Grand Game 374: Twin Objectives (Patreon)

As we entered the central fog bank, the lichs and I began our final preparations.

You have cast heightened reflexes, load controller, fade, and trigger-cast quick mend.

Farren has cast reaper’s sanctuary, granting you the buff: death immune (+100% death magic resistance). Duration: 5 minutes.

Farren has cast reaper’s shield on you, granting you the buff: death’s favored (+75% death magic resistance). Duration: 1 hour.

Farren has cast lich’s aid, increasing the effectiveness of all your skills and abilities by 25%. Duration: 1 hour.

Farren cast two separate death magic buffs on me, and while they did not stack with each other, the second would replace the first when it ran out. Together, they would ensure I was well-protected against death spells, and given the harbingers penchant for such, I gladly welcomed them.

Adriel has cast undead’s champion on you (+100% damage inflicted). Duration: 20 minutes.

Adriel has cast warrior’s boon on you (+20 to all physical attributes). Duration: 20 minutes.

Adriel’s own buffs were no less powerful than her siblings’, but were more offensively inclined and would double my effectiveness in battle.

“We’re here,” Adriel said.

We were inside the thick nether cloud obscuring the dungeon’s center and had been in it for nearly the last minute, but by ‘here,’ Adriel did not mean the fog bank, she meant the void tree itself. We hovered directly over it, high enough that the stygians below could not sense us.

Glancing down over the dracolich’s side, I tried to see what distinguished this spot from any other but beheld only opaque mist. “You’re sure?”

“I am,” she replied. “I do not need to see to sense the guardian’s presence. Draven is directly beneath. Are you ready?”

“One moment,” I said. There were two final preparations I needed to make. The first was establishing our position. Removing the pioneer’s compass from my coat pocket, I clenched my fist around the artifact and focused on the safe zone.

You have attuned a pioneer’s compass to the safe zone of sector 73,102.

Just like a beacon, the safe zone’s location appeared in my mind’s eye. We were due south of it. The compass could not tell me how far away it was, but I didn’t need to know that. All I needed was a heading—a point to navigate by.

Stowing the compass in my pocket again, I turned my focus inwards. The last thing I needed to do was perform a casting of my own.

You have cast fortified mind, reserving half of your psi for your mental shields. Psi remaining for use: 50%.

As the spell fell into place, I felt my subconscious split in two, one half forming an unassailable wall around my mind, while the other part continued to feed me energy.

Now I was equipped to both find the sapling and survive its touch—or so I hoped. “Ready,” I pronounced with satisfaction.

Immediately, Adriel dropped into a dive, and we fell as silently as a stone.

Wind rushed by, brought into being by the ferocious speed of our descent, and tore at my clothes, face, and hair. Squeezing my eyes shut, I kept watch for the ground with my mindsight. Behind me, I heard Farren whispering to himself, but couldn’t tell if the wild ride had him terrified or excited.

It was probably both.

The seconds ticked away, and with each, my anticipation and dread grew. This was it. My last battle in the dungeon. One final roll of the dice to save the sector and an untold number of lives.

My mental sight blossomed to life suddenly.

Hundreds—no, thousands—of mindglows had just breached the edge of my awareness. “Ground!” I yelled. “A hundred yards away and closing fast.”

The dracolich had been waiting for my word, and in the next instant, she pulled out sharply from her dive to skim along the ground.

I took careful note of the safe zone’s beacon in my mind. By its reckoning, Adriel was heading east.

Behind me, Farren fell silent. He could hear as well as I, the enraged hissing, chittering, and roars of the stygians below as the nest finally the threat descending from above. “How many?” he asked tersely.

“Thousands,” I replied laconically.

“The harbinger?” Adriel asked.

“Behind us and already in motion,” I replied. I had sensed the stygian Power the moment the nest had come into range, a mindglow larger than any of the others nearby.

“Then we’re off to a good start,” Farren said in a tone that told me he was smiling again. “Do it now, Adriel.”

The dracolich banked left sharply, causing her lower wing to almost brush the ground. I jumped off. So did Farren.

Protected by his shield, the lich weathered the short drop to the ground without suffering anything other than a few cuts and bruises while I broke my own fall using windborne.

“Good luck,” Adriel called, wings flapping hard as she fought for altitude. The dracolich would cut a wide circle through the fog and return when were ready.

I bounced back to my feet and scanned the area swiftly with mindsight. We’d been lucky in our choice of landing spots, and the immediate vicinity was free of stygians.

But the creatures were already converging from far and wide as an unknowable number of spores reported our position. Setting my stance, I drew a couple of stone flasks from my bomber’s belt.

For now, I only had one job. Protecting Farren.

Glancing behind me, I saw the lich was already muttering the words of a spell under his breath. Leaving him to it, I whipped back my arm and flung the flasks in my hand at the closest clump of stygians.

You have ignited 1 acid bomb and 1 firebomb!

Acid splashed and fire ignited, then the pair mixed in a volatile combination that set the mist flashing orange and tossing asunder the closest creatures.

You have killed 5 stygian crawlers and 3 stygian serpents.

I drew another pair of bombs and threw it as quickly to my right. Repeating the maneuver twice more, I thinned the number of stygians approaching from the rear and the left.

You have killed 25 stygians.

Trying to hold back the nest was a losing proposition, of course. There were too many stygians converging on us, but all I sought to do was buy Farren time.

Farren has cast purifying dome. Duration: 12 minutes.

An electric ring rippled outwards from the lich. It passed harmlessly over me but burned away the mists wherever it touched it.

You have entered a purifying field. All environmental ill-effects have been nullified.

The circle kept expanding until Farren and I stood in a dome of crystal-clear and sweet-smelling air that was about twenty yards in diameter. “Much better,” I said, throwing a grin at the lich behind me but, already in the midst of another spell, he failed to hear me.

Shrugging, I drew my swords. Farren’s spell had laid bare the dozens of approaching stygians—a mix of hydras, serpents, and crawlers. There was no sign of the harbinger yet. He was certainly taking his time, perhaps to ascertain there was no trap lurking, but I did not doubt he would eventually arrive.

Right, let’s see how many I can kill before he gets here. Drawing psi, I leaped towards the closest stygian.

✵ ✵ ✵

You have charmed 8 of 8 targets for 20 seconds.

You have induced 6 of 6 targets to sleep for 40 seconds.

I danced between the stygians, my blades in constant motion. My right flank was protected by a pair of charmed hydras, my left by four bespelled serpents.

I couldn’t hide. I tried twice already but failed, confirmation enough of the presence of the spores. Yet, even without my stealth, I wreaked havoc among the nether creatures.

A hydra nipped at me from the front. Swaying out of the path of the darting head, I chopped down with the sword in my right hand.

Courtesy of the lichs’ buffs—Adriel’s especially—my weapons were empowered beyond the norm, and the gray stygian blade cleaved right through the hydra’s neck.

You have crippled a hydra!

Strengthening my arms yet further, I went on the offensive.

You have cast whirlwind and piercing strike.

Lunging forward, I ripped open the hydra’s second head with the blade in my left hand, then pivoting on my heel, chopped off two more in quick succession

You have crippled a hydra!

You have crippled a hydra!

You have crippled a hydra!

Shrieking in pain, the hydra attempted to retreat. I didn’t let up. Dashing forward, I launched a blistering assault, cutting and slashing at my foe from two different directions at once.

You have killed a hydra.

The hydra crashed lifelessly to the ground, but its demise only marked an opportunity for the rest of the waiting nether creatures. Surging forward, a dozen crawlers rushed over the corpse in an attempt to reach me.

They failed.

You have teleported into a stygian serpent’s shadow.

I emerged from the aether on the other side of the lich around whom the skirmish was centered. Farren was still blind to the world and unbothered by the few stygians nipping at his shield. The spell he was casting, I knew, was a long and complex one.

The serpent struck me. Somersaulting forward, I leaped over the blow and plunged both my blades into its torso.

You have killed a stygian serpent with a fatal blow.

Freeing myself from the dead creature’s coils, I rolled away from the snapping jaws of another stygian and surged back to my feet to bury my blades in the crawlers attempting to sneak up on me.

You have killed 2 stygian crawlers.

A giant shape that dwarfed even the hydras thumped down less than ten yards from the shielded lich, causing the other stygians to scatter. It was the harbinger. I have been monitoring his careful approach for a while now and was not caught by surprise.

Ignoring Farren, the harbinger fixed his malevolent gaze on me. “Wolfling, you’ve returned. How foolish of you.”

“Not as foolish as you falling for my ploy at the archlich’s compound,” I retorted. Retracting my blades from the dead crawlers, I advanced on the harbinger.

“I’m ready,” Farren interjected. “Should I release the spell?”

“Go,” I replied tersely, not taking my eyes off the harbinger as I drew psi in anticipation. “I’m ready.”

“On my way,” Adriel replied from above.

“So, that was your doing? The archlich was your pawn?” the harbinger hissed, unaware of our mental asides. “I should’ve known!” Not waiting for my response, he threw himself into motion, moving so rapidly he was little more than a blur in my vision.

I flung myself out of the way, barely avoiding his snapping beak and searching claws.

You have evaded a stygian harbinger’s attack.

I laughed as I rolled back to my feet. “You should have,” I agreed, continuing the conversation as if there had been no interruption.

The stygian’s eyes glinted. “Arrogant cur, I’ll—”

Farren has cast oblivion.

The harbinger broke off, seeming to sense the spell almost at the same time I did. Forgetting me entirely, the stygian whipped around to pin Farren with a menacing glare.

It was far too late to stop the lich’s casting, though.

The air flashed black, transforming from one second to the next in a darkness so thick, I could almost taste it on my tongue. Closing my eyes, I waited.

The spell rolled over me—

You have entered an oblivion field.

You have passed a magical resistance check! You have failed to disintegrate!

—then the harbinger,

A harbinger is immune to death magic. A harbinger has failed to disintegrate.

—and then, the rest of the of the stygians.

A stygian crawler has died.

A stygian serpent has died.

A stygian crawler has died.

…

...

A level 4 stygian spore has died.

A level 6 stygian spore has died.

My lips twitched upwards in a smile at the death notifications. Farren was nothing if not consummate a death caster, and both him and Adriel had been certain the oblivion field would extend all the way to the void tree.

Of course, the spell’s strength would decrease exponentially the further afield it went, and that would allow most of the stygians to escape unscathed.

Not so the spores.

As mere rank zero creatures, even the faintest touch of the oblivion spell would slay them.

“Fools!” the harbinger crowed. “Your death magic cannot touch me!”

I wanted to retort, but wisely refrained. Because, of course, it was not the harbinger but the spores that were the targets of the spell. Our foe had not seemed to have caught onto that fact yet. Flaring his wings and rearing back his head, the harbinger prepared to strike—at me or Farren, I wasn’t sure.

And in the end, it didn’t matter.

Before the stygian could release the attack he readied, Adriel crashed down, her clawed feet digging deep into his back as she landed squarely atop him.

A stygian harbinger has been critically injured!

“Go!” Adriel ordered.

I went. Targeting a lone crawler in the fog, I shadow blinked away.

I had a guardian to awaken.