by L. R. Wolf
“We can give it a try, no potions though until we know whether or not we can kill them.” Elohwa unsheathed the new twin short swords she had chosen from the weapons cache. An ethereal blue glow ran the length of the weapons denoting a frost enchantment.
Aya glanced at the new blades examining them.
Twin Blades of Icy Fury- Damage 42-55. On a successful hit these swords will slow the speed and attack of any enemy hit, after ten hits a freeze spell will trigger rendering the enemy completely frozen.
“Oh very nice! Wish I knew what kind of weapon would complement my magic. I’m sure a weapon would probably help, but I don’t want to make the wrong choice.” Aya still had her inventory up and was still going through the vast amount of weapons available trying to quickly find something that would help.
“Pull up the Foci. Those are geared towards casters. I am sure there must be one that amplifies fire.” Elohwa closed her inventory and cleared her mind. The Skeleton Warrior was now about fifteen feet away from them and closing quickly, or as quickly as undead could move.
With a thought Aya pulled up the Foci. She’d never seen these in a game before. They just looked like a simple glowing gem, hardly dangerous looking. She quickly glanced over some until she came across a bright red ruby with a fiery red glow.
Set of Fire Ruby Foci- These specialized magical gems channel and amplify fire magic. Can be attached to gloves by placing the gem in the center of the palm. Enhances Fire abilities by 50. +25 Int per Focus
Aya quickly slipped the Foci into the palms of her hands. The gems settled into the center and seemed to sink into the fingerless gloves that Elohwa had made for her. A slight red glow surrounded her hands. She raised her right hand palm up conjuring a massive flickering blue fireball the size of a basketball. She didn’t have time to marvel at the size or the color before the Skeleton Warrior was upon them.
Elohwa stepped aside as the skeleton charged the last two feet towards the women. As it passed her she brought her swords down and low across its body catching the skeleton above the knees, its momentum carrying it forward allowing her new blades to cut through the bone as if they were made of paper, frost started to form where the blades had passed making its way up the body of the skeleton. At the same moment that Elohwa had lashed out with her blades, Aya threw the massive ball of fire at the skeleton’s chest. The force of the blow threw the skeleton backwards, its chest caving in with the the blow, shards of bone blew back and away from the women. The bones crumbled leaving a small lootable stone marker. The women looked at each other in stunned silence for a brief moment, predatory grins raising the corners of their mouths. Elohwa reached for her luck potion while Aya reached for the skill experience potions she’d lined up on her belt.
“Cheers!” Aya held up the first experience potion in a toast, Elohwa gently tapped her potion to Aya’s. The two women downed their potions. Elohwa only drank one since she wasn’t quite sure how beneficial it would be, but Aya used her entire stack of five. With just that one kill Aya had jumped up four levels to level twelve in fire magic, she should have jumped further, but there were experience caps in place to prevent people from killing one single high level monster and go from level one to fifty. The potion that Aya had received would allow her to go beyond the cap so she was now looking at double the skill experience.
Aya suddenly hesitated even while the undead closed in. “Wait, I know what happens when I die, but what happens if YOU die?”
Elohwa glanced at Aya out of the side of her eye, “If I die, then I am dead. Perhaps, if I fall in battle, the Goddess will allow me to continue serving you in death.”
Aya’s face drained of color, now that she knew that her loyal companion could permanently die, she was more hesitant to fight these battles. Before she could say anything, Elohwa interrupted her thoughts.
“Here they come!” A quick glance around told her that more were moving towards them, not all of them appeared to be skeletons. Elohwa moved into melee range of two more skeletons that had moved closer to the women. She brought her blades across her chest crossing her arms in front of her before slicing them back across the bodies of both skeletons.
Behind Elohwa, Aya held her hands up towards the sky palms up and yelled, “METEOR!” The last time Aya had attempted this spell the result had been less than spectacular, but now, between the Fire Cloth armor, the set bonus from the armor and her fire ruby foci she had a bit more firepower at her fingertips. The ground beneath the skeletons rumbled as dark clouds swirled a few feet above them. Lightning raced across the miniature clouds for a few seconds. The skeletons turned their glowing eyes upwards in surprise as a flaming meteor, the size of a small car, parted the clouds and descended. In the blink of an eye, Elohwa had used an intercept skill to immediately rush to Aya’s side, putting her out of range of the gigantic falling rock. Both women watched in awe as the meteor slammed into the stunned skeletons completely vaporizing them. After a few seconds, the flames around the meteor died away and the meteor dissipated revealing two small stone markers.
“Oh...my...god. Did I really just do that?!” Aya held her hands up in front of her in wonder. She had gone from skill level twelve to skill level thirty eight with just those two kills.
“That was a bit bigger than last time.” Elohwa smirked at Aya when she said it. Aya feigned a glare and raised both her hands up in fists, turned them over then extended her middle fingers towards Elohwa who chuckled. They turned back to the undead soldiers slowly shambling towards them. Elohwa’s eyes narrowed a bit as she looked past the front lines of the undead. Further back, she could see zombies making their way in the women’s direction. These were higher in level, much higher. “Zombies a few waves in the back. They are a lot higher than these bags of bones. Be ready!”
“Joking aside... if you can die, you need to use your recall and get out of here if you’re threatened.” Aya wasn’t about to lose her Companion. She could already see the defiance in Elohwa’s eyes. Her mind was racing with worry, what kind of developer would allow Companions to be killed?! After this battle, she was going to have to have a talk with Brackerd about the crappy coding.
“You really think that I would just leave you here alone?” Elohwa gripped the hilts of her twin blades tighter in her hands as she prepared for the next attackers.
“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. You have to listen to me, right? If you get in trouble you get the hell out of here and I’ll follow.” Aya summoned another giant ball of fire on the palm of her right hand; unleashing it on another Skeleton Warrior that had tread too close.
“As you wish, but only should I become too injured.” Elohwa’s eyes twitched a bit at the Dreamer’s command. She had no choice but to follow Aya’s orders if it came down to it. Elohwa lashed out with her twin blades finishing off the Skeleton Warrior that Aya had blasted, or rather, what remained of it. After it fell, Elohwa rushed off to gather the loot from the three Skeletons they had already felled. As she knelt to touch the last of the stones she heard an all too familiar sound as something flew much too close for her comfort.
“ARCHERS!!” Elohwa had failed to notice the Skeletal Archers that had been positioned directly behind shield-bearing Skeletal Knights close to a hundred feet away. She hadn’t been too concerned with the Knights as they hadn’t been in range of either of them yet. It was a mistake that could get them both killed. Another arrow tore through the sky, this one piercing her shoulder. She gasped in pain as it tore through muscle and nicked a bone before the arrow came to a stop, the arrowhead protruding from just above her right breast. Her hit points plummeted twenty percent.
Aya’s face changed from one of triumph at her latest kill to one of worry. She looked to Elohwa who broke off the tip of the arrow lodged in her chest. Before Aya could order her to retreat, she managed to reach back and grab the rest of the arrow, pulling it from the back of her shoulder before she quickly quaffed a health potion. Her hit points quickly recovering, the wound closing before
her eyes. “I’ll be fine, do not worry about me.”
Aya frowned, as much as she wanted to smash and destroy things right now she didn’t want to lose Elohwa. She had already lost so much. Once more her eyes sparked, flames appearing around her hands. “I’ll take the ranged, don’t let anything get to me!” Aya set her feet, digging her toes into the soft dirt as she prepared for the fight ahead. Two Skeletal Soldiers were moving in on them, each from a different direction, both wielding massive two handed weapons. As they moved in, Aya wondered if she had anything that she could cast on Elohwa as a buff. She quickly glanced through all of the spells she had received from all of the levels she had gained, but they were purely offensive spells. She suddenly remembered something she had read on one of the forums. She could swear it said something about being able to form brand new spells just by imagining what you wanted the spell to do.
“Elohwa, hold still!” Aya bit her lip, she knew she couldn’t harm Elohwa with friendly fire, but it still made her nervous to attempt an experiment in the middle of a bunch of very angry undead. She focused her gaze on Elohwa, in her mind she knew what she wanted, but she had to figure out how to actually do experiments. Aya didn’t even realize that as she formed the picture in her mind of what she wanted and how the spell was supposed to act, that her fingers and hands were already forming foreign gestures. Before she knew it, she lifted her right hand, pointing it at Elohwa who then seemed to burst into blue translucent flame. As the caster, Aya’s spells were nearly invisible to her and anyone considered to be friendly. If you were hostile though, you would see the fire in all of its blazing glory.
“What in the hells was that?!” Elohwa didn’t feel any pain. The blue flames surrounded her entire body but didn’t burn her, nor could she feel any heat. She lifted a hand in front of her face and waved, the flames moving with her hand. After a few seconds, the flames cleared so as not to obstruct her vision, but their transparent outlines were still there to Aya. Before Elohwa could even check the buff icons above her health bar in her interface, one of the Skeletal Soldiers got to her, his club raising up to strike, but as it did so the flames surrounding her body licked out at the Soldier. Elohwa watched as its life dropped faster and faster the closer it tried to get to her and she had yet to land a blow. She activated her Shadow Step maneuver momentarily blinking out of view and reappearing behind the Soldier as it brought its massive club down right where she had just been; the impact leaving a small crater in the ground. She brought both blades across the left shoulder of the Soldier, cleaving the arm from the body. The Soldier turned its head towards Elohwa, rage filling its eyes as it could no longer lift its weapon. His right hand released the two handed club before he attempted to punch Elohwa who ducked under the blow bringing one sword back behind its knees and the other sword cutting across its neck decapitating it. The skull flew off to the side a few feet before rolling a bit farther before eventually coming to a stop. The light in its eyes faded as a stone marker replaced the skull.
Aya had already handled the second Soldier before it got anywhere close to her. She was focusing her attention on the three Skeletal Archers who had just come into range. One was taller than the rest wielding a gigantic bow that glowed red. Aya’s eyes narrowed, she knew enough to know that the bow was special and that was likely the same archer who had wounded Elohwa. Aya raised one hand towards the sky, spreading her fingers out, and then slamming it down towards the ground. Clouds formed of pure flames appeared over the the small cluster of Knights and Archers before it literally started raining fire down on their upturned skulls. Elohwa didn’t recognize the spell Aya was using, but she did know it was very effective. The Fire Storm wreathed the group of six skeletons in flames. The bows of the smaller archers disintegrated in their bony fingers. The shields of the Knights turned an angry red as they became superheated and began to melt, the shields fusing to the Knight's arms. The larger archer managed to get one last shot off before he crumbled into dust, the arrow grazing Aya’s arm leaving a gash in her cloth armor, blood started to soak the surrounding cloth. With another hand movement, she cast a second Fire Storm, their bones collapsing into stone markers.
“Aya!” Elohwa turned to see the blood on Aya’s arm. She quickly removed a health potion from her belt and handed it to the Dreamer. She gasped softly as she saw the fires blazing in the woman’s eyes. The fire surrounding Aya’s hands was beginning to creep up her arms slowly and the air pressure was already beginning to change. Aya didn’t even appear to notice that she was wounded. “AYA! Take this!” Elohwa forced the health vial into the Dreamer’s hand. Aya blinked and looked down at the vial before she removed the cork and drained the vial. Already, more undead were beginning to spawn.
Several archers were rising from the dark fields. It was a surreal experience to see two glowing eyes rise up from the ground as they clawed their way out of their forgotten tombs. These archers were spread out through the field so there was no way that Aya would be able to control all of them with her limited spells, and it was the archers who had proven themselves to be the most dangerous thus far.
Arrows began to rain down on them from multiple directions while at the same time Skeletal Warriors were surrounding them. The numbers of undead were increasing at a rapid pace now that night had fully set in.
Aya turned to Elohwa when she caught sight of the sheer number of undead. “RECALL! NOW!”
Elohwa’s eyes scanned the battlefield. Skeleton Warriors and Archers were rising in multiple parts of the field and grouping together. Though she already had the Recall spell prepared, she was hesitant to cast it. She looked to her Dreamer.
Aya peered back at Elohwa with a nod. “I’ll be right behind you, it doesn’t matter if I die, you need to go.”
Elohwa’s mouth twitched downwards briefly in a frown. Aya had already ordered Elohwa to recall if she felt her life was in danger, but even with those orders she didn’t feel as though she could leave the woman behind to be slaughtered by these defiled abominations. More arrows were in the air and falling around the women. Aya cried out as she was struck by an arrow that pierced through her arm, the bloodied arrow lodging in the ground a few feet from them. “GO!” Aya gritted her teeth against the throbbing pain in her arm.
“Triggering recall! Now you!” Elohwa triggered the recall spell. It took only three seconds to cast, but in the midst of battle, three seconds was an absolute eternity. She saw Aya begin her own Recall cast through the shimmer of the spell taking hold. In her vision, Elohwa saw the spell timer tick down to zero. A notification informed her that the spell had succeeded, but once the shimmer faded and her eyes adjusted her heart skipped a few beats. In front of her she saw Aya’s body shimmer briefly before she disappeared, only to appear beside her. Both women’s eyes went wide, they had only teleported fifteen feet or so, placing them back into the graveyard that Aya had spawned in hours before.
Elohwa looked over to Aya, their eyes locking. Elohwa could see the fear in the Dreamer’s eyes, she knew the fear was born from the realization that they were in an incredibly precarious situation in which one or both of them would die, but only Aya could come back.
“What the hell happened?! Why didn’t it work?!?!” Aya whispered, panic tinging her words. Her right arm hung limply at her side, blood was soaking the sleeve where the arrow had completely torn through her arm leaving a bloody hole.
Elohwa handed Aya another healing potion. The undead hadn’t yet noticed the two women were still there, so now was a good time to get healed up while they were still distracted by the fires still burning in the area.
Aya took the potion and drank it quickly; the wound in her arm began to close and her hit points rose. Aya looked around the area. Their backs were to a giant mountain; there was no way to climb it and they were surrounded by open fields all around them. The glade of trees they had camped in earlier was just off to their side, but it would give them no cover. The only thing they could do was to wait and see if the undead would notice th
em once more and, if so, fight until day break.
Elohwa silently fished around in her satchel and withdrew several different colored vials and a bundle of rations.
Party chat-Elohwa “Here take these and eat this. We need to buff ourselves as much as we can.”
Aya took the vials, looking at them only briefly before drinking them all and dropping the vials back into her satchel. These vials had five charges and could be reused, but they needed time to recharge the liquid within. Elohwa drank her own vials, before replacing them in her bag and opening up the bundle of food which she offered up to Aya who grabbed some fish from the rations and began to chew on it. In the corner of her vision, Aya noticed multiple icons blink into existence as the vials took hold and bestowed their buff.
Potion of Flowing Thought (Ultra Rare) +150 mana regeneration/second. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Intelligence (Rare) +100 int. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Willpower (Ultra Rare) +150 Willpower. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Mana (Rare) +250 mana. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Stamina (Ultra Rare) +150 Stamina. Duration 2 hours. .
Potion of Constitution (Ultra Rare) +150 Constitution. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Endurance (Rare) +100 Endurance. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Incredible Luck (Super Rare) +25 Luck. Duration 2 hours.
Potion of Power (Ultra Rare) +150 dmg to attacks. Duration 1 hour.
Succulent Meal (Rare) +25 to highest stat. +15 to remaining stats. Duration 4 hours.
Well Fed (From Succulent Meal) +25 Constitution +100 Hit points. Duration 4 hours.
Aya’s jaw dropped at the sheer amount of buffs. She suddenly felt guilty at having drunk them without reading their descriptions first. She was quite sure that more than a few of those must have been incredibly difficult to come by.
Party chat-Aya “Where did you get these potions??”
