by Tom Hansen
It was triage time.
He first hit Jaxyl with a heal, followed by a Tendrils on Firemane. Two more heals on Xanovi’s pet, then proceeded around the room hitting all six of them with Mending Force.
The heal on Firemane was a critical heal, maxing out the tank’s health.
Finally, the shardsmoke effect dropped from everyone.
“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t control myself!” Firemane shouted, pain across his face.
“Why didn’t you stop me?” Jaxyl cried out.
“Quit talking and regroup!” Scarhoof snapped. “Ranged, get those guards down. Jaxyl, help them with your teleport ability. Firemane, get Mu’jtag in the center of the room so we can target him once the guards are down!”
Scarhoof chugged a mana potion. Two left and the boss’s health was still at 75%.
He needed to do better. They all needed to do better.
Jaxyl teleported to the top of the wall in a puff of smoke. He ran around the outside helping burn down the archers up top.
Xanovi’s cat bounded up the wall in two hops, following Jaxyl. “Huh, I guess I should have targeted them before. Didn’t realize she could get up there so easily.” Xanovi shrugged while he continued shooting arrow after arrow.
“How are you doing, Hanrahan?” The Dwarf hadn’t said much the whole trip. Maybe she was just a quiet person but even shy people said something every once in a while.
“No more potions.”
“Mana or health?”
The Dwarf shrugged. “I didn’t think you would heal me through that last group of guards before we got here.”
He tried to maintain a blank expression, and held his jaw shut, afraid that if he opened it, his words would not be pleasant. Now wasn’t the time or place. It was his fault for touching the shard, thus making it harder for him to heal. He had done his best for everyone in the group. The insinuation that he wasn’t doing all he could hurt. It made him angry. They were on the same team. Of course, he would heal her. He had been this entire time.
He still had so much to learn. His entire world had been turned upside down in the last few days. Twenty years as a guard, day in, day out. Almost nothing had changed, then suddenly the world was a different place.
He just hoped others wouldn’t have to die again, before he figured out his role to play in this brave new world.
Still, he would have healed her, and now they were out of those potions for this fight.
Scarhoof pushed the matter from his mind and focused on the boss battle. “Next time he runs for the wall, everyone scatter. Dodge out of the way when he throws that shard at you. At most, he will only hit one. I will root whoever gets hit so they can’t hurt anyone.”
“Unless it’s me.” Xanovi chuckled.
“If one of the ranged gets it, we’ll all run behind the shard.” Firemane stated.
“I meant I have an escape ability, just warning you. Jaxyl has one too, same with Hanrahan.” He looked around. “Actually, Firemane you have one too?”
They were all back on the boss again, his health steadily dropping.
Firemane nodded.
That’s when the boss screamed, and swung his axe around in an arc, forcing everyone back. Jaxyl didn’t move in time, and the axe hit took off 85% of his health in one hit. He fell backwards, bleeding profusely from the slash across his thighs.
Scarhoof quickly tossed three Mending Forces at him. The extra boost from the shard buff coming in handy, but Jaxyl was now bleeding, losing 5% of his health every second.
“I’m sorry.” Jaxyl said.
Scarhoof nodded. “Chug your potion when you need to. I’m going to try to regen. No one else get hit by that axe.”
“Seventy-five percent, now fifty; he’s going to do this one more time.” Xanovi yelled as he strafed away from Hanrahan.
“Scramble!” Firemane yelled.
This time, the boss broke off two shards, dunked them both in the water, and threw them.
Almost like it was prophesied, the first one hit Xanovi square in the face, the other hit Firemane again.
“Shit! There are two this time!” Jaxyl yelled.
Scarhoof made a split-second decision, hitting Firemane with his Tendrils, and ran around the shard with the rest of them.
Except they were missing one. Hanrahan didn’t come. Her health dropped incredibly fast.
Scarhoof ran around the shard to get line of sight on their mage.
40%.
30%.
Both Xanovi and his beast were wailing on Hanrahan, and she simply stood there, a morose expression on her face.
He started healing her.
20%
15%
Hurry!
5%.
The heal hit.
25%.
Scarhoof followed up with another Mending Force. He worried he wasn’t going to make it. Sweat dripped off his brow into his eyes.
15%.
5%
“Heal?” Hanrahan asked, her lip quavering.
Target: Hanrahan Onyxjaw is dead. Healing spells will not work on this target. Use a Resurrection spell in the next three minutes or she will be permanently dead.
Then the guards showed up again.
“Dammit!” Scarhoof punched the shard to the side of him in anger. It was like she knew he would let her down, despite his intentions. The massive structure wavered but held. His hand began to bleed.
One of their party was dead. Sorrow slammed into him, the sheer depravity of the situation making him teeter. The whole world looked a little bit darker and he could almost swear he saw Hanrahan’s shadowy spirit fade into the Aether.
He felt weak and nauseous. I couldn’t keep her alive, I can’t keep anyone alive.
Xanovi turned his attention to Scarhoof, 1, 2, 3 hits, 10% health off with each hit. An archer’s arrow took off another 20%.
His resolved wavered. What was the point? He’d lost everyone he cared about, everyone he knew. Wherever he went, shadow followed, devouring those souls closest to him.
He could just give up. All he needed was five more arrows and it would end it all.
It didn’t even hurt anyway. The pain from the arrows was nothing compared to the cavern of sorrow in his heart. Hanrahan, I’m so sorry I failed you. He stood at the edge of insanity. All he had to do was fall.
The ground shook as the boss lumbered toward him. “This is going to be so sweet. One down, four more to go!”
The feral party members released from the white cloud just as another arrow hit Scarhoof in the leg.
“Heal, dammit!” Firemane punched him hard in the shoulder. The impact threw him backwards into the wall. He tripped and fell on his ass into the trough, throwing water everywhere. The water sprayed all over him, bathing his snout and getting into his mouth. It was salty.
Seawater.
Everyone but him locked onto targets.
Here it was again. Similar situation.
Xanovi grabbed him by the horns and yanked him a standing position. “Scarhoof, get your head in the game, man!”
The act should have been humiliating, but he deserved the disgrace, the distain of his peers.
Xanovi stood in front of him, his eyes enraged. “Get off your ass and heal, goddammit!”
Xanovi reared back and punched him in the face. Agony lanced through Scarhoof’s jaw, jolting him to pay better attention. The pain fired his nerves, making him twitch, making him feel.
He finally saw colors again. The world started to right itself and the frantic screams of his party hit his ears once again.
It was enough to wake him up. The stupor that had wracked him flushed away, like water. He glanced down at the troughs while he grabbed the healing potion from his belt and chugged it.
Like water…
“Firemane! Destroy the troughs so he can’t use their water next time!”
He healed himself, he healed Xanovi, he healed the entire group while they burned down the archers. He would have to mourn Hanrahan�
�s death after they were all safe. Now was the time for the living.
Firemane shot him a look of incredulity.
“We’re not going to survive another attack like that.” Scarhoof shouted as he dropped another Mending Force. He was able to keep the mana regeneration at bay just long enough to keep Firemane alive, but the archers combined with the inescapable white shardsmoke clouds would kill them next time for sure, and the boss was steadily going down.
“The boss is easy, it’s the adds and the shit on the ground that’s killing us.” Xanovi shouted. “I’ll do it.”
Both remaining dps helped. Jaxyl went clockwise while Xavovi went the opposite way. Scarhoof grabbed the leg of the wooden water trough and ripped it off, catching whiff of the stagnant ocean water, the smell of home. The trough toppled over, spilling its contents all over the earth, and soaked into the ground.
Soon, the entire amphitheater of death was a mud-covered mess. Scarhoof hoped it would be enough.
“When the archers arrive, try to burn them down as fast as you can. We might be able to survive this.”
“Enough! I’ve had it with your insolence. Guards! Attack these intruders!” Mu'jtag the Desecrator screamed while lashing out with his weapon. None of the DPS moved and took the full damage as the boss’s weapon cut into their flesh.
“Dammit!” Scarhoof yelled as he wound up a healing spell. He wasn’t really mad at them for not moving. He was disappointed in himself for waiting, for falling into the trap of worry, of despair. He could have doomed them all to die. He had to be better than that. He needed to be strong for his party, for his race. They depended on him and he couldn’t afford to fall prey to hopelessness.
There was always hope, even in the darkest of situations. Even when it seemed that the world is an endless sea of shadow, there was always light, for shadow could not exist without the light.
He needed to be that light. He could waver, but he couldn’t go out.
“You insolent fools! You think you can trick me?” Mu'jtag had nowhere to dunk the three shard chunks in his talons, and simply threw them on the ground where they shattered and mushed into the mud, releasing a tiny amount of smoke.
Scarhoof shuddered. How close they had come to certain death yet again. They wouldn’t have survived that final time.
The Nagos archers arrived. They all took potshots at Scarhoof until the rest of the crew engaged. Scarhoof quaffed his rejuvenation drought, which shot his health, mana, and stamina to their max and kept them there for 30 full seconds.
He didn’t waste the regeneration either. He cast heal after heal on everyone in the party, Tendrils on one of the three remaining archers, then spent his remaining god-like regeneration on Spirit Strike, which tore through the archers faster than he expected.
Xanovi must have noticed. “I think you out DPS’d me there.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t had the excess mana till now.”
With the remaining archers taken care of, it was a small matter to burn down the boss.
“Pop ‘em if you got ‘em!” Xanovi shouted.
Scarhoof knew what he meant, but he was still bewildered by the way Xanovi spoke. It was eerily familiar, though. Scarhoof pondered, not for the first time, how he seemed to understand Xanovi’s odd sayings despite not knowing anyone else who spoke that way.
Things were improving well for their party. Mu’jtag’s health steadily declined.
Then, sharp crack in the air echoed through the quarry, a deep rending tear in time and space. Above them, a large blue portal opened on the upper edge of the quarry, where the archers normally appeared.
Scarhoof looked up in anticipation, hoping it was Skysong and reinforcements, but the blue portal wasn’t the right color.
Something large and snake-like came through, followed by a deep shout, the voice instantly recognizable.
“Mu’jtag! I have come to help you!”
Scarhoof glared at the Nagos intruder. He was the one from the Misty Cave, the same one that had killed his friend, and almost killed Xanovi. He was the same one that had burned down the barn and set things in motion for Scarhoof to be where he was today.
Grath’gar the Impetuous had found him yet again. Xanovi swore. “Fuck me, not him again.”
“Grath’gar!” Scarhoof yelled. Red tinged his vision as he stared at the towering Nagos. “See what we do to traitorous worms like yourself? Come down into the pit and we will bury you beside your king.”
Mu’jtag, still dodging the occasional swipe from Firemane looked up. “Grath’gar, my Battle Commander. I’ll hold them off, get the shards out of here.”
“But Mu’jtag!”
Jaxyl took the distraction as an opportunity and appeared on the boss’s protruding shoulder, stabbing him in the neck before reappearing beside Firemane. Mu’jtag spat, blood from his wounds stained the shard in front of them, marring the milky white surface. “I’m done here, but I will keep them busy, so you can get the shards to the army and start the first phase of assault.”
Grath’gar hesitated. “Reinforcements are right behind me.”
Scarhoof felt a shift in the magic from somewhere to the right, the same rending crack in the fabric of space. This one felt more familiar. While he couldn’t see it, he felt the familiar tug of Spirit magic. His army had arrived.
“Let them come. Our army is here too.” Scarhoof yelled. “Or will you run away again, like the coward you are?” Grath’gar turned, the desire to fight clear on his face.
“Go now!” Mu’jtag screamed, his health dangerously low. He staggered, slithering over himself as he tried to dodge. They had him.
“Finish him off then we’ll hunt down the other bastard!” Xanovi sneered.
Mu’jtag screamed, his voice labored, wheezy. “If you stay, our mission will not complete. Go now. Grath’gar. Take the shard and destroy the Tau’raj. Let my death be avenged!”
Mu’jtag tossed his shield at the portal, where a stricken Grath’gar caught it with one hand. Grath’gar glared at Scarhoof for a long moment before disappearing into his portal, which closed with a resounding crack.
Jaxyl landed the final blow with a flourished spinning final strike.
Mu’jtag the Desecrator wavered for a bit, his eyes going in and out of focus. He dropped his weapon, which fell to the muddy ground with a anti-climactic squish.
He stumbled sideways, then met Scarhoof’s gaze.
Time seemed to slow as a sinister smile spread across his face. His forked tongue darted out momentarily, licking his lips.
The blue glow of his eyes had faded to a sinister black that seemed to suck the light into them.
A hollow voice came from the dying Nagos. “I know who you are and why you are here. Your plans will fail. Darkness will rise, and I will flood the world, eradicating your race from existence.”
His voice was different, darker.
What was he talking about? The voice didn’t sound like Mu’jtag. It didn’t sound like anyone he knew. His heart raced, and terror filled his chest as he continued to stare at the dying boss. Something about that voice rang true to him. He had felt that presence before, like a distant memory as a Tau’ri. It had stolen something from him.
Then Mu’jtag the Desecrator fell to the side, his head squishing into the mud, dead. The blue glow flashing once more before fading to lifelessness.
Chapter 32
They all stood in silence for a moment, no one daring to move.
“Did you all hear that?” Jaxyl finally asked.
The rest of them nodded slowly, no one taking their eyes off the dead Nagos.
“Hear it? I felt it.” Xanovi stammered.
A distant crack in the magic snapped all of their attention once more. “The yellow shard!” Scarhoof said. “We need to—”
Then the magic snapped shut. The shard was gone. Scarhoof could sense the dense magic disappear from the immediate area.
A lot of power just vanished.
“Nevermind. It is gone. The whi
te one too. The Nagos now have them,” he told the rest of the group.
Behind them, familiar voices echoed down the halls. Their reinforcements had arrived. No one moved while half the Tau’raj army piled up to the gates, sawing through them, then filing in through one of the two entrances.
Chieftain Bloodhorn led the pack from one entrance while Commander Skysong led her troops from the other. In the distance, the sounds of battle could be heard, distant, yet noticeable.
“Soldiers.” Chieftain stopped and surveyed the scene. “We got here just in time. The Nagos army arrived at the entrance to the quarry just as we did. We were able to secure the main gate and have soldiers manning the turrets, keeping them at bay.”
Firemane was the first to move, pointing at the massive dead Nagos carcass in the room. “We got him, Sir, but they killed Hanrahan.”
Scarhoof suddenly realized they were talking. The encounter with Grath’gar had distracted him from the pain of their Dwarven companion.
Her resurrection timer had expired sometime while the portals were being opened. It was too late again. Another dead, another gone that he couldn’t save.
Xanovi slapped him on the back. “Don’t beat yourself up too much about it, friend. She didn’t move when the rest of us did. Besides, I was the one that killed her, not you.”
Scarhoof couldn’t tear his eyes from her fallen form. His voice was distant, questioning. “How do you live with yourself?” He wasn’t accusing, he genuinely needed to know.
Behind him, Scarhoof felt Xanovi shrug. “It’s just a ga—”
“Scarhoof!” A familiar voice interrupted whatever Xanovi was going to say.
Scarhoof turned to see Haliin Earthwhisper running up to him. “Scarhoof, did you notice the size of this shard?”
Scarhoof stood there for a moment, looking incredulously at Haliin’s bright eyes and curious face. In his mind everything came crashing down. All the pain, all the death, all the despair bore down on him. He punched the shard researcher in the stomach, sending him crumbling to the ground.
Quest Complete! Quarry Infestation:
You have defeated Mu’jtag the Desecrator, the leader of the Nagos army! Congratulations! Though this means that Grath’gar the Impetuous is now the new leader of the invasion force. (Gained 300 XP!)