by Skyler Grant
Extracting another scroll, Walt grunted after reading it and passed it on.
To whoever shall find this letter. If you read this the bearer has likely died, he was on a mission most urgent. If you should somehow be within Castle Sardonis then I urge you to lower the magical barrier and you shall find yourself well rewarded. If outside, carry this bag and its contents to the Wilthal Highlands and you shall be well rewarded.
Queen Alera Sardonis
Quest granted
A Queen Apart
You have found an agent of Queen Alera Sardonis on a mission which has failed. Carry out his task and deliver word of your success to gain a surprising ally.
Interesting. I hadn't really expected a quest prompt to appear, but it seemed that whoever sent this agent must still be alive.
Passing the letter on to Ashley, I said, “So that's why he was so well-equipped. If there was some magical barrier, how do you think he got past it?”
“Probably another spell,” Walt said. “Powerful enough that he could slip through a breach before it closed. The creator of these scrolls probably couldn’t open any sort of permanent breech, but a temporary one might have been within their power.”
“So I guess the next question is, do we do it? Do we try to complete his mission?”
Walt looked troubled for a moment. “I don’t like the thought of doing it, but we're likely trapped inside otherwise. These barriers aren’t usually one-way. Whatever made them seal this place up is probably long gone.”
Ashley said, “You want to be the King to make the bitch happy. You open the place up, you’ll likely have a fight on your hands to keep it. I figure whatever makes her life more complicated is a good thing, let’s do it.”
I tried to focus on that feeling of standing too close to a flame that I was coming to associate with Yvera, but if there was an answer to be found I wasn't hearing it from her. The air was silent and still. I guess this was my decision.
“We drop the barrier. We may not know what's out there waiting to get in, but we also don’t know what's inside that might want to eat us. I’d rather we have all the mobility possible and that means the ability to leave. Walt, what do we need to do?”
Walt gestured towards the stone pillar in the middle of the room. “I should be able to shut down this pillar from there. Then we’ll have to hit the other two elemental poles. Air and Fire will still have their defenses up.”
“Good thing we have his spells.”
“Uhh... no. They’re actually too high a level for us to cast,” Walt said apologetically. “We can maybe unleash the magic in them, but it will be pretty wild, unfocused.”
“So I’ll what, stab them with my sword?”
“Exactly” Ashley nodded. “I know it doesn’t make sense that stabbing a tornado or wind or something with a sword would work, but it will. It’s not ideal, but we’ll hurt it.”
“Wild magic and less-than-ideal swords and daggers. Do we have anything to actually tip the odds in our favor?”
Walt shook his head. “We have access to power sources for both Water and Earth magic now, but it doesn’t actually help us. It’s just not meant for channeling into the other chambers and if we tried, it would probably lean more towards ‘explode and kill us all’ than being helpful.”
“I don’t like being exploded,” I said. “We’ll make it a straight fight, then. Save the scrolls unless things are going so badly wild magic seems like a good idea. Do whatever you are going to do here to shut down the shield, we'll loot, and then let’s get going.”
Walt went to the center console while Ashley and I explored the tables and shelves. After fifteen minutes of searching we’d not found much. I discovered three vials of oil.
Oil of Earthen Defense
When applied to armor increases resistance to Earth magic and Slashing weapons by 50% for half an hour.
With the elementals in this room already dead that wouldn’t be of much use here, but I tucked it away for future use.
Walt meanwhile had made his adjustments with the center crystal and slowly the bursts of energy faded away to leave the chamber dull and lifeless.
Work done, we headed off into another of the connecting tube leading to a new chamber. Only Air and Fire remained, I had the feeling I’d soon be getting either shocked or burned.
Chapter 12
The smooth stone tube slowly took on a more metallic sheen and we began to see crackles of electricity dancing along the surface. The farther we progressed, the more intense they became. Regular static pops began to occur, tiny bolts leaping out from the walls, causing us to yelp and flail about.
When we finally came to the next elemental chamber we all took a moment to gape in awe. In the center of the room was a miniature tornado, a constant swirl of air with a giant, crackling bolt of lightning in the middle arching from floor to ceiling. At the top edge of a funnel was another crystal much like those we had seen in the other chambers.
Surrounding the storm funnel was more lab equipment such as we'd seen in the other chambers. Four Guardians patrolled the floor—smaller twisters that had some approximation of faces formed by sparkling bursts of electricity.
Air Guardian
Level 5: Type: Elemental HP: 50/50
Air Guardians are commonly found around sites of Air Magic and utilized by practitioners of that art. Weak guardians defensively, they pack a powerful offensive punch in the ranged lightning attacks they can deliver.
I said, “They don’t look like they can take much, but I’m worried by those lightning attacks.”
“You should be,” Ashley said. “One at a time would hurt, but you’d be okay. The problem is, if we hit one and the others see you, suddenly you're soaking up four attacks at once. You’re tanky, but you aren’t that tanky.”
“We could start by eliminating two,” Walt suggested. “If Ashley can get close with a backstab, and we burn our mana on another, that wipes out half before we’ve begun.”
“It still leaves two with the both of you useless,” Ashley said. “And both of us within melee range. That's a bit too close to a fair fight for my liking.”
I appreciated how Ashley never wanted a fair fight. It didn't sound like the most admirable trait, but I was coming to see its appeal when otherwise I was the one expected to take the hits.
“Got a better idea?” I asked.
Ashley worked her lower lip between her teeth and presented her plan.
It was pretty crazy, but we wound up going with it. A short time later we were all spread around the outer perimeter of the room.
I stepped forward and into view, and quickly burned through my mana as I focused upon double smite spells.
Smite
Smite
Twin pillars of flame wreathed one of the Guardians, the first taking a little over three quarters of its health and the second finishing it off. I had little time to appreciate the burst of XP and accompanying level as three blasts of lightning headed in my direction.
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
You have been hit by a lightning bolt from an Air Guardian
-15 HP
You have been hit by a lightning bolt from an Air Guardian
-17 HP
You have been hit by a lightning bolt from an Air Guardian
-14 HP
They picked me up off the ground and flung me against the wall, my armor doing little to shield me as I twitched madly. That single burst and I was down around a quarter of my health bar. I rolled and took cover behind one of the workstations, looking over the top.
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
More lightning blasts came flying in my direction. The workstation exploded into slivers and debris.
Ashley meanwhile had circled around one of the Guardians.
Backstab
All three were so focused on me that her backstab went unnoticed by the surviving two as, with a burst of light, one of the
vortexes stopped swirling. Another down! I charged out from behind the smoldering remains of the workstation to draw their attention again.
Spray of Lightning
Conduit
You have been hit by a spray of lightning from an Air Guardian
-10 HP
You have been hit by Conduit from an Air Guardian
You are now twice as vulnerable to Electricity.
The lightning spray was a dizzying cloud of sparks around me through which I could barely read the text. Crap, this was going to hurt. Wondering what exactly I had done to deserve the fate of being a tank, which so far seemed to involve me largely getting beaten up or electrocuted, I limped towards the nearest cover.
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
You have been hit by a lightning bolt from an Air Guardian
-32 HP
You have been hit by a lightning bolt from an Air Guardian
-30 HP
Two blasts struck me, and I felt myself almost liquefy. I was still alive, somehow, but with only a fraction of my health bar remaining. I couldn’t afford another hit. I went to use my health potion from the infirmary and realized that I'd given it to Ashley after the fight with the Warden.
Backstab
Another guardian exploded into a puff of sparks after Ashley’s well-placed blow. One left—one left and I had nothing to give.
Flaming Dart
Walt chanted his spell and threw a magical dart at the remaining Guardian, but with surprising speed the guardian swiveled and threw a lightning bolt right back.
Lightning Bolt
It was our wizard’s turn to go flying and he crumpled to the floor, his health bar in only slightly better shape than mine.
I tried to raise myself to my feet for some sort of defiant last stand, but my muscles just wouldn’t work. All I could do was jerk in spasms while sparks continued to leap off my armor.
Lightning Bolt
That one was thrown at Ashley as she charged. She managed to dodge it, her body twisting with an incredible feat of fitness as she drove her daggers into the body of the remaining Guardian.
Shield of Sparks
Now that Ashley was in melee range no more lightning bolts were incoming, but she was taking damage, sparks of electricity leaping towards her daggers as she landed blow after blow.
It wasn't enough to take her down and soon the last elemental sparked its last.
With the combat done I abruptly got a notification that I had gained a level and instantly went from feeling very nearly dead to being in the peak of health as all my pools refreshed. What a rush. I pulled up notifications.
Congratulations!
You have reached level 4
You have one stat point to assign. As a Paladin of Yvera you have gained a further 15% skill to Long Blades. As Yvera is a Goddess of Fire you have also gained an innate 50% resistance to fire. You have further gained the skill...
Meditation: When damaged in body or mind a meditative state can help you to more quickly recovery from trauma and to restore your faculties.
You have further gained the following spells and abilities...
Bless: You now have the ability to bless yourself and others. Out of combat these effects can vary depending on the nature and whim of your deity. In combat a blessing results in more accurate attacks and higher resistances.
I felt rather pleased by all of that, but a bit sad to not get more long blades this level, and that resistance to fire seemed pretty impressive. It also seemed rather well-timed given that Fire was the next chamber we were likely to face. Meditation would be of a big help when I got beaten half to death, which seemed to be my role in life, and Bless wouldn't just help me in a fight, but the others as well.
When I came back from checking my sheet Ashley was moving a small pile of loot into her bags, while a still wobbly-looking Walt was making arcane gestures at the central air pillar. The crackle of lightning within it was slowly starting to die. Neither of them had leveled up yet, my class quest must have given me a boost over them.
With a snap in the air the lightning vanished and apart from the fireflies of Walt’s light spell the large chamber went dark.
I was starting to regret not taking a torch from the temple, although with a shield to manage as well I’d hardly have been properly defended. Of course, the shield had done me little good against lightning bolts, or the rats. Stupid shields.
We made our way through the tube leading towards the last chamber. Halfway through sparking electricity and rivulets of living fire combined to hypnotic effect, then the farther we progressed the more the sparks faded and the flames took over.
The open expanse of the last chamber had a swirling inferno of fire in the center, licks of flame expanding into the crystal lurking in the ceiling. The heat even from the edges of the chamber was daunting, and patrolling the area were four flaming figures that resembled people set ablaze. I focused on them to get an idea what we’d be facing.
Fire Guardians
Level 5: Type: Elemental HP: 75/75
Fire Guardians are commonly found around sites of Fire Magic and utilized by practitioners of that art. Average in both strength and durability their primary damage occurs over time after they have set a target ablaze.
“So, you two are our strategists. We have any plan for dealing with something like these?” I asked the other two.
Walt said, troubled, “My Magic Dart and your Smite Spell are going to be nearly useless here. They're both fire-based and these are fire foes. We might actually wind up healing the Guardians, if we tried to use them.”
“I won’t be able to finish these ones off with a single backstab,” Ashley said. “Though I can take a big hit out of one. You drawing their attention like we did with the air elementals won’t really work.”
“I did get fifty percent fire resistance with the last level. That has to help,” I said.
“Really? Bitch face is a fire Goddess? There goes my hoping she’d die in one,” Ashley muttered. “That will help, but four of them at once is still going to hurt.”
“We have the scrolls,” Walt said. “I know you were against using wild magic and wasting them, but it may be our best option. Especially with them being on fire. If they ignite the scrolls we should see something happen.”
I considered it. I hated to waste the resource, but we were shy on options. It also seemed rather foolish to just stockpile things in our bags for a ‘one day’ that might never come.
That was the beginning of the plan and after a discussion to finalize the details we were ready to execute. I again initiated things, stepping into view and banging my sword against my shield to get their attention before charging in. The Fire Guardians all turned and blazed fiery paths across the room, rushing in my direction.
Stream of Fire
Stream of Fire
Stream of Fire
Stream of Fire
When they surrounded me my entire world became flames. I couldn’t even see my health loss from the intense brightness. If it hadn't been for my resistance I’d have died quickly—instead I was dying slowly, but I was just where I wanted to be. I pulled the magic scrolls from my bag, flung them into the air and dropped to the ground. There was a loud woomph as the magic was unbound.
Earthen Tsunami
High level Earth and Water magic were unleashed and there was a truly alarming amount of mud. The ground was slick, the air filled with pelting bits of debris. The world was slippery and damp and thoroughly filthy.
It had the benefit of putting out the flames engulfing me and the steady dropping of my health ceased. I tried to push myself back to my feet, but slipped on the mud and crashed back, the greasy stones providing little purchase.
Unfortunately all four of the Guardians survived the explosive burst of magic, although it looked like they all took pretty solid damage.
Backstab
After surviving the mud typhoon it proved not so easy to endure Ashley’s da
ggers and her backstab resulted in a fiery form dispersing into a blaze. She kind of had only one trick, but it was a really good one.
I again tried to find my feet and wound up sprawling on the ground in an all-new, awkward position. Embarrassing.
Fireball
A fireball soared towards me and exploded into a burst of flames, tickling at my health bar. The mud solidified beneath me with the heat and I was at last able to stand again—in time to see two elementals charging towards me. I blocked the gout of flame from one with my shield, while swinging with my sword at another.