Chapter 27 - The Inter-Cohort Battle: Diving Towers and Stacking Combos
Running through the brush Palinus enjoyed the sensation of the tall grass parting as he streamed through. As a boy from the city he had never run through grass that stood above his head, but a part of him knew that plants that were translucent at odd times and made barely any noise were not a natural occurrence. Thinking too much about the oddities of the rift ruined the moment.
He burst out of the brush, his legs felt like they were moving normally but the speed he travelled through the meadow of no-man''s land between the two forests was startling. With his Tier I Strength his legs felt like they were pushing him further and the Tier I Mastery meant that his feet moved quickly catching his strides and starting the next movement before he had landed.
The speed he travelled was faster than the feeling of his body, it was like he was taking an extra half stride for each of his steps. That made sense as he considered the 45% speed boost, it wasn’t affecting how fast his body moved or he thought, just the linear distance he moved. It gave a heady feeling of effortless speed that felt reckless but not out of control.
As he reached the edge of his smoke field ars he was almost disappointed, the speed was fun. There was something else to the ars, as if the veil of smoke made him feel safe and the scent of smoke in his nose gave him a phantom nostalgia for a time and a place he had never been.
The edge of the Saternine Veil was marked with a wispy wall of smoke which was thicker than the inner field, he could see out of it fine but as he burst through he couldn’t see back into the smoke.
He stumbled awkwardly and nearly fell on his arse. The sudden change of pace as well as trying to turn to look backwards sent him off balance and he flailed his arms like a goose to keep his footing. He secretly hoped that the girls hadn’t been able to see him through the smoke.
When Vesuvia rushed through the smoke with a smirk on her face he knew that wasn’t the case.
It was strange that she had come through first, Palinus could have sworn that she started from behind Seline, and he knew that she had lower strength and mastery stats.
“Ugh, I’m glad to be out of that.” Seline said as she made it out of the smoke.
“Huh,” Palinus said, puzzled.
“It wasn’t bad at all.” Vesuvia added.
“Yeah it wasn;t unpleasant at all for me, and how did Vesuvia overtake you there?” Palinus questioned Seline as they collected themselves and started jogging towards their target.
“It must be to do with the attunement of the ars, I was running as fast as I could and V just skipped past.” she replied.
“Ohh, yeah it is a dark red. That makes sense with Vesuvia’s high red attunement giving her the full buff.”
“I was still moving faster, but she was moving even fasterer.” Seline chuckled. “Focus now.”
She pressed her finger to her lips and dropped into a stalking crouch as they approached the brush. Through the obscuring shrubbery they could hear the sounds of fighting and the recurring whoosh and blast of a tower attacking.
As they got nearer they got a sense of the lane. It looked like they had just missed some action as Bruchts stood panting under the tower, he was covered in gashes and his tunic was barely holding itself together.
The attacking enemies following their big blond team mate were visibly conflicted. A pretty support mage who was using her staff to hold back a man carrying a long sword.He looked to be in his mid twenties which marked him as significantly older than most of the conscripts, his beard and fully grown body felt out of place in the conscript uniform.
As they watched the man pushed the support away and rushed towards the turret.
“We have time, they won’t be able to get here yet.” The man with the longsword yelled.
With a startled expression Bruchts backpedalled further behind the turret.
“It’s not worth it, WAIT!’ The support mage yelled after her impetuous teammate.
As the man charged in he swung the long sword with quick slashing motions, Palinus could see why Bruchts was so cut up now. The slashes of the sword were projected in a golden light towards the minions just in front of their tower and were swiftly dismantling them.
As the swordsman plowed through their minions he was getting closer to hitting Bruchts but rather than focus on direct damage to his avatar the man kept splashing the damage across the minions and angled his run with an odd curve to pick up essentia that dropped rather than dive straight.
With a flash of essentia Palinus could suddenly understand why as the man managed to level up with the collected essentia motes.
Not missing a step the swordsman selected and started channeling an ars. A bright yellow light lit up his shoulder and he pulled his arm back for a mighty thrust.
Bruchts sensed something about the ars and stopped running away to lift his shield to protect as much of himself as he could. The golden light from the ars flooded through the man’s sword and as he thrust it forward towards Bruchts it made a thick beam of light and an enormous image of the sword flashed into the giant teenager.
Bruchts 5/616 | Level 0
Warden - Swordsman / Warden / Defender
He barely survived the strike and his assailant was considering following him further under the turret. He was taking damage from the turret already and if the man chose to dive further turret he would take significant damage and possibly die, but he would almost certainly be able to land the killing blow.
Trying to assist their team mate Palinus, Seline and Vesuvia didn’t hesitate to charge in.
“YahGHH”
“DIIIEEEEE”
“STOP! You big meanie!”
The trio yelled unintelligibly as they tried to take the attention of the enemy swordsman. Seline began firing as quickly as she could as she got into range first, while Palinus and Vesuvia ran to get an angle to attack.
A moment of surprise at the sudden appearance of the team startled the swordsman. The momentary hesitation was enough for Bruchts to resume running away as fast as he could and as the man started to follow it seemed the distance was enough to pull out of range as the man swung his glowing sword for the killing blow, but just missed.
“A Sylvanian curse on your family you rat!” The swordsman yelled frustrated at Brucht’s escape.
The man whirled and with a dark expression ran out of the turret range. A third bolt of the turret struck a bubble shield covering the man’s back and mitigated the damage significantly.
The support mage hadn’t been idle as they launched their surprise attack. Casting the bubble shield that protected the swordsman from much of the turret blow and their wave of attacks.She channeled another ars and the damage from the tower began to heal more rapidly as the swordsman turned towards Palinus and Vesuvia.
A sharp glint of menace in the man’s eye made Palinus gulp as he started firing his wand.
“Target the mage first!” Seline yelled. She was right to change targets with the support mage’s ars on cooldown; she would be the easier target and was the priority with her defensive ars and healing.
It was a challenge for Palinus to turn his eyes away from the swordsman, the man’s face was an ugly snarl that promised violence against Vesuvia, but he managed to focus and reminded himself that they had a numerical advantage and the superior position. Even if the swordsman held a level advantage and was really scary.
The support mage screamed as she realised the danger she was in. To cast her ars on the swordsman she was deep down the lane and had a long run under fire to escape. Thinking quickly she started her retreat and chose not to run directly towards the protection of her tower and instead rushed into the brush on the other side of the lane.
“Do we follow into the brush!?” Palinus questioned.
“We have to! It’s our only chance!” Seline responded as she moved subtly to cut off the support mage’s escape route, firing every few steps to continue her combination damage.
Palinus didn''t have as many hits on the support so he elected to run all out, forgoing firing and moving, to cut her off from the protection of the brush.
“Don’t forget to apply your level!” Seline yelled after him.
He grimaced as he realised that he had forgotten to select another ars after his level up.
As he ran he quickly checked his options:
<table style="width: 89.9752%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%"> </td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
Wandslinger
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
Red Mage
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
Mage
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Ars
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
Multi-Strike
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
Fireball
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
Magic Missiles
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Attunement
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
nil
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
nil
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
nil
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Cooldown
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
n/a
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
60 secondsIf you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
30 seconds
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Compatibility
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
n/a
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
n/a
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
n/a
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Skill Type
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
Enhancement
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
Projectile, Area
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
Projectile
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Slot
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
[Wrist], [Arm]
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
[Fist, hand, wrist]
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
[Fist, hand, wrist]
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Slot Bonus
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
n/a
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
n/a
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
n/a
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 10.0243%">
Description
</td>
<td style="width: 25.6607%">
Each strike applies effects twice.
</td>
<td style="width: 32.2779%">
Shoot an explosive fireball damaging everything [200] within 2 metres and applying [Burn].
</td>
<td style="width: 31.5444%">
Shoot three bolts of energy doing [50] damage each to up to three targets.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
He was disappointed to find the same generic ars as his first rift after he had selected the only ars he currently possessed for his smoke mage class. A part of him had hoped to get some new abilities that separated him from generic Red Mages, but he would need to find some more calculii to do that.
The decision as to what to take for his secondary class was harder than he had anticipated, especially as he wouldn’t be able to take another class when he hit level 3+. The Red Mage abilities would do more burst damage and help him secure a kill right now, but he would only realistically be able to fire one fireball in the fight, that style of attack didn’t gel with his smoke veil ars that allowed him to skirmish and drag out fights. The Mage ars magic missiles would do less burst but more reliable damage and he could target multiple enemies, he was more likely to get off a second shot with the lower cooldown as well.
As an ars was channeled from behind him and a flash of green light triggered below the support mages feet causing her to stumble before she made it to the brush, Palinus made his decision.
He passed the support sprawled on the pavers of the lane and took a stance at the edge of the brush. Lifting his wand as he tried to look menacing and started firing.
As the bolts of the wand flew towards the support mage still prone on the ground they struck with the same muted meaty slapping sound, but now they had a subtle echo effect as the effect of Multistrike caused his combination stacks to apply twice.
The second bolt from the wand flew and struck the support mage who still writhed on the ground trying to free her feet from the roots Seline had summoned. As he lined up the third shot a roar of rage caused him to look up.
The swordsman had given up trying to attack Vesuvia who had been leading him the slightly wrong direction and was taking less damage than the man expected, protected either by her bolster and healing ars. She laughed at the big man as he turned away firing her staff bolts into him as she followed like a school yard bully.
The swordsman growled and activated an ars that suddenly made him burst towards Palinus faster than he could react and all of a sudden the big two handed sword was swinging down towards Palinus’s face.
“Arp!” Palinus yelped and stepped backwards into the brush.
The swordsman’s blade didn’t have the golden light activated and it missed his face by a tiny margin. It didn’t need the extra range as it struck his arm and carved into his flesh.
The feeling of the blade cutting into his flesh was awful and it did significant damage for a single strike.
Palinus 523/635 | Level 1
Smoke Mage / Wandslinger
Losing sight of Palinus in the brush the swordsman hadn’t followed, prioritising helping his support.
Palinus knew he needed to use this to their advantage to disrupt the swordsman and keep the pressure on the support mage. He pushed down his desire to create more distance from the blade and stepped back out of the brush.
Throwing his damaged arm up he quickly shot off another bolt from his wand.
He was just in time to preserve his combo damage and the tick up of the fourth application was starting to do noticeable additional damage to the support mage.
Between Palinus’s wand and Seline''s arrows stacking damage the support was starting to look severely injured with her health points under a third.
The swordsman had lost sight of Palinus as he entered the brush and assumed that he had retreated. As the bolts from the wand blasted his support still struggling on the ground he hesitated and considered turning to resume his attack.
With an expression only evident to Palinus from behind by the set of his shoulders he committed to assisting his team mate and with a burst of power he pulled her bodily away from the grasping root. She gave a shriek of pain as the root came loose with her ankle twisted in an awkward angle to free her.
As he placed her on her feet he kept a grip on her waist tugging her back towards their tower and trying to stand between Palinus and his target. Freed from the roots but clearly in pain as she hobbled, the support mage was crying and wailing as she ran. Palinus was surprised by her weakness and lack of urgency, as if she had never been in a true life or death situation and was treating this as a game that was suddenly too rough.
He ran behind them to try and find an angle to strike at the support, but as he saw a bolt from Vesuvia and another arrow from Seline strike her he made the choice to switch targets and start putting damage on the swordsman. It was a risk to not focus damage, but it would mean that he could start stacking the combo points required to get enough damage for the second kill. A choice to not only catch up to the enemy team, but bury them now.
“Can you buff us with smoke?” Seline asked with a yell, on the same page and thinking ahead.
Saturnine Veil - 2:09
“Ages on cooldown!” He replied, surprised it had been less than a minute and a half since he checked.
Seline winced as she fired off another arrow, already running to try to get in position for another.
The arrow struck the support mage in the back with a heavy strike that was bringing the support critically low, but it wasn’t enough to kill. As she ran the support began to channel an ars and her health points began to tick up.
Another blast from Vesuvia’s staff was not enough to finish the support off with her health ticking back up. Vesuvia gave a huff of frustration and began to channel an ars of her own.
“Don’t waste your heal! We are going to have to dive!” Palinus yelled.
Vesuvia gave him a look of disdain as she finished channeling her ars. The heal targeted not Seline, who was still quite damaged from her previous tower dive, or Palinus who had some light injuries, but it instead directly targeted the support.
Before Palinus could question the point of healing their target the support mage started violently coughing as she hobbled. She leaned to one side and spat out a glob of thick blood which was tainted with lashings of black mucus.
The damage of the ars triggered and did a sliver of health points, but more importantly when another wave of the healing ars came a moment later it seemed to heal the support mage for far less.
Giving a nod of apology and approval, Palinus resumed trying to avenge the cut on his arm as he launched bolts into the broad back of the swordsman.
“-An enemy has been slain!-”
With the reduced healing and repeated arrows to the back Seline finally managed to kill the support mage and beads of essentia scattered through the lane.
The swordsman was suddenly off balance without carrying the woman’s weight and took a stumbling step forward.
Recovering his balance despite the strikes of an arrow and the bolts of a staff and wand the swordsman started to accelerate to full pace.
“How long on roots?!” Palinus asked desperately.
“Still another 5 seconds!” Seline responded.
“Bahahah!” The swordsman laughed as he surged away from them. With his second level his strength and mastery stat differences made his physicality significantly superior.
The trio charged after him but weren’t able to fire off any shots and were falling behind.
Despite the damage of the tower and the smattering of wand attacks from Palinus the man was still at above half health points.
They hesitated as they reached the edge of the tower''s range with a fresh wave of minions streaming past it.
“We will destroy you! Our idiots in mid lane are already on their way to claim their revenge!” The swordsman turned and grandstanded.
“Go ahead and dive.” Bruchts voice came through team chat.
Not hesitating to trust their teammate, Palinus instantly took the plunge and stepped within the tower’s range.
“Bahahaha! You are idiots!” The swordsman crowed at them as he backpedaled slowly. He activated his sword ars and began to attack Palinus. He could feel the effects of [Bolster] Vesuvia had applied mitigating damage. The golden licks of the sword felt like the strokes of a heated yet dull knife, the strikes of the melee minions were the taps of unruly toddlers, but the bolt from the tower still packed a punch like a mule.
Despite the mitigating effect of Vesuvia’s ars the damage was still stacking up and Palinus knew that they were taking a desperate gamble. He knew he could take only one more shot from the tower if the swordsman chose to unleash his blasting ars on him.
Looking into the man’s eyes as he maintained smirking eye contact as he kept moving backwards past the tower, Palinus knew that that was just about to come as he shot off a final wand blast and braced himself for the barrage.
“We need to run!” he yelled.
“Keep the pressure on girls!” Bruchts voice came through again encouraging Vesuvia and Seline to continue to dive the tower despite the danger.
The swordsman''s ars took a moment to channel which felt like it dragged for minutes.
The golden light surged from his chest and down his right arm and shot from the tip of the man’s sword a ray of light projecting violently that tickled and burnt Palinus’s chest.
As soon as the ars began to coalesce, Palinus turned and started to sprint out of the tower.
Two strikes hit simultaneously like being kicked by two horses at once as the blast of the golden sword hit and the bolt from the tower struck.
Palinus 135/635 | Level 1 [Bolster]
Smoke Mage / Wandslinger
Checking his health points, he let out a sigh of relief. He was well in the clear but he wouldn’t be able to take another blast from the tower.
“You splinter dick! Come fight me!” The swordsman yelled after him.
The taunt hit a chord and Palinus was frustrated as he did all he could, dragging out a few more hits from the minions as he retreated from the swordsman and the towers'' range.
Seline and Vesuvia were well under the tower still and kept the pressure on the enemy, preventing him from finishing Palinus off.
The swordsman kept slowly jogging backwards taunting the women who’s attacks were piling up, but were not doing enough damage.
“Don’t worry, I’ll stay and entertain the ladies!” he taunted.
He began to slash his golden swords at Vesuvia who was taking damage quickly from the tower and ranged minions.
“You… you… you''re the splinter dick! Why won’t you die?” She screamed lamely as she was forced to retreat.
“Bahah… huh?!” The swordsman’s laughter was cut off as he suddenly ran into a wall.
“My turn!” Bruchts said calmly, appearing from the brush behind the swordsman.
As the fight had progressed Seline and Vesuvia had pushed the swordsman nearly through to the other side of the tower. Standing just outside of range of the tower on the far side Bruchts now joined the fight.
He attacked with a vicious strike from his shield, bashing the bewildered swordsman and swiftly jabbing with his sword. As the enemy tried to flee past Bruchts he blocked the man with his shield and sword preventing the man’s retreat.
Seline’s arrows kept flying in and were starting to make the man resemble a pin cushion and were now doing significant combination damage.
“Ugh! You little twigs!” The swordsman spent his last moment as ran out of health points making a rude gesture to Seline.
“-An enemy has been slain!-”
Seline and Bruchts quickly collected the essentia on the ground and ran out of the towers range on the far side.
“I thought he would never die.” Seline sighed. “I guess that is the level advantage at work. Perfect timing on your entrance?”
“Just a walk in the forest” Bruchts replied calmly as he led her through the forest around the tower. “It felt good to strike back at that bully.”
“Let’s get to our laning assignments and bury these fools.” Seline eagerly sent across the team chat.
“Yeah!” The team cheered in agreement, they were in good spirits and on their way to an unexpected win in this rift.