Mage Tank

Orexis turned and searched between us, looking for the source of the interruption. His gaze quickly landed on Grotto, and he snarled. The tendrils from the obelisk continued to fluctuate, losing cohesion, and it pulled Orexis’ attention back to his task. He began weaving his magic through the unsteady energy. The threads stabilized, but the power from the obelisk was erratic.

[Whatever this creature is, I’ll not let it threaten my Delves any further. Administrative request: Delve 0102 core eliminated. New core assignment for Delve 0102. Core Designation: Grotto.]

Administrative request granted.

[Terminate obelisk functions.]

The runes along the obelisk blinked off without fanfare, and the tendrils dissipated into mist. Orexis growled and leaned in to study his earthen effigy. A thin layer of platinum soul encircled the dense base of black, but it was turbulent. He reached down with a massive hand and again ran a finger along the side of its face.

The golem’s eyes snapped open, and a Delver level appeared over top of it.

Level 1-64-1-1-64-1

The level blinked and glitched, flickering between level one and level sixty-four. Orexis stared at the indicator, apparently capable of seeing the same thing I was. His eyes and mouth shuddered, and he twisted back toward Grotto.

“What have you done?!” he screamed, voice causing the ground to tremble, nearly deafening me. Nuralie once again gasped, hands clapping to her ears.

Orexis thundered forward, galloping toward Grotto, causing the floor to shudder even more violently. He lifted a colossal paw to swipe at the mini-c’thon.

Orexis closed most of the distance in an instant, and I reacted without thinking. I cast Shortcut, appearing directly between the two.

Orexis paused for the briefest moment, then slapped me so hard that for generations my terrified descendants would wake in the night with aching bones. Assuming that I lived to have any descendants, of course.

I had flashbacks to a giant c’thon hurling me away with a tentacle as I shot into the wall from Orexis’ full-body spanking. I felt the carved rock give beneath me on impact, distantly aware that delicate and squishy things like the human form shouldn’t be making such enthusiastic contact with anything having a value of four or higher on the Mohs scale with enough speed and force to break it. Especially when said substance was as thick as the inside of a mountain.

Perhaps it was my fate that giant creatures would sling me into hard surfaces. Shit, I didn’t even need monsters to send me crashing into crap. Cars would do, as evidenced by my very death itself.

Alas, I had come a long way from colliding with such soft and supple surfaces as the trunk of a large oak tree.

Varrin had the luxury of being grabbed, but I had the duty of being walloped; to determine whether a living creature could reach escape velocity from being slapped. For posterity’s sake, I would come to learn how much Fortitude one needed to survive the speed of that impact against an unyielding surface.

The majority of my health bar chunked away as my body miraculously avoided becoming a fine paste upon the wall. I didn’t even feel myself hit the ground afterward.

Organs have been critically damaged!

Critical damage reduced by 22%

Bonus Damage reduction: 246 -> 192

Total damage taken: 424

Status effects from critical damage reduced by 22%

Bleeding reduction: 182 -> 142

Compound fractures reduced to simple fractures!

Health: 49/473

Body of Theseus had just saved my life.

Grotto used the second I’d bought him to rush at the Delve portal, but Orexis was too quick. The shaking of the ground grew even greater, which my staggered mind realized didn’t make sense.

Orexis wasn’t causing the tremors.

Something burst through the ceiling above us, and a line of golden lightning blasted down onto Orexis’ outstretched arm. I watched in awe as the limb was pinned to the ground by the radiant blade of a resplendent halberd, held by a man cloaked in crackling electricity.

He looked about fifty, which with Delver lifetimes likely made him old enough to remember the feel of a Littan slave collar on his neck. His body was short and stocky, and a dozen tresses of white, Hiwardian hair writhed atop his head. He wore nothing but a leather girdle over a fur skirt, with braided sandals that roped around his feet and calves.

Orexis pulled his arm free from under the weapon’s blade. He held it up to study, and I could make out a long gash leaking dark blood, but the wound closed in seconds.

A woman floated down from the fresh tunnel above as hunks of rock crashed to the ground. She was around the same age and wore a similar outfit, though her entire torso was covered in fur armor, with matching armguards. A golden circlet hovered and spun lazily over her head like a halo. Just below the floating headpiece was the System text that distilled her lifelong pursuit of power into a single number.

Level 52

Even with my soul-sight open only a fraction, their souls shone like beacons, the outermost layer wrapped in platinum and streaked with violet. They were both twice the level of the most powerful Delvers I’d met so far.

Also, upon the woman’s shoulders sat Myria, looking down like she was at a rock concert.

“Patriarch Duckgrien?” Varrin said, finally tearing his gaze from his father’s corpse, then looked up at the woman. “Matriarch?”

“Aye, lad,” the man said, eyes never leaving Orexis. “Canna’ say this looks like the source o’ the mana vents though. Yer great-grandpa regrets he couldn’t be here ta help ye all.”

“I don’ mind the blade-daemon owin’ us a favor,” said the woman, who halted halfway down from the eighty-foot ceiling. She crossed her arms over her chest. “This one looks troublin’, though. Was this what ye’ were expectin’ ta find, Myria?”

“I can’t say that it was,” said Myria, gawking at Orexis.

“Well then, off with ye’,” said the matriarch, patting Myria on the thigh. “Bobret and I ‘ave some work ta do, seems.”

Myria leaned back and flipped off of the matriarch’s back, falling the remaining forty feet and landing on all fours like a cat. She popped back up and ran over toward Ember’s group on the far side of the cavern.

As soon as Myria hit the ground, the matriarch’s body burst into flame. The halo above her head shone white hot, and the fire bloomed out into a radiant sphere surrounding her.

Orexis’ eye-pits shuddered, and he brought his left hand down on the patriarch. The man spun his halberd and intercepted the attack, a blinding flash of lightning filling the room. One of Orexis’ fingers hit the ground, severed, and the creature leapt back from Duckgrien.

Then, the half-god rose to his full height once more.

“Crypt-pillagers,” he snarled, unfolding all six of his limbs, the missing finger already growing back. “I have not battled in so long, I had forgotten my lust for it.” His tail brought around the onyx tower shield, and mana bathed his smaller hands in light.

“I hope yer not rusty then,” said the patriarch, and Orexis fired three beams of sickly light as the matriarch above began chanting.

Spells flared, and the temperature in the cave skyrocketed as a half-dozen patterns of multi-colored light from Orexis intercepted an array of scorching beams from the matriarch. He used his shield to turn away halberd strikes from the patriarch, each attack sending arcs of golden electricity scattering across the room which dug deep grooves in the stone walls, floor, and ceiling. Orexis struck back with his pair of spears, moving in blurs of speed, while the half-god tried to corral the galvanic man into one of his larger hands.

Duckgrien spun in a flash, the lightning bathing him growing fiercely in intensity, and he dashed at Orexis, shoulder-tackling the shield. The force of the blow sent the half-god sliding back a few feet, but Orexis stopped the patriarch’s charge, then pivoted the shield downward and slammed it onto the man. There was a burst of light, and the patriarch was suddenly standing next to me.

The matriarch’s chanting had continued during the brief exchange, and her voice crescendoed as the patriarch made his escape. Then, a pillar of flame as wide as an ancient redwood tree erupted up from Orexis’ feet. His body was completely consumed by the fire, which shot globs of molten stone into the air. All the while, orbs of flame formed at the matriarch’s sides and shot into the inferno with machine-gun speed, rocking the air with booming detonations.

“It’s too bad she canno’ let loose in here,” said the patriarch, watching the godly bonfire.

“This is her being reserved?” I asked, shielding my eyes from the heat.

“Aye. Don’ want ta melt the mountain from the inside.” The patriarch scratched at his side, and I noticed a nasty cut on his stomach, pouring blood.

A final orb formed in front of the matriarch, as large as a beach ball. When she fired the attack, space warped around it. Falling pebbles and dust raining from the ceiling were sucked into the brilliant orange sphere, which flew at the fire formerly known as Orexis faster than a cannonball.

The patriarch’s body flared, and I was instantly beside the rest of my party. A shield of electric energy formed around our group and I looked over in a panic toward Ember, Cole, and the incapacitated members of our team, but they were shielded by a similar, orange dome. The matriarch had cast a spell to protect them, even through all of that.

The sphere pressed into the flames and the matriarch zipped toward us. She passed through the patriarch’s shield, her flames dying as she got close. I still felt like I was next to an industrial furnace, but my armor wasn’t quite at its melting point.

The sphere exploded, then warped back in on itself like a depth charge.

The cavern rocked, and the ceiling buckled. The floor shattered into churned-up spikes and slabs of liquid rock. A pressure wave buffeted the edge of our bubble, but it held.

“This space is too small,” said the matriarch. “We need ta take ‘im outside, lest we collapse tha’ place.” She began to say something else, but a wave of blue light surged out from the blaze. The fire winked out of existence, leaving little behind but smoke and a pool of magma.

Orexis’ malformed hooves stomped through the deadly slag unhindered, and the creature emerged from the smoke, a finger held out before him, refulgent with orange light.

Before my brain could comprehend Orexis’ survival, an orange beam projected from the digit, sending smoke and dust swirling around it as the spell screamed toward us. The matriarch threw up her barrier behind the patriarch’s and the beam split upon the reinforced surface. A dozen beams scattered out into the room, cutting through rock like a fucking laser through something that sucks ass at not getting cut by a fucking laser, sending a vast swath of the ceiling crumbling down. The patriarch held one hand toward his electric shield, sweat pouring down his face when it finally shattered.

The matriarch gritted her teeth, holding out her hands and reinforcing the spell, which began to tremble and glow brighter. The attack held steady, even as Orexis clomped closer.

Patriarch Duckgrien bolted through the barrier at Orexis, dodging the beam, but Orexis bashed the man with his massive shield and sent the warrior plowing deep into a wall. Orexis dropped the beam attack and took to all fours, galloping at the matriarch. She shot up and away from us, Orexis tracking her as she went. He leapt at her, mouth open wide, spiraling lines of death whirling within.

The matriarch’s flames burst back to life and she formed a new bubble around herself before Orexis smashed into her, clamping down on the barrier with his jaws. The force of his leap was so powerful that the pair blasted away into the ceiling, disappearing behind a shower of gravel and falling slabs.

The patriarch rocketed out of the wall after them, shouting out to us as he whipped past, the rivulets of sweat on his face replaced by streams of blood.

“Go on! Get out ah here!” Then he too vanished into the cloud of dust and debris.

I took his advice to heart and tried to stand. It didn’t happen. I was pretty sure both legs, one arm, and most of my ribs were broken. My health regen was mostly mitigated by my stacks of bleeding, even with my healing aura stacked on top, and my efforts rewarded me with sharp pain and a fresh kiss on the cheek from the floor.

Varrin and the others were quick to move, though, and I once again found myself propped up between the big man and Xim. I felt her cast both Heal and Cleanse on me.

Health: 49 -> 73

Bleeding: 142 -> 94

“Cleanse fixes bleeding?” I mumbled.

“Don’t question its logic,” said Xim, giving me a strained smile. “It works on ‘status effects’, so bleeding counts.”

“Should I open the Closet? We can hide inside.”

“What if this place collapses?” said Varrin with a dark tone. He shot a look at his father and the vulgar state the thundralke’s death had left him in.

“Good point,” I said. “Exit might get buried. That’d be fucked.”

We moved toward our other allies, with Nuralie and Grotto in tow. Ember had Nola over one shoulder, her other hand helping Cole drag a stretcher with both Lito and Xorna piled on top. It was a bit indelicate, but they did what they had to. Drel was still missing.

We’d made it three steps when the golem sprang to life.

The black soul still covered the clay figure’s form, and the platinum layer hugging it was now stable. The simulacrum got to its feet, stretched out its six arms, and looked at us with eyes and features eerily similar to, but distinct from Orexis. The level indicator continued to glitch between one and sixty-four as it marched toward us.

“Shit,” I said, taking a chance at putting weight on my legs, but it was no good. “Drop me,” I said. Xim and Varrin let me go immediately, pulling out their weapons. I collapsed to the ground, my feelings only mildly hurt by how quickly they’d agreed. Nuralie produced her bow and took aim.

The golem was between us before we could move. It grabbed Varrin and Xim each by the face with its larger set of top limbs, then reached out with its smaller bottom pair and grabbed me by the hair. It dragged all of us toward Nuralie, fast enough that the loson had no time to dodge, and barreled us all toward the Delve portal.

It leapt through the entrance to The Cage, all four of us in tow.

You are now entering Delve 9998: The Cage.

Warning! You have entered Delve 9998 while one or more members are outside of a party.

Five level one technicians detected.

A party will automatically be formed.

Warning! This Delve is unstable.

Dimensional anchor operating outside acceptable parameters. Delve portal exit location unavailable.

Rerouting party.

Your Delve entry point has been changed. Please refer to your schematics before proceeding deeper into the Delve.

Warning! Anomalous levels detected. One or more party members possess a level that exceeds the maximum allowed for this Delve.

Initiating countermeasures.

Error!

Member(s) cannot be ejected due to mana instability.

Error!

Member(s) too powerful to be atomized.

Error!

This Delve has priority safety overrides. Cannot partially collapse Delve on intruding Member(s).

Error!

…processing…

Party member(s) no longer possess excessive levels. Resolving ticket.

Warning! Anomalous levels detected. One or more party members possess a level that exceeds the maximum allowed for this Delve.

Initiating countermeasures.

Error!

Cascading error code detected.

Evaluating…

Identified source: Anomalous party member(s) possess fluctuating levels.

Evaluating…

Resolution: Collapse Delve portal on incoming party while in transit.

Collapsing…

Override request received from USER DESIGNATION: GROTTO.

User is Administrator of entry-point Delve 0102.

Evaluating alternatives.

Delve 9998 possesses unique mitigation features.

Override code 919 accepted.

Deploying assets to suppress anomalous party member(s).

Entry to Delve 9998 granted.

…

…

…

Welcome to The Cage.