by Adam Elliott
Cayden edged past Celia in the narrow hallway and took the lead once more. It was a harder walk back up the slope than it had been down it, but he didn't murmur a single complaint. At least, not until they'd rounded their fourth curve.
"Okay, something is very wrong." He murmured. "Command: Map."
"Oh," Celia said softly, after trying, and likewise failing to open her own map. "That isn't good, is it?"
Chapter Fourteen
"We must have passed through an instance barrier," Cayden said with a frown. His hands worked fruitlessly through the air, manipulating the AR display in an attempt to force open his map. Instead, he was greeted with the same reply as before, a grumpy sounding audio cue that told him he'd selected an invalid option.
"The hallway?" Celia asked, though she already knew the answer.
"Considering we can't go back up? Yeah, I'd say so." He agreed. That hadn't stopped them from trying, but after traveling twice the distance upwards as they had descended, it seemed a fair assumption. "I've never really heard of a gate like this though, one that traps you without warning."
"It is probably just that then, a trap."
Cayden bit back the desire to swear. Celia was probably right. If they'd been with Shifty, his Trap Sense ability probably would have alerted him in some fashion before they'd started on their way down.
"So this is why you don't split the party," Celia said with an infectious giggle, one that soon had Cayden chuckling alongside her despite himself. "Could be worse, I suppose. I could have been trapped down here with Silver instead of you."
She had a point, Cayden could certainly think of worse people to be stuck with. Michael, for one.
"Well, we don't know that we're trapped," Cayden said, tipping his head towards the downslope. "We can't go up, but it is still possible there is something besides an infinite tunnel if we keep going down."
"It is also possible that something is a boss with a ceremonial weapon who will wreck our faces," Celia noted.
"Do you have a better plan?" Cayden asked.
"I... do not."
"Well, that settles that then." It was possible that someone from the other half of their party would notice they were missing sooner rather than later, that they might even track Cayden and Celia back to where they'd disappeared, but it wasn't one he planned to hold his breath for. Instead, the pair returned their attention to the downward slope and began walking.
Soon enough, just as they were beginning to think that the loop went both ways, their boldness was rewarded by the sight of a pair of crackling braziers at the foot of the slope. It was the first new thing they'd seen in several minutes, their faces lighting up in both a literal and metaphorical sense.
"So do we-" Celia started, before she found Cayden's gloved fingertip pressed mere inches from her lips, hushing her. He said nothing in reply but instead sunk lower into his stance, adopting a half crouch as he sheathed his sword. His next steps forward were slow and measured, each well prepared for as he shifted his weight from one foot to the next in an attempt to minimize the clank and scrape of his metal armor.
"Teri Antha," Cayden whispered the runic words and extended his free hand. Under other circumstances, Celia couldn't begin to hazard a guess as to the sword of magic that radiated from Cayden's outstretched fingertips to form a glittering, transparent barrier. But given the context, she had her suspicions.
"An illusion?" She asked, just barely above a breath. When he nodded, she smiled. The magical shield Cayden held in front of him was enough to cover them both. All she had to do was keep quiet.
Slowly, carefully, the pair advanced until they reached the bottom of the slope, where at last the inside of the room was visible.
It was smaller than either had suspected, a stone-walled room just barely larger than the strategy room where Cayden had been spending so much time as of late. It was a particularly apt comparison, considering the large, ornate table that dominated the room, and the Warden who stood studying paper maps laid out atop it, his side to the doorway, oblivious to the players watching him.
That would probably be their guy.
"Skill Use: Observe," Cayden said, just barely loud enough for his mirror to register the words.
Warden Officer
Level 15 (Boss)
HP: ????/????
MP: ????/????
TP: ????/????
Skills: Unknown
Resistances: Earth 50%
Weaknesses: Water 100%
Special: Construct Traits, Defensive
Cayden turned his head in Celia's direction, and caught the gaze of the young time mage. It was too dangerous to talk, but that meeting of the minds spoke for them. She saw the same stats he did, and she knew the danger. The boss was five levels lower than them, but it was still a boss, still a very significant threat when there were only two of them to fight it.
They had thirty minutes before the roll-over to the Warden turn. Once that happened the boss' behavior might change. It might leave, or others might awaken and join it. It was a certainty that its troops would launch an attack against his, with his full Warmaster bonus, if the officer were still alive.
Shifty, Michael, and Silver could arrive at any time, but counting on their arrival within the next few minutes was a bad gamble. Even finding their way to where Celia and Cayden had disappeared would probably take longer than they had.
Still, if it were any other player, they'd have shaken their head. Shifty had to think about more than himself, Michael only thought about himself, and Silver didn't care about the Elan enough to risk her neck. Cayden wasn't actually sure that Celia did either, but she cared about what Cayden thought, which was enough to draw a slow smile and an eventual nod.
Just the two of them against a boss monster? What could go wrong?
Cayden returned her smile and turned his shield arm until she could see his fingers. He waited for another sign, then, once Celia was ready, he began to count on his fingers. Five, four, three, two...
The two burst from the doorway as Cayden's illusionary barrier scattered away from his sword hand like glittering leaves. Cayden did not attempt to disguise the noise of his approach, the Albieth steel of his Mage Blade singing as it cleared his scabbard, then cracking sharply as it crashed against the stone neck of the Terracotta warrior.
No scream of alarm or cry of pain accompanied the blow, only the clatter of papers and books as the sheer force of Cayden's advance drove the half-turned officer against the table. The creature's left arm was pinned to the frame by the weight of its own body as the Warden reached for the blade sheathed at his hip.
They couldn't give him a moment to breathe, Cayden knew. Humanoid Boss monsters were among the most easily exploited category of Boss enemies, in large part because they mimicked something that existed in reality. A manticore or an ogre didn't have to obey laws of physics, the way a humanoid enemy might, their strength and unnatural weapons precluding the sort of rush tactics that worked on real-world humans. He couldn't grapple with a dragon, but he could prevent a Warden from drawing his sword, at least for a time.
"Personal skill Use: Shield Bash." Cayden intoned a moment before he drove the curved edge of his shield into the head of his opponent, a critical damage notification appearing along with the stun indicator on the Warden officer's callout.
Despite their main weakness, humanoid enemies were often amongst the most dangerous of Babel's opponents, ironically for a very similar reason. An enormous beast like, say, the MEKA, typically kept to predictable patterns once engaged in combat, while a humanoid type fought more naturally, with feints, parries, and adaptations.
"... embrace the moment, accept your fate. Slow Time!" Celia finished chanting behind him, and not a moment too soon. His stun effect had been short-lived, as it always was on a Boss type enemy, and once free of it the Warden had finally managed to draw the short sword at its side clear of the sheath.
Under the effects of Celia's magical slowness, that wasn't so much
of a threat.
"Skill Use: Southern Cross," Cayden said as he slipped to the side of the Warden's first thrust. It would barely last longer than the stun, he knew, but while it lasted the Officer was of little threat to them. It was like fighting an opponent covered in molasses, only quite a bit less sticky.
His own moves, however, were crisp and clean as always. The skill took over control of his body, drawing him through the same two-cut motion he had performed hundreds of times, each cut shaving off an appreciable amount of the officer's HP. It was a relief, to see his sword do that much damage. The boss wasn't invincible; it wasn't even particularly durable. They could win this.
The Warden's sudden increase in speed caught Cayden off guard as he gloated, a surprise backhand catching him cleanly across the jaw as Celia shouted in alarm. It stung, though the HP loss stung quite a bit more, a bit of instant Karma as the Warden took the opportunity to put some space between them.
"I'm fine. Just cocky." Cayden grumbled, the damage already fading as Celia's Future Theft drastically increased his healing speed at the cost of some of his future regeneration.
If the Warden could talk, it chose to say nothing as it finished it's backpedaling, fifteen feet of distance separating the two swordsmen. Its gaze occasionally flickered in Celia's direction, but Cayden had done it far more damage, and thus garnered more threat than Celia's heals had provoked so far. She was safe, at least, for the time being.
Curiously, the Warden spun it's short sword with an unnatural flourish as it reversed its grip on the blade, holding it point downward, the business side of the single-edged shortsword towards Cayden, while the flat of the weapon rested back against its forearm. A defensive stance, Cayden recognized, but behavior quite unusual for a boss fight. They didn't usually let their enemy take a breather.
"Well, if you're not coming, I guess I have to," Cayden said, picking up speed with his shield before him as he drew back his sword arm.
The kick to his instep nearly buckled Cayden's entire leg as it brought him up short, a pair of short jabs bouncing off the upraised shield in a way that made Cayden's bones hurt just thinking about it. The only thing the Warden didn't attack with was its short sword; the weapon kept close to its body, its edge turned to intercept Cayden's attack, parrying it aside almost effortlessly.
Ah, so that is how it is going to be. Cayden frowned. There was a name for the fighting style, and a player class that practiced it, but both eluded him as took his turn to put distance from the boss. It explained the comparatively low HP, even for an underleveled boss. The Warden fought with active mitigation the same way he did; only it used a blade as its shield and its other limbs as its weapons.
He might not remember the name of the style, but he remembered why he'd disqualified it early on in his decision about what to play. It was great at martial mitigation, but it sucked at fighting mages.
"Swing away, Celia."
"What?" The girl asked in confusion.
"DPS. Do damage." Cayden insisted.
"You know I'm the healer right?"
"Just do it," Cayden called back at her, taking a quick sidestep to dodge another kick and position himself more squarely between Celia and the Warden officer.
"... Okay. You asked for it. Skill Use: If life, death." Celia replied. Immediately, one of her hands came up, palm perpendicular to the floor. Magical energy began to flicker around her fingertips, and in an infinity symbol beneath her feet, as she intoned the words of magic in a steady cadence. "If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity. If life, death."
As the last words fell from Celia's mouth the lemniscate beneath her feet shattered the glow of its magic forming into her hand before dark tendrils snaked out to ensnare the Warden. Cayden watched with a mixture of curiosity and horror as the stone of the Warden weakened and cracked wherever it was touched by the tendrils, as though decaying before his very eyes.
The spell, though powerful, was nowhere near enough to kill the officer, but it was enough to get his attention. It feinted, drawing a block from Cayden before it moved to circumvent him, stopped only by a roar from Cayden's lips as he taunted, pulling the monster's focus right back where it belonged.
"Hit it again," Cayden demanded, activating his Grasp the World ability moments before he absorbed another hail of the Warden's blows with the surface of his shield.
Celia was correct that she wasn't DPS. The damage done by her best combat spell was barely on par with mid-level magic from a damage focused class, and its rate of MP usage could be best described as garbage, but it got through the creature's defenses in a way no physical attack was likely to, which made this a damage race. One they would win, so long as the Warden didn't have a second phase or some mystery skill.
It did turn out to have a mystery skill, several in fact. Yet by the time the Warden began opening up with its illusionary duplicates and high damage combination attacks, the terracotta foe was already in the bottom quarter of its HP bar, while Cayden had saved up more than enough MP to unleash some damage dealing spells of his own.
The fight ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. Well, and also the bang of Cayden's Explosive Wave runespell.
A quiet ding chimed at the back of Cayden's AR display as the force of Cayden's magic sent the body of the Warden officer flying, it's limp and already half decayed body collapsing into ash as it struck the nearby wall.
"Did you just?" Celia asked.
"I think I did, yeah," Cayden replied. If Celia heard him, she gave no indication, too busy inside the same menu Cayden was all too eager to delve into. It took only a few button presses before he was rewarded with:
You have reached Guardian Level 11
+40 HP
+20 TP
He double checked that the quest from Azazi remained unfinished, then grinned when it was confirmed. That boss was worth the equivalent of two full levels, probably to make up for the fact that they had no other way to level.
"Huh. You know, terrifying death event or no, I could get used to XP gains like these." Celia said.
Before Cayden could reply, Silver's voice cut in across his headset. "There you are! Are you guys alright?"
Cayden opened his mouth to reply, then closed it when he looked at the level range of his party. Only he and Celia had gained any XP for the encounter.
He was alright now, but he might not be once Michael and Shifty got their hands on him.
Chapter Fifteen
Day Two – Night
Resources – F – 290 +10, Z – 295 +15, M – 145 +5, P – 220 +20, R +10
Completed – Keep Repair II (Dungeon)
“Welcome home, Field Marshall.”
“Valserys.” Cayden inclined his head in the other man's direction as he entered the strategy room, doing a rather poor job of concealing just how startled he'd been by the Elan's presence. “I didn't expect anyone to still be up.”
"I estimated your time of arrival and slept accordingly once the evening turn was over." The officer responded curtly, though for once Cayden was sure he could detect a sliver of a smile hidden just beneath the twists of that neon mustache.
"You're going to teach me how to do that sometime." The young man was not so hesitant with his smile as he moved to join his officer. "I twist and turn all evening."
“An old soldier’s trick I am afraid. Once you spend enough nights with a rock for a pillow and two hours before march, it becomes second nature.” Valserys shuffled to one side to allow Cayden extra room in front of the War Frame. “I've left open combat results for your perusal.”
“Appreciated.” He nodded. “How'd we do, generally.”
"Well." The stern man drew his attention to a window on the left side of the War Frame that contained the statistics most relevant to his query.
The Fighting First (Formation)
Type: Infantry (Elan)
Level: 1 (7
0% to Next Level)
Unit Count: 98/100
HP: 69/100
MP: 0/0
TP: 82/100
Bastion's Second (Formation)
Type: Infantry (Elan)
Level: 1 (35% to Next Level)
Unit Count: 95/100
HP: 63/100
MP: 0/0
TP: 82/100
The Pointy Third (Formation)
Type: Infantry (Elan)
Level: 1 (30% to Next Level)
Unit Count: 100/100
HP: 75/100
MP: 0/0
TP: 82/100
The Undaunted Fourth (Formation)
Type: Infantry (Elan)
Level: 1 (20% to Next Level)
Unit Count: 99/100
HP: 74/100
MP: 0/0
TP: 82/100
Cayden winced as he studied the numbers before him. “This is 'well'?”
"When fighting an enemy that cannot suffer from negative morale? I'm afraid so, Field Marshall." Valserys frowned. "The Wardens don't rout the way a living soldier would. They still lose much of their combat effectiveness once their formation is broken, but even individual soldiers will fight to the last rather than turn tail for their safety."
"From Hell's Heart, they stab at thee."
Valserys smiled wanly at the quote. "An apt description." The Elan touched thoughtfully at the edge of his mustache. "I ought to give you more credit."
“For quoting Star Trek?”
“I was under the impression that quote came from a bloodline poet called Shakespeare?”
“Err... yeah, that too.” Cayden laughed.
"Casualties may still rise as we finish the cleanup, as such we won't have the final total until the midday turn, but I expect few if any additional losses."
“They didn't attack on the evening turn then?”
