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Arcane Apocalypse ~ 57
🕑 Added 2024-11-04 17:00:18 +0000 UTC***************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bFhsOXQ4_7ECsEyihOAoi2apTSC0VxDigoSC7CQPKaQ/edit?usp=sharing
*****
Unfortunately, having the group of high leveled Boarkin enter the scene didn’t diminish the number of them already throwing themselves at Mia’s group.
Quite the opposite. A red haze seemed to descend on the monsters as the shamans worked some wicked ritual in the back that made Mia’s skin crawl. The Boarkin weren’t smart before, but they had a primitive cunning.
They attacked together, came at the group from all directions and tried to poke at their weak spots.
Now, they discarded weapons and rushed at them with abandon well into the suicidal. Their beady black eyes lost all intelligence, only rage and hate remaining.
“BACK!” Brent shouted, slashing swathes of the monsters rushing out from tunnels behind them. “Pull back. We need more space! Back!”
The team complied with his command, and Mia sent her spinning sword behind them to clean a bloody path. Only the cowardly sub-level fives remained in the tunnels so her Blade easily slaughtered them by the dozens.
Helene took care of the new rear of their group, she glowed, only her form vaguely visible with the many lightning bolts racing over her skin. Arcs of the volatile Storm element were zapping out every second.
Mark smashed his mace into the ground, cracking the sandstone. Shards of it flew up and as Mark reached down, he grabbed a large chunk he threw into the rushing crowd.
Once no one was in the way, Mia sent her Spectral Blade behind them and right towards the distant shamans.
The spinning sword didn’t reach them, not even close with the tiny range it had. It did do what it’d been intended for though and tore apart monster after monster that came blindly rushing after Mia and into the spinning Blade.
As Mia ran, the Blade followed her at a set distance. She swung her arm left and right a bit, making sure the spinning sword swung from wall to wall and kept the Boarlings off of their backs for a bit.
“Here’s good,” Brent said, coming to a stop in the middle of what might have once been the central plaza of the settlement. “Form up. Mages in the middle. Red, you do whatever you want.”
Carmilla gave a smile at that, her fingers still covered in sleek crimson claws flexing. She sent a glance at Mia, as if to make sure she was alright and then jumped back into the fray.
Mia had the Spectral Blade continue to serve as a roaming monster blender while she herself switched over to using her wand.
The rapid-fire variant of her Bolt was once again the winner. Her double barrel trick with two true Bolts was faster, shooting off the two spells over the quarter of the time the rapid-fire shot off the smaller versions. But, the rapid-fire could shoot off twelve projectiles in one sequence instead of two and barely strained her mind, quite unlike the other trick.
She kept refilling the gem’s mana charge so she could re-cast the spell the moment she ran out of ‘bullets’.
Blast would also have been an option, but not a good one. Its explosion radius was a metre in diameter at most and the Boarlings were big fuckers, she couldn’t kill more than one per Blast. Which made the spell a waste of mana when the mini Bolts could do the same thing for a hundredth the mana.
The only other spells she had were Arcane Shackles and Explosion, neither of which was a good fit for the situation. Shackles was a slow CC spell while Explosion was a ‘get the hell off of me’ panic spell that blasted everything away.
It was a pretty niche spell and one she’d never had the opportunity or need to use.
That left her flicking off pebble sized Bolt after pebble sized Bolt. Soon, she had to change over to piercing Bolts though when the berserk monsters ignored the miniature ones pulverizing half a dozen bones across their bodies.
A piercing Bolt whizzed away faster than her eyes could track, but she saw the finger wide hole it left in a Boarling’s skull and smiled. She’d have been quickly overrun with her much reduced rate of fire, even with the spinning Blade and the Familiar had she been alone, but she was not.
Helene had slowed her rate of fire a bunch, her face looking pinched as she sent off calculated chains of lightning. Preserving mana for the boss.
Mark and Brent were doing their best in mimicking Mia’s spinning mana blade and becoming humanoid blenders themselves. Though, Mark was more of a … musher.
Strikes landed on them, tusks smashing into the two melee fighters, trying to disembowel them. Thankfully, the two stood their ground easily against the lower leveled monsters. Their armour deflecting whatever blow got through their defences.
Lina on the other hand, switched over to full offence now that the Boarlings didn’t have the mental capacity for jumping down from the ledges in ambush.
The blonde didn’t have spells, just her elemental manipulation skill that was further boosted by both her bloodline and Class if Mia’s guesses were right. Still, that didn’t mean she hadn’t developed a whole bunch of ‘spells’ for every occasion. Though maybe calling them ‘special moves’ would be more apt.
Air Burst and Hammer were two of her favourites, and she made good use of both, sending forth spinning piercing bursts of wind that tore apart the monsters in a line or smashing them into paste with a heavy smack from above.
Carmilla was just … tearing them apart, too swift to be caught and too strong to even be slowed down. She really was a monster in a fight, and the only spell she’d used so far was the one gathering water for her.
Mia glanced at the floating globule of fresh blood languidly following the vampire around. Even now, new streams of blood from fallen monsters flowed through the air and joined the sphere. Not that it was visibly growing, having remained at the size of a basketball for a while now.
“Two of the big ones are coming,” Mia said, her ears twitching as she caught the sound of the two larger monsters stomp over the gory remains of their fallen kin.
Mia looked the two over, they were still clearly boarlings by the boar-like head and the large tusks, but they stood straight while all the rest was hunched over. They also walked with purpose, with obvious power in each step they took.
Mia scoffed at the thought, reminding herself that they were only level 9. They might have been twice her height and four times her width, and had monstrous strength, but she was a fucking mage.
With a thought, she disassembled her piercing Bolt circle and changed it to an Arcane Blast one. Then she did a nifty little trick she hoped her improved stats were high enough to do without injuring herself.
A flick of her wrist and a mental push ate up half the mana in her wand’s storage and sent a Blast at the left armoured boarling, then a second flick ate up the rest of the mana and sent a second Blast flying before the first even hit.
A spike of pain shot into Mia’s skull, the price she had to pay for pushing her Will to the limit there. Still, she grinned as the first Blast hit home and blasted the monster’s face clean off, leaving behind a cracked skull.
It survived though, but the second Blast solved that as it tore right into the crack and burst its head like an overripe tomato.
The second armoured boarding seized up, falling down as Helene electrocuted it and not a moment later a crimson Bolt finished the fallen monster off.
They heard roars of fury from the distance, and even through her headache, Mia could feel another two of the armoured monsters break away, but with a shaman following behind them this time.
Mia massaged her head, cursing inwardly for being stupid. She’d pushed herself further than she should have.
Now, her willpower felt … tired. The metal fatigue was bad enough that she doubted she would be able to cast any spells more powerful than a Blast. Perhaps, not even that more than once.
She quickly flipped her palm with the Spectral Blade’s bracelet around her wrist, flipped its spinning axis so the blade went from horizontal rotations to vertical. Then she called it back in a quick moment when neither Brent nor Mark or Carmilla were in the way.
When the conjured sword was resting back in her hand, she channelled enough mana into it to refresh its duration. If the blade ran out, she wouldn’t be able to re-summon it for a while. Possibly, not until she slept and rested her mind.
“Mia?” Brent asked, sounding worried and Mia turned a bloodshot glare his way. He winced. “Do you feel up for the fight? If you … “
“I’m good,” she said. “I just can’t cast my Blast more than once, that stunt gave me a migraine.”
“Alright,” the man said, nodding. “Should be fine. Keep focused and conserve your energy.”
Mia stopped fighting for a bit, letting the others pick up the slack as she refilled her wand and massaged the headache out of her temples as much as she could before the trio of uglies arrived.
This is gonna suck. Mia said, the back of her skull still pulsating with a fading ache. I was planning on relying on Arcane Blast’s disruptive qualities to break through whatever barrier those shamans use.
Mia resolved herself to break that barrier, even if the Blast she cast would be the last one she did in the rift. As far as she knew, no one else had spells or magic with any magic disruptive qualities. Maybe Mom’s Storm does, if to a much lesser extent than my Arcane.
Light, Arcane and Darkness were the best elements for breaking through magical protections. One had brute strength, the second could disrupt it and the third could syphon out the fuel and pull the foundation of the magic out from under it.
Aside from those, supposedly an extremely niche advanced element of Arcane called Silver Magic was supposed to be the best at breaking enchantments and barriers by far. Since it was an element focusing on countering any and all magical defence.
Mia shook her head, forcing herself to snap back to the present. The two new armoured boarlings were here and kicking at their dead comrades while the shaman behind them grumbled in some strange guttural tongue.
The still living berserk boarlings glowed to Mia’s eyes in a demonic red and even injured ones with missing chunks here and there rose back up and threw themselves at the group.
Brent and Mark backed up, tightening the group’s formation to make sure the maddened beasts couldn’t get at the squishy mages behind them while Carmilla redoubled her efforts of tearing them apart.
The vampiress was taking heads and tearing out spines, rending chests and piercing hearts so easily Mia had the impression the monsters were made of paper mache.
Weaker boarlings continued emerging from tunnels and one of the armoured ones also moved forwards with murder and hate in its gaze.
Mia switched her spell circle over from the rapid-fire variant to the piercing one the moment the last spell ran out of charges.
Using her own mana and not the wand’s stored one, she flicked a piercing Bolt at the approaching monster’s head.
Thankfully, these dumb pigs don’t wear helmets. Mia thought as the monster’s head snapped back, a burst of blood blossoming from its face. It stumbled, almost falling, but before it could it stabbed its ivory great sword into the ground and steadied itself.
Carmilla sent a Blood Bolt its way, as did Helene with a snapping lightning bolt of her own. Eerie runes glowed across the monster’s armour, dark and twisted and Mia watched as those shadowy mana vines reached out and pierced the centres of both spells.
The two spells sputtered, only splattering barely cohesive clumps of mana against the now dim armour.
“Aim at their heads!” Mia shouted over the chaos. That was the only possibility as for why her own spell got through while the others didn’t.
The boarling rose back up, a once proud tusk carving out of its mouth broken and a bloody ravine gouged out of the side of its face.
Its hateful gaze landed on Mia and it roared just as the red haze descended on it. Turning her eyes on the shaman in the back, Mia saw it murmuring and waving in the air with its skeletal fingers as its eyes locked onto the now berserk armoured boarling.
The beast bounded at the group, but before it could do much a lance of crimson energy went right through its head and smashed into the shaman’s barrier a dozen metres behind it.
The monster seized up and fell, its life snuffed out in an instant from Carmilla’s Blood Lance. But the thing that caught Mia’s eyes was the so-far translucent barrier that turned opaque as the Blood spell smashed into it.
Cracks spread from the impact site, the whole of the magic starting to fracture before the shaman gave off a scream of rage and shouted something in a voice that made Mia’s skin crawl.
It was like pigs getting slaughtered and nails on a chalkboard mixed into one resonating in her skull.
A dozen of the berserk boarlings dropped dead and the cracks on the barrier rapidly healed. Mia sent off a piercing Bolt at the magical barrier, but it was too late as it was already back to full power by the time she thought of doing so.
Her spell made a cracking sound and made a small crack, but that was it. A single, fingernail sized crack. Holy shit. Carmilla’s Blood spells are broken.
The shaman wobbled, going down to one knee before it threw up globs of blood and something disgustingly dark Mia didn’t want to ever smell.
Its presence weakened to her Spirit Sense, turning from the level 10 powerhouse to what felt at best a level 6.
“Red, can you do that again?” Brent shouted, taking Mia’s words out of her mouth. “The bastard can’t pull that stunt again by the looks of things.”
“I can only do that five more times today,” the vampiress said, stopping near the group for a moment to answer. “Do we want to waste those here when we still have the Guardian to kill later on?”
“I might be able to break the barrier if you can get me close,” Mia shouted, her voice barely managing to make it through the sounds of thundering winds, shockwaves and the crashes of lightning bolts. Blast has disruptive qualities because it is a ‘chaotic’ arcane spell. My mana is in the chaotic state by default, so if I just force it into the barrier without using any spell …
“Okay,” Brent said, not doubting her words for a second before he shouted. “Let’s take care of this chaff quickly before the shaman recovers or one of the others comes over!”
That made everyone dial up their efforts and the few scores of remaining berserk boarling, the majority of them not even level 7 were slaughtered in short order.
Making sure she didn’t feel any of the other shamans or the last armoured boarling moving, Mia stepped up to the near-translucent barrier.
It used some dark, broken magic unique to monsters, she was sure. It was wrong, a blight on the world she was going to purge with all due prejudice.
Her mana vibrated at the thought and eagerly jumped at her command, faster, stronger than usual as she placed her hand on the wispy barrier and channelled her mana into it.
She felt the magical energy surge out of her fingertips and burrow into the disgusting weave of the shield. Her hand felt like touching an anthill, but she endured it with barely a grimace and watched, no, felt the magic maintaining the barrier faltering.
Mia suspected it would have taken minutes, if not hours to dispel a regular barrier of the same size. She would have had to feel out the weak spots in its weave and then channel her mana in through there to do any damage. The shamans were atrociously bad at magic by the looks of things though, and the whole barrier was filled with weak points.
With her chaotic arcane mana rampaging through it, undoing the haphazard weave of it, the spell turned opaque and wobbled as the shaman behind it fell on its face. The disgusting monster writhed, letting out soundless screams as blood flowed from all of its orifices.
Then the barrier broke, its structure becoming too unstable and disentangling from the inside out. The shaman only outlived its magic by a single heartbeat that it spent in absolute agony by the look in its eyes.
Mia stumbled, her legs going weak as the mental rebound of using her magic in a way she’d never done before smashed into her like a truck.
Carmilla caught her, and the girl’s comforting scent made Mia relax instantly. She took a deep breath, then felt around her reserves. I still have 30% of my mana. Shouldn’t go below 5%, but that 25 should still be enough.
[Base Will: 4 -> 5]
[Main Mind: 11 -> 12]
[Base Manifestation: 6 -> 7]
[Main Spirit: 12 -> 13]
Mia went boneless in Carmilla’s arms, leaning her head back over the girl’s shoulder as a wave of freezing coldness washed over her mind. Meanwhile, the second Main stat upgrade hit her spirit, making it grow denser while at the same time it expand in size.
Groaning as the strangely comforting brain freeze passed, Mia let out a sigh of relief. All of her mental and spiritual fatigue had been washed right away by the Main Mind and Spirit stats going up.
Finally! I’ve been wondering how much more I gotta abuse those two stats to have them go up again. Both had been so damned close to going up for a while now.
She suspected her stunt with the double-barrel Blasts along with the barrier dispeling was what tipped both over the edge. Neither would have likely been enough by themselves.
“Thanks for catching me,” Mia murmured, looking up into a pair of worried ruby eyes. Helene came into view a moment later, looking over Mia with a stern expression. “I’m fine Mom, it’s fine.”
Saying so, Mia got back to her own feet with a slight smile. Her mind was clear again, clearer than ever, firmer and more robust too. Her spirit felt like it could handle more magical abuse too.
“What did you do?” Helene asked, turning Mia to face her as she looked her daughter up and down.
“Just got a bit of mental fatigue from pushing myself,” Mia said, shrugging. “But my Mind stat just went up and wiped all that away. So I’m feeling great.”
That seemed to assuage their worries, and the group quickly went over to Brent who was crouched behind a rock outcropping and peeked at what the last three monsters were doing.
As Carmilla snuck away with a last glance towards Mia, Lina leaned over to the young halvyr and whispered into her ears. “Found yourself a princess charming, hmm?”
Mia froze for a moment, then she flushed up to the tips of her ears as she sent a glare the giggling blonde’s way.
“Oh, you’re adorable,” Lina murmured, smiling softly at the petite girl glaring up at her. “That surly vampire lucked out didn’t she? Lucky me you don’t like boys or you’d leave only scraps to the rest of us.”
Mia huffed, rolling her eyes as she turned away and made sure her back was facing the nosy Air mage.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she thought she caught a smirk on her mother’s face so she sent a glare that way too.
“COME QUICKLY!” Carmilla’s shout snapped Mia out of it, and as Brent burst out from behind a rock the group quickly followed him.
Out in the titanic cavern the two shamans chanted down on their knees, a viscous dark circle writhing on the ground between them and in its centre stood the last armoured Boarling.
It floated in the air, hovering spreadeagle with those shadowy vines holding it up as their many thorns drank in its blood.
Its mouth was open in a silent scream, eyes wide open and bleeding as the shamans’ chant reached a crescendo with that same intonation as before that made Mia’s skin crawl.
With their final tortured shouts, the shamans dropped dead as the shadowy vines pulsed with power and sank into the suspended Boarling’s flesh.
Then its body started to change, flesh twisting, bones cracking as it grew like a blooming cancer. It screamed, its voice speaking of unimaginable pain that slowly turned into a mad laugh echoing through the ravine.
Spells and magic smashed uselessly into the rapidly fading barrier around the twisted Ritual circle and even the two Blasts Mia sent at it couldn’t break through in time. Neither could the two Blood Lances Carmilla sent at it.
When the Boarling dropped from the air, it landed with a deep thud that kicked up the sand and cracked the sandstone beneath its feet.
It stood at four metres tall, muscles still writhing and twitching across its body while its head was nothing more than a boar-like skull still clattering out a laugh.
Well. Shit.
