Michael Adams
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Cheep!? 161
🕑 Added 2023-04-28 23:28:20 +0000 UTCBreaking the solidified mixture that kept the ramp into the siege tower closed was the work of a less than a minute for Mithel. The innards were large enough to house even Thokk, and held something akin to a stairwell in the back right and left corners of the tower. The space was significantly larger than what would strictly be necessary for mere Dawr, leaving Niko wondering what the point of that would be. Given their penchant for fighting in larger groups, he figured they would try to cram as much space efficiency as possible into these things.
‘Well, that’s kind of good news. Less floors means less Dawr in this thing.’ Niko thought to himself as he heard the sounds of fighting coming from above and below.
“Do we split up?” Thokk spoke up, eyeing the stairwell suspiciously, “There’s room in here enough for me, but we won’t all be able to engage in combat at the same time.”
Niko and the others pondered that shortly, but Ronald said, “I don’t think we should. It’s not as if we’re that much stronger than they are, and if there’s a floor with a bunch of Champions, we’d be hard pressed to deal with them all if we were split.”
That made sense to Niko, “Do we go up or down?”
“Up,” Stella nodded, “There were fewer beasts higher up on the wall than there were lower.”
“Agreed,” Skye chipped in, her bark-skin armor converging over her neck and chest as she pulled on more of her patterns ability. “Let’s even the odds.”
The group moved quickly, letting Skye take the lead in checking the stairwell. Large wedges were nailed into the walls, giving rough but serviceable steps to move up to the next floor, or down. Before they left, Mithel and Stella left behind a simple trip-wire trap that would explode and hopefully notify the Wyldwalkers if they were going to be attacked from behind.
Niko felt his heart pumping blood faster as he moved upwards, the blood energy that he’d captured saturating his body. He didn’t actually know how much he was empowered at that moment, but he could feel every twitch of his muscles like he’d drank a gallon of energy drink all at once, minus the ill feeling he’d have from it. His Aether Sight could perceive the enemies above them, much of the forces that had been on this floor still trapped within.
Skye confirmed that a moment later as she slid back down from the next floor up. There was no involved plan for their attack, only to cleave through them in shifts. Ronald, Stella, and Thokk led the strike this time, with the lumbering beast moving up behind the other two just in case the stairs couldn’t take his weight. From above, Niko heard the moment when the first two engaged in combat, and watched the bear slip out of regular sight to join the fray with a bone rattling roar.
The Dawr were being shredded by Ronald’s wide sweeps, his empowered glaive glowing with a harsh internal light. Every goblin he hit simply seemed to explode with even the hobgoblins struggling so much as parry his blows. An unlucky pair of hobs both fumbled in trying to parry, and had no spare space to evade as Ronald snaked the polearm past their guards. He tore their heads clean from their shoulders, before using his Force Shield pattern to batter down his entire left flank of Dawr. On the other side, Stella’s approach was much more measured, sharp jabs with her staff breaking bones with strikes much stronger than they appeared.
Niko saw her nearly surrounded by Dawr, before she shouted and slapped her staff against the ground. A wave of force blasted forward in a cone, destabilizing the Dawr’s efforts at a concerted attack, before she then struck out at them in a flurry of blows.
Thokk waded in deeper, batting down Dawr with his stone-covered bear paws that outright crushed anything that he hit. He didn’t bother using his capability to generate stone as a projectile, instead wreathing his mass with shifting plates of stone that doubled as weaponry with their sharp edges. In the instances where he took an attack, it was never on bare flesh, and even the hobs had trouble doing more than crack his armor. Beyond that, his retaliatory strikes were full of righteous fury, and with the sheer ferocity in which he threw himself forwards, the Dawr quickly realized that they were outmatched.
They couldn’t go forwards, however, given that the siege tower ramp opened up onto the wall where beasts were keeping the Dawr at bay. The beasts also realized that something was happening to the Dawr. They were fighting more ferociously, but with even less organization than they had been, a dangerous but exploitable condition. The beasts happily attacked overcommitting Dawr, wearing them down rapidly as they strove to break through recklessly.
The others assisted wherever possible, but they weren’t nearly as necessary. Just a minute later, they chewed through the majority of the invading force on that level and met with the beasts on the defense.
“Thanks for the help!” One of them yelled aloud, looking at Thokk who was covered in earth and gore.
Thokk rumbled and nodded by way of response, a little winded alongside his two companions. They’d burned a good deal of essence, but the majority of their expenditure was simply stamina this time. They were, after all, going to have to fight many more times after this. Luckily, being tier three, they wouldn’t need that much of a breather to keep going.
“We’re off to the next floor in the siege tower, but there’s more below if you want to help. Just be careful of the tripwire trap we set on the stairwell below.” Ronald called out to the beasts. As they departed, Niko noted perhaps half of them readying to go down and attempt to replicate the Wyldwalkers' success.
‘Good luck, guys,’ Niko wished them well. Even if they only succeeded in distracting another of the Dawr groups, that would go a long way to helping out whatever part of the wall they were at. On the ground, Niko imagined plenty of other beasts were busy trying to keep Dawr from climbing the wall itself, and in keeping the gates safe. With how heavily enchanted the materials were, he wasn’t nearly as worried about them going through the wall than otherwise. By the time they’d succeed at that, he figured someone would have noticed.
Niko climbed the stairs alongside Skye, with Mithel and Charlotte coming up behind them. Just as with the last time, the Dawr weren’t paying attention to their backs, though he wasn’t sure how long their sneak attacks from within the tower would go unnoticed.
‘Well, until they do, I’m going to be an Ostrich in a Fox House,’ Niko thought with a malicious grin and essence coursing through his body. He almost reflexively used Particle Wing, but as they were trapped in the same space, he decided that wouldn’t be a good idea. Especially given that their allies were ostensibly on the other side of the horde. Instead, he decided to cut loose a bit elsewhere, empowering his Wyldstrider and Sharp Strike patterns, with the ever growing amount of blood energy in his body. Beside him, Skye benefitted from some of the energy, wisps of it clinging to her armor and the claws of sharp wood she formed from her gauntlets. She looked almost inhumanoid with how much pale bark and purple sigaldry covered her form, with orange sprouts of some kind of plant life beginning to grow from small cracks in the bark.
The pair charged forwards, building momentum instantly. Niko saw Skye tear through Dawr with rapid swipes and a preternatural grace that left those still alive uncertain as to what was going on. Niko, on the other hand, couldn’t help but let loose a wordless, piercing cry.
He crushed the Dawr beneath his weight, Wyldstrider pattern giving him incredible power to simply push through. With a few swipes of his talons, he disemboweled and decapitated targets, a flurry of bone crushing power and incredible sharpness. A hob died to a beak strike, blood energy enhancing the attack and leaving Niko blasting through its head and into another goblin besides. The deeper into the masses he moved, the more he collected, and the faster he went. Niko felt his body absolutely revel in the warm power, flowing like water over and into his muscles and relieving them of fatigue. He cawed loudly, reflexively blasting the surrounding Dawr with Carrion Call. Those nearest stumbled over, clutching their heads and leaving themselves even more defenseless against the Az-Phorus in their midst.
He felt a few strikes against his feathers, but whether it was their innate defensive ability, or the blood energy besides, not a single hit was able to pierce. There were no champions here, but even so, the hobs weren’t weak. They tried to strike him, even working together to try to pierce his defenses, but the Niko of that moment was unstoppable by the means they could attempt. He cleaved his way through the Dawr, before realizing he’d run out of Dawr in the area he’d pushed forwards into.
Through the chaos of combat, though, he smelled very different scents from the goblinoids, and could hear non-Dawr noises. One of them in particular was very familiar as he slowed his battle frenzy.
“Oh! Hello there!” Niko blinked in surprise, looking up to see Prince Nivere and his scaled entourage holding against the Dawr with several other beasts. For their part, they looked just as surprised to see Niko, though for a second they were still in defensive formation even against him.
They relaxed as the Yaunz laughed, “Well, this is unexpected, but I welcome the assistance. We are moving upwards, you?”
“Same, but from within,” Niko cawed back, before turning around to the remaining Dawr within the tower, “See you at the top!”
The Greenscale Clan prince only laughed, before beginning to lead his personal entourage upwards, leaving the beasts that had already been present to defend the location.
Skye was darting between Dawr and slashing through easy foes and debilitating those that would take more than one swipe. Given the sheer damage she was doing, though, the latter of that category were exceptionally rare. The two finished clearing the floor and felt surprisingly hale and hearty at the end of it.
“Damn, guys,” Dachna whistled low, “Do you even need help clearing these out?”
Skye looked down at her ever-growing armor, and tilted her head, saying almost contemplatively, “I’m not sure? I feel fine.”
“Might be some blood energy is keeping you topped off?” Niko suggested, “We’ll sit back on the next floor, just in case there’s a hard limit we don’t know about.”
The half-elf groaned but nodded in assent. Neither of them felt tired, and cutting loose like that had been great, but they knew precious little about their stolen power.
Moving up the next floor, Dachna and Sasha struck into the midst of the Dawr, receiving aid from Mithel and Charlotte. Given that the alchemist and spider duo hadn’t needed to do anything on the last floor, they were more than prepared with glue flasks, much smaller flash-bombs, and a few elemental flasks that were kept primarily to air, frost, and earth for controlling the crowd. Niko knew that they could be far more offensive than that, but he had to admit the web-control from Charlotte and the flask slinging from Mithel made for a particularly potent crowd control team.
Dachna slashed outwards with his kama, the chain glinting in the light in such a way that continually kept attention on it, yet always seemed to distract at the worst moment. The kama, which Niko realized actually seemed more like a dagger that had been modified, was cleaving through flesh and bone like butter. Niko even saw a moment when it simply kept going through armor and weapons, severing limbs and slaying Dawr with abandon.
Niko focused on the weapon, fighting through Dachna’s Lure, and realized why the weapon was so effective.
“Peck me, what is that thing made of?” Niko blinked the light out of his eyes, his Aether Sight managing to pierce what appeared to be a masking sigil on the weapon itself and revealing the tier five materials.
“It’s a beautiful weapon,” Stella said proudly, “The base dagger was tier five, so I couldn’t do much to it, but I was able to modify some of the sigils on it to allow Dachna to wield it. It’ll do a lot better later on as he tiers up further, but… well, as you can see, it's still going quite well.”
The sight of Dachna grinning broadly, sweeping chain and blade raking across Dawr like it was alive with how it darted and twisted mid air, made Niko nod dumbly, “Yep, can’t disagree there.”
Sasha, on the other hand, simply seemed to stride calmly amidst the carnage with Dachna on her back. The area immediately around them was constantly being swept by the dirty-blonde haired man’s weapon, leaving the regal sabrecat to her own work. Shadows deepened beneath and around her, until they were almost a physical thing. Then, they began to move, striking up with claws and sabre-fangs at the Dawr that cast the shadow. Combined with the distractions that Dachna created, most of the Dawr simply didn’t know what hit them.
The hobs took more effort, but if Sasha didn’t simply have more shadows attack them, then Dachna would lash out with a long-reaching strike to take care of them.
The attack was going just as smoothly as ever, until finally something appeared to slow their advance.
In a blur, a Dawr Champion charged at them from within the crowd, spear leading the way. Instead of looking surprised, Sasha’s perpetual fanged smirk seemed to deepen to something more like a sneer. The champion's approach suddenly stumbled, and Niko had to take a moment to realize what even happened.
The entire time that Sasha had been slowly moving forwards, she’d been building up shadows beneath her, using only a fraction of them for the attack. The champion realized this, but too late to react. A wave of claws and long incisors empowered with a weaker version of Sasha’s own attack cut through the flesh and tendons, carving grooves into bone. Being tier four, the champion was durable, but with the literal tatters that remained of their legs, even it couldn’t remain standing.
Still, momentum carried it closely enough for it to make a stab forwards, an essence pattern flaring to life. The spear cut forth, but Sasha only leaned out of the way, with Dachna now moving mostly with her to prevent the motion from throwing both of them off guard. The spear extended five meters, whistling through the air as it did so. The champion growled, another pattern roaring to life as it did its best to twist the spear to the side to batter at them. Lacking lower mobility, the strike was clumsy, and Dachna contorted beneath the blow, leaning back almost entirely flat against Sasha’s back.
He flicked the chain with his arm and leg, sending the kama shrieking towards the champion. It spun and sliced through the champion's wrists, a guttural snarl resounding from the Dawr as its spear slipped from its fingers and returned to its normal size.
Sasha darted forwards then, with Dachna holding tight flat against her back. Her fangs glowed with a black-light before she bit right into the champion's exposed neck, cutting straight through its spine. Niko knew how durable these things could be, though, and knew that even now it wasn’t dead.
Shadows and kama with chain surged and danced, slicing through tendons and further disemboweling the champion. It surged with essence, flaring a pattern that Niko thought was supposed to give it a burst of incredible might. All it managed to do was twist its head, trying to bite Sasha, but to no avail.
She leveraged her position and twisted, cracking bone and tearing flesh.
The champion’s head fell to the ground, eyes dull before it hit the ground and essence flooding into Sasha and Dachna.
“Well, pluck me! That was great!” Niko called out, just as Dachna settled himself back into position.
“Ugh… My thighs hate me.” He said, before patting Sasha good naturedly, “You almost threw me at that guy at the end there.”
“You were fine,” Sasha smirked, “I made sure to wait until you had at least some kind of grip again. At worst, I was ready to catch you with a shadow.”
“Aren’t those not… fully material?” Dachna frowned.
“Mostly,” Sasha shrugged, “It’d break your fall, at least.”
“Keep focused, everyone,” Ronald reminded them, “Finish here and we’ll move up. There’re not many floors left to go.”
Niko nodded at that. At this rate, they’d be able to clear up their siege tower in no time at all.
‘I wonder if the warlord is going to make an appearance…’ Niko knew he had to be around somewhere, but surely he’d know that the moment he appeared, he’d be priority target number one. After all, the moment they got rid of him, their own tier fours would be able to move virtually unhindered.
Niko possessed a significant amount of blood energy from the many skirmishes he’d already thrown himself in. In contrast, however, the Dawr Warlord had been there for every confrontation, if only distantly. He wasn’t looking forward to finding out just how much blood energy the warlord had at his disposal at this point…
Comments
Tetrisman87
Thanks for the chapter! It certainly didn't disappoint. It was awesome to see Niko rampaging around for a little as well as see the growing synergies between the others. Can't wait for the next one!
