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Arcane Apocalypse ~ 40
🕑 Added 2024-09-25 17:11:59 +0000 UTC********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14UHvFZ03jAUvY5CiAuT_TvPe7HF1F-LZb-4bvdK40KQ/edit?usp=sharing
*****
[You have killed: Evergreen Marauder - lvl 4] x 30
[You have killed: Evergreen Marauder - lvl 5] x 23
[You have killed: Evergreen Marauder - lvl 6] x 14
[You have killed: Evergreen Marauder - lvl 7] x 5
[You have killed: Evergreen Marauder - lvl 8] x 2
[Level Up!]
[Level: 8 -> 9]
[Free Attribute Points: 3 -> 6]
Mia glanced at the interface, a smirk tugging at the edge of her lips as she continued sending more of these ‘Evergreen Marauders’ to their death with Arcane Bolts to what passed for a head on these monsters.
Unfortunately, her Quest didn’t trigger. She’d have had to kill one of the very few level eight — now level nine, with her recent level up — monsters by herself, without any outside interference or help. Which was pretty much impossible with the soldiers continuing to rain down death on the monsters. Every single one of them had at least half a dozen bullet holes poking through their bark-like skin by the time Mia got around to finishing them off.
Still, she got a level, so she was pretty happy about the way things were going. It came just a moment ago, which was apparently because she’d just killed her second level eight Marauder. By now, Mia was pretty sure the exp penalty for killing lower levelled monsters was severe, just based on her experience with the goblins and these monsters.
Luckily, her spells were pretty good for punching up. Hell, she didn’t even have to make use of her Arcane Blast spell yet, which was also why her mana had only now dipped below the ten percent mark.
“I’m low on mana,” Mia said reluctantly. She still had her Familiar, as well as another thirty regular Bolts in her at least, but she didn’t like the idea of not leaving at least this last ten percent untouched in case of an emergency. “I’ll be hanging back in a bit … will you be able to handle them?”
Mia had been speaking generally, but it was Helene who answered. Seeing as she’d been the only other person keeping up and even overtaking Mia in kill count, it was obvious why. “I’ll handle them just fine, hang back and recover your mana. You still have those mana potions too, right?”
“Yeah, but those are for emergencies only,” Mia said, reluctantly lowering her arm and letting her runic-model return to its resting state. “Alright then, I’ll be … meditating. If I can manage that with all this noise- “
Mia stiffened, a spike of dread prickling the back of her neck. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t tell what. She looked around in a panic, looking left and right, forwards and behind her but found nothing.
“What’s wrong Mia?” Carmilla asked, being the first to notice with Helene’s eyes fixated on the approaching horde of monsters. The Marauder’s advance had been halted pretty reliably at this point, and their horde had been thinned out since the first few minutes too so only a dozen came running down the street at a time instead of the thirty that once had.
“Something’s wrong,” Mia murmured, looking around with her eyes wide in panic. What was it? What was she feeling? Why? Where? Who-
Her instincts screamed at her, an overwhelming sense of wrongness washing over her like a tsunami that threatened to drown her under its crushing waves. Mia felt an iron grip around her waist and then a harsh tug that knocked the breath out of her lungs and took her off her feet.
Her vision swam as she came to a stop, she shook her head to shake off the daze that came over her. She heard a crashing thud; the ground shaking under her feet and felt the unforgiving hold of a hand around her waist.
Mia gulped, staring towards the crash as her eyes finally decided to work again and her throat went dry from horror. Where she stood before, in the exact place right behind the shoddy sandbag barricade stood a towering monster twice as tall as the Marauders and thrice as ugly, which was quite the accomplishment.
“Mia? You’re alright, right?” Carmilla’s soft, but worried voice touched her ears. The feeling of the vampiress’ hot breath on her overly sensitive ear made Mia’s mind blank out for a second before she came back to herself.
“Yes, I’m fine we need to-” She froze, mouth hanging open as she paled. Helene had somehow gotten away, probably tacked to the side by Brent if Mia had to guess … but Mark hadn’t been so lucky.
The dwarf shaped clay golem that he looked like when he fully covered himself in his ‘Earthen Armaments’ Skill’s armour was pinned to the ground by the gigantic clawed feet of the plant monster.
Mia felt her knees going weak, her vision dimming until she only saw Mark under those claws that were slowly piercing into his armour. Still, it was holding for now. He was smashed into the ground; the pavement cracked under him, but there was no blood … and Mia noticed his arm clenching into a fist. An earthen spike grew at the end of his fist and he drove it into the leg of the beast.
He was alive.
That snapped Mia back to her senses and without wasting another precious moment she started assembling her Arcane Blast spell circle.
“Familiar, distract the monster,” she ordered in a whisper, then glanced back up at Carmilla. “I’m fine, thanks to you. Now please help, or he’ll-“
Mia swallowed, shaking her head. She needed to focus, had to focus. She had to, if she wanted to sav- help Mark. He’d be alright, he’ll be safe. They will save him. I will save him.
The Familiar shot off from her shoulder llike a pink little bullet and was up on the shoulder of the beast in an instant, its jaws growing larger with fangs the size of knives growing out of them before it chomped down on a vine.
The beast, for some reason, reeled back as if in anguish. It didn’t make a sound, and Mia suspected it couldn’t, based on how silent the Marauders had been even when they were getting slaughtered.
A yellow and blue bolt of lightning smashed into the face of the monster, which now that Mia looked at it really did look as if it had been carved out of some ancient tree’s trunk. A small chunk got blown off, scorch marks getting drawn across the monster’s body and its grassy fur getting singed.
That was it, the bolts of lightn ing that blew apart the lesser monsters only made a superficial wound.
Carmilla gave Mia’s shoulder a reluctant squeeze. “Stay here, I’ll be back to protect you if it turns to attack you.”
With that the girl was off, racing up to the monster. Vines disentangled from the creature’s body, swaying wildly around it like the dozen tentacles of a squid. Thorns and spikes grew along the vines' length and then they flashed out, slamming into the ground around the beast and one almost taking Carmilla’s head off with a wild swing.
The vampiress fell into a slide, then kicked off the ground when another vine came at her from the side. Claws made of vibrant crimson energy formed on her arms and when the third vine came to pierce her right through the girl stepped to the side and cut the thing right off.
Mia stopped paying attention then, as the spell circle was done. Mana danced at her fingertips and she aimed it at the joint of the leg still keeping the struggling Mark pinned under it.
Her spell shot off, blowing about a third of the leg into little green chunks just when another bolt of lightning raced over a set of vines and made the monster stiffen. The two vines went slack, falling to the ground limply as the monster finally stumbled.
Its weight came off of Mark and then Carmilla was there, grabbing Mark’s arm and dragging him away. Mia pushed her mana, forcing it to be ready a tiny bit faster and blasted the side of the monster’s head when it seemed like it would snap its jaws after Carmilla.
The little Familiar was working hard too, clawing at another vine and brutalising it until it too fell limp, only half attached to the beast’s shoulder.
The beast was thrown on its side, its shoulder on the side Mia had injured bursting apart. The explosion of a tank’s shell that’d buried itself into the monster reached Mia’s ears belatedly a moment later.
“GET AWAY FROM THE BLASTED THING!” Zeigler bellowed, his barking shout somehow easily making itself heard through the explosions and the noise.
Mia glanced at Mark, now limping away from the beast with Carmilla helping him stand upright. One of his legs looked … twisted. Mia grimaced, stomach churning at the sight. His knee was bending in a very wrong way.
She shot off another Blast, aiming at the wound the tank made. The monster twisted away, a vine snapping out and making the spell explode prematurely. It cost the monster the tip of a vine, but Mia suspected that was a worthy trade.
It trembled, maw open in a snarl as it jumped around freely with its vines slapping and snapping at everything and anything around it now that it didn’t have anything keeping it in place. That had been Mark before, or rather the monster’s sick need to have him slowly dying under its claws while it slaughtered his friends.
That was the malice, the type of hatred monsters had for every living thing.
“FIRE!” Zeigler shouted and Mia caught the sound of a loud hiss, then a dark projectile sped past the monster, burrowing into the ground just a metre behind it. It exploded with a deafening sound, the shockwave of it upending pavement and dirt that crashed into the monster’s flank like shrapnel.
The explosion sent it reeling, stumbling. Helene didn’t miss out on the opportunity, two sets of twin-bolts slammed into the monster. Mia followed her mother’s lead, her own Blast exploding against the monster’s side, deepening a preexisting wound and exposing an ivory white piece of bone inside the green flesh.
The front left limb of the monster went limp, and the beast stumbled, its skull slamming into the ground as it fell. Mia went to fire another Blast, but froze, feeling the dreadful sensation of oncoming mana deprivation.
How? I just cast three Blasts, I should have had enough for five or ten at least … whatever.
Mia scrambled to open the zip of her waist bag, the thing she kept her potions and elixirs in. Her hands trembled, as they always did and made the task difficult. She heard the thuds of the colossal beast’s footsteps, looked up and froze as she saw it bounding towards her mother without a care for the bolts of lightning and bullets raining down at it.
The Familiar was on its face, clawing, biting and tearing into it with abandon. Helene looked resolute, Brent standing before her with his sword brandished, snapping out to cut off a pair of vines striking forth at Helene.
Her mother’s wings unfurled behind her just moments before the beast was upon the two of them. Helene grabbed Brent around the waist and then with a heave that had her veins bulging out on her forehead and down to her neck, she sluggishly lifted the both of them into the air.
Just in time as the monster barreled past less than a metre beneath Helene’s feet, either uncaring that its targets dodged its charge or unable to see them with the little pink cat having torn up the flesh on its head. Though, it also could have just decided to make do with chomping down on the soldiers kneeling and firing at it just behind where Helene had been standing.
Zeigner stood before his men, the Colonel's ageing face set in a frown as he faced down the colossal monster fearlessly. Mia saw though, how his hands shook a little as he stood straight, his men continuing to fire ceaselessly into the beast without apparent results. There had to be kilograms of lead in the damned thing by that point.
Then a steel missile crashed onto the monster, making it slam onto its belly and slide the last five metres on the pavement. Brent, with his sword pierced into the monster up to the hilt, stood up with a wobble. Mia started, jaw dropping as she looked up to where her mother was hovering a hundred metres above.
Did she just drop Brent atop the damned monster? It was obvious that Helene had done just that, but somehow Mia’s mind was having some trouble reconciling the image she had of her mother with the flying Sorceress dropping knights on monsters.
Zeigler raised his hand, and the gunfire died. Well, the gunfire aimed at the large monster did as a large number of soldiers were now struggling with keeping the still oncoming waves of Marauders at bay.
Brent caught his footing, then pulled his sword out from the monster’s back with a heave. The creature twitched, its head snapping back and to the side but Brent just stepped over to its nape and drove his sword right into its skull.
It went still, its colossal body twitching one last time before it fell limp.
Helene landed next to the monster a moment later, her breathing laboured and her wings drooping before she pulled them back into her body. Mia felt her knees going weak at the sight, she glanced over at Carmilla and Mark.
When she saw the dwarf, hissing with his teeth gritted as Carmilla poured a glimmering Elixir down his throat, Mia’s body finally realised that the fight was over. Everyone survived.
Mark screamed, an ungodly howl of agony as his leg twisted itself back into place seemingly by itself. He passed out right after, and Mia collapsed onto her butt, her breathing ragged as she stared at the aftermath of the battle.
Carmilla came over to her, a worried look on her face as she crouched down next to the listless Mia. A moment later, a much diminished Familiar landed on her shoulder, the pink cat having used up almost all of its remaining uptime to accomplish its orders. It looked almost translucent and the weight of its body was less than a feather’s now.
Mia unconsciously reached up to her shoulder and scratched the cat behind the ears. She stared at the dead monster, then up at the vampiress. “How is he?”
“Alive,” Carmilla said, glancing back at the dwarf she’d left laid out on the sidewalk.
“He’s going to stay that way too?” Mia found herself asking, still in a daze as her sweaty palms shook while she petted the Familiar.
“Yes,” Carmilla said, shrugging as she slumped down next to Mia, pulling her knees up to her chest as she too looked at the dead monster. “I fed him one of my Greater Healing Elixirs. He’ll be fine.”
Mia let out a relieved sigh that came from the depths of her soul. Mark had almost died, if his earthen armour had been any weaker, he would have.
The realisation hit her like a truck. She’d almost lost a friend to the monsters. Again. It was so damned close too. Too damned close. She was still too weak, too helpless, powerless to protect her friends.
She took a shuddering breath, turning her gaze over to the unconscious dwarf lying spread eagle on the sidewalk. The rhythmic sound of his heartbeat and the throathy snores that came out of his mouth assured her that he really was alive.
Mia watched Brent go about chopping the monster’s head off, apparently because Zeigler wanted to ‘make sure’. Not that Mia thought it was needed, the System gave her all the assurance she needed.
***
[Congratulations! You have taken part in taking down an escaped Rift Guardian: Evergreen Juggernaut - level 11!]
[Level Up!]
[Level: 9 -> 10]
[Free Attribute Points: 6 -> 9]
[Congratulations! You have reached the maximum level for your Rank: 0!]
[Due to fulfilling all the requirements, the Regional Quest: An Obelisk of our Own! has been shared with you!]
[An Obelisk of our Own! (Graz)]
Objective:
Destroy all Rifts within Region: Graz. ( 0 / 5 )
Preserve the lives of at least 50000 residents of ‘Graz’!
Reward: A System made Obelisk at the centre of the Region.
Additional Rewards will be given out based on contribution to the Objective.
***
What caught Mia’s eyes in that slew of notifications was one little number: 11. That monster, the Juggernaut, had apparently been level eleven. Its name was also written in the white of the ‘Common’ rarity, probably meaning it really was a Rank 1 monster.
Probably why it was so fucking hard to kill. Fuck.
Mia felt tired, the worrying, the shock, the panic and all that. Especially with superhuman stamina given to her by the adrenaline rampaging through her bloodstream rapidly departing her. She just wanted a hot bubbly bath, a bed, and …
She had the last one right there, didn’t she?
Drowsy and exhausted as she was, her personal boundaries grew laxer. She was just plain too exhausted to care. She wanted- No! She needed some comfort and so she leaned to the side, pressing herself up against Carmilla and rested her head on the vampire’s now stiff shoulder.
Mia smiled subconsciously, feeling another soft, warm body so close to her. She reached over and pulled the girl in for a side hug by the waist. After a moment, the redhead relaxed and ever so gently reciprocated the hug.
Carmilla’s movements were awkward, like she didn’t know how hugs worked or how to handle being in close physical contact with someone. Mia didn’t care, just blissfully smiling as she closed her eyes and enjoyed being alive, the warm rays of the sun on her face, the soft breeze blowing in her hair and the awkward vampiress just being next to her.
The vampiress who had saved her life without a second thought, the vampiress who rushed back in to fight a vicious monster without fear, without hesitation. Mia felt safe next to her, safe in a way she only felt … very long ago. Back when she still trusted her father to keep her safe, back when there wasn’t a safer place in the world to Mia than inside his arms.
Finally, Mia could relax, letting out a long breath she didn’t know she was holding in, muscles she didn’t notice were coiled up going lax. Everyone was alive, mostly safe and she had a pretty girl to cuddle with.
Life was good.
Comments
Leviathon251
Ngl I Was waiting for the soldiers randomly decide they're too dangerous and kill one of the party while they're all tired. Thanks for not doing that :)
ZephanyZephZeph
Hell yeah, her exhaustion letting her be more honest with herself! So adorable how Carmilla is her safety now.
