by Trey Myr
"Thank you for your help, and for waiting for us," Ed bowed back to the jinn. "We'll be back soon."
The four bid farewell to the jinn, and left the oasis in the direction he sent them. The heat of the desert was as oppressive as it was before their rest stop, and Ed was concerned about wearing his new coat, but soon discovered that the garment was light enough to be almost unnoticed.
The walk to the ruined temple was uneventful, and soon a large, irregularly shaped but clearly artificial plateau appeared in the distance. Stairs rose from the desert's sand to the top of the plateau, where a ruined gate in a stone wall gave access to the temple courtyard. The broken tip of a tall obelisk could still be seen on the furthest side of the clearing, marking the main altar.
As the party approached the temple, hyena-kin archers started shooting at them from the top of the wall. Ingrid summoned a large tower shield and started to run towards the stairs leading up to the gate, accompanied by the phantasmal dwarf and cat-kin. As the archers started to focus their fire on the charging trio, the clockwork automaton methodically aimed its longer bow, and slowly picked off the defenders.
Ingrid had to slow down when she reached the stairs, and the sharper angle of fire meant she could only block the arrows coming from her left, but her armor proved enough to protect her from the sporadic fire. The phantasmal cat-kin fared far worse, and fell to the archers' fire halfway up the stairs.
By the time Ingrid and the Stonehammer reached the top of the stairs, the hyena-kin dropped their bows and approached them wielding short, sickle-like khopeshes.
With Ingrid occupying the defenders, the rest of the party could approach safely, and they ran up the stairs to find Ingrid holding a smaller, more conventional shield and a short spear facing six hyena-kin warriors, and the phantasmal dwarf facing three more.
Ed and Lucy, reinforced by the phantasmal fox-kin and clockwork archer, prepared to aid their companions when a chanting voice sounded from further into the temple, and darkness covered the raised plateau.
The hyena-kin seemed unaffected by the sudden darkness, and Ingrid cried out when several hard blows she couldn't see managed to slip past her shield and hit her. The heavy khopeshes couldn't cut her through her armor, but the blades were covered by a chill that was colder than ice, and each hit sapped her strength even through the steal and padding.
After the first few attacks, she increased the size of her shield and hunkered behind it, and shouted to her allies "They're doing darkness damage!"
The phantasmal cat-kin was far less resilient than Ingrid, and the cover of darkness deprived it of the advantage of its high agility, and two of the hyena-kin fell on it and killed it within seconds. Having almost three times the hit points and a suit of plate armor, the dwarf fared a little better than the cat-kin, but without a shield it started to accumulate damage from the darkness enchantment on the monsters' blades, and with the naiad concentrating all of its healing on Ingrid, it too fell to the concentrated attack.
Katya started to sing, and the attacking hyena-kin swayed around dazed, giving her allies time to regroup, but a few seconds later the darkness in front of her solidified into solid tendrils, and the Drab had to stop her singing and concentrate on evading the attacking tentacles.
Fortunately for the party, Katya's distraction gave enough time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness, and Lucy's active Fire Shield gave out enough light for them to see at least the silhouettes of their attackers.
Unable to see well enough to aim his crossbow, Ed racked his brain for anything he could contribute to the battle. Most types of magical darkness were impervious to mundane sources of light, but on the off chance that it would work, he pulled out a flashlight from his pack and turned it on. As he expected, turning on the flashlight proved useless, and Ed stuck it back into his pack.
Looking at his status for anything that might help, Ed noticed that the Classshard of his phantasmal fox-kin reached level five sometime during their delve, and quickly brought up the information about its race.
Fox-kin
Tier 0
Level 5
Closed
A variety of beastkin known for their agility and intelligence, fox-kin appear as humans with a bushy tail and fox ears.
+3 Agility
+2 Intelligence
Rank up options
Grey fox-kin (tier 1)
Marble fox-kin (tier 1)
Arctic fox-kin (tier 1)
Silver fox-kin (tier 1)
Red fox-kin (tier 1)
Kitsune (tier 1)
He took a few seconds to note that all four of the basic elemental variants were unlocked and to realize that it must be because of the Chromatic Storm Shard, before he quickly selected the last option on the list, and the fox-kin was briefly covered in a red-golden light.
When the light died out, the only visible changes in the newly ranked-up kitsune were the appearance of a second bushy tale and a slightly brighter hue to its fur, but Ed wasted no time in ordering his phantasm to use its newly acquired ability, and one after the other, the hyena-kin facing the party were covered by bright golden flames. The flames weren't doing any damage to the monsters, but provided a very convenient target for the rest of the party.
Kitsune
Tier 1
Level 1
0/5000
Highly intelligent fox spirits with the ability to assume humanoid form, the kitsune are masters of enchantment and illusion.
Foxfire: Cover a target creature or item with illusory fire. The fire is visible even inside the cover of darkness spells. Creatures under the effects of foxfire gain 50% resistance to darkness magic.
Duration: 10 minutes
Cost: 5 mana/target
As soon as the first target was visible, the phantasmal archer loosed a precisely aimed arrow, piercing its knee and causing it to buckle, leaving the monster open for Ingrid to stab its torso with her spear, and Lucy followed up with a Firebolt that finished the wounded fighter.
Ed resummoned his dwarf and sent it to take some of the heat off of Ingrid and then drank a mana potion before summoning the cat-kin and sending it to assist. With all of his summons back on the field, he raised his crossbow again and joined Lucy and the clockwork archer in shooting at the hyena-kin.
More chanting sounded from deeper in the temple and a second cluster of darkness tendrils started to solidify in front of the kitsune, but Ed was expecting it and the kitsune covered itself with more foxfire, protecting it from the darkness magic. Katya, who was unable to do anything other than evade the tendrils attacking her, was the next target for the foxfire, and her thrown daggers joined the ranged attacks on the monsters.
Seeing that his darkness spell wasn't working any more, the hidden spellcaster released it, and the returning sunlight blinded the delvers and hyena-kin alike, giving it a chance to chant a new spell.
By the time Ed could see again, a swarm of dozens of snakes was crawling towards them. "Lucy, cast your storm on the right side, and I'll have the kitsune take the left!"
Most of the snakes were caught by the twin Chromatic Storms, but ten of them were too close to the party and Ingrid found herself facing four large boa constrictors in addition to the five hyena-kin that she was still fighting.
Four more constrictors were crawling towards the phantasmal dwarf and cat-kin, and two asps tried to slither past them and attack the more vulnerable party members behind. More and more snakes slithered from deeper inside the temple grounds, forcing Lucy and the kitsune to keep the Chromatic Storms up.
Ingrid shouted to activate her provoke skill, causing the two hyena-kin attacking the phantasmal dwarf to leave it and gang up on her, but the snakes seemed completely unaffected, and she had to retreat before the first constrictor could coil around her.
Katya's song, however, had a far greater effect on the snakes, and all ten stopped their attack and started swaying back and forth. Seeing that the snakes were effectively stunned, Ed ordered his cat-kin
to finish them off, while the dwarf, clockwork archer and he attacked the hyena-kin.
Two more of the hyena-kin and all of the snakes were dead before the still unseen spellcaster changed tactics again, and the desert sand started to flow upward, coalescing into two large, vaguely humanoid forms.
"Sand elementals!" Ingrid shouted he saw the new enemies forming. "I'm not going to be doing much damage against those!"
"Lucy, switch to Icebolts while I dismiss and resummon the kitsune to refresh its mana!" Ed ordered, "Ingrid, can you hold against the remaining hyenas?"
"I can hold, as long as the elementals don't get to us, but we need to do something about that caster, or you guys'll run out of mana potions soon!"
"Katya, try to flank them and get at that caster before it throws something else at us!"
"Is piece of cake," the Drab said before vanishing from everyone's sight, leaving nothing except for the outline of foxfire, which vanished a second later when Ed dismissed his kitsune.
A trio of Icebolts smashed into the one of the elementals, the ice damage freezing large spots on the earth/fire hybrid. The clockwork archer, waiting for just that opportunity, loosed an arrow at the suddenly brittle patches on the normally physically impervious elemental, shattering the frozen patch and leaving a deep gouge in the construct's body.
The seven hyena-kin attacking Ingrid weren't having any luck in getting past her defense, and while she wasn't getting any chances to strike back at them, the phantasmal cat-kin and dwarf were free to attack them from behind, and by the time the elementals got close enough to attack them, two more of the hyenas were down.
Ed summoned the kitsune again, and a Chromatic Storm covered the wounded sand elemental, but its companion got close enough to pulverize the dwarf with one of its massive fists.
"Ingrid, fall back!" Ed shouted before drinking another mana potion and summoning the dwarf. "I'll have the dwarf hold the line long enough for you to get out. Lucy, as soon as she's out of the AoE, storm on the hyenas!"
He sent the dwarf to charge at the clustered hyena-kin, giving Ingrid time to disentangle herself and run away. The cat-kin was making quick hit and run attacks against the elemental, staying just out of its reach and holding its attention, and as soon as Ingrid was far enough away Lucy's Chromatic Storm covered the remaining hyena-kin, elemental, dwarf and cat-kin.
"I'm out of potions," Ed told his party mates while the twin storms ate away at the elementals' hit points. "I can do one more summon, but that's it."
"I've got one more," Lucy's voice was strained from concentrating on the storm spell. "We need to finish this fast."
"I found caster," Katya's voice reached them. "Is big gnoll dressed like priest. I think he is drawing mana from altar."
"I'll go help Katya with the boss," Ingrid said and took off towards the interior of the temple, but before she got more than a few steps away, a loud yelp came from Katya's direction, and the two sand elementals fell apart, returning to being simple piles of sand.
"Foul intruders!" The gnoll's angry voice yelled. "I will show you the true power of Apep!"
The party ran towards the voice, and reached Katya, who was retreating from a gnoll wearing black linen robes, a headdress in the shape of a rising cobra on its hyena-like head. Black flames formed a circle around the priest, who raised a large staff above his head in both hands and broke it in half. The flames rose higher and the circle narrowed, until they engulfed the priest.
The fires rose higher and higher, reaching a height of ten meters, and then suddenly vanished, leaving behind a huge cobra.
The priest turned snake hissed, and snapped forward towards Katya, who had barely enough time to jump sideways and avoid the attack. Bolts of fire and acid struck the snake before it had a chance to recover from its attack, and it hissed again in anger and struck at Lucy with its tail, crushing her barrier spell but doing little damage. Unfortunately for the priest, the move left him exposed to attack, and Ingrid's halberd slashed a deep gash in its scales. The snake turned towards her and opened its mouth to attack, receiving an arrow in the back of its throat for its efforts.
Ed resummoned his cat-kin, and the agile phantasm used its claws to climb on the snake's back, while Katya threw dagger after dagger at its face. Disoriented by the attacks and out of balance because of the climbing cat-kin, the snake tried to bite Ingrid, but missed her and received another deep wound in its cheek. The archer fired another arrow, this one hitting the snake's left eye, and the beast screeched in anger and pain. A screech that only intensified when the cat-kin reached its head and stabbed its dagger into the other eye.
Blinded and wounded, the snake tried to slither away from its tormentors, but another barrage of acid and fire bolts hit it from behind and put it out of its misery.
The dead snake shriveled away, and within seconds the dead body of the gnoll priest was left on the ground, surrounded by a pile of sand, and the delvers collapsed around it, exhausted.
It took a few minutes before anyone had the energy to move, and Katya approached the dead gnoll to search its body.
The robes and headdress of the dead priest were both enchanted, but both carried the stigma of belonging to a priest of a dark god.
Black Priest Robes
These robes are cut in the style of the ancient Egyptian, but their color indicates that they belonged to a priest of the Great Serpent Apep.
+2 Wisdom
Serpent Headdress
This headdress belonged to a high ranking priest of Apep.
+50% to the effect of all darkness spells
The priest's staff had also likely been enchanted, but the broken halves have lost whatever magic they once had.
The best find, however, was the Shard that allowed the priest to constantly replenish its mana by calling upon its dark god.
Mana Syphon
Tier 1
Level 0
Essence 0/1000
Passive skill
Draws mana from the environment. The rate of the mana draw depends on the surrounding mana levels.
◆◆◆
Hassan's hyena-kin servants were taking down the tents when the tired party stumbled into the oasis. "Welcome back, my friends!" The jinn booming voice greeted them. "I take it you’ve been successful on your mission?"
"We have, and we're now ready to buy the Questshard," Ed answered.
"Marvelous! I've kept it out of the packs in case you made it back in time."
"How do we do this, precisely? I didn't think there was any way to remove Shards once they were sliced."
"It is certainly not an easy task, and would be beyond the ability of all but the most powerful of beings, but when the great king Sulayman Sealed the powers of the jinn to protect mankind, he gave us the ability to draw on the collective power of all jinn to fulfill wishes. You will wish to give me your naiad, and I will use my power to grant that wish, and in exchange I will give you the Luck of Sindbad."
"So I just have to say that I want to give you my naiad?"
"Indeed, but you need to say the words 'I wish to give you my naiad'. The Seal prevents any jinn from fulfilling wishes unless they are properly worded."
"I see. In that case, Hassan, I wish to give you my naiad!"
Hassan clapped his hands loudly. "Your wish is granted!" The jinn's voiced boomed even louder than usual, echoing strangely as if hundreds of voices were speaking together. Ed felt a nauseating clench in his stomach as part of his aura was wrenched away from him as the phantasmal naiad glowed with an orange light and disappeared, and a large blue Shard appeared in Hassan's hands.
"It is done," the jinn announced, and the Shard vanished from his hands, only to be replaced by the seven sided Luck of Sindbad Shard, which the jinn handed to Ed with a bow. "It is a pleasure doing business with you, delvers. I hope that we meet again in the future."
"The pleasure is ours," Ed took the Shard and bowed back. "Good luck on your travels."
The rest of the party bid t
he jinn farewell, and the merchant mounted one of his camels and led the caravan out of the oasis.
"I do not think we should use Luck until we are out of Labyrinth," Katya said after the jinn was gone. "We do not want to get caught in shenanigans before we have healer back."
"I don't have an open slot for it anyway," Ed answered.
"That's not an issue," Ingrid told him. "Questshards don't absorb essence like normal Shards. They level up when you finish their trials instead, so they don't count against your max Shards."
"That's good to know, but Katya is still right. If this thing can activate whenever it wants to, we want to be prepared before I Slice it."
"Can you even make a new phantasm? We have no idea how this will affect your Shard."
"Let me check," Ed answered and brought up the information about his Conjure Phantasm Shard.
Conjure Phantasm
Tier 0
Level 5
Sealed
Creates constructs made of pure mana to serve the user. One construct can be created per skill level.
Available phantasms
Phantasmal Worker 10 mana
Phantasmal KItsune Sorcerer 15 mana
Phantasmal Dwarf Stonehammer 25 mana
Phantasmal Cat-kin Daggerman 15 mana
Phantasmal Clockwork Archer 20 mana
Living Phantasms
Ingrid Bjørnson
Lucy Bradshaw
"I've still got the worker, so I should be able to make another healer."
"That's good to know. But I think we need to do some more experimentation first," Lucy said.
"Let's get out of here and back to the Arctology before we discuss this," Ingrid stopped her. "I'll feel a lot better if we aren't in the Labyrinth without a healer."
Another long but uneventful hike later brought the party back to the ruined temple, and the door out of the Labyrinth set behind its main altar. Once they were back on the floor of the bazaar, Katya bid the rest of the party farewell, promising to meet again the following morning, and Ed, Lucy and Ingrid returned to the Bjørnson family home.