Mage Tank

Chapter 208: Shared Fate

I was blinded for several terrifying seconds after the beam hit. I kept a spiritual eye on everyone with Soul Sight, but the wastelanders seemed to be as fucked as I was. When the afterimage cleared from my vision, it was just in time to see a massive section of the six-foot-thick stone floor droop and fall away into the empty space of the Closet below. Blue’s corpse went along with it. This time, there was no miraculous resurrection for the mage.

There was a second of hesitation in the enemy party, and Xim took advantage of it.

The burning icon of a pulsing heart appeared above the cleric. Blood-red flames surrounded it, a stark contrast to the orange-white inferno left in the beam’s wake. The heart swelled as she poured stacks of Blessed into it. The organ beat with a pounding thump, emitting a wave of dread that drove itself into the minds of the remaining wastelanders.

Fluffy tried to run, but Xim’s Fear effect also Slowed its victims. Nottagator snapped at the Yeti, finally catching the elusive pugilist and clamping down on her with its jaws. Veil shivered, then sluggishly raced through the remains of the ballroom to the nearest door, tearing through it rather than using the doorknob like a polite house guest.

As the Chovali runeweaver lost his shit, the weaves fell apart and my Paralyzed debuff ended.

I was just about ready to snap.

Buster’s two halves floated away from the massive hole in the floor, steaming as the last remnants of their blood shield boiled away. Neither seemed to suffer from the Fear effect.

Varrin was already flying through the air toward the pair, the spectral blue eyes on his helm growing more intense every second. The skeleton moved to intercept and swung its massive blade in a precise blur of speed. Varrin stepped through the air like he stood on solid ground, avoiding the hit with minimal effort and running Kazandak across the skeleton’s battered armor. It bit through the plate and severed three ribs.

Varrin tilted his body and tanked the next attack with his side, moving to deflect the majority of the thousand-pound-blade’s energy.

Flesh bag tried to trap Varrin in a blood dome, but the big guy spun and vanished, then reappeared behind the skeleton and carved through part of its spine.

Xim sent me a thought and I canceled Gravity Anchor as she grabbed me. We shot up through the roof and she cast a Heal as we flew away, then her aura ticked, granting me even more healing.

HP: 204 -> 480

“Blast ‘em,” she said, then let me loose.

My wings spread and I caught myself. I looked down at the mansion, a significant portion of which was actively on fire and collapsing as it migrated through the dark, empty space of the Closet.

I scanned for the souls of the wastelanders, along with Etja and Hysteria. Neither the mage nor the avatar were within my Sight, but my default mana shape from Arcane Library was Discretion. My spells would ignore my allies, so Etja would be safe, even if she was still inside.

Veil had fled to the edge of the mansion, searching for an escape in a house with no exits. From where we hovered, it looked like a rectangular prism of dark, floating stone. One with a mighty hole poked into it, but the Chovali had run away in terror, leaving that potential mode of egress behind. I still couldn’t find the Wishborn.

Varrin raged against Buster’s skeleton. He grew stronger with every hit he took or dished out, but Berserk forced him to fight the closest enemy. A stream of blood flowed from his injuries to the meat suit, healing the caster as he took the warrior apart.

Explosion! was charged enough to destroy the whole place, hitting everyone, or I could leave Nottagator and its Yeti chew toy untouched by detonating the spell off-center. The Atrocidile didn’t count as an ally, given that it would tear me apart as readily as anyone else. Explosion! wouldn’t ignore the monster, even with the Discretion mana shape on my spells.

I knew the beast could tank the hit, but Nottagator was already injured from the beam and hadn’t bothered to extinguish itself, letting the fire fuel its own Rage stacks. Even if the Atrocidile would survive the blast, I was a softie when it came to my pets, regardless of whether they were bloodthirsty abominations.

There was no way they could hear me from this distance, so I simply spoke the last phrase of my chant, and dropped the AoE toward the edge of the grounds.

“You’ll die as you lived

Beneath another man’s heel

Crushed like those you loved.”

The whole skirmish had lasted eighteen seconds. Even with half of the AoE bombing empty space, Explosion! obliterated a 110-foot chunk of the mansion. The entire western wing erupted, sending broken rock, splintered wood, and shattered art and furniture hurtling away into the dark.

Then the force of the detonation reversed, sucking in all the debris, along with the chunky remains of Veil and both halves of Buster. The detritus crashed together into one big lump, then scattered and fell away into the dark.

The spell dropped more than 800 damage right on top of Veil and Buster’s mercenary heads. In exchange, the mansion was a burning ruin.

I evaluated the impact, searching to see if either of my targets survived. I caught a glimmer of Buster’s soul, falling and fading in and out of existence, but Veil was gone. The music had also stopped. I didn’t see any sign of Hysteria’s cloak.

Varrin floated for a moment, chest heaving with heavy breaths as he looked for his next victim. He locked onto Fluffy and Nottagator. Before he could charge, Xim hit him with a Cleanse, ending the Berserk status.

Varrin’s helm went dark and the man shook his head, then reevaluated the battlefield, or lack thereof. Nottagator had Fluffy between its teeth and rolled, grinding the Yeti into the floor and extinguishing the flames on and around it.

Varrin decided against getting between the beast and its prey, choosing to fly up to meet me and Xim instead.

HP: 483 -> 759

“This form drains a lot of stamina,” Xim said as she cast another Heal. “I can burn mana to get my stamina back, but only if I’m healing from an injury. If we’re killing anything else, we should get a move on.”

I looked over, taking in her transformation. Her hair flowed like a liquid, similar to Sam’lia’s own, though its fluidity was more pronounced. Her eyes leaked dark flames, but the heat was gentle. The glowing ring at her back hummed as it held her aloft.

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“Resource check,” I said, then sent a thought to Grotto.

“Grotto, do we have eyes on Etja and Hysteria? What about Nuralie and the Zenithar? We’re also missing the Wishborn archer.”

“I can keep this up for three more minutes,” said Xim. “It has a 24-hour cooldown. Mana is fine. I can recover it fast if I get a few minutes to meditate.”

Varrin’s helm went dark, and I felt power rush through his body as he burned a chunk of stamina. His health jumped up by 421 points.

“I’m good,” he said.

“I could have just Healed you,” said Xim.

“What’s your mana regen?”

“Eighty.”

“My stamina regen is 1200 out of combat. Heal Arlo instead.”

Xim’s eyebrows shot up as she tossed another spell my way. Between her spells and aura, my wounds were knitting closed at an incredible pace. My kidneys had probably regrown themselves. There was also an uncomfortable tearing feeling in my chest. The Giant’s lightning bolt had fused some of my skin to my gambeson. The charred flesh was peeling free as new skin formed beneath it.

“How much of that is from your new helmet?” Xim asked.

Varrin sent us the helm’s description.

Sanitas Ira

Corvite Houndskull Bascinet

Requirements: STR 40, SPD 20, AGI 20, FOR 40

+16 DR All

+86 Physical DR

+60 Health Regeneration

+240 Stamina Regeneration

+160 Dodge

+40 Dodge Recovery

While Berserk, you gain +68% resistance to hostile mind-affecting abilities.

This item can only be wielded by members of the Ravvenblaq family.

“Jesus fuck,” I muttered. “Do all those numbers go up another 50% from your Old Money passive?”

“The passive is called Ancestral Regalia, and yes. The stamina regen gets tripled by Deep Breaths as well.”

“So you’re immune to mental attacks while berserking,” said Xim. That reminded me to check the Holy Water. It was seconds away from expiring.

“I knew that shit would be good,” I said. “But damn. Also, I’ve got 174 mana with regen at 400 currently.”

“Okay, enough show and tell,” said Xim. “Are we moving?”

“Still waiting on Grotto,” I said, growing nervous. “He isn’t answering.”n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Grotto?” I tried again.

A wave of Spiritual pain shot through my connection with the Bonded Familiar. Dread began to overwhelm me. My head spun until I grew nauseous, scattering my thoughts until I could barely think. I’d never felt this side of Shared Fate, but I knew instinctively what it meant.

Something had just attacked Grotto, and the wound went beyond his fake octo body, badly damaging his core.

I spun toward the Pocket Delve. The ruined mansion had been traveling in that direction. I couldn’t see it through the dark, but Coordinated Thinker told me we’d covered three-quarters of the distance.

Varrin was the fastest, and he grabbed each of us with a giant arm and took off, immediately cracking through the sound barrier. The Delve’s dark exterior was visible within seconds.

I scanned the boundaries for Dimensional Magic, finding nothing but the normal ambient levels. “The portal barrier is down,” I said. “It should be self-sustaining. Either Grotto shut it down manually, or something is preventing the obelisk from distributing mana.”

“What’s the move?” asked Xim.

“Give me a sec,” I said, closing my eyes and focusing.

The easiest method of finding everyone was to use my aura. I calmed myself and focused on Grotto first. He was deep within the Delve, but his surroundings were nearly pitch black. There was just enough light for my darkvision to give me a vague impression of the space, which was small and cramped.

Grotto had shown me a three-dimensional model of the entire Closet while the Littans ran through the Delve. I brought that up in my mind, remembering the general layout, and focused while feeling out Grotto through my aura and our soul connection. I was pretty sure he was in the control room, but all of his equipment had gone dead.

The Core was alive but unresponsive. I couldn’t make out any enemies in the room through my aura, so I took a crack with my Soul Sight.

Grotto’s control room was warded to hell and back. It was surrounded by a sphere of inch-thick mana-enhancing Madrin woven with a dozen different anti-teleportation, anti-scrying, and anti-divination arrays on top of a variety of other enchantments falling within the “none of your business” category. That was surrounded by a sphere of meter-thick mana-dampening dark iron with enough damage reduction weaves to make any attempt at a brute-force entry take long enough for backup to arrive.

All of the weaves were independently powered through mana chips so they weren’t reliant on the obelisk to stay active. Grotto had probably dumped more than half the chips I’d ever given him into making the little bunker. Normally, such robust defensive measures would be great. At the moment, it was getting in the way.

My connection to Grotto gave me enough to get a read on his soul, but my Sight was otherwise blocked. I couldn’t be certain the Core was alone, or that this wasn’t a trap of some sort.

While I was searching for Grotto, I also reached out for Etja. She was in the Delve as well, in the hallway outside the obelisk chamber and buried in a wall. Her health was fine, and no damage had transferred to me through Life Warden, but she was definitely unconscious. There was a horde of dead Gekkogs around her, several of which had arrows sticking out of them.

I could just barely see into the obelisk chamber. I could make out the fluttering outline of the Wishborn standing a foot off the ground next to the dark pillar. They were doing something to it, but I couldn’t tell what.

I reached out for Nuralie next, but I was completely blocked off. That could have been because she didn’t want to be found, because the Zenithar was using some kind of divine interference, or because something less pleasant was interfering. Either way, she was alive and well on the party interface.

I opened my eyes.

“Well, we can go guns blazing and make a reckless teleport into a potential trap,” I said. “Or Xim can drop her transformation to save stamina while we work out a better plan.”

“Explain,” said Xim. I gave them the abbreviated version.

“Can we even get inside Grotto’s command center?” asked Varrin. “If it is as well defended as you say, I am uncertain how we could quickly infiltrate.”

“I can think of two methods,” I said. “First, layer walking.”

“Shit,” said Xim. She let her transformation end, forgot that she couldn’t fly without it, and Varrin swept down to scoop her up before she fell too far. She cleared her throat and wiggled a bit in the princess carry. “Layer walking would take time. I’d have to set up the ritual. This is also completely unknown territory and I have no idea what the wilds would be like in here.”

“But you think it would work?” I said.

“Probably. It might even be easier than normal since the Closet has a direct connection to the tribe. The problem is what else might be in here from the Third Layer that we don’t know about. This area may be relatively tame since it’s conceptually related to our lands, but it’s very unrelated from a geographic standpoint.” She blew a curl of hair from her face and looked around. “It’s also possible that this is the layout within the Third Layer since the Closet is all that’s ever existed here. If that’s the case, it wouldn’t help us much. There’d still be a hunk of rock and magic metal in our way.”

“What is the second option?” asked Varrin.

“Grotto’s anti-teleportation weaves form a perfect sphere around the control room,” I said. “But that’s a three-dimensional shape. I can try to access the room by fumbling about in the shadows of the fourth dimension, where that hollow sphere would become equivalent to a circle that I can just sort of… step over. Then I mana-shape Shortcut to take you both along with me.”

“You have only done that once, correct?” said Varrin.

“Yeah, during the Cathedral puzzle in the Descent.”

“Chances of catastrophic failure?” asked Xim.

“I think it would be low,” I said. “I use Coordinated Thinker to find the path, which doesn’t require me to physically go anywhere, just feel out the space and apply some Dimensional Magic. The teleport would be normal. For me, at least. I haven’t done it with a group.”

“Which option would be faster to eliminate?” asked Varrin.

“It should only take me a minute to figure out the teleport,” I said.

“That’s faster than my way,” said Xim. “Sounds like a winner. If it doesn’t work, we can risk diving into the unknowns of the Closet’s Third Layer.”

“Alright,” I said, then began focusing on moving my perception strangeward.

I spent several seconds reacquainting myself with the feeling of looking in the incomprehensible direction, then worked to settle my focus on the shadows that my mind could fathom. When I went through this process while moving from the basilica to the cathedral, I was maneuvering down a straight hallway, one that was infinitely larger than the rooms I was moving between.

Here, there was no hallway.

There was only plant.