Mage Tank

The Littans spent the hour recovering and I chatted with Grotto about the upcoming political quagmire our party was about to become involved with.

[The Diplomacy intrinsic would give you a natural advantage. You will not be able to rely entirely on Etja to carry the weight of public relations. As the party leader, you will be subject to significant scrutiny and forced to respond to inquiries of all manner.]

“Right, but I’m hesitant to invest in an intrinsic that has such close ties to Charisma. It’s not a stat I’m planning on raising. Not anytime soon, at least.”

[There are different forms of Diplomacy. Strategy and planning serve as much of a role as honeyed words or graceful utilization of decorum. Intelligence and Wisdom can play their part. Beyond that, we can take advantage of my ability to share your intrinsics through the power of the Traveler’s Amulet. My highest stat is Charisma, and with our connection, I can guide you through certain interactions.]

“Yeah, it’s still weird that’s your highest stat.”

[Why? What did you believe it would be?]

“You know, I hadn’t really thought about it. But, Charisma… you’re just, uh–”

[Just what?]

“You don’t seem very diplomatic is all I’m saying.”

[I am fully capable of navigating social situations that require the judicious use of tact and sensitivity.]

“When have you ever done that?”

[I have seen no reason to speak with you or other party members under the guise of false sincerity. I speak my mind because it provides the most utility. If that were not the case, I am more than competent at adaptation and adjustment.]

“Okay. Hmm, I’ll think about it some more. We’ve got the rest of the week.”

[Practice and study during our downtime may allow us to reach the first evolution, given that both of us can work on the intrinsic simultaneously. It is best not to ruminate excessively.]

“Wait, would both of us working on a skill simultaneously help my skills train faster?”

[You have done very little Dungeoneering, yet your skill is at 20. If the connection operates along the same parameters, as the Amulet suggests, then I see no reason why it would be otherwise.]

“If we spar it’ll be like me fighting a shadow clone of myself and then fusing afterward to receive the knowledge?”

[Is that how it works with Dungeoneering?]

“I haven’t explored it much. When I think about the mechanics of Delves, I get knowledge back that I know I never learned myself, but I need something to prime it. It’s a problem of not knowing what I don’t know. I have to try and call the knowledge to mind to realize that I know it, but I can’t do that if I don’t know what I’m trying to know, you know?”

Grotto gave me a mental grunt.

[Diplomacy will help with your linguistic butchery even without additional Charisma.]

“I know.”

We went back and forth some more. I had 9 intrinsic slots filled out of 11, and we could snag one more slot with an Expansion Delve to bring me to a max of 12. I wanted to be cautious with my choices, but I also realized the longer I waited around the more I wasted opportunities to train up a new skill.

If I were about to walk into high-level discussions with Littan politicians and leadership, it would present a great opportunity to power level something like Diplomacy. My existing skill set primarily advanced through killing shit, so giving myself the ability to power up in other types of situations–ones I would be forced to encounter–should increase my overall rate of advancement.

I was also considering Athletics to improve my mobility. Grabbing a crafting skill other than Smithing might be smart since my human racial trait buffed crafting skill progression. I could snag Tailoring and make myself some fancy outfits. Cooking clearly had some benefits that I could bring to the team. We nearly lost our minds surviving off of rations for months. Reconnaissance would make my already substantial perception abilities even better, playing to one of my strengths. Lore, Survival, and Engineering all looked like they’d provide solid utility.

There were a lot of options that intrigued me.

“Could I use Diplomacy with Dungeoneering to help you peer pressure other Delve Cores into doing weird shit for us?”

[Probably.]

“Ugh, that almost seals the deal for me.”

[Your vest and boa also grant social boons. You would have an excuse to wear them wherever you go, not that you need one.]

I went ahead and slotted Diplomacy.

When the Littans were close to the end of their time, Cezil returned to her normal form and held out her hand to Madel. Her twin took it reluctantly, then pulled a sword from her inventory I hadn’t seen before. The blade was dark green and shone as if coated in a thin layer of viscous liquid.

“Good choice,” said Cezil.

The Littan mimic’s body slowly began to morph, her hand turned into a pommel, and the rest of her body condensed and folded until it was a perfect replica of the myrtle-colored sword.

Madel stowed the original blade, then concentrated on the copy. She held her eyes tightly shut, and I was enraptured as the woman’s soul began to creep out and cover the blade. Cezil’s own spirit blossomed from the blade and entwined itself with Madel’s, then stretched out and began to suffuse her entire soul.

As they blended, Madel’s fur shifted until it matched the hue of the blade. Her nails turned an even darker green, glistening like they were freshly painted, and when she opened her eyes they smoldered with jade light.

Madel floated up and swept the sword through the air with a single swift stroke, then held out her arm and looked over her fur and nails.

“Envy,” she said. “An adequate color when others must crane their necks to witness me.”

“Only because you’re over the top,” said Guar. He grinned and nudged Baltae with his fully regrown elbow.

“You should not insult her, Guar,” said Baltae, though a hint of a smile played across his lips. “She might get upset.”

Madel peered down her nose at Guar.

“His words cannot cut, for they are as blunt as his weapon,” she said.

Guar hefted his hammer on his shoulder and opened his mouth to retort, but was interrupted by Pio.

“Enough,” said the captain. “Form up and get ready to engage.”

Helmets were donned and stowed weapons came out. This time, Guar stood to Pio’s side, rather than Madel. The floating woman gave Pio an appraising look, then hovered into position ahead of her. Baltae had his hand along the wall, waiting for the captain’s signal.

“Madel, as soon as the portal opens you’re the first one in,” said Pio.

“The reptile shall know my mercy, cold as its own blood, as I relieve the abomination of its pained existence.”

“Right,” said Pio with a little apprehension. “Guar, wait for your opportunity to strike. We don’t want to waste your attack if it’s just going to dodge or use something that blocks it. Let Madel and Baltae soften it up.”

“Yes, Captain,” said Guar.

“Staff Sergeant, take us through.”

Madel disappeared before the Worm Tunnel was fully formed. I swapped my view to the cavern to see Madel appear above the lake and dive down into it, sending a geyser of water shooting up to kiss the cavern’s ceiling high above. Pio came through second, followed by Guar and then Baltae.

Baltae flew through the air with Telekinesis, giving himself some distance from the lake, but staying close enough to cast. Pio ran along the shore where the dimensional spikes were thinnest with Guar at her heels. The hammer-wielding man veered away from his captain to take position behind a crop of stone.

The surface of the lake exploded as the Atrocidile’s head breached, sending a wave crashing to shore. A torrent of pattering drops scattered across the entire chamber, and in those raindrops was a tinge of indigo blood.

Madel rode Nottagator’s snout, blade buried in its face, but just south of its bulbous orange eye. The monster roared, sending a blast of pressure in all directions, hurling Madel away from it. She held onto her sword as her body blurred, resisting the creature’s Fear attack. She spun in the air like a ballerina on a stage of wind, then shot back at the Atrocidile, eyes gleaming with growing intensity.

Guar burned a defensive buff and Baltae relied on Pio’s protection against the Fear. Pio herself was immune, I’d decided since she barely reacted to the attack. I assumed a sword couldn’t flee in terror, even if it could be affected by a mental debuff.

The captain and the spatial mage didn’t have the benefit of Guar’s barrier this time, however, and both had their Shielding torn apart by the pressure wave.

Pio granted herself Haste, renewed the defensive buff on the pair of them, tossed Baltae a Heal, and activated an aura that further buffed her party’s mental defenses. She ran as she cast, placing herself at the center of her allies.

Baltae channeled Suction Bomb, twisting space around the Nottagator’s center, but the Atrocidile shrugged off the spell’s attempt to crush its limbs. Baltae cast Spatial Orb at nearly the same time, hurling the rotating sphere of violet energy into Nottagtor’s side where it crashed against its thick, armored hide to little avail.

I wondered why the mage was relying on Dimensional spells. He’d remarked that Force was the best damage type he had against the Atrocidile, but I suspected I’d find out what he was angling for soon enough.

While spatial magic assaulted Nottagator, Madel shot toward him with enough speed to split the air, the crackling boom sending stalactites falling from the ceiling. She came to an abrupt stop inches in front of the Atrocidile and held her hands out to her sides. Weapons appeared in a semicircle around her back–spear, hammer, dagger, and mimic blade–all of which now shared the dark green sheen of her sword. She punched forward twice in a straight-hook combo, fists glittering with white light.

Nottagator’s head multiplied, appearing to split into a half dozen copies. Madel’s fists phased through two of them with no effect. Then the weapons began to flow and whip around her, planting themselves into her palms as the Lieutenant's limbs blurred in an endless combination of weapon attacks.

The heads shifted in a dizzying pattern, avoiding the thrown dagger and spike of the hammer as they sought out its eye, but when the sword slapped into Madel’s grip, the Atrocidile failed its dodge.

The blade sank into Nottagator’s eye, and the creature let out a strangled bark that rolled across the ground, shattering countless spikes and sending more of the ceiling falling to the ground. The surface of the lake roiled like it was being battered by a hurricane, the space filling with a misty spray as the Atrocidile unleashed a sonic bombardment.

Sizzling liquid poured from the blade, pitch black with an oily olive sheen. It flowed out to coat Nottagator’s eye and a foot of flesh around it, dissolving and melting through scales.

Nottagator has been Corroded!

Corrosion: Material that is Corroded provides 0 Physical DR.

The liquid arced from the blade even as Madel drew it back, marking no break in her fluid system of attacks. She brought forth the spear, burying it into the wound opened by her sword, and the Atrocidile’s eye burst like a rotten tangerine.

This upset my favorite pet lizard.

Nottagator ignored the wound and the creeping area of corrosion, its body lighting up with power as it burned a Haste charge and screamed at Madel. The woman blurred again, phasing through the sonic breath attack, which crashed into the far wall and sent sheets of stone tumbling down. It lunged forward to bite as it continued to roar and Madel blinked away, appearing under its throat where she thrust her blade in deep, creating another spreading region of corrosion.

The Atrocidile slammed its body down too fast for Madel to avoid and drove the Littan through the lake, crushing her into the bed beneath the shallows. Nottagator’s muscles bulged and it slung its body around, rolling on top of Madel and carving deep trenches into the lake bed with its multitudinous legs. The water became a murky mess of mud and blood, both the Atrocidile’s and his victim’s.

The only part of Madel I could make out through the turbid liquid was her soul, and Captain Pio couldn’t perceive her at all. The captain was blasting AoE buffs and healing, burning through her mana and using everything she had that didn’t require line-of-sight to keep Madel from being dismembered.

Meanwhile, Guar was still hiding behind a rock.

Baltae cast Haste, making him the third person on the field to grant themselves that buff. He pointed at Nottgator and reality splintered in a veiny line toward the Atrocidile. It missed the vulnerable spot on the creature’s neck by a few inches, slicing through flesh that fell away in chunks, but it was a pittance of damage. The creature’s body was too massive for such a small wound to matter.

Baltae’s hands blurred as he made a series of gestures, invoking another spatial attack that formed a column of fractal energy, spearing through Nottagator’s center. The Atrocidile ignored the minor damage and kept rolling. Baltae’s channel caused Suction Bomb to pulse, the AoE tearing at Nottagator’s limbs again, but failing to affect the monster’s movement. Then, Baltae brought his hands together and released a cataclysm of Force.

Grotto immediately understood what was happening, and shared the text of a specific passive skill with me.

Ultra Combo

Whenever you use an active skill that makes an attack and you hit with that attack, you gain 1 stack of Ultra Combo unless you already possess a stack gained from that skill. You can only gain 1 stack of Ultra Combo per skill use, even if the skill makes multiple attacks.

Whenever you would gain a stack of Ultra Combo, you can instead choose to lose all stacks of Ultra Combo. If you do, the damage of the attack is multiplied by the number of Ultra Combo stacks lost this way.

You lose all stacks of Ultra Combo if you don’t gain any new stacks for 1 minute.

Baltae had used 4 unique spells before casting Force Bolt, giving him a 4 times multiplier to the skill's damage. Nottagator seemed to sense the potency of Baltae’s magic, its eyes snapping to the spatial mage for the first time as it paused its roll an instant before the attack. Two masses of stone tore from the ground and a sheen of polychromatic light spread out across the Atrocidile’s hide.

The first bolt struck like a rail gun round, smashing through the rocks and ripping apart the defensive skill. It skewered Nottagator's side, punching deep into its body. Dark blue blood sprayed from the wound on impact with such speed and force that it atomized into vapor. Three more bolts followed, the extras doing substantially less since they were considered separate attacks. However, the total damage was impressive.

Nottagator takes 485 Force damage!

Nottagator takes 66 Force damage!

Nottagator takes 103 Force damage!

Nottagator takes 114 Force damage!

“Hot damn.”

[The attack was… decent.]

Even as Nottagator was having its internal organs reduced to a fine mist and squeezed out of its body by a bolt of condensed mana flying at Mach 10, it had already begun to return fire.

Nottagator’s throat and head stuttered like a machine gun as Sonic waves poured from its maw. Baltae strafed with Telekinesis, avoiding the brunt of the first wave and losing his refreshed Shielding to the second. The third sent the mage blasting back toward the small palace at the cavern’s entrance, where he smashed through a marble pillar and into a wall, debris raining down onto him.

The next wave finally brought Guar out of hiding. The party’s main tank became a beam of colored light that appeared to intercept the next attack midair, and the man took three more hits against his shield, burning through his mitigation and disrupting the sonic attacks. Guar had saved Baltae, assuming there was anything left to save, but he’d given up his chance for a surprise attack.

The Atrocidile’s remaining eye burned in fury as it screeched, slamming the entire room with an amplified roar. Pio’s aura shuddered as it took the edge off the Fear, but both she and Guar were slammed by the pressure wave.

A dark green spear shot from the water and right into the Corroded wound in the Atrocidile’s throat. The creature coughed and rasped, blood spraying from its mouth and staining its flat, humanoid teeth. Guar took advantage of the creature’s distraction to unleash three-quarters of his stamina pool in one attack.

The man’s massive hammer glowed with blinding golden light. He spun his body like an Olympic hammer throw and hucked the weapon at supersonic speed. He kept spinning, body rotating faster with each revolution, releasing 5 more hammers just like it.

“Oh shit, he’s cribbing my style!”

[It looks a great deal more impressive when he does it.]

The hammers collided with the Atrocidile, striking the beast with thundering wallops. Each hammer erupted into a burst of divine light, creating a rapid thunk! boom! beat over a handful of seconds.

Nottagator resists all Kinetic damage!

Nottagator takes 254 Righteous damage!

Nottagator takes 254 Righteous damage!

Nottagator takes 254 Righteous damage!

Nottagator takes 254 Righteous damage!

Nottagator’s health drops below 25%!

Nottagator automatically uses Projection!

Nottagator automatically uses Fallback!

The Atrocidile couldn’t even do Guar the courtesy of withstanding the full assault. However, just because Nottagator was down, didn’t mean it was out.

As the hammers smote hunks of the Atrocidile out of existence, an otherwordly haze surrounded the creature and its physical body disappeared. What remained was a ghostly imitation that snaked away from the final two hammers and soared toward Guar like a phantom. Guar shouted in surprise, raising his shield and resummoning his hammer to his hand.

The spectral Atrocidile raked the man with its claws, which passed through Guar’s shield like it wasn’t even there. Talons slashed across Guar’s soul, rending the man’s spiritual essence with Spectral damage. Guar screamed as his anima was flayed. After four strikes, the ethereal version of the Atrocidile disappeared into the ether, and Guar crashed to the ground.

Pio looked between Guar who slumped between deadly spikes, and then to the distant pile of rubble that entombed Baltae. She glanced back at the water, where a hand emerged, dragging a beaten and bloody Madel onto the shore. The lieutenant vomited up a liter of water.

“Status,” said Pio.

Madel looked up at her with glowing green eyes, shot through with scarlet veins.

“The beast knows I still live, and so it flees my retribution,” answered Madel.

Pio nodded, accepting that as a sign Madel wasn’t in mortal peril, then rushed off toward Guar.

“Did… did they win?”