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  Aliandra

  It was the stra sensation; she could smell weakness in the drake. Ali still hadn’t gotteo the stench of blood from the exquisitely sensitive St of Blood skill her Abyssal Stalkers had, but the more she studied her demonic assassin spiders, the more impressed she became.

  Immersed in the senses of her spiders, she fought as one of them – aware of the pulsing on blood in the web of arteries and veins below the dense nearly imperable scales, the ebb and flow fueling the enormous muscles. With her enhanced senses, she felt the speed and impact of her fs slig with precision through the rents and tears in the armor left by Mato’s skills. She was already extraordinarily familiar with her Kobues, and their methods of fighting, and although entirely different in anatomy, she found her uanding of their fighting teiques surprisingly transferrable.

  The monstrous Armored Drake was to for even demonic web to have much effe it and had so mudurahat Blood Shock seldom had a ce to stun – and even then, only for the briefest of moments. But Mato was quiough to take advantage of evei opening. Her strikes left wounds that bled tinually, and she could even smell how much damage blood shock was adding to every mutite. The more it bled, the better she could smell weaknesses.

  “Those spiders are good,” said. “Very good.”

  “Oh yes,” Ali agreed, refreshing her precautionary barriers against the dragon fire. In the mid-forties, they were by far her highest damage minion. In fact, the Abyssal Stalkers might give Malika, or even , a run for their money in that department – especially with Mato’s Battle Trance augmenting their stamina regeion via his Sanctuary aura.

  She had misjudged the spiders’ damage at the beginning of the fight, though, allowing them to use Ambush, Critical Bleed, Blood Shock, and Mutite simultaneously. One of the spiders had done so much critical damage that it had pulled the drake’s attention off Mato for a moment. But his retaliation had been enough tain trol, and she fortunately hadn’t lost her minion or disrupted the strategy.

  Yroup has defeated Armored Drake – Dragon – Level 76 (Fire)

  Martial Insight has reached level 40.Empowered Summoner has reached level 32.

  “Not bad,” Malika said when the drake finally hit the ground with a shuddering crash.

  “, do you want to skin this?” Ali asked, l herself to the stone floor he drake, taking care not to step oill-scorg stoed by the drago would make a geous minion, but the scales were something else. A piece of armor made from the tough dragon scales would be extraordinary – provided they could find a leatherworker of suffit skill to work it.

  “I do,” answered, studying the corpse. “But you have a dragon imprint, I think the priority should be your minions.”

  “I won’t be able to use a fire drake in here, though,” Ali noted, still frustrated that none of the monsters she had learhrough the entire Emberfe Mines had been of ao them. In fact, the only one she had found useful had e from beyond the mines in the abyssal realm.

  Well, that’s not quite true, she corrected herself looking at the tiny imp that hopped and scampered around poking at the corpse of the drake. Although the juxtaposition of the demonigeon just through the rift and the presence of fire demons in the mines could not have been a ce – ces were that the Emberfe Mines had learhe imps and wargs from the Demon Hunter chamber. Still, the drake was magnifit, and she wished at least some of the dungeon would not be immuo fire.

  “We’re not going to be stu here forever,” tinued, cluding the discussion. “And when we go somewhere else, you will be able to use them. Besides you only he first three or so anyway – there will be more in the chamber, I’ll bet.”

  He robably right, there would be more than enough to go around. Ali lowered herself down to the drake and pced her hand on a scale. It was warm and hard as steel, still glowing slightly in her mana sight. She had to admit, she wouldn’t mind having dragon-scale armor for her Hobgoblins. She eled her destru, turning the giant drake’s corpse into an explosion of mana that sizzled and evaporated in the heat of the dungeon.

  “Hey, Ali, you might want to see this,” said, his voiing from the giant stone arch exit that had been guarded by the drake. He had of cone expl while she was busy destrug the monstrous corpse.

  She flew over, curious to see what he had found, but as she reached the archway she stopped, stunned by the view. Falling away from their high vantage point were a series of massive stoerraces, hewn straight from the raw rock, and a forest of stone pilrs rose to the rough-hewn roof far above, supp the weight with mighty arched buttresses, a feat of stonework engineering that staggered her mind with its vast scope. The cavern itself clearly followed the irregur shape of the inal mine, but it had been reformed by the stonemasons of ages past. Down the ter flowed a rge river of bubbling va, spanned by several arched granite bridges.

  Instead of supply carts, miners, and merts, the entire space was dotted with roaming monsters of fire and scales, each group looking deadlier tha – and in the shimmering air above, fme wisps cavorted and sizzled as they darted among the pilrs reveling in the abundant fire mana.

  “What are those?” she asked, pointing at the group which was still distant enough that she was uo identify the pilrs of yellow-white fme that fnked another drake.

  “Shard of Inferno,” answered. “Same as the ohe Inferno summoned during the fight.”

  “That looks difficult,” she said. The drake by itself had already been a huge challenge, and now they were expected to battle it in the aura of fme emitted by the shards.

  “Yes, but look behind them,” said, pointing.

  It was difficult to make out, but the small red figures seemed rather familiar. She sed to the better vision of her Hobgoblins and suddenly she could tell what she was looking at.

  “Kobolds?”

  “Yes. They look like higher-level versions of your Fire Mages.”

  “Oh! An upgrade!” Ali excimed, but then the reality of being forced to dodge fireballs while simultaneously fighting an Armored Drake crashed in on her. “How are we even going to do this?”

  “Mato tanks the drake, maybe in here,” answered, his expression thoughtful as he studied the distant group. He would be the one provoking the group to attack, and he would o survive the sprint back to wherever they decided to fight them. “Malika, you tank two shards?”

  “I think so, but is that a good idea? Don’t they heal from being near each other?”

  “I don’t think the Shards of Inferno do, I was able to kill them with area damage during the Inferno fight while they were all bunched up,” answered.

  “Kill the Fire Mages first, I assume?” Ali asked. “And spread out for the fireballs?” Not nearly enough time had passed for her tet the terror of fag Kobold fireballs, and even though they were all much higher level now, and had faced the much more dangerous hellfire fireballs, she still felt the ay keenly.

  nodded, agreeing with her. “They’re the lowest level of the group, they should go down fast.”

  “I’ll put the stalkers on them.”

  “Five minutes on my Last Stand recharge,” Mato said, sitting by the wall.

  While they waited and discussed tacti low voices, Ali took the time tanize her minions, arranging them around the area where they would hopefully be spread out enough that only one would be hit by any stray fireball. She also pced her Acolytes a little closer to the tanking spot, remembering just how dangerous the beginning of the fight had been st time.

  When Mato got to his feet and transformed to his Bear Form, nocked his enormous recurve bow. The bow suddenly lit with the bck fmes of hellfire and howled as he loosed an arrow. It shot out across the stoerraces, flyiween the pilrs, and struck the drake squarely on its fnk. The angry roar echoed off the stone as the drake charged, closing more than half the distaween them in an instant rush, while the Shards of Inferno and Kobolds flowed and scampered along behind.

  “Ining, three seds,” said calmly.

  Ali slipped her awareness into the Acolyte as Mato and Malika stepped out in front of the doorway to receive the monstrous charge. Quickly, she loaded them both up with holy Restoration magic to help ease the transition at the start of the fight.

  The Armored Drake smmed into Mato, making his cws screech across the stone as he was body-smmed several meters bato the room, and its razor-sharp talons blurred in a horizontal arc. Ali’s heart stopped as Malika’s health vanished in an instant. Mato had lost a little more than a quarter of his life in that single shot, but Malika had nothing. A fra of a sed ter, a small sliver of life appeared in respoo a tiny pulse of holy magi the restoration spell on her, and then suddenly Malika’s powerful Healing Mantra surged through her body, dragging her back from the brink. It all happened so fast that Ali might have thought she imagi but for the accelerated mental reflexes of her Are Recall.

  Malika’s body blurred into a, pung and kig the Shards of Inferno, but all Ali could do was take a breath as the reality of what had just happened sunk in. Malika had taken a si from the drake’s frontal Cleave and had lost almost all her health. The tiny sliver of health that had beeurned first had been the tinuous healing pulse of the restoration she had decided to pre-cast on both her and Mato, and then Malika’s insane reflexes had her healed to full before anything else had hit her. That was far, far too close… she shuddered.

  “Ok, kill them,” announced.

  Ali’s brain started w again. Malika was already off to the side opposite Mato, tanking the two Shards of Inferno, pung and kig furiously, fshing periodically with the light of her healing magic. Mato’s health was oscilting wildly between the breaths and the Cleaves, and her Acolytes were already w hard to keep everyone alive.

  At the doorway, two Kobold fire mages stood tall, juring balls of fme.

  Suddenly remembering her job, Ali summoned a barrier just in time to intercept a fireball aimed at her Acolytes, detonating it harmlessly in midair, but her heart was still pounding, hammering the underside of her throat like a crazed bcksmith pounding out a stubborn k of iron.

  “Now,” she anded. Her two Abyssal Stalkers dropped in full stealth from their perches on the walls, nding owo Kobold mages. Several rapid gleaming flickers and the Kobolds were spraying blood into the air, stuheir fireballs interrupted mid-cast to explode on the ground beside them. Her spiders unleashed their fury as id down a barrage of arrows and in seds, both Kobolds were trussed up in demonic webbing, bleeding profusely and about to die.

  “Shards ,” said.

  Ali switched her attention to the Shards of Inferno. As soon as she had ehe third wing of the dungeon behind the hellfire rune, she had given up on her Goblin shamans. Too low level to even use fire elixirs, they struggled to survive in the progressively denser fire mana. So, she had switched to the somewhat higher level Bone Mages and a handful of archers. She directed all her ratackers tet one of the Shards of Inferno.

  She slowly calmed her rag heart, but she refused to take her eyes off Malika and Mato’s health for the entire fight. It was indeed fortuhat the elementals were Shards of Inferno and did not heal each other, otherwise Mato would have o tank oh the drake. ’s arrows joihose of her minions, and thewo spiders joihe fray, but without the advantage of Blood Shock, the elementals taheir assault for quite some time before succumbing oer the other.

  With a small fra of her awareness, Ali fired her barrier shards at the Armored Drake, but the bulk of her attention, she devoted to Mato’s health and the mana of her Acolytes. She rotated them through their Prayer skill aggressively, makiain they would have enough mana to keep Mato alive. They were -casting their highest power healing magito Mato’s enormous health pool, and it usually took several to recover the damage from the dragoh or the cleave. Seeing how taxed her healers were beihe end, she decided immediately that she would summon more for the fight.

  The drake finally crashed to the ground, though, sending dust puffing up into the air all around the chamber and she breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  Yroup has defeated Armored Drake – Dragon – Level 76 (Fire)Yroup has defeated Shard of Inferno – level 60 (Fire) x2.Yroup has defeated Fire Mage – Kobold – level 35-36 (Fire) x2.

  “Are you ok, Malika? What happened?”

  “Sorry about that, I got too close to the drake at the start,” she said nontly.

  “I thought you were dead!” Ali burst out. The sight of Malika with h visible to the senses of her healers had been so terrifying it would likely haunt her dreams for quite some time.

  “I very nearly was,” Malika answered softly. “I had twelve health after that Cleave got me. Without the vitality buff from Mato’s breakfast, I would be dead.”

  It was only then that she noticed how Malika’s body was shaking.

  “How about we break for snacks? I o wait for my recharge anyway,” Mato said, with a surprising level of perceptiveness and tact.

  Ali walked over and stared at the corpses of the Armored Drake and Shards of Inferno lying on the ground where Malika and Mato had been tanking. She had always known a bat css, and delving through dungeons fighting monsters came with signifit risk. But most of the time it felt rather distant, like an abstract cept grasped intellectually but g emotional significe. Their group always had healers, and Malika and were level-headed and cautious whehey chose to engage monsters. But the memory of Malika’s health vanishing in an instant was like the icy grip of the Death Knight’s fingers around her heart. She very nearly lost her friend, and that would have been the end. No healing could have brought her back.

  Her mind ulled out of her troubled ption as the Shard of Inferno vanished, disposed of by her magic, leaving two small, still-burning yellow-white globs of fme on the ground.

  Lesser Essence of Inferno x2

  Ali collected the essence, and a couple more as she finished up her chore of destrug everything. She walked over to where the others were sitting and hahe still-burning esseo Malika. She squashed them together in her hands and her mana flickered briefly and suddenly the essences merged.

  Essence of Inferno

  “What did you do?”

  “You take three lesser essences, push them together, ahem a little mana and they merge intur higher-level essence.”

  “That’s useful,” Ali said, sitting dowo Malika. She reached out and grabbed her around the arm and squeezed. “You scared me. I don’t want you to die.”

  “I’m sorry, Ali,” Malika said, returning the gesture. “I won’t make that mistake again. Trust me, I don’t want to die either. I mean, I suppose Seth could bring me back…”

  Ali winced. “No. Just, no.”

  ----------

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