Beastborne

by James T Callum

  At 35 Strain, he was pushing it close. Even as his friends came to join him, Hal couldn’t wipe the manic grin spread across his face.

  This was fun.

  He knew he shouldn’t feel that way. Not with the casualties lying less than ten feet away, but he couldn’t help the giddy thrill that surged through him making him feel alive.

  Mira dove through the air, her typical opening salvo as Hal conjured another Divebomb.

  As one, they hit the Gemini Giant with all they had. Ashera shield bashed the thing’s knee, knocking the legs of the rightmost body off-balance. The arcs of red and purple electricity sparked angrily and exploded outward as the creature’s legs toppled out from beneath it, breaking the connection between their crystal shards.

  Mid-cast, Hal was blown aside along with the others. His skeletal limbs clicked and clacked across the ground, trying to right him and place Hal back onto his feet.

  His friends weren’t quite as lucky.

  Ashera went down on one knee, her shield glowing with the heat of the blast. Mira tumbled into a heap somewhere behind him, back toward the crater the creature had made earlier.

  Noth groaned and pushed herself back to her feet, using her scythe as a staff. While Elora was the only one to have escaped relatively unscathed. She even had her bow drawn back, a growl escaping her clenched jaw as she let the streaking blue arrow fly at the lone Gemini Giant.

  31

  The Gemini Giant staggered back from Elora’s shot, twisting around from the impact that blasted apart its shoulder and sent a scattering of crystals into the air. The crystals glowed brightly and Ashera cried out, dismissing her hammer and grabbing Elora.

  The crystals detonated in mid-air. As close as the three were, they were caught in the worst of the blast. Walls of flame roared to life and washed over them. Ashera kept her shield raised, she just barely managed to pull Elora behind her as the fiery heat broke across her shield and split around her.

  Hal took the brunt of the attack, the heat seared and blistered his skin. It pulled the air from his lungs. His outstretched arms were a poor defense against the intense heat that washed over him. The narrow bone-limbs did nothing to block the blast of fire.

  Elora uses Lightning Shot.

  The [Gemini Giant | Lv. 40] takes 320 points of damage.

  The [Gemini Giant | Lv. 40] uses Crystal Discharge.

  Ashera shields Elora.

  Ashera blocks the attack, receiving 136 points of fire damage.

  You suffer 387 points of fire damage.

  He knew instinctively, that it should have killed him.

  Gasping for breath, Hal was suddenly very thankful for the fire resistance he had from the flame totem. He doubted he would have survived the attack without it.

  His HP shrank down to 173, and without thinking about it Hal reached into his Inventory to pull out a [Health Injection]. Before he could grab it, a soothing wave of recovering energy surrounded him.

  At first, he looked to Ashera whose eyes were similarly widened. The same aura covered her.

  Buffrix uses Ultimate: Benediction.

  You recover 430 HP.

  Ashera recovers 220 HP.

  Elora recovers 220 HP.

  …

  On and on the list went, dozens of names – mostly dwarves – flitted past Hal’s vision. Up on a high ridge of a wagon’s roof, the koblin danced gleefully back and forth, shaking his staff in the air.

  Hal wasted no time in launching another Divebomb at the Gemini Giant. As he released the spell and the phantom of a diving great bird streaked toward the creature, he propelled himself forward on his bone-limbs.

  Timing it with uncanny precision, Hal lashed out with his chain and pulled with all his might as the first of the links made contact with the giant’s chest. [Brilliance] braced tightly against him, Hal slammed into the giant, impaling it with [Brilliance] a heartbeat after his Divebomb spell landed.

  An arrow streaked over his shoulder, followed by two more in quick succession that halted the Gemini Giant’s swinging arm long enough for Hal to dislodge and leap off the creature’s chest and out of range of its long arm.

  You cast Divebomb.

  Synergy Triggered!

  The [Gemini Giant | Lv. 40] takes 422 points of damage.

  You hit the [Gemini Giant | Lv. 40] for 178 points of damage.

  Elora uses Triple Shot.

  The [Gemini Giant | Lv. 40] takes 664 points of damage.

  Ashera helped Noth to her feet, her shield tossed aside as little more than half-melted scrap. Mira leaned tiredly against her halberd but seemed relatively unharmed. A quick glance at his party menu showed most of his party near full.

  He only had two casts of Divebomb left before he was forced to use Assimilation to recover his MP.

  The Gemini Giant reared as if it was ready to strike. Each of them braced for the coming attack. A second passed. Then another.

  The Gemini Giant’s chest burst forth in a shower of popping crystals. Arcs of electricity leaped from one to another and then exploded in a brilliant display as the Gemini Giant loomed ever larger over them.

  Hal turned and grabbed Ashera’s arm, putting every ounce of Convergence-laced strength into the action as he tugged her along. In turn, Ashera grabbed Mira, Mira grabbed Elora, and Elora grabbed Noth.

  The ridiculous looking people chain narrowly escaped the collapsing Gemini Giant, who fell like a towering redwood to land face-first on the ground with a resounding impact that rattled Hal’s teeth.

  Durvin stood on the thing’s back, his large axe planted firmly in the thing’s back. He tensed and coiled his thick stubby legs, trying – in vain it seemed – to pull the thing free. The whole while he let loose a stream of the most colorful cursing Hal ever heard. At least, he was pretty sure they were curses. With the way Aldim seemed to enforce its language filter, Hal couldn’t be sure.

  Durvin defeats the [Gemini Giant | Lv. 40].

  You gain 5,500 Experience Points.

  You absorb 50 Eldritch Essence.

  You earn 550 Sparks.

  Your Ultimate is fully charged.

  Taking a moment to catch his breath, Hal watched as Durvin spat into his hands and gripped the handle even harder. Just as he was about to free the thing by main force, the giant’s body shattered into a thousand pieces of glittering pale-blue crystals. Unlike other creatures, Hal noticed the crystals didn’t evaporate.

  The crater off to the left was half-filled with countless crystals. Several dwarves had fallen in to the crater and were struggling to keep above the pool of crystals. Sturdy dwarves were linking arm-in-arm, forming long chains to reach down and pull up the surviving members.

  Durvin, overbalanced from so fierce a tug when the giant vanished, fell onto his back and rolled a few times before popping back up to his feet with a bellow of, “Dagdamora!”

  “Thank you, Durvin,” Hal said, coming forward to greet him properly.

  The surly dwarf clasped hands with Hal, his grip more than strong enough to crush Hal’s bones but the older dwarf held his strength in check. “Ye saved some o’ me clan, boy. I ain’t to be forgettin’ that. Ye may have the frail body o’ a man,” he said, taking a step forward and reaching high to slap Hal soundly on the chest. “But ye got the heart o’ a dwarf. So’s I say.”

  Hal took the compliment in stride, though he noted with more than a little embarrassment that Durvin’s slap took off a point of HP.

  Elora came up alongside Hal, “You still need the area cleared?”

  Releasing Durvin’s grip, he turned to look southward. Even larger monsters loomed in the field, elephant-like creatures three stories tall and with six limbs pounded toward them.

  “Yeah.”

  The Manastorm was getting worse. It wasn’t breaking or moving. It sat right on top of them, gathering strength, and all the while it whittled down their defenses.

  Hal wasn’t sure how much longer any of them could keep fighting. And if the Manashields failed…. He
shook his head. There was no use in thinking about it.

  Durvin followed his gaze. “Ye daft boy if ye thinkin’ o’ goin in there!”

  “Do you see the Manastorm letting up?” Hal asked him.

  The bronze-bearded dwarf tugged on his still-too-short beard and grumbled but did not raise any further objections.

  That was all the confirmation Hal needed that this Manastorm was not acting normal.

  “We’re going with you,” Mira said, coming up to Hal. “Don’t think we’re letting you rush off on your own again.”

  Looking into the eyes of each of his friends, he saw the same determination there that he saw in Mira’s. He sighed, opened his mouth to argue, and then stopped. “If any of you can enter the Manastorm without hurting yourself, you are free to join me.”

  They moved to the southern edge of the Manashield, Durvin followed but when Hal cast a look his way he shook his head. “Don’t be lookin’ at me, boy. I ain’t a beardless child lookin’ to test his mettle against the likes o’ that.” He pointed at the raging storm outside the dome and the towering creatures it spawned. “Me duties to the safety o’ me clan, and o’ yers.”

  Hal couldn’t help but hear the slight timbre of trepidation in the normally stalwart dwarf’s voice. He didn’t blame them. Seeing a Manastorm up close was terrifying and this was the only one he’d ever witnessed.

  He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in a world where these things were a known natural disaster. No hurricane, tornado, tsunami, or earthquake could compare to a storm that could spawn hulking behemoths the size of small houses.

  Each of them stuck an arm out into the miasmatic air beyond the protective shielding of the Manashield. Motes of dark violet gathered like locusts on each of their hands. Hal felt the stinging bite like a thousand tiny needles but it was bearable.

  The faces that he looked into were those of four people refusing to accept the truth. There was no hiding that only Hal’s HP was staying the same. Each of theirs was dropping, though Hal noticed they were not falling at the same rate.

  Noth’s HP fell the slowest among them, then Ashera’s, followed by Mira and then Elora who took her hand back with a cry of pain and cradled it against her breast.

  The look she gave Hal with her blue-gray eyes was one filled with failure, anger, and worry. “I can still go with you,” she said through a grimace of pain.

  “If you let her go, then all of us can go,” Noth said, removing her hand.

  “No,” Ashera said. “It hardly affects him. I lost 5 HP just from my hand being out. I do not want to think about what would happen if my entire body was out there.

  “Can you make the shot, Elora?” Hal asked.

  “Easily, though it won’t stay clear for long,” she warned.

  “If we each aim our Ultimates that way – those of us that can do them at range at least – we should clear a decent group of them out,” Mira said, flexing her sore hand. “Those little buggers sting.”

  Hal tightened his grip on [Brilliance] and flexed the bone-limbs on his back. “Just give me all the time you can.”

  32

  “I’ll use my Ultimate on the way back,” Mira said.

  Hal looked at her skeptically. “What do you mean, ‘on the way back’?”

  The elf shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I’ll get you there faster than anybody else can, yourself included. I’ve got two scales left, I can use Dragonsoar twice more.” Mira winked at Hal. “One more flight, what do ya say boss?”

  Hal wanted to object. But she was right. It was a long way away and the longer he was out in the Manastorm the more danger it posed to him. While he felt confident the Caustic Air of the Manastorm wouldn’t hurt him, the blood-red lightning was another story.

  “Promise me you’ll get out as fast as you possibly can,” Hal said, grabbing her shoulder. “You won’t wait for me.”

  Mira tried to scoff and roll her eyes but Hal could see how insincere she was being. He shook her shoulder lightly. “I mean it, Mira. Don’t screw around,” Hal said somberly.

  “Fine, I won’t dawdle,” she answered. “I promise.”

  Elora fell to one knee, testing the draw of her bow. “Ready whenever you are, Hal.”

  Ashera took out three purple vials and handed them to Hal. “Take these Elixirs. We need you back in one piece, remember that.” Dismissing his [Chain of Binding], Hal took them from her. Ashera’s hand lingered on his, her eyes intensely locked with his. “Do not die.”

  “I don’t plan on it,” Hal said. He turned to the Wildsmaster. “Clear me a path, Elora.”

  “You might want to look away,” she said, drawing her bow back to full draw. Lines of golden light began to collect in the air around her, dancing motes of light that streamed into her. A brilliant golden arrow of light began to form and just as the air started to crackle with unstable energy, Elora loosed the arrow.

  It doubled in size, then tripled, and still, it grew. The arrow widened exponentially, digging a thirty-foot-wide trench in the crystalline ground and evaporating any creature too dumb, or too slow to get out of the way.

  Elora readies Ultimate: Empyreal Arrow.

  Elora uses Ultimate: Empyreal Arrow.

  The [Lurking Horror| Lv. 44] takes 3,331 points of damage.

  The [Windflayer Husk | Lv. 43] takes 3,404 points of damage.

  The [Crystal Gorefiend | Lv. 45] takes 3,215 points of damage.

  …

  Flooded by the countless prompts of wounded and dead monsters, Hal extended his free hand to Mira. The Dragoon crouched, and then surged through the air at a sharp angle right over the trench of broken and dead bodies out in the Manastorm.

  Mira’s Dragonsoar was unlike anything thing Hal ever experienced. She launched herself into the sky like a rocket. Rather than play by the typical rules of physics, she managed to hang in the air far longer than should be possible.

  Once the initial burst of speed wore off she coasted through the air in the direction she originally jumped. Not that she was forced to. Hal had been a partner to many inertia-defying shifts when the lanky elf suddenly switched direction mid-air.

  Not so this time, Mira threw out all finesse for raw speed and distance.

  Mira hissed in pain as the Caustic Air assaulted her. Motes of deep violet clung to each of them, stinging and biting. One of the two remaining azure scales next to Mira’s stats shivered and fell away leaving her with a final scale for the return trip.

  Hal felt a tug on his foot and his grip on Mira slipped as a crystalline chain snared his ankle. A powerful yank pulled him down to the trench below, less than halfway to the distortion so clearly visible ahead.

  A lanky creature pulled on the crystalline chain, hand over hand, its single blue crystal eye intent on Hal. So intent that it didn’t see Mira drop out of the sky and impale her halberd’s tip in the thing’s skull.

  Mira uses Falling Spear.

  Savage Critical!

  The [Crystalline Hunter | Lv. 38] takes 785 points of damage.

  Mira defeats the [Crystalline Hunter | Lv. 38].

  You gain 1,500 Experience Points.

  You absorb 20 Eldritch Essence.

  You earn 150 Sparks.

  Hal thumped to the ground with a painful jolt. The creature vanished in a spray of shards and before Hal could even get to his feet, Mira grabbed him by the collar of his jacket.

  “No-” Hal began, seeing what Mira was about to do.

  The Dragoon, using her last azure scale, used Dragonsoar one final time and shot back up into the air. She angled them at a steeper angle, the wind rushed past them stinging Hal’s eyes even as the violet motes of the Caustic Air clung to them.

  “You promised!” Hal bellowed up at Mira, feeling like a child the way Mira was holding him. They landed a moment later, right in front of the twisting distortion.

  Mira shrugged. “I said I wouldn’t dawdle.” She let go and pat Hal on the back. “I never said I would leave you out in the middle
of this hellish place to run back. I’ll be fine, Hal. Go put an end to this.”

  Without another word, Mira sprinted back to the north along the curved trench now filling with monsters getting to their feet. Creatures that not even an Ultimate was able to fell.

  Hal steeled himself and turned away from Mira. She still has her Ultimate, he reminded himself. Reaching out his hand to the twisting mirage, Hal felt the overwhelming rage begin to consume him once more.

  There was something within him that was at odds with the Manastorm. Whether it was the Beast, or something else, he couldn’t be sure. All he knew was the blinding rage that bubbled up in his chest as he pressed his hand to the thick gelatin that was the distortion.

  His hand dove in with little resistance and the Manastorm ceased its raging. The world was bathed in purifying white light.

  The Squallheart

  Your Exploration has risen to Level 5.

  +10% Faster drawing speed (+50%).

  +3% Discoverable range (+15%).

  When Hal’s vision returned, he stood on a crystalline platform thirty feet across, its edges rough and cubic with crystal growths. Below, he could just make out the long trench and the glow of the clustered Manashields surrounding the caravan’s wagons.

  Hal immediately stepped away from the edge, realizing how many hundreds of feet in the sky he must be. The last thing he wanted was to fall from such a height.

  All around the platform among the prismatic clouds were windows that looked upon other areas. Deserts, islands, swamps, snowswept mountains, dozens of different locations were shown through those windows. And in each, a Manastorm raged and played out its fury.

  The desert blew with a hot, searing wind that sparkled with embers. What few plants existed were shriveled and rather than turn to ash, the hot winds created new piles of sand.