as were in range of their summoning.”

  “I know,” Ali said. “I won’t be doing that; unbound demons are just as likely to just attack us as the enemy.”

  “Didn’t we see an imp use that earlier?” asked.

  Ali nodded; she had definitely observed it in the first fight.

  “You know, that means there must be a pnar rift somewhere nearby,” observed, his expression growing grave. “We should probably tell the Guildmaster, and maybe ander Brand too. Open access to an abyssal realm could be very dangerous.”

  He was right, if the rift were nearby, there was a good ce that Myrin’s Keep would be in danger from stray demons. Just one of these imps loose iown was more than most of the residents would be able to handle.

  “This dungeon has been here for a while, presumably,” Malika noted reasonably. “And we haven’t seen loose demons running around in all the years I’ve been here. I say we keep expl, and if we find any portals or rifts, we will be able to uand any danger better.”

  “Ok,” Ali said, getting to her feet. “At least I have my walking intelligence buff now.”

  “You know yoing be Mieriel’s least favorite persht?” Malika said, eyeing the imp.

  “What… why… oh!” Ali said, as she suddenly realized that walking into the guild hall with a hellfire demon would probably set all the couches on fire.

  “Look on the bright side,” Mato said. “Zombies leaking on the carpet won’t be her biggest worry anymore. e on, snack time!”

  ***

  Several long hours ter, Ali gazed ahead at a pin stone door set into an arched opening, clearly crafted through the rocky wall with advaone-w skills. There was nothing particurly remarkable about it, no runes of fire to put out, nor warnings, nor even carvings. It didn’t eveo be locked, with no keyhole or simir binding devices in evidenywhere. However, it was an artificial doorway deep into a fire duhat had spawned in the ruins of an a mine. Ali regarded it with suspi – deeply justified suspi.

  It was signifit, only in that it was the end of the long winding passage of caverns and tunnels. They had fought their way through numerous paecallers and their minions, with many variations. Some having multiple hunters, and some adding spear users to the mix. The hardest one had been a group of two warlocks and nine imps. She had lost all her minions during that fight; save the two healers she had been able to protect, her fire-immune imp, and the Hobgoblins with their higher levels a health pool.

  “Let’s see what’s inside,” Mato suggested, ever eager for a.

  “I’m game,” said, eagerly. “After all, this looks like it might be the end of this wing.”

  “Should we be worried about a boss?” Ali asked. “The domain mana seems to be behaving a little strangely around here.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was,” Malika agreed. “We should be careful, regardless.”

  Mato stepped forward and tugged on the door. Surprisingly, it swung open easily, revealing a great cavernous chamber beyond, lit by a surreal shifting light. A rough-hew of stairs had been crudely carved into the wall, desding toward the expansive floor below.

  As Ali ehe vaulted cavern, she saw it on the far side. How could she miss it? How could anyone? A jagged horizontal tear hovered in the air he rocky wall, wide enough for all of them to walk through side-by-side and tall enough for even Mato to pass through with only a little stooping required. The edges of the tear were indistinct, shifting softly in tinuous motion and throwing glittering multicolored light into the cavern in patterns remi of aurorae. The ambient mana swirled chaotically, twisted and ed by the strange phenomenon.

  She stared at it, gazing through what was clearly a rift in spaewhere else. As she watched, something within shimmered and shifted, like watg an indistinoving through some turbulent ke or river. Then a small cag creature appeared as it passed through from the other side, its horned demoni wreathed in familiar hellfire. A whispering swoosh was all the warning she had before a rapid succession of dark arrows smmed into the imp, pinning it to the ground and killing it instantly. Ali’s eyes so the far end of the room where an enormous Fmecaller loomed, dark fmes fading from the still-buzzing recurve bow in its hand. A giant of its kind, its scales were of a deep red so dark the enormous monster almost vanished against the rocky backdrop. Were it not for the sudden attad the sound of the b, Ali might never have noticed it until it was too te.

  “Raid boss,” whispered urgently, slinking backward as if wishing te with the wall.

  The rift shifted and swirled again, and this time a Hellfire Warg slunk through, to meet with a simir fate as the te imp – only this time with signifitly more arrows required.

  “Wele to my hunt, I hope you will be worthy prey.”

  The sibint hissing voice, speaking reizable Dal’mohran, echoed through the chamber as the monster’s forked tongue flickered in the shifting darkness.

  Shit, it heard us.

  Suddenly, Ali’s chime sounded.

  You have been cursed with Mark of Prey+25% to all damage taken.Mark of Prey taunts every hostile entity within 100 meters to attack you.Curse – Duration: 1 minute.

  Ali stared at the curse in horror. Another imp crawled through the rift, but this time, there were no arrows to greet it. As soon as it emerged from the rift, its glowing eyes locked onto her and it unleashed an accelerated and amplified fireball. A glittering golden sphere snapped into pce around her body as her reflexes took over. It was just in time to block the deafening hellfire explosion and the body of the flying imp that appeared right in front of her face as it smmed spread-eagled into her barrier.

  Ali flinched backward.

  At the far end of the room, the Fmecaller’s bow exploded into bck fme a out a nail-scratg howl as it unched an arrow directly at her chest.

  “You may run, little one. I will find you.”

  Whistling through the air, the arrow smmed intolden barrier with a power she had not believed possible. Cracks radiated through the sphere with small fragments falling like glittering dust to the ground. Urgently, she summoned a new barrier as another Hellfire Warg ehe chamber a out a chilling howl.

  “What is it?” asked urgently as he drew his bow.

  “Curse. Taunts everything!” Ali shouted, and then she shared the details in case any of them had the time to read it.

  “Shit! Everyone, kill the Fmecaller. Ali, just focus on your barriers.”

  Mato’s rea was an immediate roar and a charge that unched him across a dozeers of uneven ground in a fsh, smming himself into the immense serpentine boss with a great crash.

  An arrow flew in a strangely indisible dire, clearly obscured by illusion magic. Familiar illusion magic. The oversized serpent creature vanished, and five animated images of its form materialized, spread out across the chamber. ’s arrows filled the air, and Ali had the presenind to make her minions engage before she reinforced her barrier against the hellfire breath of a warg. Yet another imp arrived through the rift and immediately teleported to the hellfire breath surrounding her barrier and began summoning fire.

  “Ali, fly!” Malika yelled as she punched a Hellfire Warg in the side of its left head.

  Ali levitated herself in her spherical barrier, quickly removing herself from the range of the warg, but it was debatable if she was better off in the air. The two imps had clear shots at her and unched a pair of fireballs. No, three! Monsters were steadily entering the chamber and the more there were, the more precarious her position became. At least her hugely upgraded intelligence allowed her to track everything visible in the chamber effortlessly.

  She heard the howling roar before she even knew what hit her. A bolt of hellfire crossed the entire chamber in an instant, pung through her barrier like a sword through gossamer silk, tearing through her body, and ripping her left arm out of its socket.

  “Ali! No!” Malika’s shout was the st thing she heard before everythi suddenly bck.

  Ali came to as her body smmed into a rock about half the wall. Her instinmon her barrier around her was the only thing that had saved her from the two Hellfire Wargs attempting to eat her. Everything around her swirled in disorientation as her wound pumped her blood all over the inside of her bubble of magic.

  Must… fly… She willed her barrier to lift her above the wargs, and slowly it did, bringing with it a k of rock ly cut by the interse of her bubble-barrier and the wall. She had no idea what her minions or her friends were doing. She had barely enough focus to lift her broken body off the floor and out of reach of the demonic wolves. A pulse of soothing holy magic coursed through her body, and then ahe world stopped spinning, and she looked around. She was still missing her arm, but the grievous wound was no longer spurting blood everywhere. The Hellfire Wargs were trying to scale the wall to reach her, their heavy cws scratg grooves in the granite. Up where she flew, she only had to tend with the fireballs and the boss’s arrows which were smashing into her barrier at a pace that boggled the mind. Fortunately, none of them were nearly as powerful as the Power Shot and Ambush bination that had taken her arm and very nearly killed her. She focused her will, eling more and more mana into rebuilding and reinf her barrier magic.

  As her mind cleared, she realized that the Fmecaller was not just attag her. It fired six arrows at a time into the cavern, striking her minions, her friends, and the demons indiscriminately. But the demons had an advahe hellfire from its on did not damage them. In the case of the wargs, it was actively healing them. But not every shot was fire, and a rapid stream of dark arrows suddenly crossed the room, impaling her intelligence-boosting imp. Instantly, her mind sagged, suddenly struggling to keep track of every spell going off.

  Ali stopped ting after the eighth or ninth demoered the cavern, fog her entire being on defending against the onsught.

  “You will be my prey.”

  The voice echoed through the chamber, cutting through the noise of howls, cag, and the detonations of hellfire. Every single demon in the room turned and looked at Malika.

  “I’m it,” Malika said, her voireasonably calm in Ali’s opinion.

  Crap… Ali felt a sharp pang of guilt at the relief that welled up in her when she realized the curse had sed to Malika, followed by a sudden surge of worry for her friend.

  Ali’s eyes met Malika’s and then she heard, “No barrier, Ali. Let me run.” Malika’s form blurred as she threw her body into motion, running straight up the rock wall of the cavern with bsts of fire detonating in her footprints.

  Malika

  As soon as Ali had said ‘taunt,’ Malika uood the fight. Almost everyone would be left alone, except for ial area damage, while all the power of their foes would focus on killing a single person. And now she was that person, the mark in the Fmecaller’s deadly game.

  She ran, sprinting up and around the cavern wall, using her Diviep to put her out of reach of the wargs. Hellfire fireballs detonated on the rock all around her while powerful arrows of fire from the Fmecaller’s bow zipped by her ears. The fireballs were not nearly as much of a problem for her as were the arrows. The arrows were simply a lot faster and harder to dodge, all of them were jured out of hellfire and she had to heal every time she failed to dodge one – and each hit was like a gut-punch, throwing her off her rhythm.

  At least I do it on the run.

  But she stood by her decision to run instead of hiding in Ali’s bubble. For ohing, her skills were great for this. With room, she could dodge fireballs and even arrows, and she was fast and could stay out e of half the demons. But also, Ali looked shocked and hurt, and Malika knew she ime to recover.

  If only the Fmecallers weren’t immuo fire, she thought as she discarded the idea of drawing the imps’ fireballs tet the boss. She simply dodged and ran, healing whenever she needed.

  A vast surge of stamied from a vaguely ierminate locatiohe ter of the chamber. She could see it with her Soul Sight, but for some reason, the exact location was obscured to her. I missed a teleport, she realized. The stamina pattern matched the other Fmecaller hunters’ Power Shot, and she prepared herself and trated to figure out the exact location.

  There!

  At the st sed, she saw the shot and she tucked her body into a ball, falling into the ravening mass of wargs below. The howling bolt of hellfire whipped past her, missing by an ind smming into one of the wargs, smashing it bodily against the one. Unfortunately, it too was immuo fire, so it simply shook its heads and got up, looking dazed from the impact. Malika leapt from the ground and hopped off the back of a warg and into the air once more. But this time, Ali’s barriers flickered in the darkness defleg fireballs and arrows.

  Catch me, if you !

  ----------

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