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  Aliandra

  She fled. Ali didn’t need ’s Explorer skill to tell that the phoenix was a boss monster – she could tell from the enormous flow of domain mana fueling the firestorm that buffeted her with waves of scorg air from behind.

  She shot out of the tunnel, zipping past into the giant terraced chamber.

  Wait… I’m never faster than him.

  “… what?” Her head whipped around to see her friend standing his ground at the entrao the hatchery. A glinted in the firelight, flipping end over end as he flicked it into the air, and as it reached the apex it popped, turning into motes of mana that drifted away on the gusts of superheated air.

  She screeched to a halt, stopping beside Malika and Mato. downed a mana potion, and his boeared in his hand, flowing arrows jured onto its string. He took a deep breath and waited. Deep withiunnel, shapes slithered and charged toward them. Still, he waited, until they were about to spill out onto the stoerrace. Only then did he ignite his mana, and the Mote of Light above his head began pulsing intensely. His bow howled as he loosed his arrows into the oning horde, instantly juring another volley and sending them flying in rapid succession – almost too quick to follow.

  When the explosions began, Ali cpped her hands over her ears in a vain attempt to block the roar and thuhat tore through the tunnel. On and on as his arrows flew, never letting up for even a fra of a sed, searing powerful afterimages of purple across her vision.

  Ay of sound and shockwaves ter, ’s body dimmed, and his bow lowered. In the darkness ahead, nothing moved. She held her breath, not daring to move for many long moments, before ’s shoulders finally rexed and he said, “I think it’s clear.”

  The tunnel was eerily silent now, broken only by the muffled screeches of the phoenix trapped ichery by its sheer size. Corpses of Drake Hatgs and their hatchers littered the tunnel, but nothing within the darkness stirred.

  “Many hatgs,” Mato said, eyeing the corpses.

  “That was… impressive,” Malika said, staring at the devastation withiunnel.

  “It erfect bottleneck, and the monsters were all low levels,” expined, in typical fashion, downpying his skill and power without ever realizing just how impressive it had been.

  Area damage is incredible, Ali thought, pig her way through the corpses, beginning to destruct everything she didn’t already know. I miss Fireball. She did have alternatives, but Fireball was definitely her favorite and it was ridiculously frustrating to not be able to test out her newly acquired higher-level Fire Mages.

  Variant: Drake Hatg added to Imprint: Dragon

  At least this is something. She had no idea what the Drake Hatg was capable of in bat, but she wasn’t about to waste the opportunity to grow her dragon imprint. And, with levels ranging from twelve to seventeen, she had already put it on her mental list of monsters appropriate to challenge new bronze-ranked adventurers.

  “All yours,” she told as soon as she had finished growing her imprint with the full range of levels she could find among the wreckage of the tunnel. He would want to skin the rest of them to recover some of the cost of this delve. It had not escaped her notice that he had used one of the most expensive mana potions, meaning his stand against the hatchery had likely cost him six to seven gold, not ting the he had spent for his patron’s blessing.

  “Thanks,” he said, and got to work.

  “That was a boss, right?” Mato asked, staring down the dark corpse-filled tunnel.

  “Yup,” she answered. She was definitely growing more profit at reizing domain magi a.

  “Group-level threat,” added, a statement which surprised her. The amount of mana it was drawing from the domain for its firestorm had been enormous, and she would have guessed it was a raid boss at least.

  Mato

  Mato stood, sweating unfortably in the radia of the hatchery, studying the pool of va and the phoenix he knew dwelt within. He waited patiently while the others hashed out the final details of their pn, shifting to ease the heat that was slowly cooking his paws. He had more than enough fire resistanow to prevent any real damage from the enviro, but it still felt like walking on hot coals.

  There was not much to pn, to be ho, given just how little they knew of the phoenix’s abilities, but he patiently let them figure out their endless backup pns and tingencies. For himself, he just soaked up the enviro, the sense of the rocky cavern, and the heat of the va pool. Ohey traded blows, he would have a better feel for the fight.

  How hard does a fire bird hit? Yeah, stupid question. There are bound to be surprises…

  “Ok, Mato, we’re ready,” announced, walking over to stand beside him. His bow was out and ready. “There’s nothing for me to shoot, so maybe you go wake it up and try to lure it out of the va. Tank it over there by the wall in case it has any frontal attacks.”

  He huffed softly and dipped his head aowledging the pn. I’ll just go over there and i to tea, shall I? Sometimes it sucked that he couldn’t talk in this form. This one was almost identical to the first iteration of the ‘pn’, before all the ‘pnning’, but he khey , and often they came up with strategies that really worked.

  He approached the va pool, heat searing his muzzle and making his fur sizzle. As soon as he reached the edge, va and fire erupted from the ter and the giant bird of fme surged upward, wings fpping in a leisurely beat holding it h above the e bubbling pool. He roared, and the monster responded by hitting him in the face with a fireball.

  As the heat and cussion of the bst cleared, he found the phoenix h above the va, spitting fireballs in every dire filling the hatchery with deafening explosions and thunderous screeches.

  If you won’t e out… he thought, stepping into the va. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that deep, at least around the edges of the pool where he waded, but it was the kind of hot bath that might have made him resider all the life choices he had made leading up to this point. But it let him reach the angry bird, and he Swiped with his paw, his strike eg with something dehin the casg fmes. The phoenix screeched and wheeled on him, lunging with an open beak attack that bit through his armor leaving deep cauterized gashes on his back. But the stant pulses of holy magic that had begun wheepped into the va began repairing his wounds.

  , show me what you’ve got. He struck again, using Brutal Restoration a sed time to bolster his self-healing, and then slowly backed up to draw the phoenix out of the pool. But the furious phoenix simply turned away and began firing fireballs at all and sundry.

  It won’t move? He stopped, momentarily surprised by the obstinance of the monster, quite happily ign both his Taunt and his Swipe. He tried again, but the phoenix refused to budge from its spot in the va.

  “Just tank it in there,” said, clearly having uood his predit. “It doesn’t shoot fireballs if you have it.”

  “Watch out for the curse. It has area damage.” Ali’s voice sounded calm and trolled, as she called out what she could see, and a few moments ter her Hobgoblins waded into the va to join him, followed shortly after by the demonic spiders.

  What curse?

  Malika darted in, dang across the surface of the va, and touched his shoulder.

  You have gained Crity.

  He settled into his routine, unleashing Brutal Restoration on every sirike, and occasionally addiial bat, but the phoenix didn’t appear to have mu the way of armor, so he didn’t spend much health on maintaining it.

  You have been cursed with Phoenix fgration.+30 Fire damage per sed to you and everything around ye: 10 feet.Curse – Duration: 10 seds.

  His entire body caught fire with a fgration that spread around him in a circle. He shifted immediately, pulling himself to the side of the melee circle so that he could minimize the damage the curse would do to Ali’s minions.

  “Mato’s cursed,” Ali announced, and immediately the Hobgoblins and spiders shifted to give him more room.

  Ten seds ter, the fire curse dropped, and he was vaguely aware of various Hobgoblins or the spiders dug out of the melee circle periodically whehey lit on fire, but he was standing in va fighting a bird made of fire – the curse was the least of his s. This bird was far from showing off all its tricks, he sensed.

  The phoenix reared bad fpped its wings, sending a wall of fme buffeting downward as his Survival Instinct warned him of the extra damage, but it was an area damage fire attad there was not much he could do. However, the backward movement triggered Battlemaster, so he shed out with his most potent strike, boosting the power of his Brutal Restoration and growing the tough roht out of the va to grasp the phoenix’s cws. But even though they were magical roots, they were still roots, and they immediately caught fire, turning to ash and coals rather quickly.

  He didn’t mind much though, the damage was always worth it. He braced, blog a vicious beak strike, allowing his magic to heal the damage that got through. Suddenly, the phoenix reared up on its wings with a loud screed took off into the air like a rewindieor. He swung with his Battlemaster retaliation, but his cws whiffed on the remnants of fme.

  “Firestorm!” This time, Ali’s voice had an edge of ao it, as the phoenix swept through the cavern in a great arc, sh everything it passed with the deadly fgration billowing out from below its wings.

  The yellow-white of ’s Grappling Shot nced out into the air, but it found no purchase on the flying firebird. Mato backed out of the va pool, keeping an eye on the skies as the phoenix banked, making a run back towards him, trailing the storm of fme. Everything in its wake caught fire, burning with the fgratioched it e, nothing he could do to avoid it, and when it hit, he felt the burning pain.

  You have been cursed with Phoenix fgration.

  But he felt something else. To his great surprise, his mana and stamina began to rise as if the fme were energizing him, a little like the Living Fme elementals from the Landing, only much more potent.

  “Adds!” ’s voice cut through his curiosity with a sudden urgency. “Hatgs on the left!” Where the phoenix had reached the wall, it had also passed over a clutch of eggs. And in the wake of fme, the eggs were crag and disg dozens of Drake Hatgs. Their angry screeches began to fill the air.

  Malika was there in a shot, her fists flying as she tried to draw the monsters away from the Acolytes, but there were so many of them, biting and g and filling the air with bsts of intense fire breath – it was like watg someorying to pun oning wave. They spilled over and around her, knog her rolling with a crashing roar and tore into Ali’s vulnerable minions. In a sed, Malika was buried in the seething mass as if she had been sucked down by quid.

  “Run!” It was Ali’s voice that called the retreat, and her yell was simultaneous with all her Acolytes lighting up with their emergency healing power skill.

  Mato wheeled about, charged and roared, plunging his face beh the tide of Drake Hatgs, heedless of the fmes, and cmped down on Malika’s shoulder with his jaws. Then he fled for the tunnel, dragging her out of the crush.

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