“They’re not a myth,” I said. “The Yonder Isles are a series of locations meant to be activated during a future update.”
“So how on earth can we get there?” Archie asked.
“You’ll know in the morning. I want you to throw a raid together and choose some scouts who could stay in Warblerford and keep an eye on the Reapers.
* * *
The Clan’s senior officers parted ways: some to prepare the raid, others to arrange surveillance of the River Warbler, and some just to grab a couple hours of sleep.
Christa rose, too. “It’s getting late. I should be going. Alex,” she turned to me from the doorway, “I know for a fact that no updates have been installed in the last year. Borisov was the only person who could have brought you and Enea back and activated the Yonder Isles region. If you’re going to look for him, I’d like to be part of it. I owe him a lot.”
“She’s right,” White agreed. “We could use some help. Especially because this concerns everybody.”
Enea nodded a silent agreement.
“You don’t trust me, do you?” Christa said. “I can swear the Blood Oath if you wish. I’m not going to hurt the Oathing Stone, I promise. I’m just fed up with all this constant traveling.”
We needed to forget the past. We had to stop thinking in terms of demons and good guys. The world wasn’t black and white anymore. What we had now was humans against Reapers and their henchmen. New times were upon us.
“Please stay,” I asked Christa. “You’re right, we were about to talk about Borisov.”
Was it my imagination or did I glimpse a flicker of respect in White’s gaze?
Enea breathed a sigh of relief. She definitely liked Christa. Human feelings can sometimes be difficult to explain by logic alone.
“So how do we get to the Yonder Isles?” White asked.
“We have the Founder’s Glove. It’s one of a kind. It can open long-distance portals amongst other things, can’t it?”
“Yes, but you still need the coordinates! Did you copy them?”
“I tried to. It didn’t work.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever they used to block Borisov out is still active. We’ll do it in a different way. Lethmiel once visited the Yonder Isles. A visual will be enough to open a portal.”
“He can’t have! It’s only been activated very recently!”
“Yes, but all of the Crystal Sphere’s future events and locations were set up by its script writers well in advance,” I said. “Lethmiel believes his memories of visiting the Isles to be true. According to him, he went there when he was still young, two hundred and fifty years ago. And this looks like our only chance of getting there.”
“Would you entrust the Glove to him?”
“I can’t see any other way.”
“Can’t you tweak the coordinates ever so slightly? Just to make sure that the portal doesn’t open too close to whatever device they used to block Borisov?”
“Not a good idea. It’ll require some trial and error, otherwise the portal might open over the sea or above some cliffs. It’s too time-consuming. I should trust Lethmiel. I don’t think we’ll be so lucky as to locate the tower straight away, but the Isles answer our other objectives. We can use this opportunity to level up the raid. In the past, the Isles were famous for their Master Jewelers so we might see some very interesting loot there.”
“Excellent. When do we start?”
“I’ve already asked Lethmiel to come. He’ll be here any moment. We’ll run a quick test first — then if everything works well, we’ll set off for the Isles tomorrow morning.”
Chapter Four
The Crystal Sphere
The Yonder Isles
Western Island
THE PORTAL’S ALMOND-SHAPED EYE emitted a low humming noise. White and Archie went in first, followed by Enea and myself. Christa and Platinus were in the rear with the others. Platinus insisted on joining the raid point blank, hoping to find some rare potion ingredients.
The midday sun shone bright in the clear sky. The air was hot. The portal’s humming died away, replaced by the buzzing of insects and the long cries of unknown animals.
Stepping noiselessly, Arwan ran up onto a small hillock and drew his bow. Raoul took up a position next to him, ready to heal whoever might need it from the convenience of his vantage point.
The portal turned out fine. It took us past the barrier of shoreline cliffs. To our left lay a crystal clear lagoon.
Two shipwrecks lay in its center, their wood dark with time, their masts listing, the gold coating of their figureheads flaking. Their storm-worn sails and rigging hung in long tatters from the yardarms. The sharp ribs of the ships’ frames were visible through holes in their sides.
The lagoon was quite deep. It must have been an excellent safe haven for ships wishing to sit out a storm. Provided you had an experienced pilot, of course, who knew how to steer a ship safely through the narrow channel amid the treacherous reefs.
White cast watchful looks around himself. Even though there was no apparent danger, he kept his shield ready, tense as a taut spring. Archie was slightly more relaxed, looking curiously around. Future adventures seemed to be calling his name. I could say the same about all of us, I suppose.
Iskandar controlled the combat section wizards with Rodrigo by his side. Archie had the clan’s best warriors under his command. Stephen and Ylien were in the rear. White had insisted we took both of them along: Ylien for a bit of speed-leveling and Stephen, in his capacity as the clan’s analyst. He’d never been on a raid as analyst before.
The strip of cliffs was still visible at a distance. A flat rocky slope led down into a large savannah area studded with occasional groups of wide-canopied trees. The slope itself was overgrown with prickly bushes covered in large, meaty crimson leaves.
The place seemed to be rife with adventure. I counted five groups of ancient ruins. Their roofs had long collapsed but the columns and archways were mainly intact. Their moss-covered walls resembled delicate Elven buildings quite a lot, even though here they were also overgrown with vines.
While Enea and I were taking all this in, our support team had begun to set up the large raid tent complete with a mobile respawn point.
In the meantime, the raid had regrouped. The warriors fell in in single file behind White and Archie’s backs. The wizards stayed by the portal higher up the hill: their long-distance spells required a good field of vision.
I was in charge of the raid. Stephen was busy receiving and processing the logs. His calm confident voice sounded in the battle chat,
“Mobs level 70+ at twelve o’clock, range three hundred feet.”
We’d agreed to use a simplified form of o’clock directions, with White and Archie’s position being twelve o’clock.
I glimpsed a movement in the cliffs to my left.
“Two mobs, level 80, at nine o’clock!” Stephen promptly informed us. “Aggro radius, sixty feet. Susceptible to cold. Natural armor absorbing 50% of physical damage.”
Giant pythons had been basking in the sun when we’d scared them off. Their muscular spotted bodies slithered noiselessly away, threading their way amid the rocks.
“Archie, off we go,” I said. “Wizards, control them! Cast distance damage!”
A raid’s strength is in its choreographed coordination. Each member should know their part. Still, at first I repeated all my commands in the battle chat for everyone to see. The first minutes of any combat are the most intense and dangerous.
White stood unwavering, prepared to back up Archie. His level 132 gave him a serious advantage but the objective I’d set was challenging even for him. We didn’t want our Dark Knight to act solo, making mincemeat out of mobs and spreading the resulting XP thin over the other raid members. What we needed was to practice teamwork and test our fighting efficiency, allowing each raid member to show what they could do.
Archie stepped forward, crossing the invisible aggro radius.
I
mmediately the two pythons shot bolt upright. Both their bodies were the size of a good log and extremely agile.
They attacked us with lightning precision. Their hissing jaws, big enough to swallow any of us whole, exuded an unbearable stench.
The wizards cast cold spells, slowing them down. A wave of frost ran across the ground toward the pythons, climbing up their spotted bodies and bringing their strength and agility into the red.
This helped Archie (who was already level 75) to withstand the pythons’ double attack. The warriors immediately joined the fight. Enveloped in frosty auras, their sword blades took seconds to strip the monsters of their hp. With a loud hissing sound, the pythons’ bodies slumped to the ground.
White breathed a sigh of relief. “We did it.”
We had no time to celebrate. A raid is a mob-killing, loot-picking machine.
“Keep going! Not too fast, not too slow!”
Both our tanks proceeded down the slope, covering themselves with their shields. The warriors followed closely behind. Enea, Christa and myself remained as strategic reserve.
Old habits die hard: I struggled to stay in the rear, desperate to join them in search of adventure. Still, today we had to work as a group.
We walked past the python’s bodies sprawled over the rocks. Platinus was already busy there.
The wizards kept up with us. Raoul was walking parallel to us while Arwan had moved to the right flank, seeing as we were now protected on the left by a precipitous range of cliffs.
The mobs Stephen had warned us about were packs of level-70 gorilla-like creatures. I could clearly see at least three groups of twenty animals each: one skulking in the ruins, another lurking in the treetops of a nearby copse and a third one having a party in the purple undergrowth eating berries and hunting some little critters — lizards, most likely.
This was our first serious fight. The pythons had had no chance, really. They might have been dangerous for a lone traveler but not for a raid. Now the “gorillas” were quite numerous. The problem was, we had to handle them in packs. The mobs’ social nature didn’t allow us to aggro them one by one.
With every step, the tension continued to grow.
I could already see the tags hovering above their heads. Those were truly dangerous monsters: eight foot tall with long claws and sharp yellow fangs. Their muscles rippled under their short black fur, betraying remarkable strength.
“Stone-Skinned Gorillas,” Stephen read their tags out loud. “Highly aggressive. Their natural Skin of Stone buff is a sign of their high resistance to both cold and fire. They also possess a 10-second Berserk ability which gives them explosive bursts of strength and agility allowing them to ignore initial blows.”
Oh well. Despite their cute apish appearance, they were extremely dangerous.
“My advice would be to first deplete this ability with a long-distance attack,” Stephen continued, perfectly calm.
“Raid, halt!” I commanded. “Hold your positions. Wizards, control the area!”
My PM box blinked. It was White contacting me,
“Alex, I think you’re making a mistake. Twenty mobs will make mincemeat out of Archie and myself. We can’t use the standard tanking tactic here. You need to think some more.”
“Wizards, belay that!” I said. “Change of scheme. First a distance attack, then you control them, but only when they reach this mark,” I highlighted a large boulder on the ground. “Second line of warriors, step forward! Once the wizzies control the mobs, you smoke them in short bursts. Raoul, you heal the warriors. Enea will help you. Arwan, you keep an eye on the area. Platinus stays in the rear. Let’s do it!”
Fireballs streaked through the air, leaving a smoky trail in their wake. They weren’t supposed to deal much damage: their job was to aggro the pack.
Immediately the gorillas went for us in long low leaps. Rocks, clumps of earth and sods of turf flew from under their paws.
Iskandar attacked them with an Inferno, dealing blanket fire damage which wasn’t meant to harm them, either. Its job was to trigger their Berserk ability, forcing the creatures to use it.
For a split second, I froze in place with shock. Still, our wizzies knew what they were doing. Once the mobs reached the boulder, a wall of barbed brambles rose into the air. Their long shoots entangled the mobs’ legs, their venomous thorns piercing their stone skin. The harder the gorillas tried to struggle free, the deeper the thorns sank into their bodies.
Our warriors promptly joined in. Each of them hurried toward the targets they’d already selected. They’d deal a couple of blows, then recoil. Rinse and repeat.
The gorillas’ incredible strength combined with their impressive survivability (700 hp each) and their ability to absorb 30% of the incoming damage made them extremely dangerous opponents. Our warriors gave it their all but that wasn’t enough to deplete the mobs’ lives.
Eric, one of the clan’s best warriors, lingered a moment too long. He tried to roll out of their reach but was still caught. He lost 50% life in one clean sweep as one of the gorillas sent him flying through the air. He dropped to the ground about ten feet away, struggling fruitlessly to get back to his feet.
Immediately two gorillas managed to wrestle themselves free from the vines and threw themselves onto Eric, their claws ripping through his body.
Enea and I dashed to his help.
Eric looked lost. He screamed with pain, trying to protect his head. Blood spurted everywhere. He’d forgotten all about his weapons. Raoul’s healing wasn’t helping much: he kept restoring Eric’s life which was in fact only prolonging his agony.
The top of Enea’s Staff of a Hydra erupted in a blinding light, slowing the animals down. I ducked under a gorilla’s swinging arm and sliced through its rock-hard skin twice with my sword.
The monster bellowed in fury — but I’d already rolled away from under its crashing response blow.
Enea mini-ported out of the other gorillas’ path. Alpha the Black Mantis took off from her shoulder. His hard upper wings gleamed in the midday sun. Spewing venom, he sank his mandibles into the gorilla. The monster dropped to the ground and rolled over, blindly lashing out with its great paws trying to shrug off the debuff.
In the meantime, the other warriors had smoked their selected mobs and launched another attack without as much as a breather.
The wall of thorny vines began to buckle. Some of its branches had already lost their magic properties and were about to disappear. The control spells would expire any moment.
Rodrigo and Iskandar reacted just in time. They promptly cast another wall of thorns, providing a brief break for the warriors and giving Enea and myself a chance to finish off the two gorillas and drag Eric into the rear.
His life was already back to full. Thanks to Raoul’s efforts, his wounds had already healed, too. He’d stopped bleeding.
Still, he didn’t look good. He appeared broken. He was sitting on the ground shaking his head and mouthing something with his pale lips.
“New abilities detected,” Stephen’s voice echoed in the chat, “Long Leap and Leaping Blow.”
Good work! Our analyst had somehow managed to keep an eye on the other two packs, marking down the abilities they’d used while fighting between themselves.
Now that a new wall of poisonous vines stood in the furious gorillas’ way, their next step was easy to predict.
“New ability detected: a Hurled Rock Stun.”
“First line of warriors, step back! Arwan, try to finish off whoever you can! Wizards, keep building new walls of thorns until you run out of mana!”
Not a moment too soon.
The warriors stepped back, leaving the wounded gorillas to the mercy of Arwan’s lethal bow.
The surviving part of the pack used the abilities deduced by Stephen. They cleared the first wall of thorns in long high leaps (which must have required incredible strength and agility) only to get stuck in the next one.
Only two of the monsters had been lucky e
nough to land in the small gap between the two rows of magic vines. Immediately they began picking up the boulders that lay around and hurling them at us.
Two more warriors were stunned, losing 30% life each. They dropped to the ground, unable to get up. Another boulder made a gap in our brambly defenses, allowing three more gorillas to wrestle their way through the vines toward the raid.
White and Archie saved the day. Enea’s father slung his shield behind his back and took a double-handed grip of his sword. He met the gorillas with a long rotating combo, wounding both and giving them a Bleed debuff, forcing them to recoil in an instinctive fear of the lethal strokes of his sword’s merciless blade.
Archie promptly joined in. He attacked the mob nearest to him, then performed a dispassionate crit.
His example empowered whatever warriors were still standing.
The gorillas lasted another ten or fifteen seconds thanks to their incredible aggression and survivability. Finally, their mangled bodies sank to the ground and rolled down the slope, their ungainly fall halted by the first wall of thorns.
Raoul and Enea got busy restoring the warriors’ shrinking lives. White gave Archie a friendly slap on the shoulder, then walked over to me.
“Excellent location,” he said. “Perfect choice for us. Tough but efficient.”
In the meantime, the walls of thorns expired and crumbled to the ground.
“Did you say perfect? I don’t think we’ll make it much further the way we are now.”
“True,” he nodded. “What tactic do you suggest?”
Was he trying to test me? Not that I minded. This was a serious question — and we still had a lot to do.
“Seeing as gorillas work in packs, it’s pointless using tanks against them,” I said. “They’ll just kill them.”
“They will,” White agreed. “Even if I was there.”
“Which is why I want to bring more warriors and divide them into groups. Each group will have its own backup of healers and combat wizards. The warriors will select one gorilla each and then fight it.”
The Reapers (The Neuro 3) Page 11