timewalk

  The Dungeon Survival Guide, Rule 3: Perception skills.Do not uimate the value of perception skills. At the very minimum, you need mana-sight and an advanced form of Identify. Some form of trap dete aime magical analysis is essential for unexplored dungeons where boss abilities are unknown.

  - The Unexplored Lands, by Lyeneru Silverleaf, Elven Pathfinders Guild.

  Aliandra Ali stared down the endless spiral staircase as vanished from sight, leaving just the softly glowing outline of the tangled wisps of light mana p his skills before they too faded, and she lost him against the vast bess below.

  “He’s going to be ht?” she whispered. The familiar icy touch of fear ran up her back at the thought of the mohat waited in those depths. A mohat they had fled from, and now were going to atta purpose.

  “Trust him, Ali,” Mato said, taking his position within the Restoration circle. “He’s got this.” His body twisted and ed as he shifted into his Bear Form.

  Ali stood out in the open space Vivian had picked for their battle and looked around her, mostly to reassure herself that she was not alone in this lunacy. Mato’s Bear Form looked oddly serene in the softly shifting green glow of her Restoration circle. Nearby, Malika limbered up with a few exercises. Ali’s two Kobold Acolytes stood in the Inspiration circles, ready to ehat Mato didn’t die to the spawned elementals.

  Or my fireballs, she added wryly. The Fire Mages and Storm Shamans stood at ease in their assigned spots, visible in the soft glow emanating from her runic circles.

  The library was unreizable from how she remembered it as a child. It had always been a warm, weling pce, full of books and the bustle of people. Full of light. A pce you could e and lose yourself for a few hours and a feters. The space she now found herself in was dark and cold, hostile and uninviting, filled with sbs of bone and a million creepy crawlies. And occupied by an undead wyvern. She couldn’t shake the thought that somehow Nevyn Eld was directly responsible – it was far too much of a ce that he was a Lid a Neancer, and this monster was undead.

  Although, it is a bit of a stretch to think this dungeon is three thousand years old…

  She put the thoughts of the Blind Lich out of her mind for now, bringing her focus back to the task at hand. She had a lot of responsibilities in this fight, and she was frankly shocked that her friends put so much trust in her abilities. They all seemed so much more fortable with bat, fighting, and dungeons. She was always just terrified.

  I hope I don’t mess up. They’re trustih their lives. Her breath grew shallower as her ay rose. Just as she felt she couldn’t ha anymore, she heard Malika approag.

  “Breathe, Ali. I’m scared too. The pn is sound, and otions to escape if we missed anything important.”

  “Ok.” Ali breathed in deeply a out slowly in the manner Malika had taught her, finding it soothing her nerves a little. At least, even if she was still afraid, it was better to know she wasn’t fag it alone.

  A thunderous roar split the silence, making her jump as it echoed out from the darkness below. A vast surge of dark maed from the bottom of the atrium, rising fast. Small pebbles and dust began boung around as the ground shook. A hail of ctters and thumps rang out as bone creatures fell, dislodged from their nooks and ies high on the walls and bookcases, and scurried away into dark ers. Ali felt the tight band of fear g around her chest, strig her breathing, but she willed herself to focus, holding their pn crystal clear in her mind. She turned on her Empowered Summoner skill, and the whole area briefly flickered as tiny emerald-green runes of magic fred to life, rippling across each of her minions before fading back to normal. She summoned one of her golden barriers, suspended in the air in front of her.

  I’m ready.

  ’s light magic fred across the nding as his silhouetted form cleared the stairs and sprio where she waited. Ali puffed out her cheeks as he appeared. Good. From behind him, the gargantuan shrouded form of the Skeletal Wyvern loomed up out of the darkness, held aloft by the powerful magic thrumming through its skeletal wings. Its fifteeer wingspan dwarfed ’s form, overshadowing the fleeing Half-elf. Its jaws opened wide, emitting another bellowing roar as dense mana densed within its maw.

  Skeletal Wyvern – Undead Dragon – level ?? (Bone)

  Ali reized the magid responded in an instant, summoning a barrier between the immi Bone Spear attad ’s back. The wyvern’s mana pulsed, and a two-meter-long shard of bone shot forth from the gaping maw, crossing the gap in the blink of an eye. With a resounding crash, the spear and her barrier magiihited each other with the sudden violence of the impact. yelped and dove sideways, rolling bato his feet, still sprinting.

  This is it. Like a dramatic signal to etle, the explosion of glowing shards and splinters of bo Ali’s heart rag.

  “Fire,” Ali said, speaking quietly, but her i was reinforced through her e to her creatures. Deafening thundercps of lightning shook the walls as the brilliant white fshes of Lightning Bolts bahe darkness. Sizzli and the ruddy glow of fme lit the maniacally grinning faces of her Kobold mages with the flickering red of fmes as the air was suddenly filled with volleys of Firebolts.

  You don’t scare me anymore. It was not strictly true – but asserting it in her mind had a somewhat steadying effe Ali’s nerves. Soft thwipping noises filled the spaces betweehunderous booms as unleashed a tinuous tracer stream of shining arrows into the air to pepper the underside of the wyvern’s ribcage.

  The Skeletal Wyvern roared again, dark mana flickering as it turs head toward the Storm Shamans. A pulse in the dense mana formation was all the warning Ali got before another Bone Spear shot out at great speed. With a flick of her mana, Ali created a wall of golden magic above her shaman. Just in time. Her barrier sted a fra of a sed before it caught the devastating missile i another spectacur detonation, sh golden splinters and shards of shattered bone down on her minion. The stalwart Goblin ighe detonatioaliating with a bolt of pure lightning as thick as his own wrist. The blinding arc of brilliant white burst through the cloud of splinters and impacted the underside of the wyvern’s ribcage.

  The wyvern barely noticed. Blinking her eyes against the blindionations, Ali studied the mana formations.

  There! Another flicker. Ali summoned a barrier right in front of the Skeletal Wyvern’s nose. But the monster deyed the spell, shifting sideways and releasing it past her barrier, leaving her with barely a fra of a sed to guess the target and resummon it. A fsh of gold vanished in another detonation of shards as a Kobold Fire Mage stumbled and fell. But he was barely injured and got to his feet chirping angrily.

  Bone Spear! Ali reacted to the signals again, summoning her barrier in front of her mage. But this time the wily wyvern ss head sideways at the st moment, ung the spear at . Ali’s eyes widened as the spear ripped its way head-on dowream of shining arrows. She dropped her barrier and instantly summoned another, catg the missile a hand’s width from ’s face.

  To her relief, she saw him roll away shaking his head.

  Ali’s head throbbed. I o time these better! She redoubled her focus on the wyvern’s flickering mana, guessing targets and summoning barriers at a freic pace.

  The mana within the wyvern suddenly switched, flickering to a different plex formation.

  “Summoning!” Ali yelled, reizing the mana shape that would summon a Piercer Scorpion. A circle of runes appeared oone floor on the far side of their protective wall, but Malika was already sprinting off in that dire.

  As soon as the giant bone elemental appeared, the Bone Spears resumed, and Ali found herself scrambling to block the deadly accurate missiles. She could physically feel the heavy thumping crash of bat behind her but found herself barely able to spare a gnato. If any of these strikes got through…

  “Another summon!” she yelled as soon as she caught sight of the mana shift.

  “On it,” answered, already aiming his bow toward the nding where the rune circle had appeared. How did he… But she didn’t have time to plete the thought. As soon as the Piercer Scorpion appeared, and ’s arrows illumi with brilliant white light, the Wyvern’s mana twisted.

  It’s ! Ali summoned her Barrier to protect ’s back. The Piercer Scorpion charged in from the side, spear legs blurring, and Ali’s eyes widened in shock. dodged it, somehow. But, in the fra of a sed her eyes had been on him, the wyvern shifted his maw. The Bone Spear shot out in a pletely different dire. Ali scrambled, summoning a new barrier, but she was a fra of a sed te.

  Ali felt the sting of her mana snapping as the spear impaled a Kobold Fire Mage through the chest with a heavy thump and a wet spt. In the background, her Acolytes twitched, but there was nothing anyone could do for an instant kill.

  Oh no! She had miscalcuted – and it had cost her dearly. What if that had been or Malika? Ali’s mind was instantly bombarded with horrific bloody images of her friends. No, I ’t let that happen. But the specter of instah weighed on her mind as she summoned barrier after barrier, terrified she might make another mistake.

  There must be an easier way to do this. A safer way. But she barely had the time to guess the arget, there was no time to stop and think. Ali focused, tuning out her surroundings. It was just her, the Skeletal Wyvern – and their magic. It fired and she blocked – over and ain. Even amidst her flow, she noticed her inteudy of the wyvern’s magic was beginning to i her Sage of Learning, and a small trickle of her mana drained into the skill to power it.

  Curious. The thought floated through her mind. She fed it a little more mana and slowly the stru of the Bone Spear spell began to grow clearer, making more seo her focused mind. After a few minutes, she isoted the spell trigger. There! Instead of guessing the target, she created her barrier in front of the Wyvern’s giant fangs, intercepting the spear at the source with perfect timing. The spear shattered high above the atrium, spraying shards of boo the Wyvern’s face. It hissed in anger, even though the shards didn’t seem to do any damage.

  The mana shifted, and the wyvern’s jaws opened wide. Thick, ropy streams of dark mana swirled around its head, drawn into the maw as an ominous thunderhead of pressed pan to dense.

  “Hide!” Ali yelled at the top of her voice, simultaneously broadcasting her io all her minions. She sprinted sideways to the safety of the wall. Behihe dense ball of mana exploded, and an apocalypse of bone spears flooded down on the nding. The roar that the shattering tide of bone made as it shed against the stone floor shook the library to its foundations. Ali stopped behind the wall, panting heavily, and stared i the raw power of the spell that was drawing in mana from all around. High irium, the wyvern’s head slowly turned as it scoured the library with slow, deliberate attention to detail, fying bone from the walls and filling the air with billowing clouds of dust and splinters.

  Ali activated her new Inspiration skill. The drain of her Sage and the stant barriers had demanded a rge k of her mana, and she was eager to take any opportunity to recover.

  “That’s number four,” Malika called out as she dropped off a Piercer Scorpion with Mato. Ali turo study Mato for the first time sihe fight had enced. He crouched low to the ground in the ter of the softly glowing rune circle as blurred bdes flickered and fshed before him. His blood sprayed in the frantic exge of blocks and strikes. Off to the sides, the two Acolytes fixed their gazes on him, holy mana surging through them as they healed him tinuously. Unasked, metal ked on stone and the lightning nova totems began to pulse as the shamans began distributing their curses amongst the scorpions.

  Aah, I fot to tell them, she thought, but it seemed to be unnecessary – the shamans had taken the initiative and pced their totems intelligently.

  “Ok Ali, kill them,” called the timing, quaffing a mana potion.

  “Fireballs, in order,” Ali said. Fire kindled ialons of her first mage. Two seds ter, the seage followed suit. In the back of her mind, as she supervised the delicate operation, Ali hat, apparently, direg her minions didn’t t as breaking focus for her Inspiration skill. “Lightning Bolts,” she said. Brilliant lightning strobed through the darkness, apanied by deafening cracks as arcs of lightning shot through the line of scorpions.

  The first fireball shot out aonated among the bone elementals. The shockwave of cussion a smmed into Ali even from her spot he wall. Malika darted in to heal Mato, dodging bone spears and darted out again. The sed fireball exploded. The first Acolyte cast her biggest healing spell. The third fireball detonated. With the tinuous storm of bone magic behind the wall, and the cussions and fshes in front of her, Ali found herself beginning to feel dazed. Certainly deafened.

  Another round of Lightning Bolts ripped through the scorpions, bsting scorched bone fragments into the air, and the monstrous elementals all crashed to the ground in a huge pile. Done! Yes!

  The deafening storm of bone magic outside ceased and suddenly there was silence. A small flicker of yellow-white maled on her, and she found her Acolyte had cast a small heal-over-time spell ohe soft pulse of its magic rapidly restored her hearing and bahe afterimages from her vision. That must have blown my eardrums, she thought. At least enough of an injury for the Kobold to cast its magi her. Ali g her minion, finding the golden-scaled Kobold standing with her head bowed over csped hands in the blue light of her runic circle.

  “Good work. Let’s go,” said.

  Ali stepped back out onto the open battlefield with all her casters aled bato the steady rhythm of blog Bone Spears and calling out the summons. With her new insight into how the Skeletal Wyvern’s magic worked, she could block much more effectively and the crazy headache she had earned earlier began to disappear. With a little more mental room, she began rotating her mages and shamans through the inspiration circles so that they would also have enough mana to st what was sure to be a very long fight.

  Malika

  As the st Piercer Scorpion colpsed heavily to the scorched stone floor, Malika turned her attention back to the darkness beyond the walls and sat to snatch a few moments of Meditation. While she waited for another summoned scorpion to appear, she reflected on the frustrating nature of this fight. Her role was certainly important, but… she sighed. Why does everything have to have that stupid regeing bone armor? And to make matters worse, the boss remained flying high above the floor – far out of her reach. I should i more into Soul Strike, she thought, at least then she might be more effective against the Piercer Scorpions iure.

  “Summon! Your side, Malika,” Ali shouted.

  There!

  Out of the darkness, a looming white and gray shape materialized. The heavily armored form stood motionless for a moment. Then it twitched and took off at top speed charging directly at one of the healers.

  Oh no you don’t! Malika accelerated her body with a pulse of stamina into her Diviep skill, reag the huge monster in a sed. She spun, shing out with a kick that caught the scorpiht uhe and she pulsed Soul Strike to enhance her power. It shed out with blurring spears, f her to dodge backward from the vicious retaliation. She jabbed with her left, catg one of the spear limbs as it passed by her chest, and dodged backward just in time to avoid the blurring tail strike which kicked up shards of stone from the floor. She danced quickly backward, staying out of reach, and making the creature luer her. As soon as it was moving, she sprinted over to Mato in his restorati, luring the monster along behind her.

  Malika stopped beside Mato, dug and dodging the rapid strikes without retaliating, simply waiting. The huge Bear roared and swiped his cws across the scorpion’s heavy armor, his strike flickering with green mana. The instant the monster diverted its attention to Mato, Malika danced backward out e, spping Mato on the hindquarters, and topping him up with healing as she slipped away.

  She found her spot and sat to Meditate once again, fag outward away from the fight to see the spawer. The orb of light floating overhead suddenly spluttered and died, plunging this entire side of the battlefield into darkness, lit only by the runic circles and the distant fshes of lightning and fire.

  “, light’s out!” she shouted.

  “ing!”

  The shaking through the stoh her told her that would be bringing another scorpion when he came.

  To her left, a few yards away, Ali’s Kobold Acolyte stood, white robes and yellow scales highlighted by the soft blue glow of the Inspiration circle, periodically casting his magic. It was a remarkable thing Ali had structed – a way tee mana faster in battle with a fixed magical struct. The Kobold’s magic shimmered a soft yellow-white, and every now and then, he would bow his head as if in prayer or meditation. That must be a skill of some kind, she thought, studying the way the shadows around the Acolyte shifted and flickered. Wait, what is that? Malika narrowed her eyes. It happened again, a shadowy flicker as if something invisible had passed in front of the blue aura. Quickly, she sprang to her feet and rushed closer.

  She was halfway there when she heard several wet thuds and something dark spshed across the rune circle. Two lithe, midnight-bs materialized from the shadows, bone daggers flig and thrusting.

  Shit!

  “Rogues by the healers!” she shouted as she dove for the Acolyte in desperation. She arrived just in time to catch the healer as he slumped over. Desperately, she pulsed her Healing Mantra, but nothing happened. Fuck. She dropped the corpse and shed out with a straight kick to the first rogue’s kneecap, hearing a d a hiss of pain. She spun to her left and unleashed a powerful cross that clipped the smaller rogue on the side of his jawbone. She wasn’t about to let them withdraw and regaih, but the rogues both turned on her, unleashing a flurry of dagger strikes. With four fshing bdes, she found herself hard-pressed to dodge everything, grimag as she was forced to block the dangerous sshing bdes with her hands and forearms.

  Malika pulsed her Healing Mantra, closing her wounds. While she could dodge, and she didn’t have to worry about Ambush, she was still being heavily pressured by the twues. Not like she was going to die or anything – she could still heal, but she had a job to do. I ’t kill them fast enough. She gnced around. Soon another scorpion would spawn, and she would not be there to catch it.

  Behind her, she heard drawing his scorpioo Mato and an idea suddenly occurred to her. Skipping backward, she lured her twues over to join the scorpions.

  “ you get these off me?” she asked.

  Mato caught on to her pn instantly, raking bues with his cws and r his challenge. A few moments ter, the rogues were busy attag him instead.

  “Good luck with those fireballs,” she quipped at the rogues.

  Light bloomed out over Mato and the rune circles as restored his magic. High over her right shoulder, she could see the glowing red of the firebolts rising to impact against the heavy boes arm the wyvern’s skeletal body.

  Just in time. Out beyond the light, a new white, armored scorpion began to move among the bone-encrusted bookcases, and Malika sprinted out to get it.

  She collected the scorpion just in the nick of time, using a kick to distract it from trampling their one remaining Acolyte. Quickly, she dragged it over to Mato, depositing it in the kill zone, and dodged back out again o was secured.

  With a moment of downtime, she sat io’s aura and began to Meditate. Golden light flickered, glittery apao the heavy thumps and crashes of splintering spears. With one fewer healer ihe fireball rotation they had practiced wouldn’t work. I think I cover for the missing healer, she thought, but she would drain herself empty doing so. That’s a problem for ter, she decided. was already bringing the fourth scorpion and they o survive this first.

  “Ali, go,” said, calling for the magical barrage.

  “I’m down a healer,” Ali objected.

  “I pick up the sck, whiumber was he?” Malika said.

  “He was the sed heal, right after yours,” Ali said.

  “Got it.” Malika fixed her attention ohree remaining Fire Mages, careful not to get blinded by the ridiculous lightning strikes from the shamans. As soon as the first fireball shot out of the Kobold’s cws, Malika moved. Three steps, she sprinted in, spping her hand to Mato’s bad p her healing magito his burnt and sshed body. Just as quickly she dodged back out, barely avoiding the sed explosion. The male Kobold healer had had this sed heal iation, so Malika dodged right ba the moment the sed fireball detonated and healed Mato again. She dodged back out, a bit slower this time, getting her eyebrows singed off by the shockwave of fme from the third fireball. I’m getting tired. She took a breather while the female Kobold Acolyte healed Math the fireball. The lightning bolts ripped through the scorpions, and they colpsed amid slowly dying gobs of fme.

  “Hide!” Ali yelled, and moments ter the deafening roar of the Bone Spear breath on hammered through her skull and shook her feet.

  Thank goodness. Malika had used up most of her stamina and mana fighting the rogues and taking double duty to heal Mato. She sank to the ground in the now vat Inspiration circle aated – hopefully, she would regain enough for the round. She retrieved her only mana potion and drank it, just to make certain. She watched enviously as Ali destructed the scorpion corpses, wishing she could regaiamina from dead monsters.

  timewalk