Again, pillars of smoke began to coalesce in the forest around them, and this time, Devon’s Downdraft was still cooling down. The Wyvern Keeper appeared first, a blue glow already forming in his hands. A stream of light shot through the forest and hit Chen in the chest. The knight immediately slowed as Deep Chill took hold.
“Sorry about this,” Devon called as she used a tier 1 Flamestrike to cancel the effect. Hailey followed through with a heal over time to restore Chen’s health, then cast Crippling Self-doubt on the Mistwalker boss. The Esh staggered as the debuff hit, but he quickly growled and recovered. A loud crashing of feet through stone chips came from the road ahead, and Devon gasped when she saw Valious sprinting the wrong way. What the…? He must have respawned.
Again, the man roared and charged the boss, scoring another hit before a backhanded swipe sent him flying into a tree. The noob crumpled bonelessly to the ground, and his corpse quickly disappeared.
“Holy crap,” Devon muttered under her breath when she peered at the boss. Incredibly, Valious had taken off a visible chunk of the Wyvern Keeper’s health.
She vaulted the last of the downed tree branches that barred the way, and with Tamara by her side, sprinted for the edge of the city. As she passed the bindstone, Valious once again appeared and started sprinting into the forest. Devon shook her head. His insane tactic was actually doing some good. At the very least, they’d survive to reach the city. The problem was, what would happen afterward?
Chapter Forty-Three
“UH, BROKEN?” CHEN said. “He’s level five, and he could kill a level twenty-something boss all by himself.”
“Only if the boss stands right next to the respawn point and doesn’t do anything to stop him,” Hailey said. “Otherwise the boss would heal faster than Valious could damage him.”
“You mean only if he stands next to the spawn point like this idiot is?” Chen asked, pointing at the Mistwalker.
Devon, bent double as her Fatigue score slowly recovered from the sprint, stared in amazement as Valious charged forward again. This time, the boss punched the noob in the face, one-shotting him before Valious could land a blow. But Valious just respawned a second later and rushed forward yet again. A glancing blow with the flat of his blade shaved off another twenty hitpoints from the boss.
The Wyvern Keeper was down 25%.
Not that Devon was complaining, but it was pretty damn broken. The rest of the party stood in a tight cluster on the very edge of Ishildar, watching the scene play out. But even though it seemed like a ridiculous miracle—for the party, anyway…she doubted the repeated deaths were very fun for Valious—she couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t going to be this easy. As soon as she could stand upright enough to focus on casting, she started hammering the boss with Flamestrikes. None of the other party members had ranged attacks, so between her and Valious, she had to hope they could kill the guy before the Stone Guardians noticed the party.
“Crud,” Hailey said at the same instant that Devon spied the other Mistwalkers. “And here comes the end of that.” Like Devon, the woman was still out of breath from the sprint, and her words came out in broken bursts.
The boss grinned again, shaking his eyeless skull as he knocked Valious’s jaw sideways and finished the kill by stomping on the man’s chest when he fell. As the player respawned, the other Esh converged on the bindstone. Devon threw up a Wall of Ice to buy him a little more time, and when some of the Esh turned to mist to flow over the barrier, she scattered them with another Downdraft. Valious ran the gauntlet of converging enemies and got a final hit in on the boss—thirty hitpoints—before the Mistwalkers managed to completely encircle the bindstone. When the noob appeared again, he died within a split-second.
“Ouch,” Jeremy said. “Spawn camped.”
The Wyvern Keeper turned his eyeless sockets directly at Devon and laughed. Raising his arms above his head, the boss muttered something unintelligible, and the air was abruptly full of the sound of beating wings.
All five wyverns dove from the heavens to hover fifty feet above the Esh. Watching over their shoulders for Stone Guardians, the party moved back out of flame-jet range. Unfortunately, that also put Devon out of Flamestrike range, creating a standoff.
“Impasse, dude. Care to surrender?” Devon called while her thoughts raced through options. In truth, she doubted they’d last long inside the city. Once the guardians took note, it was only a matter of time before Devon’s shaky ability to control them broke.
The boss sneered as he brought his arms down.
“Oh shit,” Hailey said as the small dragons screeched, fire building in their bellies, and dove.
Right past the edge of the city.
“Guess we kinda forgot that the wyverns weren’t actually vassals of Ishildar, huh?” Bob commented.
Devon sprinted hard for the side of the street as the wind whistled over the wyverns’ wings and the horse-sized beasts slammed claws into the roadway where the party had stood. Fire rolled down the street, and stone chips flew as talons raked deep gouges in the pavement. Devon felt her skin crisp and blacken, the pain of the burn followed immediately by relief as Hailey dropped a heal.
Crap. There was no way the party could stand against dragons ten levels higher than the group. They needed a new plan, quick.
“Get inside before they turn!” As Devon shouted, she cast a Wall of Ice across the end of the street to block the Wyvern Keeper’s view into the city. Whirling, she grabbed Tamara and shoved her through an open archway into the darkened ruin of the building. The others followed, and as soon as the street was empty, Devon cast Fade over the group.
“Uh, I don’t think we can just hide,” Jeremy said. “Even my one-year-old nephew understands object permanence, and he still poops his diaper.”
“Zip it,” Devon snapped as she closed her eyes and focused on her magic. One by one, simulacra of the group members appeared in the street. Once the illusions had been conjured, she opened her eyes and let the Wall of Ice drop. She cut an unfortunate glimpse of poor Valious spawning and taking a dagger through the eye before she focused on the boss. With Ventriloquism, she forced her illusions to shout to get the Mistwalker’s attention, and then commanded the Devon-illusion to work through the casting motions of Flamestrike. Meanwhile, she cast a Flamestrike on the Wyvern Keeper, keeping to the shadows to remain unnoticed. As fire enveloped the Esh, Devon recast Fade on herself since the aggressive action had canceled the effect.
Overhead, dragons shrieked.
Focusing on the party’s illusions, Devon again used Ventriloquism.
“Stupid winged cows!” Her illusion’s shout echoed off the buildings as Devon commanded the simulacra to flee deeper into the city.
“Is that honestly the best insult you could’ve come up with?” Jeremy asked under his breath.
“Dude, focusing here.”
Slowly slipping from the building and into the shadow of the eaves, Devon guided the fake party past the first crossroads, then halted the illusions as if they were attempting to stand their ground. Then, eyes closed, she used Ishildar’s Call. Abruptly, ancient stone minds pressed against her thoughts. And rather than trying to command them against their nature, this time she worked with their purpose.
“The city is in danger. There are enemies within.” She formed mental images of the wyverns and pressed them through her connection with the golems, putting all the urgency she could into her thoughts.
The ground shook as the guardians emerged from stasis, the grating of stone joints filling the air.
A massive stone arm reached out and batted a wyvern from the air. A small dragon went down with a shriek.
And all at once, dragons and giants joined battle. The air filled with fire and the city shuddered with the golems’ rage.
Beyond the border of Ishildar, the Wyvern Keeper shrieked with anger.
“Okay, people, I’m going to kill that freaking eyeless dude.”
> Devon stepped into the street and covered the boss in Phoenix Fire before calling a Flamestrike down on his head. At the bindstone, Valious appeared again and was immediately struck down, but Hailey cast her charm spell on the Esh that killed him, and with an angry roar, the Mistwalker minion charged the boss at Hailey’s command. The Wyvern Keeper hesitated, unwilling to attack his kin, but when the minion landed his first blow, the boss laid him out flat, then cast Deep Chill on the charmed mob.
Before the remaining Esh closed the gap opened by the charmed NPC, Valious managed to sprint through. He squeaked past the minion and landed a punch to the boss’s elbow, knocking off another few HP.
Devon waited until Valious died—a kick to the stomach—then cast Downdraft against the minions at the bindstone, knocking them back to give the noob another opening.
The boss’s health dropped below 50%.
“Okay, you guys, forward to the city edge.”
As the party approached the boundary, the boss cast Deep Chill on Devon, then summoned his swarm of gross mini-scorpions. She hit herself with Flamestrike—for a supposedly intelligent race, this dude was a slow learner—then laughed as the scorpions slammed into the border of Ishildar and got stopped by the invisible wall.
After that, it was just a matter of attrition, sending the boss’s own minions after him and generally causing chaos from the safety of the city, until with a howl of dismay, the Wyvern Keeper died. When he hit the ground, his minions shrieked and dissolved into mist, fleeing into the woods.
Immediately, Devon broke from the safety of the city and sprinted across the stone leaf litter. She snatched the Starlight Rod from the Esh’s loose grip, and for good measure, touched her dagger to his loincloth to activate decomposition into loot. Perhaps unsurprisingly—he had been mostly naked—no further items appeared.
Quest completed: Venture to the Stone Forest
You receive 550,000 experience.
Congratulations, you have reached level 25!
Well, champion, seems all that’s left now is to take possession of the city.
Veia is offering you a quest: Fulfill your Destiny
You’ve recovered all five relics of Ishildar, a task that, frankly, no one had a lot of faith that you’d accomplish. Now it’s time to seize your reward. Figure out how to gain control of the city.
Objective: Become Ishildar’s Keeper
As Devon stared and blinked at the messages, the cries of the battle between the stone golems and the wyverns dwindled. She glanced up long enough to see that the wyverns were fleeing. The sight made her feel strangely relieved; maybe now that she had the relics, the Curse of Fecundity would soon lift, and the corruption would leave the dragons’ minds.
She had the relics—the notion didn’t quite seem real.
Devon sank to her knees with the Starlight Rod cradled in both palms.
At last.
Chapter Forty-Four
“WHAT IN THE everliving hell?” Jeremy’s words snapped Devon from her trance just in time to see mist coalescing…this time within the city boundaries. “Usually when you kill a boss, it means the fight’s over.”
“Veia’s grace defend us!” Torald bellowed as he raised a fist to the sky. Light flowed from the heavens and entered his body, pooling and then washing out to envelop the group. A new buff icon appeared in Devon’s interface. When she glanced at it, a tooltip appeared.
Ability: Creator’s Shield
Absorbs 312-325 damage. When the shield is hit, has a 30% chance to afflict the attacker with Blinding Glare, causing -20% to melee accuracy.
Time Remaining: 15:49
“New spell?” Chen asked as he brought his two-handed sword up and started circling the solidifying column of fog to come at the Mistwalker from the side.
“Got an upgrade that doesn’t require a shield.”
Devon got ready to cast Flamestrike as the Esh solidified but halted when the creature appeared in shimmering night-black robes. This one appeared to be female, though it was a bit hard to tell with the robes and hood. The real difference was that the Mistwalker had eyes, liquid-gray orbs that turned on Devon.
She fired off a Combat Assessment.
Aijal, Mistwalker Shadow Master - Level 37 (Faction: Drivan)
Resists: Wind-based Damage
Immunity: Water-based Damage
Health: 3217/3217
Mana: 4122/4342
“Wait, Torald,” she called at the same time that Chen said “Gah,” probably from having also inspected the enemy and registered the level.
But Torald was already in motion, sword gleaming as he rushed the mob. Devon cringed, hoping that the paladin would at least live long enough for the rest of the party to flee.
As the paladin’s blade came across in a wide swipe, the Mistwalker raised a hand. Devon, who was still fumbling for what to do and half-heartedly glancing around for her shadow so that she could raise a puppet, yelped in surprise as, all around, patches of shade suddenly moved. Darkness flowed across the ground, swirled over the Mistwalker’s moon-pale ankles and up her robe, then flowed out from her hand. A shadowy limb extended from the Esh, a sort of tentacle that writhed for a moment before consolidating into a globe. Legs coalesced beneath the globe while a pair of arms stretched out from the sides. Long-fingered hands grew from the wrists, and these reached out and grabbed Torald’s forearms, stopping him mid-attack, and then lifting him a few inches off the ground.
Devon blinked. It had all seemed to happen with a languid, liquid sort of grace, yet somehow the Esh’s shadow conjuration had managed to intercept the paladin in what had to have been less than a second of actual time.
Torald thrashed in the air, feet kicking at the shadow form yet hitting nothing. His legs just passed straight through the figure as if it were as it appeared—nothing but a shadow.
“The history you read about our race isn’t entirely true,” the Esh said, her voice a whisper that somehow washed over the top of Torald’s grunts.
“What? History?” Jeremy asked. “What the hell is this now?”
“Torald has library books,” Chen said as if that would explain the whole situation.
Devon, figuring there wasn’t much they could do if the Mistwalker were of a mind to kill them, dropped her hands to her side. Heart thumping, she walked forward and passed her arm through the shadow holding the paladin captive. As with Torald’s foot, there was no resistance to her motion, and she felt nothing but a slight coolness within the darkness, the same as if a cloud were to abruptly skid across the sun.
“What did Torald’s history have wrong?” she asked, trying to keep the Esh talking—and kind of wishing she’d paid a little more attention to what Torald had said about the Esh civilization.
“Devon?” Torald squeaked. “Little help?”
She glanced at him and, with a quick pang of guilt, shook her head. “I’m afraid I’m outclassed here.”
Something in her comment made the Mistwalker laugh. Or at least, that’s what she thought the strange hissing noise was.
“Perhaps she doesn’t realize her potential,” the Esh, Aijal, said. “Or perhaps she doesn’t recognize the opportunity.”
Behind her, Chen whispered, “When a scary beast talks about you in the third person, they are either a wise old sage masquerading as a monster to test you, or they’re about to kill you and wish to dehumanize you first. Standard guilt avoidance on the latter.”
Again the Esh laughed. “He has theories of much interest. But it is the proper way to speak for Esh. Drivan especially.”
“Okay…” Devon said, giving her the side-eye. Torald had stopped thrashing and mostly hung limply in the shadow’s grip. “So you aren’t planning to kill us?”
“Only this one, unless he promises not to try to smite me with Veia’s holy wrath.” For the third time, the Mistwalker laughed.
Devon glanced at the paladin. “Torald? No smiting?”
The man
blinked and nodded as best he could with a pair of platemail pauldrons squeezing his cheeks due to his arms being held over his head. “No smiting. Not even bringing divine vengeance. As long as she doesn’t mean to hurt you guys, that is.”
“Good,” the Esh said, snapping a pair of milky fingers. The shadow abruptly vanished, and Torald clattered to the ground. The creature turned back to Devon. “She likes the spell? Could learn it, perhaps, with time. Has the beginnings of the abilities already.”
Devon blinked, trying to understand. “You mean, it’s similar to Shadow Puppet?”
“As a breeze is similar to a hurricane. The beginnings of the foundation.”
“Do you know what she’s talking about, Dev?” Chen asked. “Because I just plugged the mana cost for that shadow spell into my calculator, and the ratio of mana use to utility is—”
Torald stepped back and draped an arm around Chen’s shoulder, whispering something that shut the knight up.
“Hold on. Let’s backtrack here,” Devon said. “Can you finish your statement about Mistwalker history?”
The Esh inclined her head. “I simply meant that the man’s information on the Esh is not entirely true, especially with regards to the Rovan. They did not wish to see Ishildar rise again, and in fact saw its downfall as an opportunity to finally step out from beneath a greater power’s shadow. The leaders of the faction had the mistaken belief that they could somehow use the key to unlock the Vault of the Magi themselves, taking the vestments that lie within. Of course, this is a childlike vision, an infantile hope. Only the Keeper of the city may enter the vault, and only once they have been granted dominion by possessing all five relics at once.”
Quest Updated: Fulfill your Destiny
Well, this is convenient. It sounds like Aijal knows what you’re supposed to do.
Vault of the Magi: A LitRPG Adventure (Stonehaven League Book 5) Page 25