They reached the top with a crash that once again sent everyone but Arthur sprawling. As the door to the elevator wasn’t closed, they were able to see where they’d arrived. Air Ema had taken them all the way to the top of the tower, the opening through the elevator door showing the roof of the “building”. Once more assaulted by another of the mysterious tremors that had been periodically shaking the building, they took in the new surrounding.
It was raining hard. The sky was dark, almost as though night. Bright light posts were planted at each corner of the roof, illuminating the area as the rain soaked their glass exteriors. There was a glut of monsters on the roof as well, as though waiting for the party. Behind them, however, was something so huge it took the group a second glance to parse its full girth as it turned to face them, rain hammering down on its single huge eye.
Marauding Cyclopes
Raid Commander
Level 56
“I SO told you guys!” Ema screeched in victory, but the others were too taken aback to acknowledge her words.
“Are you serious? It was this thing the entire time…” Gideon deadpanned, remembering his last encounter with the monster. It’d been near the beginning of the end of the world, when he’d witnessed it tearing its way up from a fissure in the earth. At the time, he’d chosen to run away as the individual he’d heard screaming was already dead. He had no plans to run this time.
The roof of the faux building was larger than the building’s perimeter. A huge square that overlapped the walls below, the roof made the Obelisk look like a tower wearing a hat. It was covered in the most elite of the lesser monsters, hobgoblins and giant white wolves, sometimes with the former mounting the latter. The most powerful treeants the group had ever seen, somehow getting to the top of the building without taking the elevator, gathering to protect their Raid Commander. No matter what form the monsters took, however, they were singular in their goal, and they began converging on the elevator.
“Shit… they’re going to box us in!” Gideon yelled, clearly still tired from his last battle but pushing through and taking his weapons out, regardless. Arthur, weapons already drawn, stepped out in front.
“I think I’ll be able to make a path. Stay close, but stay behind me!”
Aurora Diné was not a prideful woman. She didn’t consider herself particularly caring of personal power, either. She’d always been the languid type of person, one to let the tides of life flow over her like a relaxing day at a beach. The System arriving didn’t necessarily change that, but the death and destruction it brought added a dark tint to those tides. It added pressure, and a need for violence that was normally antithetical to her nature. That pressure gave birth to a lurking willingness for savagery that crept beneath those waves like a school of piranhas.
Aurora growled. Getting onto her feet, she stepped in front of Arthur and stretched her arms out as far as they’d go in one motion. She was supposed to be their group’s damage dealer, but during their last battle, she’d been less than useless; she’d practically been a burden. She could handle the frustration that came with that, and the anger that accompanied it. What she couldn’t handle was the shame of failing her friends.
Fingers alight with electricity, she swung her hands together with all the strength she could muster, causing a thundering boom.
[Lightning Blast]: Release a blast of lightning surrounding you. Enemies struck by this skill are inflicted with [Shocked] and blasted back. If [Static] stacks used equal 3 or more, vastly empowers the skill.
She poured stacks of Static into the skill like cups of sugar into a confectionary recipe. The resulting blast was angled forward, sparing her friends from everything but the earsplitting noise. The monsters on the other side of the elevator door were not so lucky.
A resonating force erupted from Aurora’s hands, crashing into the monster’s forces head on. The wave of energy was streaked with lightning, arcing out to deal additional damage with the myriad beasts’ departure. All the enemies directly in front of the elevator door were blasted away, then so were the monsters behind them, and the ones behind them. When the force finally petered out, a large cone of empty space was all that was left, with a slight bit of damage to the roof’s flooring.
Lightning Blast was a skill meant for keeping enemies at a distance. While she had never done so before, she instinctively knew that she could “aim” the energy, focusing the skill and increase its potency. Every skill one gained came with such requisite instinctive knowledge, with the only exception being Arthur’s Audacity Tempering. The other members of the group looked at each other after the leisurely woman’s abject display of power. Instead of addressing them, she flew out of the gaping elevator door. The party quickly gathered themselves, rushing out to join her.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
They were soaked almost instantly. The storm was bad enough that it was raining sideways; the wind howling and yanking at the group’s clothes.
“This is it guys!” Aurora shouted over the wind. “If we kill this thing, everything ends!”
“Everything won’t end…” Gideon said, almost too low to be heard. “But we will finally be free to leave.”
The Systems enhancements to the groups body’s made it possible for them to withstand the storm relatively well. The best off in this regard was, without a doubt, Arthur and his high defenses and vitality. The knight’s high weight tolerance permitted a supernatural staunchness that applied to torrential downpours. In contrast, the most affected was Ema, who didn’t struggle to stay on her feet, but was swaying more than the others, her shiny black hair sticking to her small but fiercely determined face. The second most unaffected though, was Aurora, was almost at home in the storm. While inside the building, she’d felt incredibly weakened, but outside in this storm, the opposite was true. She felt power practically leaking out of her Lightning Bolt skill, almost begging to be used, as though the skies themselves asked her permission to strike.
She held it back, for now. There was a large group of enemies she had to make it through first, and she had the perfect skill for that.
Her hands crackled as she began charging up a Lightning Weave, Arthur charging out in front with a Challenging Moxie.
Gordeau and Halla sat in front of his many screens, watching them like hawks. Well, Gordeau watched them like a hawk, Halla was incapable of such a biological action. She instead gained the information displayed by the screen the moment it showed. The recording function of his control panel had already been activated, and they’d already captured the party’s battle with the Threshens. They’d come uncomfortably close to losing at least two people, a sentiment that Gordeau had groaned invective at many times already.
Arthur hadn’t needed to separate the two like he had thought. What he hadn’t known was that Threshens that were incapable of speech had far lower willpower than entities of similar level, meaning even one or two tries of his AOE Enrage skill would have worked. But instead of even trying, he’d just assumed that his abilities wouldn’t have worked, and made the battle much worse than it had to be. Gordeau couldn’t entirely blame him for not having information pertinent to the situation, buuuuut he was going to, anyway.
From the beginning of their meeting, it had been clear to Gordeau that Arthur had several issues with his personality. Aside from the aforementioned self destructiveness, he also had the issue of assuming failure before even trying. This was far from the first time he’d seen such a shortcoming, but it was not optimal for the individual who, by Gordeau’s estimate, had the best chance at beating back The Quine’s waves.
There was a sudden knock on the door, not so much pulling him from his thoughts as rudely yanking him from them. The group on the screen had just started their battle with the Marauding Cyclopes, another monster the System specially crafted for this world, as it normally did with its monsters. During The Quine, monsters employed by Raiders would always take forms the locals would recognize.
Gordeau turned in his chair, allowing Halla to answer the door as she always did. The door to his office was created by a standard Holosolid, an appliance that created solid holograms. When Halla reached said door, it dissolved and revealed a face Gordeau hoped he wouldn’t have to see in the next millennia.
“Ho, friend. How goes your dungeon management?”
Mavistere was a lanky and thin elf who dressed like he owned a universe. The fact that he practically did brought no comfort to Gordeau, but it meant that he had to at least tolerate his presence when he deigned to “grace” him with it. Just because he had to tolerate it didn’t mean he had to be polite, however.
“You know full well that I’m making Chronicles of my Accord partner.”
Mavistere sniffed, his version of a scoff. “Yes… that human planet, was it?” He peeked at the screen, unimpressed. The party had made it past the horde and was now well into their battle with the Cyclopes. “Truly, an unfortunate tenure you’ve been placed. The bumbling humans will surely expire, come the third wave’s eve.”
Elves and humans had been in quiet conflict for eons, neither side letting go of the grievances held by their ancestors. Humans had always been on the losing side of that conflict, being one of the weakest races of the Macrocosm, and the conflict between the two races was not always “quiet”. Mavistere’s disdain for the humans was clear on his face as he watched the knight topple the Cyclopes. Fitting for one of the weakest races to choose one of the weakest classes.
Humans were considered weak because of their inherent flaws. Unlike many of the Macrocosm’s races, humans were born with no mana. They had to be infected or changed by the System in order to gain it and use magic of any kind, meaning a class-less human was essentially dog food. This alone caused many of the Macrocosm’s denizens to consider humans deficient, or even incomplete as a race, but this wasn’t all. Humans also lacked any kind of special racial skills, unlike elves who were blessed with both. Many people speculated that the humans, overcome with jealousy for the elves that looked so much like them, started the conflict long ago due to that hubris. Mavistere was no doubt one of those people.
Gordeau thought it was stupid.
“Humans are people just like anyone else,” He droned off, feeling like picking his nose but restraining himself in his current company. “No being in the cosmos is better than another. Anyone can make it to the pinnacle of power with enough conviction.”
Mavistere sniffed again, but this time it was deep. “I suppose it is unsurprising for you to be of such an injudicious opinion. Ever since the fall of the Gordonian Court, you ‘angels’ have been rather obstreperous. The humans were your staunchest supporters, no?”
Gordeau went very still. If Halla, who was behind Mavistere, was of more biological persuasion, she might have gasped. The entire room went quiet. Even the screens went mute suddenly despite the rising stakes of the desperate battle playing out on them, a battle that was reaching its peak.
“…Be very careful with your words… mortal.” Gordeau’s voice was deep and resonate, shaking the very bones of both his office and the elf before him. Despite his terrible posture sitting in his chair, his presence was like a hungry wolf waiting at a forest’s edge.
After a long, silent moment, Mavistere huffed. Just before he left, his hand gripped the edge of the door frame. “You’re the one who should be careful, angel. Your ‘god’ is asleep, and will be for a very… long… time. You do not have the backing to prevent… accidents from befalling your investment.” He let go of the door frame. “Do take care… friend.”
Gordeau watched the frame until the Holosolid replaced the door. Silence reigned, and when he looked back at the screen, he was confused for a moment at what he saw. Soon after, however, his eyes filled with rage.
“Oh… he DID NOT!!”