by Kyle Johnson
He repeated the mental image, this time imagining a band of uruks caught in the blast. The flash of seven fireblasts erupting at once pierced his eyes, accompanied by a low roar as the flames displaced the air around them. He could smell soot and taste floating ashes, could hear the shrieks of the uruks as they were roasted by the blast of flames.
Again, he went through the Spell, this time picturing seven tiny pellets of ice erupting in a storm of frost and glittering shrapnel. He saw the light shimmering on the brief blast of polar cold, felt the chill emanating from the burst, and tasted the crystals on his tongue. Once more, he called forth the image, this time sending out glowing pellets of lightning mana that wove unsteadily and erupted near but not exactly on the spots he’d targeted. Arcs of electricity strobed through the area, scorching the uruks and emitting a strong scent of ozone as they did.
Each time he replayed the mental image, he tried to imagine a different element raging through the area. He squinted against blasts of radiant fire and light; he shivered as waves of void and death mana rolled across the ground. Shards of crystal mana shredded imaginary uruks, while eruptions of acid dissolved their flesh. He even tried using vacuum mana, which was interesting: the blasts created a massive hole in the air, one that collapsed with a crack of thunder as the air instantly rushed back in.
He drained his SP four times before finally, the spell-form snapped into being:
Spell Created: Ravaging Burst
Rank: Novice 1
Blast enemies with multiple explosions of a single elemental or energy type.
Effect: Choose a single primary or composite mana type. You target a spot in sight range and create a series of simultaneous explosions of mana that affect all creatures in a disc 20’ in radius from that point and 8’ high. The blasts are instantaneous and do 15 – 33 LP damage of the chosen type to all creatures within the area of effect (158 – 347).
Cost: 185 SP
You’re going down in a blaze of fire…or ice…or acid…
+300 XP
Aranos stretched and checked the time; he had about 30 minutes left to meditate and decided he had just long enough to tweak his Energy Web Spell a bit. The original Spell had been designed to snare weaker enemies than he was facing now, and now all it did was slow them and do minor damage. He was okay with the damage it was doing, but he really wanted to get it to where it could hold stronger foes.
That, as it turned out, wasn’t such a simple matter. Simply adding more mana to the image created more ‘hooks’ to grab onto creatures within, but it wasn’t the number of hooks that was the problem. They were just too weak to hold something large or strong; the ogrins, for example, had barely been slowed by it. What he needed to do was either make the hooks more durable, or completely rework how the Spell functioned.
Maybe if I added void mana, he mused, I could siphon off some of the kinetic energy…
His thoughts broke off abruptly as a massive voice boomed throughout his mindscape. “Pack Leader!” the vaguely female voice echoed around the room, causing him to flinch and cover his ears instinctively. “Wake up! We’re being attacked!”
Chapter 8
It took Aranos several moments to place Silma’s voice; here in his mindscape, the fenrin’s words were remarkably clear and almost sounded like she was standing next to him. As her words penetrated his bemused mind, though, Aranos shook off his errant thoughts and quickly rose from his mindscape. He blinked as he returned to full consciousness and practically dove through the opening of his tent, almost forgetting to return the mana crystal to his inventory as he did so.
He emerged from his tent and blinked, looking around, using his Tracking Skill to pinpoint where everyone was. He could sense that his Elemental Ward had been activated; something actively hostile had apparently attempted to enter the tower. He reached out mentally to the Spell and found that the air shield was still holding, giving him some time to figure out what was happening. A red notification started blinking in his vision, and he hurriedly pulled it up:
Warning!
The Safe Zone Waystation (East Cendarta) is under attack! Due to the presence of hostile creatures, your bind point has been reset to the last safe spawn point, Waystation (Eredain)
He dismissed the warning and focused on locating his party members. His Tracking Skill highlighted a series of prints that told him Silma and Saphielle had descended the stairs, while Geltheriel and Rhys were in the main room overlooking the road. So, two to hold the door, he thought with a grimace, while Geltheriel’s likely attacking with her bow and Rhys with his Spells. That seems smart, except that if the air shield drops, they’ll all be caught outside the safe zone in the middle around the camp.
He reached out mentally to Silma as he turned to run into the main room. Come to the top with me, girl, he instructed her silently. He felt more than heard her mental protest, but he cut her off. Please, right away, and bring Saphielle. You’re in danger where you’re at. I’ll explain to both of you when you get to the top, okay? He sensed her grudging acceptance as he burst through the door and emerged into the moonlit room.
He skidded to a halt when Geltheriel spun to face him, her bow drawn hard against her cheek and an arrow lined up with his chest. “Whoa, easy there,” he said quickly, his hands held out to the side. “Just me. What’s going on?”
The elf made a disgusted noise and turned back to the window, relaxing her bow. “The urukkai,” she said shortly as she lowered the arrow to point at the floor. “The assault we feared from Cendarta has reached us. What Spell have you placed around us, Oathbinder? It stops my arrows as effectively as it holds out the horde.”
“Horde?” he repeated, hurrying to the window. Below him, a large mass of bodies pressed against the door to the tower, held at bay by the sparkling barrier of his air shield. He made a rough count and thought that there might be nearly a hundred figures below; most were simple uruks, but he saw plenty of armored dabruks, a handful of pink-skinned kerruks, and a half-dozen towering ogrins. Overhead, he spotted another ten or so huge, black birds, looking like ravens or crows with a 20’ wingspan that his Beast Lore Skill identified as poukas, each carrying a lightly armored dabruk on their back.
The ogrins were closest to the tower, beating upon the air shield with their heavy fists, but since the barrier barely reached the ground, only three or four of them could attack it at any given time. The mounted dabruks launched volleys of crossbow bolts from overhead, but Aranos wasn’t worried about that; it would take a huge number of bolts to have any real impact on his barrier. The ogrins, though, were a real danger: if they had Str Stats between 40 and 50, it would only take five or six of them to breach the barrier. Less, if the kerruks are actively trying to disjoin it, he realized grimly.
As Silma and Saphielle rushed into the room, the aleen turned to his companions and briefly explained about the Ward he had created. “So, if they breach the air shield,” he finished, “everything around and within the tower except for our camp will basically become a massive deathtrap.”
“This would have been valuable knowledge to have before you retreated to your tent, Oathbinder,” Geltheriel told him gravely. “The Lieutenant knew only that there was a ward that would keep out attackers, not the existence of a safe zone or the deadly nature of being caught without. Had Silma not been able to rouse you and the shield was breached…”
Aranos gulped and nodded. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I’ve never used it before, so I didn’t think what would happen if we were attacked while I was meditating.” The woman shrugged her shoulders dismissively, although her expression was still grim.
“Would you have us retreat to the central room, Redeemer?” Saphielle asked, her voice a bit harsh. “If possible, I believe we should stay here. That room does not give a view of the main entrance as this one does. We would not know if the shield were breached and we were about to be attacked.”
“Oh, we’ll know,” he assured her. “The giant stone spikes shooting up
from the ground will be pretty easy to see. But, yeah, I think we can stay here; I can sense that the barrier’s okay for the moment. If those kerruks and ogrins team up to bring it down, though, it might not stay that way.”
Will we have time to retreat if the shield is breached? Silma’s voice spoke in his mind. I’d rather wait there than be caught by your Spell.
“We should have time,” he hedged cautiously, gazing at the stairs. “I’ll have to stay focused, though. The barrier will probably…”
For the second time that night, his thoughts were abruptly halted by an overwhelming sound. Instead of Silma’s rather pleasant voice, though, this was an ear-shattering roar, and from how the uruk horde was reacting, it wasn’t something they were expecting. As the massive bellow sounded a second time, a huge shadow moved in the edge of his vision, seeming to blend into the darkness.
Aranos cycled through his True Vision until he reached fire mana and inhaled sharply as the shadowy figure resolved itself into a towering figure that only roughly resembled a humanoid. The creature stood 30’ tall on four legs that sprouted in a cluster from human-like hips. It had three arms extending from each shoulder, the hands tipped in long, needle-like claws. Most disturbing, the monster had no head upon its shoulders; instead, it had several unblinking, staring eyes and an enormous mouth with rows of teeth planted squarely in the center of its abdomen that almost seemed to be spinning around one another like a grinder.
Geltheriel also hissed as her Night Vision apparently revealed the massive creature, and Silma growled and flattened her ears against her head, her superior senses having no trouble locating the monster. Rhys and Saphielle, who both had lower Perception and lacked Aranos’ magical vision, simply peered uncomprehendingly out the window.
The urukkai, it seemed, spotted the creature as well, as Aranos saw the kerruks chanting and several glowing orbs of light appeared over the heads of the gathered horde, illuminating the creature so that all could see it. The ogrins abandoned their assault on his barrier and charged the newcomer, while the dabruks formed up in front of it and the flyers overhead shifted their ranged attacks to pepper the hide of the approaching monster.
“Anyone know what that thing is?” Aranos asked, attempting unsuccessfully to Inspect it. Saphielle shrugged, and even Geltheriel shook her head.
“I am also at a loss, Liberator,” Rhys spoke up. “For both your Avowed and I to be so, I can say that it must be of at least Exceptional rarity, which means it likely is rather formidable.”
Aranos nodded, his mind racing. “I’ll bet this thing is what attacked the tower the last time,” he guessed. “It’s big enough, and those claws would have been able to shred the uruks pretty effectively.”
Aranos broke off as the urukkai finally engaged the monster. The crossbow bolts from above showered onto its hide, but most simply bounced off harmlessly. The few that lodged in its skin looked like they had inflicted only superficial wounds, as they tumbled free when the beast moved. In response, the monster roared, and two of its hands darted up with lightning speed to snatch a pair of the flyers from the air. Aranos watched in shock as the creature stuffed the birds and riders into its gaping maw, its serrated teeth shredding the hapless attackers. A moment later, the torn corpses fell bloodlessly out of its mouth to the ground.
“I believe that you were incorrect, Oathbinder,” Geltheriel pointed out grimly. “That beast’s claws were not what shredded the corpses so thoroughly. Also, I notice a distinct lack of blood with the remains.”
“Yeah,” Aranos agreed, his stomach roiling. “It looks like it feeds on blood. Just...that is one messed up way to get the blood, you know?”
It’s wasteful, is what it is, pack leader, Silma’s voice sounded disapprovingly in his mind. It discarded all that meat, and now it’s not useful to anyone. It’s not much of a hunter, I can tell you that.
Aranos chuckled darkly at the fenrin’s thoughts. When Geltheriel glanced at him, her face slightly aghast, he explained. “Silma’s upset that it’s wasting so much food,” he told her. “She thinks it’s a bad hunter.”
“A hunter as excellent as Silma would know,” Saphielle stated unequivocally. “Still, it need not be skilled when it can do this to an urukkai horde through sheer power.”
Aranos continued to watch as the ogrins crashed into the huge beast. The monster howled and tore into the hulking creatures, seemingly ignoring their savage blows. Its claws ripped their flesh, and Aranos watched as a pair of claws gripped one ogrin and raked in opposite directions, disemboweling it and dropping it in a pile of viscera.
The armored dabruks charged at the monster’s rear, their weapons flashing as they hacked and chopped at its legs. Two of the legs lashed back, hurling a handful of dabruks into the darkness, while the rearmost arms on each side slashed into the warriors’ ranks, ripping them apart. Each hand grabbed a dabruk and shoved them whole into its mouth, spitting out the shredded, bloodless corpses several moments later.
As Aranos watched the combat, he noticed two things, one alarming and one interesting. First, when the creature spun to backhand an ogrin, Aranos realized that the wounds the dabruks had inflicted on its legs were completely healed. So, it regenerates, he thought grimly.
The interesting detail, though, was that every so often, the monster would waste time swiping angrily at the glowing balls of light. At first, he thought that perhaps it didn’t like magic, but when the kerruks bombarded it with projectiles of fire, ice, and even death mana, it simply ignored the assaults and concentrated on shoving another pair of dabruks in its mouth. It’s not the magic, he realized. It’s the light.
“The urukkai don’t stand a chance,” Aranos observed quietly. “That thing regenerates too quickly for them to hurt it, even with magic, and it’s too fast for them to run. Their only hope is to scatter and hope that it can’t hunt them all down.”
Saphielle nodded sagely. “I must agree with that assessment, as it seems most reasonable. The horde will be destroyed.”
“Of course, one might wonder,” Rhys added, “what will it do when it is finished with that rabble, Liberator? Will your barrier hold it out?”
Aranos’ face twisted in a grimace. “Probably not,” he admitted. “That’s a Huge creature; it needs a Strength Stat of about 85 to 90 to break the barrier normally, but I’ll bet the extra hands would count as additional creatures. That means it would only need a 45 to 50 Strength to break through, and from the way it’s tossing the ogrins around, I’m betting it’s closer to 200 than to 100.”
“An astute observation,” Geltheriel agreed. “Will your Spell damage it sufficiently to overcome its regeneration?”
“Maybe?” he guessed. “No way to know, really. To a Huge creature like that, though, the Ward should average around 90 LP damage per second. It’ll only last for about four more minutes, though, so I don’t know if that’ll be enough to put it down.”
“Then we must hope that it is not able to enter the tower,” Saphielle stated. “If it is, we must quit the tower and face it below, for being trapped inside with it would be difficult.”
Aranos winced, imagining those arms sweeping around in such an enclosed space, with practically no room to dodge. More like a death sentence, he corrected silently.
The ogrins all lay dead by this point, and most of the dabruks had been reduced to shredded, drained mounds of flesh. A few kerruks had apparently gotten close enough for the creature to grasp and devour, and the rest were vainly trying to rally the remaining uruks and dabruks. As Aranos watched, the rain of crossbow bolts petered out as the flying dabruks expended the last of their ammunition, and the mounted riders started to flee the battlefield, wheeling back toward Cendarta.
As if the departure of the flying riders had been a signal, the remaining urukkai broke and fled back toward the distant citadel of Cendarta. The towering creature roared and briefly gave chase, snatching up several more of the uruks and stuffing them, screaming and thrashing, into its maw. After chasing the
uruks for several long moments, the monster stomped heavily to a halt and turned back to the tower.
“Yeah, this won’t be good,” Aranos muttered as the beast roared and charged the sparkling barrier of air protecting them. Its heavy fists slammed into the shield, and the Sorcerer felt the magic buckle beneath the strain. He could sense the spinning vortices of air fraying and dissipating under the force of the creature’s attack, and he knew that the barrier wasn’t going to hold. “Back!” he shouted, herding the others away from the window. “The barrier’s going to fall; we’ve got to get back to the safe area!”
They rushed back to their main camp just as Aranos felt the air bubble collapse. The ground around them shook as the next part of the Spell activated, and they heard the monster suddenly shriek in pain. Must have gotten hit by a couple of spikes, he thought grimly. That’s gotta hurt, even for something so big.
Geltheriel stood and watched as a few of the stone spikes erupted from the floor in the rooms surrounding them. As the stone spears slid back into the floor, she glanced at Aranos. “Those will do little more than inconvenience the creature attacking us,” she observed. “What of the remainder of the Spell? The fire and acid of which you spoke?”
“Those activate when enemies get closer,” Aranos shook his head. “You’ll probably see them just before that thing can touch the tower.” As if on cue, two jets of white-hot flame shot up from the floor at the edge of the open space and began moving slowly around the periphery, while a gray-white fog of acidic vapor curled up in the space between the flames. Aranos heard a second pain-filled scream from the creature as its flesh was scorched by the flames and dissolved by acid.
