timewalk

  Nothing burns hotter than Dragonfire.

  - Artur Dragonsworn [The Rule of Law], Human King of Dal’mohra

  He stood irangely pristine archway squinting out at the enormous chamber beyond, stantly sing the threats arrayed before them while trying to keep a lid on the hat threateo bubble over from within. He had withe Cleaving strike that almost took Malika’s life, but he hadn’t been aware of just how close it had been until after the fight when she and Ali talked about it. There’s no way for me to do this safely. The monsters would barrel through the chokepoint of the archway, creating a deadly blehat would cim one of their tanks in a heartbeat. Unless… he gnced back specutively at the Kobolds shiftilessly ihe smaller chamber.

  “Ali, you help me split the pack?” asked.

  “Sure, what do you need?” She floated up to join him at the doorway.

  “ you make an archer and put it o Mato and have it shoot the Armored Drake?” he asked, pointing to the mohey would o take o. The group had aical position to the st one, with just minor differences in the monsters’ levels.

  “Just an archer?”

  “It doesn’t have to be an archer, whatever has the lo range.”

  If they were successful at splitting the pad direg the monsters in two different dires, they could avoid having the chaotic mess in the doorway, which was how Malika had gotten hit in the first pce. Skipping the fluence of fire auras and cleave attacks was suddenly his highest priority.

  “Your minion pulls the entire pack, and I’ll shoot each of the Shards of Inferno to pull them over here and Malika take them from me,” he said. “If it all goes well, everything should run towards Mato and then about halfway the elementals will e after me and the pack will be split in two.”

  “I see,” Ali said as she sidered his suggested strategy. “I think I’ll use a Bone Mage. It’s got a slightly longer rahan my archers.”

  “We have to get you better minions,” he chuckled. “What self-respeg archer allows a mage to out-shoot them?” His joke got a couple of ughs, which finally began to lighten the mood a little. “Still, the archer probably has a better ce of dodging the Cleave and surviving.”

  “The Kobold is disposable,” Ali said.

  “Isn’t that a bit… cold-blooded?”

  “Not at all,” Ali said, gng back at him. “Resurre is impossible, but resummoning is effectively resurre for my minions. If the Kobold gets Cleaved it’s no big deal, I just wasted some mana. If you or Malika dies, it’s over.”

  “Makes sense,” said. She’s right… but why does that make me so unfortable?

  “Ok, how about here?” Ali asked, juring a Kobold mage plete with high-quality robes beside Mato.

  “Looks good to me. Try to only hit the Armored Drake,” he said, readying his bow. “That will make the rest of this easier. Everyone ready?” He moved to the side o Malika but kept well within range of the ramp the paonsters would have to use to reach them. This was going to be a tricky shot, and he fully appreciated why Nendir reended he i heavily into intelligeo support his Multishot.

  The paonsters meandered slowly about, but instantly caught the moment they came inte by the sudden tensing of the Kobold’s shoulders and the muted yip of a suppressed battle call. A sharp spear-like length of boerialized in the air above the Kobold’s right shoulder, and it suddenly mimed a throwiure, ung the magical projectile out into the scorg chamber beyond and then scampering away.

  Good shot, little Kobold. raised his bow, trag the high-speed projectile effortlessly with his enhanced vision. It zipped past the elementals and struck the massive red drake on the side of its head, splintering against the tough, scaled hide. The dragon roared, galvanizing the entire group, and charged toward the doorway at a terrifying pace.

  He drew his b bad jured flowing arrows, holding them in pce as the monsters charged, trag all the monsters simultaneously, puting trajectories, and predig velocity.

  Now! He saw the moment and took the shot, flowing arrows casting sudden shadows as they zipped past Mato and the archway. He didn’t bother to ent extra damage or release another volley, as the extra damage would make it that much harder for Malika to take the monsters away from him – and he definitely could not tank them himself. His arrows struck true, two hitting the Shards of Inferno and two hitting the Kobold Fire Mages. With a hissing noise and a sizzle, the elementals turned and surged toward him, the Kobolds stopping dead iracks to summon fireballs. He ducked behind the rock wall to break their line of sight, f the mages to cel their spells and move instead.

  The drake thuhrough the doorway, its heavily armored shoulder taking a hefty k out of the stone ard charging through the pulverized stone dust toward its Kobold antagonist, now c behind Mato.

  Perfect. skipped backward, allowing some spaalika to maneuver in front of him. The shards surged across the chamber, quickly bearing down on him and Malika on the opposite side of the doorway to Mato. Gritting his teeth, he stood his ground, his heart pounding as the elementals loomed rapidly rger and scarier. He seldom had a reason to be this close to monsters, but he couldn’t run until she hit them – if he did, they would chase him and make Malika’s job all but impossible. But right then, a rge golden barrier snapped into p front of him a heartbeat before a massive fireball detonated against it. He shot a grateful gnce up at Ali h above the battlefield and she sent him a grin and a thumbs-up.

  He shifted his attention away from Malika’s dance of uny grad speed among the elementals to the Kobold Fire Mages setting up shop just ihe doorway. Malika wasn’t going to bother with those because there wasn’t a whole lot of point in tanking the mages when they had him and Ali’s spiders. Fshes of gold went off in his peripheral vision as Ali anticipated the attacks with protective barriers.

  He ducked back out of the aura of fme, raised his bow, and eled his stamina into it, causing it to igh bzing hellfire. The Kobolds might be resistant to fire, but they were no elementals. His bow unleashed a deafening howl as the flight of glowing jured arrows leapt from his b – bzing missiles of intense white radiance wreathed with sizzling bck fme. The arrows struck again and again, each impact fshing in time to the pulses of his Motes of Light bobbing overhead, hellfire and light causing painfully blinding trast. But his vision skill ighe iy and with each shot, he felt stamina leeg bato him in a rush as his potent bow re-energized him. This thing is fantastic!

  The Kobold mages seemed to be about halfway through casting their fireballs at him when Ali’s spiders dropped from their perches on the walls, unleashing such powerful Ambush attacks that their unfinished spells popped, dumping puddles of burning fire at their feet. Momentarily stunned by the impact, the Kobolds were instantly trussed up by thick strands of demonic web. turned away, looking for the arget, knowing that it was all over for them.

  “Shards ,” he said.

  “Right,” Ali said, and a ripple of rea spread through her minions.

  By now, Malika had enough time to secure the elementals, so he quehe hellfire from his bow, downed a mana potion, and used Righteous Fury. Without the hellfire, he would be doing less damage, but the elementals were immuo it, and this way, his bow was mercifully silent. He unloaded volley after volley into the Shards of Inferno, enting every single shot with his enhanced light magic, trying to eke out the most damage possible. Ali must have noticed him using his skill because all her minions began attag the shards with renewed fervor, not holding back to serve mana or stamina while the motes of light were empowered.

  It was remarkable just how much sheer damage the bination hteous fury, motes of light, and the removal of his multishot damage penalty added up to. Even more so when he factored in the damage from all Ali’s minions bihe Shards of Inferno colpsed uheir withering assault, and he felt the sheer glut of stamiuro him by his new bow.

  Not wanting to miss out on even a sed of his Righteous Fury, he smoothly switched to shooting the Armored Drake across the room. As his mana ticked rapidly downward, he began interspersing his jured arrows with real ohe magical arrows did much better against the heavily armored target, but with Mato’s armor peion skill, the physical arrows were at least doing respectable damage, not like the time they had had to fight the bone elementals in the library.

  The burning in his veins waned as Righteous Fury ended, and his mana ption eased off to a more normal level. His skill fortunately had the same recharge as Mato’s Last Stand so they would both be ready for the fight at the same time. He shifted more and more toward fav physical arrows as he switched up his resourption to prefer stamina over mana. For this, his neas phenomenal – keeping his stamina topped up for as long as he was shooting. It had given him a way to stay relevant in long fights keeping his damage high, even if he was uo reach his peak using primarily stamina instead of mana. Now, however, he was back to running out of arrows, and Myrin’s Keep did not have a high-level Fletcher. And his obvious dependenana potions hadn’t eased up eve.

  I’ll have to ask Lyeneru or Nendir, he thought, making a mental o buy some good arrows the ime he visited Ciradyl and bring them home for Ali to learn.

  Aliandra

  The Armored Drake corpse burst into a cloud of mana motes and her hahrough it, suddenly unsupported by the solid bulk of the dragon and its searing impervious scales.

  Variant: Armored Drake added to Imprint: Dragon

  “You got it?” asked.

  “Yes!” she said. Finally. It had taken four corpses for her to inscribe the new variant into the pages of her Grimoire. As they pushed deeper into the vast terraced stone chamber, they entered more and more variety among the paonsters – Shards of Inferno, Fmecallers of various kinds, and even the Lava Lurker oozes he river of va flowing through the middle of the chamber filling it with additional waves of radia. Packs with no Armored Drakes allowed them to tihout waiting for Mato’s Last Stand recharge to expire – which improved their speed by redug their downtime, but it had also meant that she had had to wait quite a while to finally learn the imprint.

  Now, if only there were somewhere I could use it.

  “Nice, Ali,” gratuted her.

  “You have the one,” she told him as his eyes tracked the group of monsters he was sidering. “For skinning.”

  “Cool, thanks,” he answered with a hint of a smile and thehem closer to the edge of the chamber to reach the group of monsters.

  Hitting a run of easier binations, pulled pack after pack, barely pausing to rest. Ali quickly lost t in the trolled chaos of battle, but eventually, they reached the wall and a rge, jagged opening that led to somewhere beyond. What stood out most was the irregur shape in the smooth and well-crafted stone wall, as if something had bored a hole through the wall about halfway through the massive chamber to reach the natural cave system behind it. Or, melted it, she thought, studying the edges of the dark rocky tunnel – i looked like it had been carved out by giant cws or teeth, but elsewhere it had smooth ripples as if the rock had hardened from a viscous liquid or va state. A heavy musky st billowed out of the opening carried to her nostrils on swirling vortibient fire-affinity mana, masking the near-ubiquitous stench of sulfur and molten rock that pervaded the dungeon.

  “Let’s be careful,” Malika said, eyeing the opening with obvious suspiirr Ali’s thoughts. “The st time we found something like this, there it Lord inside.”

  “We’re not charmed this time,” Ali observed, deliberately cheg once again, but Malika’s point was well taken. “I’ll help to scout.” She sent her Abyssal Stalkers up front, shrouded by their powerful stealth skill, entering the darker tunnel and creeping along the walls and ceiling quietly to avoid any potential monsters lying in wait in the dim reddish glow up ahead. The rough-hewn tunnel cut straight through the rock, curving ba itself a little, and blog their view of whatever their destination might be, but all seemed silent, and nothi out to attack them. made a cautioning hand signal, and she summoned her barrier as a precaution. Around the bend, the tunnel widened, revealing a surprisingly rge subterranean cavern lit by numerous sces and braziers of fire, and a rge waterfall of va p from the ceiling into a pool that domihe back half of the cavern.

  Numerous shadowy caverns and passages dotted the walls, leading away from the main cavern, aled in every er, alcove, and hollow were clutches e mottled red-and-brown eggs, each almost a meter tall, tended by the Fmecallers that slithered among them.

  One clutch seemed to have retly hatched, splinters and shards of eggshell scattered about, and dark shapes curled and shifted among the remnants, poorly lit by the dang firelight.

  Hatcher – Fmecaller Elemental – level 19-27 (Fire) x33Drake Hatg – Dragon – level 12-17 (Fire) x47

  “Low-level hatchers and drake eggs,” Ali whispered, reying the information to Malika and Mato as they crept around the er. The monsters might all be low-level ones, but there were many of them.

  Carefully, and with as much silence as they could mahey crept forward toward the entrail Ali could survey the dark chamber with her own eyes.

  “This group should be easy. Mato, tank them right here iunnel,” whispered, appearing from the depths of a nearby shadow. “Use area damage.”

  “I’ll just punch everything really fast, shall I?” Malika said. “That ts as area damage, right?”

  “Knock yourself out,” Mato chuckled softly and then transformed and took his stan the ter of the tunnel.

  raised his bow and fired.

  The volley of arrows fred brightly in the darkness, c the distan a blink and impaling Fmecaller Hatchers and Drake Hatgs alike.

  For a moment everything froze. Ali held her breath.

  And then, the Fmecallers fled, running the other way.

  “Fuck!” excimed.

  The entire room erupted in a chorus of screeches, roars, and hissing, with Fmecaller Hatchers scrambling around in paniog over unhatched eggs that cracked, disg more hatgs.

  “Fuck, run!” Malika shouted.

  A suddeion of fme and va from the pool apanied a thunderous screech loud enough to rattle the rock, dropping pebbles and dust from the roof. An enormous form exploded up from the pool of va aended giant wings of fme amid a riotous tempest of fire mana. A sharp beak turoward Ali, and she felt the pierg gre of the monster of fire transfix her with pure anger and rage.

  Its wings fpped ond it took off, flying through the cavern toward them, a firestorm raining down in its wake.

  Phoenix of Living Fme – Elemental Bird – level 72 (Fire)

  “Run!” Ali screamed.

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  timewalk