Zerilda, hurried, raised her scepter to slam its pointy and sharp lower end on Sofia’s left foot. Her offensive skills aside from the fireball that was on cooldown were all too dangerous to use in such an enclosed space, and she had no time, the Thrombbers were rushing, closing in. She could have retreated and her target’s fate was sealed, yet she still felt compelled to end by her own hands the wretched Saintess who had reduced her whole party to ashes.
She not only wanted the satisfaction of seeing the girl fall, but she also needed to make sure she would get credit for the kill on her murder list. And she had to deal at least one point of damage for it to count. A slam of her scepter was enough. After that, she would have no trouble sealing the tunnel and blasting her way out.
She had been worried about the massive skeleton her divinations showed protecting the fleeing girl, it looked like a mythical guardian sent by Death itself to guard her. But the skeleton was there no longer, it had jumped off, and likely crashed down at the bottom of the hive.
History showed that she should have been worried about the girl instead, but she was ready, no explosion could harm her.
She slammed down her weapon, already channeling the skill that would ensure her escape.
Pareth appeared in the air right above Sofia, face to face with the female dwarf.
He was falling at an extremely high speed.
[Gravity well]
They were all too close to each other, both Zerilda and Sofia were swallowed by the sudden gravity collapse and couldn’t help but get stuck to Pareth like two magnets on a sword.
They fell with him. Except Sofia could not fall. The opposing forces from her own skill tethering her to the ground and Pareth attracting her down were incredibly painful, stretching her body to the extreme, but the armor held, and eventually, [Way of the Fool] emerged victorious as Pareth and Zeridla fell further and further down.
Sofia, though in pain, hoisted herself up the ledge and back into the tunnel. She could have done that from the start, she had no space to fly because of the pillars but a single wing-beat to get back up was no trouble.
She ran into the tunnel, channeling an [Angel’s bolt] as she shifted her vision to Pareth’s.
Pareth had actually never touched ground after he tackled her, accumulating momentum as he teleported back under her and fell again from the top. Until it was time and he teleported above her, and the rest was history.
Now he firmly held the beautiful red haired dwarven girl in his embrace, bringing her to her death at the bottom of the hive. He couldn’t actually directly touch her, a fiery spherical shield around her protected her from his grasp, but his arms were large enough to hug the whole sphere.
A flaming blade of mana sliced through Pareth’s spine, cutting him in half. But that mattered not as he held tight onto the panicking mage with his sturdy skeletal arms.
The ground neared, the mage summoned several layers of semi solid flames under her, trying to cushion the fall, that did not work very well, but it did gnaw at Pareth’s health and body. And right as they were going to hit the ground, Pareth disappeared.
What appeared in front of Sofia as she ran was nothing more than a burned Ogre skull with a few cervicals left, a shoulder and a humerus. She looked back, in the tunnel, a huge female Thrombber was on her tail, barely fitting between the walls, followed by countless more. They were about thirty meters away.
The bolt was let loose as Sofia reached out to grab Pareth’s skull by the horn.
For the second time that day, she was caught in her own fireworks.
Sofia woke up in the dark, feeling quite bad, but still alive, there was no sound other than her own strained breathing. She was under a pile of rocks. If you did not count her dwindling health, her complete inability to move due to the tons of stone crushing her, and the fact that she could not feel anything below her shoulders, this was not too bad of an outcome.
She was in fact rather calm.
How do I even start? The teleport to Zangdar is an option but then the ring would send me back here if I’m not stuck in the castle. In fact if the small air pocket I still have collapses I don’t even know how it could send me back.
Pareth, you alright? The broken skull’s eye socket on the ground near Sofia’s head lit up, providing some much needed light. The situation was quite dire, she was face to face with Pareth’s leftovers in an air pocket the size of a large bucket. Her left arm was still in front of her, clutching the now broken-off point of Pareth’s right horn.
Still alive, and with a whole 42 health points. Nice work today. Now let me take over…
What remained of Pareth was really only half an eye socket, a bit of the skull’s forehead and the small jagged stub of a broken horn.
My own health… Not too bad actually. But it’s slowly going down, I’m bleeding I think. There can’t be much air in here either.
Health : 728 / 5735
My right arm is stuck… Still, having one functioning arm right now is a lot. What worries me is that I can only drink one more health potion today. An overdose of healing potion was a nasty thing, too much of anything wasn’t good. Drinking more than two sieva extract health potions in a single day was pretty much suicide.
Drinking the whole potion right now would be wasting most of it, Sofia was pretty sure if her lower body were to be repaired right now, it would break again under the tons of collapsed stone.
If I take half now to stop the bleeding and the other half after I could be fine.
Sofia wanted to reassure herself but she knew this was a dumb idea, her spine had to be broken considering how she couldn’t feel most of her body anymore, and that was a serious injury that a full potion would already barely manage to repair considering her missing health.
And of course we already used [Greater heal].
First I’ll try whatever I can, if it doesn’t work or my health gets too low… The ten level debt sorrow transformation it will be…
I really don’t want to use it like this.
Let’s do this methodically. Sofia stored Pareth in her armor, reducing her world to darkness once more. Closing her eyes, she focused on the ambient mana. Feeling a flow of mana above her, she sighed in relief. Only a moderate amount of stone had collapsed, there was free space above. Let’s pray I’ll have enough space.
The plan was to remove the stone crushing her by storing it in her ring. The hard part was that each boulder was costly in mana and focus to store, so she couldn’t take it all away at once. Not only that, she also had limited space in her ring, and above all, that meant she had to carefully consider in which order she would remove which stone. Lest the whole pile she was under collapse even more, sealing her fate in a tomb of stone.
Wait, can’t I…?
A tomb of stone?
[Graveyard of the righteous]
The cold hands of the graveyard skeletons sprang up through the cracks all around Sofia’s body. They grabbed her, and the world turned white as she sunk into the ground.
IT WORKS!
I can’t believe I’ve never thought of using it this way!
This white, foggy world, this is like Alith’s description of the spiritual plane! That’s how it works then… I wonder how much I can abuse this. Well, now is not the time to try that out, I’m almost back in the intact part of the tunnel if I’m reading the mana correctly, can’t see much while inside the ground.
The graveyard skeletons brought her back up past the rockfall, and Sofia finally drank the potion, bringing her very close to full health, and regaining control over her whole body.
Crisis averted. Somewhat. This Zerilda is still alive somehow even after that fall, the fourth filter is really something else. My last bolt didn’t kill anything either, I'd wager it hurt myself more than it hurt the Thrombbers but it did put me out of reach for now.
These monsters are diggers who carve the stone with their acid though so I need to hurry out before they clear the debris.
Zerilda, hurried, raised her scepter to slam its pointy and sharp lower end on Sofia’s left foot. Her offensive skills aside from the fireball that was on cooldown were all too dangerous to use in such an enclosed space, and she had no time, the Thrombbers were rushing, closing in. She could have retreated and her target’s fate was sealed, yet she still felt compelled to end by her own hands the wretched Saintess who had reduced her whole party to ashes.
She not only wanted the satisfaction of seeing the girl fall, but she also needed to make sure she would get credit for the kill on her murder list. And she had to deal at least one point of damage for it to count. A slam of her scepter was enough. After that, she would have no trouble sealing the tunnel and blasting her way out.
She had been worried about the massive skeleton her divinations showed protecting the fleeing girl, it looked like a mythical guardian sent by Death itself to guard her. But the skeleton was there no longer, it had jumped off, and likely crashed down at the bottom of the hive.
History showed that she should have been worried about the girl instead, but she was ready, no explosion could harm her.
She slammed down her weapon, already channeling the skill that would ensure her escape.
Pareth appeared in the air right above Sofia, face to face with the female dwarf.
He was falling at an extremely high speed.
[Gravity well]
They were all too close to each other, both Zerilda and Sofia were swallowed by the sudden gravity collapse and couldn’t help but get stuck to Pareth like two magnets on a sword.
They fell with him. Except Sofia could not fall. The opposing forces from her own skill tethering her to the ground and Pareth attracting her down were incredibly painful, stretching her body to the extreme, but the armor held, and eventually, [Way of the Fool] emerged victorious as Pareth and Zeridla fell further and further down.
Sofia, though in pain, hoisted herself up the ledge and back into the tunnel. She could have done that from the start, she had no space to fly because of the pillars but a single wing-beat to get back up was no trouble.
She ran into the tunnel, channeling an [Angel’s bolt] as she shifted her vision to Pareth’s.
Pareth had actually never touched ground after he tackled her, accumulating momentum as he teleported back under her and fell again from the top. Until it was time and he teleported above her, and the rest was history.
Now he firmly held the beautiful red haired dwarven girl in his embrace, bringing her to her death at the bottom of the hive. He couldn’t actually directly touch her, a fiery spherical shield around her protected her from his grasp, but his arms were large enough to hug the whole sphere.
A flaming blade of mana sliced through Pareth’s spine, cutting him in half. But that mattered not as he held tight onto the panicking mage with his sturdy skeletal arms.
The ground neared, the mage summoned several layers of semi solid flames under her, trying to cushion the fall, that did not work very well, but it did gnaw at Pareth’s health and body. And right as they were going to hit the ground, Pareth disappeared.
What appeared in front of Sofia as she ran was nothing more than a burned Ogre skull with a few cervicals left, a shoulder and a humerus. She looked back, in the tunnel, a huge female Thrombber was on her tail, barely fitting between the walls, followed by countless more. They were about thirty meters away.
The bolt was let loose as Sofia reached out to grab Pareth’s skull by the horn.
For the second time that day, she was caught in her own fireworks.
Sofia woke up in the dark, feeling quite bad, but still alive, there was no sound other than her own strained breathing. She was under a pile of rocks. If you did not count her dwindling health, her complete inability to move due to the tons of stone crushing her, and the fact that she could not feel anything below her shoulders, this was not too bad of an outcome.
She was in fact rather calm.
How do I even start? The teleport to Zangdar is an option but then the ring would send me back here if I’m not stuck in the castle. In fact if the small air pocket I still have collapses I don’t even know how it could send me back.
Pareth, you alright? The broken skull’s eye socket on the ground near Sofia’s head lit up, providing some much needed light. The situation was quite dire, she was face to face with Pareth’s leftovers in an air pocket the size of a large bucket. Her left arm was still in front of her, clutching the now broken-off point of Pareth’s right horn.
Still alive, and with a whole 42 health points. Nice work today. Now let me take over…
What remained of Pareth was really only half an eye socket, a bit of the skull’s forehead and the small jagged stub of a broken horn.
My own health… Not too bad actually. But it’s slowly going down, I’m bleeding I think. There can’t be much air in here either.
Health : 728 / 5735
My right arm is stuck… Still, having one functioning arm right now is a lot. What worries me is that I can only drink one more health potion today. An overdose of healing potion was a nasty thing, too much of anything wasn’t good. Drinking more than two sieva extract health potions in a single day was pretty much suicide.
Drinking the whole potion right now would be wasting most of it, Sofia was pretty sure if her lower body were to be repaired right now, it would break again under the tons of collapsed stone.
If I take half now to stop the bleeding and the other half after I could be fine.
Sofia wanted to reassure herself but she knew this was a dumb idea, her spine had to be broken considering how she couldn’t feel most of her body anymore, and that was a serious injury that a full potion would already barely manage to repair considering her missing health.
And of course we already used [Greater heal].
First I’ll try whatever I can, if it doesn’t work or my health gets too low… The ten level debt sorrow transformation it will be…
I really don’t want to use it like this.
Let’s do this methodically. Sofia stored Pareth in her armor, reducing her world to darkness once more. Closing her eyes, she focused on the ambient mana. Feeling a flow of mana above her, she sighed in relief. Only a moderate amount of stone had collapsed, there was free space above. Let’s pray I’ll have enough space.
The plan was to remove the stone crushing her by storing it in her ring. The hard part was that each boulder was costly in mana and focus to store, so she couldn’t take it all away at once. Not only that, she also had limited space in her ring, and above all, that meant she had to carefully consider in which order she would remove which stone. Lest the whole pile she was under collapse even more, sealing her fate in a tomb of stone.
Wait, can’t I…?
A tomb of stone?
[Graveyard of the righteous]
The cold hands of the graveyard skeletons sprang up through the cracks all around Sofia’s body. They grabbed her, and the world turned white as she sunk into the ground.
IT WORKS!
I can’t believe I’ve never thought of using it this way!
This white, foggy world, this is like Alith’s description of the spiritual plane! That’s how it works then… I wonder how much I can abuse this. Well, now is not the time to try that out, I’m almost back in the intact part of the tunnel if I’m reading the mana correctly, can’t see much while inside the ground.
The graveyard skeletons brought her back up past the rockfall, and Sofia finally drank the potion, bringing her very close to full health, and regaining control over her whole body.
Crisis averted. Somewhat. This Zerilda is still alive somehow even after that fall, the fourth filter is really something else. My last bolt didn’t kill anything either, I'd wager it hurt myself more than it hurt the Thrombbers but it did put me out of reach for now.
These monsters are diggers who carve the stone with their acid though so I need to hurry out before they clear the debris.
