Zali stood with a relaxed posture, watching from a distance with Kane, clearly unconcerned by the new development. “Think. Adapt! You have other skills and spells. Use them!”
“I don’t know what it is, but I am not going near it!” Panu said, firing off another Immolate and Fire Blast as they came off cooldown.
“I don’t think I can make a wall fast enough!” Philip called. “But maybe Epona can blow it.”
Epona, who had stayed back with the trainers, allowing the two men to practice their melee skills, now moved to join the fray. A breeze began to blow towards the monster, slowing the progress of the creeping tendrils of mist, but not entirely countering their movement.
“Don’t you have Space magic? Can you make it go into a hole or something?” Panu did not want to go back into melee range with that ugly mist around the creature, so he backed further away. He wondered if he could burn the mist. He didn’t know if fire would work, but maybe it would at least heat the fog and cause it to dissipate.
“I can make a pocket. I don’t know if it will work, but I can try.” Philip moved back a few more steps as the creature began to stand back up, surrounded in its shroud.
“Try it! And I’ll see if I can burn it!”
Panu turned his mind to his magic, trying to determine the best way to burn fog. He already split his magic into two parts - the part that powered his fiery rapier and the part he had used to cast spells. Trying to use his magic in three forms at once would likely cause him to lose control of the magic he maintained. It would fizzle out, so he drew his magic away from the Primary Infusion enchantment. He didn’t plan to get back into melee range until the cloud dissipated, and he could always activate it later.
His spells came off their cooldowns, so he quickly fired them at the beast again, noticing that the fog did not prevent him from casting through it. But his spells seemed to do less damage than they had the first time. The fog may have some kind of magic protection - that would make it a lot more difficult to light on fire.
He saw a small pocket of space open on the far side of the monster from him. Philip had used his Space magic to open the pocket, but he didn’t have a way of sucking things into said pocket. Epona’s winds blew towards it, however, and a trickle of fog started to curl into the spatial hole. The cloud of fog continued to get larger, however, and the tiny space would need to grow significantly larger to handle all of the fog.
Panu refocused on his own magic. He conjured a small, hot fire into the air in front of the fog, testing the reaction of the murky cloud and effectiveness of the flames. The fog resisted the heat of the flame, but as the fire burned, a small gap in the mist became noticeable as the cloud expanded past his tiny fire. He could work with that.
Focusing on his fire, he extended tendrils of hot flame to either side of the small blaze. Once the first tendrils reached the width of the cloud, he amplified them and began to send off shoots climbing like vines towards the top of the mist and others down like roots sinking towards the ground. He fed more magical energy into them, growing the flames until almost no space remained between his tendrils.
Where the fires touched the cloud, the cloud dissipated - but it also caused the fires to flicker. Panu focused on burning his fires hotter, keeping a steady magical stream to support the fires, preventing the murky mist from quashing his flames completely. He hadn’t made a fire wall like this before, and it took all of his concentration to maintain it. But it worked, and the creeping fog halted, overcome by his fire.
Opposite to Panu’s efforts, the cloud still rolled towards Philip and spread unimpeded on the other two sides of the monster. The spatial pocket Philip formed had grown larger, a sign of Philip focusing more on his own magic. The gusting winds cast by Epona corralled the fog towards the growing rift, which sucked the magic into another dimension. They kept up with the expansion of the fog on their side, but only barely.
Panu wondered how long the monster could cast this spell. At this point, it had regained its footing from the wall Philip placed in front of it. Its hindquarters bled from Panu’s attacks, and the back left leg moved sluggishly, but it still hadn’t taken enough damage to be out of the fight. Zali called this some type of boss so Panu expected it to have some fight left in it.
Hearing Zali’s words repeating in his head, Panu tried to press his fire forward, deciding he needed to do his best to take the fight to the monsters rather than allowing it to keep them on the back foot with its dubious grey mist . Moving his giant fire wall forward, however, proved a difficult task of concentration. The movement caused it to contact more of the cloud at a faster rate, which caused the fires to flicker faster, making it harder to maintain. Both maintaining and manipulating the fire strained his magical muscles. He had thought he had excellent control of his magic, but he usually used it on a much smaller scale. His fine control didn’t extend to this larger aggressive defense formation. A section of his wall dithered and winked out forcing him to pause the movement and push new tendrils of fire into the vacant space.
The monster chose this moment to initiate another attack. It lurched to the side and charged towards Philip, avoiding the wall of earth that had stopped its previous charge. Philip, focused on his magic, barely got his shield up in time, but couldn’t brace himself for the attack. The monster slammed into Philip, propelling him backwards, the mist still seeping out of him in a cloud that now rushed into the gaps in Philip’s armor.
Philip landed hard on his back on the ground, the monster mere steps away, and groaned. Panu watched his space pocket flicker out of existence as Philip lost focus on his magic. As Philip landed, the grey mist of the cloud began to change. A pale white glow quickly percolated back through the cloud to the monster generating it. Within a second, the monster’s hind quarters began to heal.
Panu cursed under his breath, realizing the mist was an essence drain. The monster could fully heal while draining Philip of his life force if the cloud remained in range. By the time Philip got himself together to stand, he would suffer weakness from the life drain.
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Panu knew he had to act immediately. He switched focus to his Time magic, throwing his magical senses toward Philip and the monster. He could sense the monster was too large for him to manipulate off of Philip. But if he tried to manipulate Philip, who also probably exceeded his magical limits, he would end up manipulating Philip back into the cloud, as the monster’s cloud still covered the area Philip had stood before the attack.
Panu cast his magic forward wildly, focusing on the cloud of mist itself. He had never tried to alter something that had an ethereal presence, and the cloud felt slippery to his magical senses. Concentrating, he managed to latch onto the feeling of the mist around Philip and caused it to move backwards in time.
The mist reverted to its position several seconds earlier, clearing the air around Philip and extinguishing the glow that indicated its transference of life essence. The wound on its leg reopened, the mist that had captured the life essence used to heal it now having never connected with Philip.
The air surrounding the front and head of the monster now clear as well, Epona charged forward to rescue Philip. She leapt into battle with her own charge, her armored body connecting with the monster and spinning it sideways away from Philip. She pivoted, her back hooves connecting with the side of the monster’s long jaw and short neck with a solid kick. A loud crack resounded in the clearing as the creature’s mandible snapped, its toothy maw now hanging at an awkward angle.
Philip rolled to his side and pushed himself up, shaking his head, clearly confused by the whiplash mix of blunt force trauma, life-force draining mist and time manipulation. He hadn’t lost control of his weapon, however, and used his trident to help him stand up, hefting his shield back into position.
Panu watched as the mist stopped generating once Epona kicked the ugly brute in the head. The mist that was there still hung in the area, but it no longer generated more. Panu debated his options - try to keep burning away the mist or try to unload on the monster with fire magic before it recovered from its daze. He chose the latter.
Panu cast the full slew of his fire spells on the creature, adding in his AOE Fire Line spell that served the double purpose of burning away a section of the mist between him and the monster. The narrow path through the fire would have deterred most people. Panu, on the other hand, couldn’t resist a bit of reckless heroics.
*Magma, give me Grounded State!*
Panu hoped that the spell from his god-given robe would work on the misty cloud if it touched him, causing the life-drain to dissipate into the ground rather than impact him. Unlike Epona, his companion didn’t have traditional manipulation abilities, instead providing strong defensive capabilities to Panu. This allowed Panu to do what he did best - damage.
He focused his fire magic back into his Primary Infusion and lunged forward through the narrow path in the fog. The rapier did better as a stabbing weapon, and the skin of the creature when he attacked the hindquarters had split easily. He had no idea how to locate the creature’s heart, but if he got lucky he could stab the monster a few times and find it.
He thrust the rapier forward into the monster’s side, its red-hot tip easily piercing the skin. He felt some resistance as the blade slid forward, but a good sized section of the fiery metal made it into the body. When he felt his momentum stop, he pulled backwards to release the weapon for another pass.
Philip regained his bearings and, seeing Panu’s attack, prepared to thrust forward with his trident. Epona had turned to face this creature, her winds now focused on clearing the remaining fog away from the monster. Panu saw it dissipating from the other side and hoped she would use caution when clearing his side of the monster. He had faith in Magma’s protective abilities, but he could live without having his essence drained.
The monster reared back, preparing another charge towards Philip. This time, however, Philip beat him to it, stabbing forward with his trident to land a piercing blow into the exposed chest beneath its armored head.
Panu shifted his weight in time with Philip, once again plunging his rapier into the monster’s side, this time aiming for a point further toward its head. The dual attack caused the creature to collapse forward, pulling Philip’s trident down with it and preventing him from pulling the weapon free of its chest. Philip stepped backwards, casting his Dirt Discs into the creature’s face.
Panu tried something new, focusing his attention on his weapon’s enchantment. He wanted to try to burn the creature from the inside now that his sword had lodged into its chest. They had the upper hand, but the monster in front of them still appeared to have some fight left in it as it tried to push itself back to its feet. He would rather see this fight ended now, if he could manipulate his magic the way he wanted.
He focused on pushing more of his fire magic into the sword, imagining the length of the blade erupting into a blaze, its tip spurting fire like a flamethrower inside the ugly brute before him. As he urged his flames to grow larger through his enchanted rapier, fire surged down his blade to lick the hilt of his rapier. The monster cried a grating sound, half roar, half honk, as the smell of roasting meat began to permeate the air.
Panu urged his fires larger, pushing until the monster slumped into silence on the ground in front of him. He held the rapier in its side a few moments longer, just to be sure the creature was good and cooked, before backing away from the beast. He pushed his sweat soaked hair back out of his eye and grinned at Philip.
“Hungry?” He sliced at the roasted flesh and laughed as the perpetually munching Earth mage shook his head vigorously.
“That does not smell good.”
“You can eat a lot of creatures in the dungeons, but I wouldn’t recommend this one.” Zali moved forward with Kane from where they had watched the battle.
“Interesting use of the Primary Infusion enchantment. I have to admit, I have never tried to cook a monster from the inside with it.” Kane looked at the monster thoughtfully.
“I like to be different.” Panu shrugged, casually examining his sword which showed no sign of blood, but instead had a greasy sheen.
“For a moment, I thought I would have to save you.” Zali directed this at Philip. “You ignored the best spells in your magical library. Why didn’t you use your Gravity Well when it cast its Essence Mist?”
Philip looked down, “I didn’t think of it. I thought it was just for lots of monsters. I never used it on just one.”
“Your gravity well can impact everything in range. You should have dissipated the mist immediately by pulling it in with that spell. The monster is more vulnerable while casting as it cannot move for several seconds when it begins generating that mist. You cannot rely on your party to know when to use your spells. Leka told me you have used Gravity Well before in combat, yes?”
Philip nodded, his expression downtrodden.
“Just because I told you a single technique today does not mean it is the only technique to use. You have a long way to go.”
“Hey, Philip does pretty well! He’ll catch on soon!” Panu clapped the smaller man on the shoulder, trying to encourage him.
“You are not without your own flaws, Panu. We still have much to do today.” Kane cast a stern look at Panu, causing him to grin despite being chastised. He did love a forceful older man.
