The windslide took us all the way to the edge of Adriel’s black dome which flickered off just as we arrived.
Great timing, I thought, scanning the surroundings. The survivors of the second stygian pack, while still sizable in number, remained scattered. They were of no threat yet. The pursuing serpents and hydras from the first pack, on the other hand, were closing in rapidly.
And the nagas…
I didn’t think I was imagining the hungry gleam in their eyes as they eyed the downed shield. We’d have to hurry.
Spinning back, I nudged Shael forward. “Go,” I urged. “I’ll see you again soon.”
The bard advanced tentatively just as Anriq and Ghost rushed by the other way. The werewolf tossed me a thick garment in passing. Catching it, I pulled it over my shoulders in one smooth motion.
You have equipped the Cloak of the Reach, gaining +20% fire resistance, +20% nether resistance, and +10 Magic.
“These are for you,” I told Anriq and tossed him two items in turn.
You have lost 1 nether protection crystal and 1 farspeaker bracelet from the named set: Sintar’s link.
“Thanks,” Anriq growled, simultaneously equipping the bracelet and cracking the crystal.
“Much better,” he added a moment later over the farspeaker link. “What’s the plan?”
“We’ll get to that in a bit,” I replied. “Watch my back.” Swiveling about, I began waving my arms to get our spellcasters’ attention, only to find the pair staring at me intently already. “Raise the shield!” I shouted.
Adriel nodded curtly and Safyre threw me a lopsided smile. She knew as well as I that greetings and explanations would have to wait. Besides which, I was sure the pair would get the gist from Shael soon enough.
A split second later, the black dome snapped back in place, and my shoulders sagged in relief. “Now we can get to work,” I told Anriq.
He nodded curtly. “Our targets?”
“The nagas.” Turning about, I dashed away from the shield and straight toward the first pack.
The werewolf’s expression did not shift, but he couldn’t conceal the note of worry in his tone as he and Ghost jogged after me. “They’re elites and hard to kill.”
I jerked my chin toward the naga on the left. Its shield looked the most damaged. “That’s why you and Ghost will double up on that one. Adriel and Safyre will handle the elite on the right.” In an aside to my familiar, I added, “Protect Anriq. Make sure he doesn’t die.”
Not only was Ghost higher leveled than the werewolf, but unusually, she and Adriel were less at risk in this sector than me and the other players. The lich and familiar had somewhere to resurrect.
The rest of us didn’t.
“Will do,” the pyre wolf replied.
“What are you going to do?” Anriq asked, his eyes beginning to glow. He was shapeshifting, I knew.
“Take out the two elites near the guardian gate,” I replied.
“Is tackling them on your own wise?” Safyre asked, abruptly joining the conversation as she put on the bracelet Shael had given her.
“Not especially,” I acknowledged, “But we don’t have the luxury of time. An overlord is likely on the way even now.”
Safyre sighed. “Understood.”
I drew stamina in readiness. “Can you and Adriel handle the naga on the right?”
“Of course,” she replied confidently. “We’ll see to what’s left of the hydras and serpents too. Don’t bother with the group heading for you. We’ll take care of it.”
Not questioning her, I began casting.
Anriq has shifted into wolf form.
Glancing over my shoulder, I met the gazes of the two huge wolves bounding in my wake. “Go,” I ordered, and they peeled off to the left.
Turning back to the approaching stygians, I saw they were almost upon me. Unfortunately for them, I was about to cheat them of their quarry.
You have cast vanish. You are invisible. Duration: 5 minutes.
The hydras and serpents ground to a halt as I disappeared from sight. Chuckling quietly to myself, I drew psi again and shadow blinked past and onward to my own prey.
? ? ?
You have teleported into a level 241 stygian naga’s shadow. You are hidden.
I slipped unnoticed behind the giant stygian elite.
From here, the sounds of the battle almost two hundred yards away were muted. Not that my targets seemed to care much about it.
Both nagas remained transfixed by the guardian portal.
The impulse to strike immediately was strong, but I held myself back for a moment. What are they doing? I wondered. From the pair’s near-constant hissing, they were obviously casting.
But what spell? And to what end?
My gaze drifted to the portal beyond. A string-like lattice of dark energy was wrapped tightly about it, evidence enough that the first elements of the stygian elites’ casting were already in place.
I frowned. I’d not noticed anything wrong with the portal when I’d initially arrived, but then again, I hadn’t taken the time to study it in detail.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
“Safyre, do you know what the nagas are doing to the portal?”
“No,” she replied, “but the first thing the stygians did when we clashed was to push us away from the gate. Those two have been there for close to an hour.”
My frown deepened. Even with analyze, I couldn’t tell the purpose of the elites’ weave, but in just the few seconds that I’d been watching, two more strands had joined the magical construct surrounding the portal.
The nagas were reinforcing their work.
I had to stop them, of course. But how to go about it quickly? Taking a few steps back, I studied the pair anew.
As expected, both elites were shielded. But that was only part of the challenge I faced. Even at ease, and with the bottom halves of their bodies loosely coiled and their broad triangular heads raised high, the two nagas still loomed over me. At a guess, they measured all of thirty yards from head to tail.
And unlike their smaller brethren, the elites were depressingly solid. Their bodies had real bulk and their scales were hardened. I suspected hacking through with my stygian blades was not going to be easy.
“Ghost, you killed one of the nagas before, didn’t you?”
It took the pyre wolf a moment to shift focus from the battle she was embroiled in to answer. “I did, Prime, but it wasn’t easy. Adriel kept the creature paralyzed while I chewed through its neck.” A pregnant pause. “It took a while.”
I grimaced. I’d feared as much. “Thanks,” I murmured. “One last thing before I let you go.”
“Yes, Prime?”
“You see the spell stored in mage’s surprise?”
“What about it?”
“Use it if it helps take down your target faster,” I ordered. “Don’t try to do things the hard way.”
Before the pyre wolf could answer, I sensed her focus jerk away. Simultaneously, her emotions spiked in intensity. I knew what that meant. The pace of Ghost’s skirmish had picked up, and she had no more attention to spare. But that was alright. I knew she’d heard me.
I refocused on the nagas. It was time to begin my own battle too.
? ? ?
I had multiple options for dealing with my targets.
Close-up bladework.
A mental assault.
And even magic.
My swords would make quick work of the nagas’ shields, but going on what Ghost had said, I knew they would have a much harder time penetrating the creatures’ scaled-hides.
A mental assault from afar was the safest option but also the slowest. Before I could paralyze or charm the nagas, I would have to shatter their mental defenses first and that would take time.
Lastly, while the idea of flinging voidballs at the nagas was tempting, my mana reserves were already down to a third, and I wasn’t fond of the idea of walking around without my void armor.
There was another option, of course: blood puppet. But it was not one I gave serious consideration to. Enslave’s casting time was too long to use on an unrestrained subject, especially in the thick of battle.
In the end, I settled on an option that was a mix of my first two choices: bladework to destroy the nagas’ shields and astral shurikens to bypass their physical armor and kill them from afar thereafter.
With my tactics decided, I advanced on the closest elite.
You have cast whirlwind and piercing strike.
You have backstabbed your target for 10x more damage.
You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage.
By any measure, my opening salvo was devastating—even if blades didn’t actually manage to touch the stygian.
A level 241 naga’s shield has blocked your attacks.
Two hostile entities have failed to detect you!
Ignoring the Game messages, I kept battering at the naga’s shield. I attacked with my two feet planted firmly on land. It mattered little where I struck, the damage to my foe’s shield was the same.
You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage.
You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage.
…
…
With every slash and thrust, the health of the naga’s shield plummeted, and finally the creature took note. Breaking off from its sibilant casting, the naga stabbed downwards with its triangular head.
The elite couldn’t see me, but I wasn’t going to hang around on the off chance it would miss. Mid-strike, I drew psi and shadow blinked.
You have teleported into a level 240 stygian naga’s shadow. You are hidden.
Stepping out of the aether behind the other naga, I resumed my attacks.
You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage.
You have backstabbed your target for 5x more damage.
…
…
My second foe reacted quicker than the first, and after suffering no more than a handful of hits, it sent its head skimming low along the ground in search of me.
In response, I threw myself flat.
You have evaded a level 240 stygian naga’s attack.
The moment the danger passed, I popped back up and unleashed another flurry of blows. One way or the other, I was determined to destroy the nagas’ shields before I retreated.
The naga’s searching head returned, its forked tongue tasting the air. Walking a slow path in the opposite direction, I kept striking at the now-perceptibly dimmer bubble encasing it.
A level 241 stygian naga has cast cloying nether.
Not breaking off my assault, I glanced over my shoulder at the first naga. After I had blinked away, the creature hadn’t resumed its original casting. Instead, the elite had begun a new spell—one that had the surrounding mists swirling in agitation.
My brows furrowed. What’s it trying to do?
It didn’t take me long to find out.
In the next instant, every speck of free-floating nether in a fifty-yard radius burst into motion.
Towards me.
I flinched, anticipating the worst. But the tiny particles didn’t harm me as I feared. No, they merely clung on—all of them—and in an eyeblink, the many millions of nether specks transitioned from not-quite innocuous free-floating bits to solid particles that weighed down on my limbs.
You have failed a magical resistance check!
You are nether-cloyed (-50% speed and revealed). Duration: 1 minute.
Two hostile entities have detected you! You are no longer hidden.
Goddamn, I cursed. Of all the luck!
With the Cloak of the Reach equipped my overall nether resistance was seventy percent. That meant the naga’s spell had only one in three chances of succeeding.
Yet it still had.
And no matter my annoyance at that fact, I had to deal with the consequences. I have to cut this short, I decided. Time to retreat. Moving slower than I was used to, I began backing away from my foe while drawing psi in readiness.
The elite wasn’t keen on letting me go, though.
Its maw opened wide in anticipation, the naga brought its head racing around to chomp down on my unmissable yellow-form.
But even at half-speed, I was no slouch. Sidestepping the attack, I didn’t let the opportunity the creature had given me for another ‘free’ attack to go abegging. Lashing out with both my swords, I struck its passing body multiple times in quick succession—once, twice, thrice.
A level 240 naga’s shield has blocked your attacks.
Sadly, the triple blows did not shatter what remained of the elite’s shield as I’d hoped, but knowing I couldn’t hang around any longer, I released the weaves I held ready.
You have cast windborne.
I would’ve preferred to teleport out, but one of the unhappy effects of the first pack’s earlier pursuit was that there were no longer any handy targets within shadow blink range—except for the two nagas themselves, of course. Still the windslide would serve well enough.
Directing the ramp of air away from the two nagas, I hopped on.
But no sooner had I gotten onto the windslide than a looming shadow drew my attention.
Crouched low on the air ramp, I glanced up. While I’d fought its companion, naga number one, uncoiling fully, had reared up to its full height. Now, it fell sharply, attempting to use its body as a weapon.
It’s too late, I thought, judging the trajectory of its descent. My position had already shifted drastically, and I was no longer where the naga was aimed at. Nevertheless, I kept my eyes glued upward while the windslide carried me to safety and away from the falling shape.
But I’d forgotten one crucial fact.
The naga was not just a free-falling body.
Using its still ground-bound rear to course-correct, the stygian elite adjusted its descent at the last minute.
And fell squarely atop me.
A level 241 naga has critically injured you!