Two more pairs of eyes appeared down the leftmost, lightless tunnel. Elora cursed, smoothly nocked an arrow, and fired it down the right path. She charged down it, quickly outpacing Mira and Giel. Before she had taken ten steps she had already fired three shots into the creature.
But this creature was not the same as the ones they had been fighting. It was bigger, meaner, and had long black claws that swiped across at the incoming Ranger.
Her mistake at charging the thing was immediately evident. Elora dropped her bow, fell to her knees, and went into a controlled slide. At the same time, she pulled out her knives from the sheath at the small of her back and struck out with Crosscut.
The silvery light of the blades bit deep into the thing’s thighs. A shadowy substance leaked and fell out like heavy smoke. The Shadow Predator let loose a bone-chilling roar. Elora was up and facing the beast’s exposed back before it could turn to face her.
The Ranger grinned and reversed her grip on her daggers, foregoing the faster Flashstrike for the heavier hitting Snakebite. She lunged at the Shadow Predator, only to understand too late that it didn’t need to face her in order to attack her with those wicked claws.
Leaping through the air, she was utterly vulnerable with her hands poised above her head to strike with Snakebite. She could have canceled the attack and twisted aside at the last moment to blunt the attack.
But Elora was not the type to abandon anything, especially in the face of opposition. Draining her considerable stores of SP, she channeled Windwalk.
Green swirling wind wrapped around her. It pushed against her back, closing the gap before the Shadow Predator could get its arm dislocated and brought around in time.
Elora had misjudged the creature. And it, in turn, had misjudged her weakness as something to exploit. Elora accepted the weakened hit as the creature’s black claws cut into her leather jacket and drew white-hot lines of pain across her abdomen.
In the exchange, she was able to drive home her poised daggers. One into each shoulder. She felt the pulse of poison as her Snakebite struck home, delivering a fatal dose that would drop a herd of marids with a single drop.
She tensed, pushed through the pain in her stomach, brought her knees up, and planted her boots against the Shadow Predator’s chest. Elora wrenched the daggers out of its gelatinous shadow-flesh as she kicked off and arced in a backflip over the countering swipe she knew was coming.
The attack passed harmlessly below her. She landed lightly ten feet behind it and the creature took two twisting steps toward her but Elora was already wiping her daggers. She replaced them in the sheath without any paying any mind to the creature.
She knew the monster was dead already, even if it didn’t.
It never made its third step. The Shadow Predator collapsed. The shadowy substance of its body vanishing like smoke, leaving only a [Length of Void Chain] and a small bounty of sparks.
She had watched Hal use one as a weapon, but when she touched the metal it burned her with a biting cold that took off 2 points of HP.
Elora willed the loot into her inventory and headed back to the fork. She found Giel and Mira fighting two more of the large, gangly Shadow Predators.
Along the way she scooped up her bow and fired off a Flash Shot at the creature attacking Giel. The burst of light stunned the monster long enough for Giel to recover and charge in with a bellowing cry.
The resulting chop of his greatsword cut the creature in half from shoulder to hip.
This was, undoubtedly, where Elora shined. From afar she could rain down havoc and create openings for her fellow party members. Though she was working on her close-quarters-combat, it was hard to do with her previous group.
Running with a group of Rangers had its drawbacks. Most threats were felled dozens of yards away. With many of them never knowing their doom until it was upon them.
Elora had another arrow nocked and drawn, aimed at the final enemy. Mira lifted a free hand to stop her. “I’ve got this one.”
42
Even without the room she usually needed, Mira handled her opponent with surpassing skill. She choked up on the grip of her spear, thrusting and darting it in between the Shadow Predator’s defenses and swinging limbs.
In exchange for a turned blow, she traded an impaling strike. The spearhead thrust out the back of the creature and Giel hurried to get out of the way.
Elora could see he wanted to help but knew it would do more harm than good. Mira lifted her knee up to her chest, twisted on the balls of her bracing foot, and landed a solid blow right next to where she had left her spear embedded in its chest.
The Shadow Predator slammed into the opposite stone wall, the speartip clanged noisily against the wall, and the resulting impact ripped the spear back out the way it came. The whole weapon seemed to leap from the monster into Mira’s waiting hand.
As much as she didn’t want to be, Elora was impressed. Though she wasn’t a fan of flashy showmanship. It reminded her too much of her home and Founder Rinbast’s displays of abusive power.
Just the thought of Rinbast made her grind her teeth. Even after so long out from under his cruel tyranny she found it hard to drop the honorific Founder title before his name.
A title he didn’t deserve.
The way he treated his people was criminal. The way he had treated Ashera was worse. Yeah, and who saved her from that fate? Not you.
If she was being honest with herself, that sole thing laid at the heart of her prickly demeanor toward Hal. He had saved her childhood friend, her best friend, from a terrible fate.
One that Elora had gotten her into.
Given room to move, Giel took a step in, but before he could take a swing, Mira was moving. Her arm pumped in a blur, the spear spiraled with azure energy. Each stab pulsed with a bright flash of blue light.
Elora watched the creature die somewhere between the fifth and seventh strike. Mira kept going, cratering the stone wall the Shadow Predator had been pushed up against.
She was playing out her frustration. Between the gaps in the elf’s carefree façade, she could see the worry and guilt. It wasn’t every day a person saved your life, dying in the process. Then disappeared before you could ever thank them.
Elora was painfully familiar with those feelings of guilt and powerlessness.
When Mira finished, she had half a dozen bleeding wounds across her lean dancer’s body. Several large rents in her scaled armor showed more serious injuries.
Few people could move like she had while sustaining injuries like those. And there was no telling how deep the damage went.
Elora had a few healing potions but they were for emergencies only. The EXP they received should be enough – even for Mira – to Level Up and regain her health.
“Level yourself,” she told them, shaking her head that she had to tell them. “We don’t know how much longer we have to go and each of us needs to be at full strength.”
The Dragoon bit her lip, looked down at herself then back at Elora. Mira had more HP than she did, which was odd considering Elora had once walked the path of a Paladin.
Her Unyielding Faith and Minor Recuperation traits were one of the main reasons her HP was so high, despite favoring AGI and DEX.
More and more, she found herself wanting to get a better look at Mira’s stats. Not an easy task unless you were permitted. And she didn’t think the Dragoon was that open.
* * *
As the hours rolled by, things began to change.
The walls became hexagonal. The shadows had all but abandoned their pursuit, or as she feared, they were after easier prey.
Elora pushed aside the worry for her friends. She reminded herself that the only thing she could do for Ashera and Hal was to find a way to them as fast as possible.
The air felt strange. Despite Elora’s poor command of mana, she recognized the sensation as mana-saturated air. Something that should have been impossible outside of an active Manastorm.
Elora’s Darkv
ision resolved the rough patches of gray against black as threats. They hadn’t noticed her yet and she didn’t want to trouble Mira or Giel. While they were undoubtedly skilled, without a Healer, Elora was their best option for dealing with threats while avoiding damage.
The few fights they had gotten into since – mostly with various arcana family enemies – had proven to Elora that neither of them could get into a fight without taking damage.
It was what she learned at the knee of her father, after all. So long as she resorted to the tried-and-true Ranger tactics of killing any and all threats before they could close in on her.
Sometimes, she thought, nocking a Burst Arrow and drawing the string back to her cheek, being a ranged Class has its benefits.
Elora sighted her mark and released it in time with her exhalation. The arrow flew true, hitting the creature that lay in wait.
Before the explosion went off, she was nocking her next arrow. Just as the second creature realized it was under attack, that arrow had already blasted its clay body apart.
She’d review the logs later. Like most Rangers – and most adventurers – she had practically all her notifications turned off. It was too easy to break concentration on a target by a random notification. And they were easy enough to peruse later.
I’ll need to ask Hal how he has his once I see him again, she reminded herself. She hoped he wasn’t going with the default settings that every child had. Then again, if he did… that would explain a lot of things.
She rolled back against the edge of the tunnel and let the blowback carry the debris and heat past her. Giel and Mira hurried up, no doubt having seen and heard the sounds of battle.
They had agreed to stay behind to defend against any attacks coming from the rear. Neither of them had any hope of staying quiet. Without their stomping noises alerting every half-rate monster lying in wait, Elora was able to get the drop on most of them.
In many cases – like those dolls scattered to bits in the next bend – she had them dealt with before Giel and Mira ever rejoined her. She felt a little bad, knowing that the two were earnest in their desire to help.
Once more, she was reminded of Hal.
A selfish part of her had hoped that he had been an imposter. It wasn’t until Ashera had given him the Manaseed that she was absolutely certain of his pedigree. And she had to face the truth of her own naked envy, fueled by her powerlessness.
It had been a steep price to pay.
An entire village had been wiped off the map after the daring theft of the Manaseed. So many good people, gone. Women and children tortured, then put to the sword.
Not a single soul betrayed the true perpetrators.
The guilt still weighed heavily on Elora’s heart.
Yesel and Angram were all that remained of that thriving village she had once called home, and now they had nothing. A Founder without a Manaseed put them right back to square one.
Having a Founder but no Manaseed was just as useless as a Manaseed without a Founder. Except, Elora mused as she entered the tunnel and looked at the blasted remains of the two clay dolls, it’s infinitely easier to keep a Manaseed safe compared to a suicidal Founder.
Elora wasn’t even sure if he was alive anymore. As far as she knew he had no skills that could help him survive a fall like that. She had to hope that Ashera had found him and saved him.
“Aww,” Mira said, peeking down the tunnel and inspecting the damage. “You had fun without us!”
Elora shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t have time to have an open fight every time we run into some Dolls. We need to look for Ashera and Hal. There’s got to be some way to reach them. All these underground pathways, they must connect somewhere.”
Mira gave Elora a look of grudging respect. “You still want to go toe-to-toe with all those shadow-things? What if there’s another Shoggoth?”
“Then we’ll kill that too,” Elora said, matter-of-factly. “I’m not leaving this place without them.”
“I figured we were trying to get out of here,” Mira said, leaning against the wall. “You think they could actually survive the fall? That was pretty nasty.”
Elora crouched near the remnants of the doll bodies. Her Scavenger ability triggered when she examined them, providing her with extra materials to make more Blast Arrows later on. “I’ve learned not to underestimate either of them.”
Giel and Mira looked uncertain but wisely said nothing to counter the Ranger’s point. She brushed the dust from her jacket and walked past Mira, taking point once more.
Where she was most comfortable.
Unfortunately, Mira and Giel both kept pace with her despite their earlier agreement. Their steps were impossibly loud to the Ranger’s sensitive, half-elven ears. Any creature would hear them coming like a stampede of beefalo.
You better be okay, Ashera. I’m going to need your help to make it up to Hal. I’ve been unfair to him. I’d happily accept your litany of “I told you so” if it meant you were safe.
“Got a lot on your mind?” Giel asked, his bassy rumble carried far down the stone corridor. Elora repressed a wince.
“I’m worried about them,” she admitted. Ashera had been right. They weren’t saving a Founder. Hal had become more than that. He had become her friend, despite her prickly demeanor.
Elora had put so much importance on Hal that she rarely saw him as Ashera did. A frightened, bewildered stranger to a strange land, saddled with a burden he never asked for.
“Me too,” Giel said, placing an oversized mitt on her shoulder. “I’m confident they will keep each other in good company. Like two peas in a pod.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line to stop frowning.
“If they ever come back,” she muttered, too low for Giel’s hearing.
They traveled down the tunnels in relative silence after that. Elora dispatched any foes that got in their way with extreme prejudice, venting her frustration out on the unsuspecting creatures.
Would she blame Ashera if she fled with Hal? It sounded ridiculous but she couldn’t shake the thought no matter how hard she tried.
Ashera had warned her that she needed to treat Hal like a person, not an icon to rally around or a tool to be used. Now that Hal was getting stronger, would he even want to continue on to the Shiverglades?
Could she even stop him if he said no?
When she told Mira that she didn’t want a puppet Founder, she was only telling a half-truth. But after watching the terrible power Hal unleashed, even though he was just a Novice… she wasn’t so sure giving Hal free reign was a good thing.
Those shadows that he commanded, there was no mistaking the similarity they bore to the man. Thirty-seven all told, and she couldn’t shake the nagging feeling like that was somehow important.
The damage they wreaked was unreal. He should not have been able to draw on so much power.
It had taken her months of training and practice to utilize her Empyreal Arrow to any decent effect. She wondered if that was the power the Founders had. Preternatural strength that went beyond Levels and stats.
Giel and Mira flanked her as they entered a large chamber. The few creatures they fought were the various Dolls, arcana family enemies that had been given orders by long-ago masters to protect these tunnels.
It was too bad that the shadow-creatures were able to avoid them completely. She had expected to see signs of battle from the two creatures stumbling upon each other. But the deeper they went the less evidence of the shadows she saw.
Elora was so preoccupied with her thoughts – a rarity for the taciturn Ranger – that she practically tripped over the pile of strangely stacked rocks in the center of the chamber.
As soon as she disturbed the pile with the tip of her boot she realized her grave mistake.
The Golem reassembled itself into a vaguely humanoid shape made of floating, rough-hewn stones. In the blink of an eye, it towered over the Ranger that had so foolishly disturbed it.
Before she could
so much as curse herself for the lapse in concentration, it attacked.
43
With Hal’s shadow-limbs, the climb down to the small cave was a simple affair. Simple enough, that his mind began to wander. He couldn’t help but think about how much more difficult the Coffin Contract had become.
The district was far more overrun than he ever thought possible. He had figured it’d be like a tomb. A few things here or there, mostly decaying or long-since-dead.
If he had a luck stat, he imagined it was deeply negative. It would have been the first thing he pumped up just to stop his ridiculous string of bad luck. What else would explain how he could come back from the dead, defeat a terrifying, mind-bending abomination, and then fall through the floor?
Back on task, he chided himself.
The next best thing to increasing a non-existent luck stat, would be to raise his VIT. With that in mind, he decided that his first order of business – once he was back with Ashera - would be to get Beastborne to Level 3 and allocate those 5 Attribute Points into VIT. Maybe more even more.
His survivability had been absolutely laughable. If not for the Manaseed, he would still be dead. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat.
Good thing the Reaper had disappeared. Her disappearance when he was no longer in imminent mortal peril confirmed his suspicion that she appeared only when he was near death.
Hal took a look at his stats just to confirm that nothing else had changed unexpectedly.
[Status]
Hal Williams
Level: 12
Discordant Stone: 21,436/55,000
Strain: 0/25
BP: 5/10
Classes
Novice: 10
Beastborne: 2
Resources
HP: 150/150
SP: 180/180
MP: 225/225
Attributes
STR: 5 (+5)
VIT: 5
DEX: 5 (+3)
Beastborne- Mark of the Founder Page 39