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  Aliandra “We’re all alive, so that’s good,” Malika said, and Ali paused for a moment, calming herself down. She had lost almost all her minions to the firestorm, and she had been terrified of losing her friends too. It may have only been a single-group threat level, but it was scary how much damage it put out, even with the siderable money and time they had ied iing the best fire resistance gear and potions.

  “What do we know?” asked, sitting down with his notebook in his p.

  Ali eyed the notebook suspiciously, but no matter how long she squi it, it failed to burst into fmes.

  “I got it ented,” chuckled, seeing her puzzled look. “See?” He tur over to show a runiscription on the back cover.

  “I will o study that ter,” Ali said.

  “Focus, Ali,” Malika chided gently. “Phoenix, remember? Big burny bird?”

  “I ’t move her,” Mato said, for some reason attributing the feminine geo a mohat was more fire than it was a creature. Although thinking of it, Ali guessed it could fit – though they were not even the same species, the Phoenix did seem to be brooding over a cavern full of eggs.

  “She rapid-fires fireballs whenever you aren’t tanking her,” Ali said. That specific attack had affected her much more thahers, the ceaseless onsught of the randomly targeted fireballs hit her minions more often simply due to numerical superiority. “And she stantly sucks up fire mana when she’s in that va pool. I think she’s using it tee.”

  “The curse does a ton of damage if you’re in the melee group,” Malika added, sharing the numbers for the curse she had gotten, but Ali had seen them quite a few times already from her minions.

  “Everything in the firestot that curse,” Ali said, recalling the shock she had felt when it had happened – it had been the very reason her Acolytes had freaked out at the end – and why she called the retreat so hastily. Sure, there had been a whole pack of Drake Hatgs, but it was the fgration curse on every single person in the room that had overwhelmed her Acolytes in an instant.

  “Ideas?” asked, gng up after he finished jotting everything down.

  Ali repyed the chaos of the flying phoenix in her mind. As the domain mana had been drawn in and turned into that storm of fmes, everything it had touched had lit up with fire, and the damage was enormous when stacked on top of the others nearby.

  “Perhaps we should spread out? If we stand more than three meters apart, then the fgration won’t hit multiple people and stack up?” It wouldn’t avoid the fire or the curse, but at least one person would only take one helping of the fgration at a time. “Oh, te,” she transted for them as she realized what the ically brow-wrinkling expression on Mato’s face was for.

  “So, we just o hahe flying phoenix and the hatgs,” said, chewing the back of his pen in thought. “Ali, how about some Bone Mages? They hit the phoenix in the air, and they could make walls to corral the adds.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said. Her spiders were probably not worth it in there. If they were going to bunch up the Drake Hatgs and use area damage, she would be better off with Sparkling Oozes or maybe even Storm Shamans if she could keep them alive through the firestorm. Briefly, she sidered her Poison Wyverns because they could fly, but their damage would likely only be effective against the hatgs and not the phoenix itself.

  “I’m not sure if this is helpful,” Mato said, surprisingly joining irategy versation. “The firestees a lot of mana and stamina.”

  “Oh, that is iing,” said, immediately perking up at the idea of something that might regee his mana.

  “I think the fire also hatches the eggs,” Ali added. The hatchery cavern was filled with thousands of eggs tucked away in alcoves and caves, but it was only the ohat had been in the direct path of the phoenix that had hatched. And somehow the structure of the fire mana p the phoenix’s fire seemed simir to the Living Fme elementals she had wao study.

  ***

  “I think that’s it,” Ali muttered, finally finished summoning and tweaking her new army, running through the list and double-cheg all the ideas and roles.

  Hellfire Imp – Demon – level 55 (Hellfire)

  The imp wasn’t going to fight – nothing ichery could be harmed by it. But the sheer amount of intellige gave her made it well worth the cost. On the flip side, it was also immuo fire, so it wouldn’t need any healing. Now, if I just had a fire-immune flier to tank that bird…

  Warrior – Hobgoblin – level 41-44 x4Shaman – Goblin – level 18-19 (Lightning) x3

  Her Hobgoblins were her highest-level minion, and equipped with hybrid armor and elixirs, they were rather robust against fire damage, and that made them an obvious pick, even fighting in va. The shamans, oher hand – well they were a bit of an experiment. She had no idea if she could keep them alive when the phoenix took to the air – they were simply too low-level for most of the best gear and potions. At worst, she could use them for some damage up front and thehem die if they became a liability. She felt the Hobs edged out the Abyssal Stalkers for her melee simply because Blood Shock did not work on the phoenix, and the moblins she fielded, the higher their racial boo attag stacked.

  Acolyte of Azryet – Kobold – level 21-23 (Holy) x6Mage – Kobold – level 21 (Bone) x4Archer – Kobold – level 20 x3Death’s Acolyte – Kobold – level 33-34 (Death) x2

  Her trusty Kobolds would make the bulk of her ratackers, trying to shoot the flying phoenix, and her Bone Mages would pull double duty, helping corral the hatgs. She had also decided t six healers this time. Sorely g in the Fireball department, Ali dusted off her best Kobold – the Death’s Acolyte for more options to kill hatgs.

  Sparkling Ooze – Ooze – level 35-37 x3

  Sparkling Oozes were the only non-fire ooze she had that really could survive long enough to be useful, so she decided to make a couple and use them to throw bombs at the phoenix or the hatgs.

  Your reserved mana has increased by +2045.

  She felt the weight of the enormous reservatiole on her like a heavy yoke around her shoulders. But, even unassisted by her domain mana, she could still afford it with enough ma over for barriers, a backup teleportation circle, and emergency adjustments.

  “Ok, let’s go set up,” said, leading them back through the tuo the phoenix’s chamber.

  Ali followed her friends into the hatchery once again and surveyed the deceptively peaceful room filled with eggs and a glowing pool of va that hid the elemental fury of the phoenix.

  “Hey, Ali.”

  She turo look at Mato, who was gazing at her slimes with a curious expression on his face. “What’s up, Mato?”

  “You know, I was thinking… the firestorm only goes downward.” He gestured expressively at the oozes.

  She looked at him puzzled for a moment. Then she looked up at the craggy, rough-hewn ceiling of the cavern. “Oh,” she said and immediately sehree Sparkling Oozes crawling up the walls to find cracks and alcoves in the ceiling above. It was not quite flying, but in a cavern like this o would be almost as good. So good, in fact, that she made a fourth a it to join its brethren.

  “Ready when you are, Mato,” said, and Mato immediately transformed into his bear and began to approach the va pool.

  “Spread out,” Ali instructed, fanning her minions throughout the cavern, taking care to ensure no one was closer than three meters to another. From the va came a loud hiss and sizzle, followed by a thunderous screech. Mato roared a challenge, but Ali ig all, instead fiuning the position of her minions.

  “He’s ready,” said, his bow already buzzing.

  “Hobgoblins, go!” she said, and they charged off with raucous battle cries, spshing through the va to get to the phoenix. Little bright fshes of holy magifused them as the Acolytes reacted to the va damage. She deliberately withheld her shamans, though. She would have enough trouble keeping them alive out of the va. They would have to be mages for this fight – and totem throwers.

  She studied the phoenix’s mana carefully, looking for any sign of the elusive sed domain magic spell. So far it had only showhe fire storm. “Ok, Bone Mages and Archers, begin,” she said. The oozes ah’s Acolytes she held in reserve for now, not wanting to inflinecessary area damage upon the melee group swimming in va.

  She juggled the positions of her minions a little, lining up her shamans, and then she instructed them to begin. They immediately cursed the phoenix with lightning vulnerability and the dark cavern fred with the incredibly bright fshes of lightning and the thundercps echoed loudly off the rock walls and ceiling as they threaded their devastating spell through the gaps in the melee circle.

  Without much else to manage, she shifted to monit everyone’s health and fiuning her healers. With everyone properly spread out, the fgration curse wasn’t particurly difficult to manage, and it was only when her Hobgoblins got cursed that she had to worry. But they were smart enough to uand the strategy and they immediately ran out e of the melee group whehey got cursed.

  “This is a lot better,” Ali said. It was remarkable how much calmer the fight felt with a coherent pn. The phoenix was no longer lobbing random fireballs around because it was being tanked properly, and the fgration seemed under trol. She simply monitored the fight, health, and mana usage, saving her resources for the flight phase and whatever surprises might be thrown their way.

  “We haven’t seen the fire storm yet,” said.

  As if his words were the signal, a great screech rocked the cavern, and the phoenix uself into the air, torrents of mana flowing from the domain making its fming form shih awe-inspiring power.

  “Here it es,” she said, preparing herself. Fme billowed out from beh the phoenix’s wings, p down onto the cavern floor as it flew. Every single minion in its wake ignited with fme as the fgratiated through the fire.

  “Attack,” Ali yelled. But this time she included her oozes and her waitih’s Acolytes, direg all her ranged and area damage at the flying phoenix. Bolts of bergy flew up from the ground to meet the intense glowing balls of light lobbed down from the ceiling, punctuated by the blinding fshes of lightning bolts, making the mundane arrows and bone spears all but invisible.

  “You, Devotion,” she said, pig the closest Acolyte to stem the enormous increase in damage.

  “Yes, A Mistress,” the Kobold intoned, bursting into a bze of light that brightehe entire chamber.

  Ali braced herself as the waves of billowing fire grew closer and closer, choosing to let the fme wash over her, instead using all her barrier capacity to protect her shamans and healers from the fmes.

  You have been cursed with Phoenix fgration.You have been cursed with Lightning Vulnerability.

  Huh?

  She immediately began to burn with the Phoenix fgration, but with all her resistances and elixirs, the damage was manageable. The Lightning Vulnerability curse caught her attention, but she was immediately distracted by calling out the hatg of a clutch of eggs.

  “Hatgs! Right side! Ali…”

  “I see them, ,” she said. Sheesh, so much tension! It seemed fair though; she had the bulk of the area damage which was a core part of their pn. She switched focus. “Walls, there and there,” she said.

  Her Bone Mages sprang into a, and several sturdy walls of thick bone suddenly materialized around the scrambling hatgs. With a wave of her hand, she filled in the gaps with a pair of -shaped barrier walls.

  She had not been able to guess in advance where the eggs would hatch so she had instead chosen to spread her minions around, which meant she had a shaman, a Death’s Acolyte, and an ooze in range of the eggs. With quistrus, a sparking steel totem nded in the middle of the hatgs, pulsing rings of lightning damage. Again, she experienced a moment’s curiosity, notig the lightning vulnerability curse already present on every single drake hatg. Then she filled the area blocked off by walls of bone – already smoking from the drakes’ fire breath – with explosions of light ah magic as her ooze lobbed orbs of light magi the ceiling to plement ’s bombardment from his position flying above the battlefield.

  “Ali, the other side,” added, a little calmer this time.

  She turned, finding another clutder the firestorm, eggs starting to rod splinter. She marshaled her minioing new bone walls, and choosing area attackers – this time a single shaman and two oozes could reach the clutch without dragging the fgration across everyone else. The bone walls sprang up, but immediately began crumbling from the fmes so she took her barriers away from her minions, patg up the walls to keep the adds tained. But and her minions made short work of the hatgs.

  “Melee, watch out,” called.

  The phoenix flew across the room and circled the pool of va before shooting downward like a meteor, sending va spraying into the air, immediately beginning to absorb fire mana from the pool again, its health slowly tig upward.

  “Hit it, it’s regeih,” she called out, sending the and to her Hobgoblins to re-engage. In response, ’s mana ignited as he used his Righteous Fury, and all her minions began doing substantially more damage from his Motes.

  Urgently, she checked her healers’ mana, but to her surprise, she found every single minion was still nearly full. Is that the effect Mato noticed? It hadn’t affected her too much because her barriers were stantly regeing mana by abs tinuous fire damage, but it looked like she wouldn’t o worry about her Acolytes.

  The phoenix’s health was lower thay pert when it took to the air a sed time. That, more than anything, firmed that it was not a raid boss. She sharpened her focus; the flying phase took substantially more attention on her part. A flurry of barriers flickered across the cavern, proteg her weakest and most vulnerable minions ih of the firestorm. Again, she opted to get cursed and burned herself. This time the phoenix hatched three clutches of eggs, and one was twice the size of the others, which meant she had to move one of her Bone Mages just to cover the shortfall, despite the fgration damage, and do several emergency barrier patches. As close as it was, the hatgs still dropped to their thunderous barrage of explosive light magic, death bolts, and lightning nova totems.

  “Nice work,” said, as his thunderous bow quietened, aurned back to the phoenix.

  “It’s almost dead,” Ali announced as the giant fire bird nded in its meteoric dive bato the va. “Go,” she instructed, eager to finish it off. This was not that hard.

  Her minions’ arrows, Bone Spears, Lightning Bolts, and swords struck the phoenix, and she even threw in some barrier shards to eke out just a little more damage, and then suddenly her notification chime sounded, and the phoenix exploded in a ball of intense fire, raining down ashes across the cavern as it spshed down into the va pool.

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

  “Yes!” Malika cheered.

  “Yay!” Ali smiled, feeling much the same. It had not been easy – certainly not as hard as some of the raid-fights she had experienced – but for a side boss, it had been quite challenging with an enormous amount of damage output. But their pnning and fire resistance had made the fight muanageable.

  “Good work everyone,” decred.

  Ali was just about to head over to examihe corpse when a ripple disturbed the domain mana of the va pool. What? A sudden geyser of mana burst from it and Ali froze.

  It’s… dead. But clearly, something was happening.

  “Domain magic!” she yelled, catg the attention of her celebrating friends. Malika’s head snapped around to the pool, and Mato immediately transformed bato his Bear Form as took to the air, that powerful new boearing in his hands.

  The domain mana coalesced into an intense ball, and the pool of va erupted yet again, spraying va in all dires. A pair of giant fming wings unfurled.

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

  “Fuck!” excimed.

  To Ali’s intense surprise, she reized the spell. The dungeon had just respawhe phoenix, ign the usual recharge. While that should not have been possible, she knew what the magic looked like because of the time she had forcibly respawned her own Forest Guardian to protect the novices at the shri do that, too?

  The phoenix screeched in rage and spat a fireball at Mato as he charged bato the va.

  ***

  As exhausted as she was by the time the third phoenix died, Ali still wouldn’t let her guard down, aher did any of her friends. She stared at the pool for over five minutes before she vinced herself that the absence of surging domain ma it was not going to rise from the ashes a fourth time.

  “I think it’s not ing back,” she said a her legs give out finally. The others let out sighs of relief and other excmations as they gathered up beside the pool of va.

  “Well, that was super annoying,” Malika said.

  “You say that again,” said.

  “The only upside is my Abiding Perseveraed across all the fights,” Malika said. “My stamina abilities cost o nothing by the end.”

  “Oh, nice,” said, nodding.

  “Stupid fliers,” Mato muttered.

  “Yes,” Ali said, looking out at her minions. Despite fighting the same boss three times in a row without time to rest, she had lost only a single Acolyte and two of her shamans, killed when a double clutch of eggs had hatched on top of each other and escaped the bone walls, rampaging through her minions before they had finally been killed. That had been during this st ination, fortunately – they were getting tired. She shuddered to think how much harder another round might have been minus ara healer and the lightning damage.

  Yroup has defeated Phoenix of Living Fme – Elemental Bird – level 72 (Fire) x3

  Grove Warden has reached level 68 (+2).+20 attribute points.

  Are Insight has reached level 37 (+3).Barrier has reached level 49.Martial Insight has reached level 41 (+2).Empowered Summoner has reached level 32.Minion Teleport has reached level 24.

  Reading has reached level 15.Inspiration has reached level 13.

  “I’m dying to know what that ability is,” said.

  Once he had voiced it, Ali too found curiosity nipping incessantly at her. It refused to relent, so she levered herself up and flew herself over to where the corpses y, half sprawled in the pool. Carefully avoiding the va, she reached out to touch the partially submerged corpse surrounded by heaps of ash and destructed it.

  [Sage of Learning]Domain Magialyzed: Living Fme.Domain Magialyzed: Phoenix Rebirth.Living FmeRequirements: Level 65+, Fire affinity. Source: Phoenix of Living Fme.+50 fire damage per sed.+5 stamina and maored per sed.Curse Proliferation (Whenever Living Fme damages a cursed target, it has a ce to refresh the curse duration or proliferate it to nearby targets).Skill – Domain Magic

  Phoenix RebirthRequirements: Level 55+Source: Phoenix of Living Fme.50% ce to ighe domain respawn recharge timer oh. This effect summons the new ination with a Phoenix Tear.Skill – Domain Magic

  “Not what I expected. Not at all,” Ali murmured and then shared the two new domain magic spells with her friends while p over the details ily herself. Living Fme – an ability with the same name as the elementals they had entered in the Landing – seemed to be a specialized kind of fme area attack. While it did substantial damage, it alseed stamina and mana, as Mato had discovered.

  “What is curse proliferation?” asked.

  “Any curse in the fire is duplicated onto everything the fire touches,” Ali answered, studying the detailed description. “It also refreshes the curse duration if the curse is already present.” It expihe fusing presence of the lightning vulnerability curse. Her shamans had cast it on the phoenix herself, and the living fme ability had proliferated it to everything in the fmes – all her unblocked minions, herself, and all the drake hatgs too. But it was also the reason the fgration curse propagated to everyohin the fires – the single rgest and most dangerous source of damage iire fight.

  “That rebirth is ridiculous,” said. “Fifty pert ce to instant respawn?”

  They had fought three phoenixes, meaning they had gotten unlucky twice – a one-in-four ce.

  “Ali,” Malika said, a strange urgen her voice. “Did you see the phoenix drop anything?”

  “I didn’t finish yet,” she said and, upon seeing the rest of the Phoenix Rebirth description, she immediately set about destrug the other two corpses.

  Variant: Phoenix of Living Fme added to Imprint: Elemental.

  Phoenix Tear x2

  The st two corpses cealed a Phoenix Tear each. She reached out and picked them up, staring at the pair of beautiful blue crystallized droplets, pulsing with a potent energy from deep within.

  “Are these valuable?” she asked, the two tears to Malika who simply stopped and stared open-mouthed at them for a few moments before she reached out and picked one up carefully.

  “Are you kidding? These are used to make the most powerful healing potions, restorative elixirs, and cure-alls. And they’re incredibly rare.”

  “Well, we got two for our trouble,” Ali said, happy that the annoying phoenix that wouldn’t stay dead had provided them with something valuable.

  “You got a domain magic that make more of them,” said.

  “Shit, if it gets out that you make these, we’ll be overrun with adventurers looking to get rich,” Malika excimed.

  “More than magicite? Or mana-purified water?” Mato asked.

  “Aah, yeah, well…” Malika said.

  “If it makes the best potions, we could save people. We ’t just hide them,” Ali said. The idea of hordes of adventurers attag her just to get their hands on Phoenix Tears was certainly not appealing, but she couldn’t in good sce hold bad not sell the tears to Eliyen or Morwynne for making potions and elixirs.

  “I think I anize a discreet sale,” Malika said, looking rather thoughtful. “I’ll talk with Vivian Ross whe back to the guild.”

  “And you don’t have to make a boss with it immediately,” said. “repare defenses properly.”

  “Right,” Ali said. And theurned her attention inward and allocated her attribute points; eight each to wisdom and intelligence, with the remaining foing to perception.

  ---------------

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