timewalk

  Aliandra

  Perched atop her barrier, Ali had seeire thing go down. When the giant Piercer Scorpion had raised its tail skyward, she had expected the usual formation of the magic that summos devastating Bone Spear attack. However, the array of bone affinity mana had created a vastly broader spell formation, drawing heavily from the domain around it to suffuse it with intense power.

  The exploding nova of bone spines had exceeded even her wildest expectations, tearing through her minions, Mato, Malika, and even the very ground in an instant, tossing everything aside as if it were all chaff.

  The wave of exploding bone spikes fshed by – some even shooting high enough to scrape and scratch at the underside of her h barrier before ebbing away orailing side of the surging wave. There was a siihud behind her, and by the time she turned, was already falling, trailing blood from a giant sliver of crimson-smeared white bone impaled through his stomach.

  “! No!”

  For an instant, seemed to float, momentarily stationary with his haended forward reag, stretg toward safety that was just beyond his grasp. Ali stared in horror as his body began to fall, slipping away into the vast emptihat separated the suspended city rings.

  Without a thought for the sequences, she threw herself into the void after him, accelerating her barrier to a full freefall with the reckless haste of desperation. She reached toward his falling body, outlined clearly by the glow of his mana in the vast darkness, and summoned a barrier. But in those brief moments, he had already fallen too far, and her golden barrier missed its mark, ue the distance.

  Shit!

  Ali flipped her barrier, tipping herself headfirst into the darkness, and with a surge of will, she made it propel her downward, accelerating faster than the pull of gravity. She summoned another barrier, tantalizingly close, but still, she didn’t quite have the reach she he air tore past her face, pressing her skin down and whipping her hair back as she pushed her body to an eveer speed, desding like a goldeeor, desperately willing herself to close the gap.

  Ohird attempt, her barrier reached his body, summoned right under him, and with great effort and gritted teeth, she matched the speed of the barrier to his dest, not wanting to crush him with a sudden impact against a wall of magic. She pulled as if she were reeling in a line, bleeding momentum from his falling body causing him to groidly rger as their retive speed ged and she finally reached him.

  Ali immediately released the barrier pushing her downward and summoned a new one ahead of her to slow her reckless plummeting fall until finally the pressure of the air on her face subsided and her hair dropped back to her shoulders.

  She was suspended in the vast darkness, lit from below by the golden glow of the barriers that supported them and the soft ambient magic that emanated from far below. In the distance above, silhouetted by brief flickers of white and red she could make out the outline of the suspended rings of the ruined city, and the dark mana that poured from it in an endless cascade. breathed heavily and clutched at the spear through his middle, a small pool of blood f on the barrier.

  How deep does this go? Her eyes flickered nervously, cheg the darkness all around her. Never in her life had she been forced to truly grasp the immensity of Dal’mohra and the vastness of the city levels. All she could see below was a distant, indistinct green and yellow glow.

  He retrieved a vial of dimly glowing red liquid and dow befrabbing the bone spear with two blood-slicked hands. With a scream of pain, ya the spear with all his strength, drawing it clear through his own body before he colpsed bato the support of her barrier ahe spear tumble away into the emptiness below.

  “! Are you –”

  “ch, Ali…” His voice was hoarse but urgent. “Ining!”

  Ali’s eyes anxiously scoured the darkness, but what had seen eluded her for several long moments before the rge bulk of a flying shape blotted out the flickering light of the still-raging magic battle far above. The shape vanished, and then another appeared, again blog the light, and suddenly she saw it. Not with her eyes, but with her magic. Cirg ominously above were twe reptilian shapes outlined by the virulent green mana that emanated from their bodies.

  Poison Wyvern – Dragon – level 30-31 (Poison) x2

  Thanks, fate! You really pioments, you know?

  As the fathered their wings to their fnks to dive, Ali reached for her barrier magic, but she was already using all her capacity just holding her and from falling.

  “Hold on!” she yelled, as the sleek, muscur wyverns dove toward them, giving him almost no time to react before she banked hard with an aggressive evasive maneuver.

  The wyvern’s wings fred reag to her movement and halting its plummeting dest with a dispy of breathtaking power and agility. As she came around, it was there, emerald scales gleaming by the light of her magic, rippling from the powerful a of the muscles beh, almost close enough to touch. A reptilian eye, glowing with emerald-green magic, fixed on her as it flew by. The scaled head turned on its long sinuous neck, mae baring more vicious es than she could t, and, in a rapid flicker of magic, a spray of greeed out dreng her and her barrier in a corrosive liquid that burned her eyes and nose.

  You have been afflicted with Poison.+3 Poison damage per sed.Poison – Duration: 10 minutes. t: 1

  Her body felt suddenly weak and shaky as the poison took hold, rapidly draining her meager two hundred ay health.

  An indest arrow suddenly sprouted from the wyvern’s fnk, and it let out a screech of pain, falling away into the darkness below.

  “Ali! Go! Get us out of here!” shouted. He crouched on one knee in the ter of the barrier, bow out, and light magic bzing forth in the darkness. How is he still fighting?

  Ali did not o be told twice. Grabbing onto the edge of her barrier with all her strength, she uhem upward toward the dubious safety of the ruined city above. A whooshing artled her as the sed wyvern swooped past, barely missing with its poisoh. Arrows whistled by, but she paid them no heed, trusting ’s aim.

  She dodged, swooped, and weaved as she threw them hurtling through the darkness, desperately trying to avoid the two hunting wyverns that had marked them as prey.

  “Help!” She screamed her thoughts out via her e to her minions, desperately reag for the security of her creatures and their prote, but they were too far to reach. She tried again and again as the monstrous huracked their jagged, zigzagging ast.

  Suddenly, the darkness split with the thunderd intense brilliance of a Lightning Bolt, sending one of the wyverns wheeling away, trailing blood and smoke from its sinuous tail. The air lit with the staccato red fshes of firebolts raining down as she and finally crested over the rim of the inner city ring.

  A deafening roar ripped through the sky as the other wyvern shot up from below, spraying toxic poison that spshed across the pza, catg her and all her minions in its deadly rain.

  Your Poison has increased to 2.+3 Poison damage per sed.Poison – Duration: 10 minutes. t: 2

  Ali doubled over in pain as the poison coursed through her, mingling with the poison that was already ravaging her body and doubling the rate at which she was dying. With six damage per sed, she knew she had barely thirty seds left to live.

  Scrambling to retrieve an expensive health potion, she dow as fast as she could, dropping herself and to the ground and throwing up a barrier just in time to bloother virulent gree from the two wheeling wyverns. Didn't we get that one? Ali thought, frowning at the injured wyvern still trailing a little smoke in its wake.

  “Ali! ! Are you ok?” Malika’s voice shouted from somewhere behind her.

  “Poison! Bad!” she managed, her attention fully locked owo aggressive reptiles dive-bombing her and with their poison and talons.

  A tou her shoulder drew her attention before the surge of Malika’s mana burhrough her, reversing the ravaging effects of the poison on her body before she danced over to to do the same to him.

  “Don’t get any closer,” Malika said. “That Bone Nova is deadly.”

  “I sort of noticed,” said, his lips twisting. “Ali… thanks again.”

  For a moment Malika’s words fused Ali, but then she gnced around, finally taking in her surroundings. She had been so focused on the wyverns and surviving that she had entirely fotten what had been going ht before they fell.

  Mato had moved the giant Piercer Scorpion off to the side, back up to a wall. With every strike, the ground shook and bone shards and spikes exploded. He ta by himself with all her minions standing haphazardly at range, some firing at the bone elemental, and some now shooting into the air at the wyverns.

  “Ining! More!” ’s shout seized her attention. Rising from the darkness from which they had just flown was a brilliantly indest ‘v’ shaped formation of objects slowly gliding through the air like a floigrating birds. The formation was made of an array of sleriangur sword-like gss shards that shoh an iy that could only be light magic.

  What now?

  Glimmer Shard – Elemental – level 12-18 (Light) Swarm x30

  In her haste, she ted about thirty of the strange creatures as the entire squadron wheeled slowly in the air as if lining up in a delicate sky ballet. Each shard gracefully peeled away from the formation in rapid succession, shooting forward with a sound like a whip-crack, leaving blurred trailing afterimages in her vision.

  The Glimmer Shards attacked everything indiscriminately, two crashed into her barrier, boung off, while several sliced into the flying wyverns causing screeches and roars of pain. Shards bounced off the Piercer Scorpion with ks and plinking noises while others smmed into Mato and her minions as the entire formation bsted a deadly rain of bdes across the etlefield.

  They y on the ground or impaling their targets for a few moments, before they violently wrehemselves free, h before shooting back troup in the sky above.

  Ali sucked in a breath. Ouot good.

  A brilliant pilr of golden light fred out from her Kobold Acolyte as it triggered its powerful healing enha in a desperate attempt to repair the extensive injuries and damage inflicted by the aerial assault and the powerful poison now afflig most of her minions. The soft, soothing holy magic of her Acolyte settled on her, and her mind found space to calm down and focus.

  Amid the chaos of the suddenly four-way melee, Ali spent her moment of stillness and calm to evaluate. With healing magic, she wasn’t immediately about to die, but the sheer amount of damage was going to overload Malika and her Acolytes rapidly. They still had a monstrous bone elemental boss to deal with, along with two wyverns spraying poison indiscriminately, and whatever these new Glimmer Shard things were.

  “Stop healing the rogues and warriors,” Ali instructed. It was the first clusion she reached in that moment. The only grounded enemy was the Piercer Scorpion and not even Malika was engaging it in melee, preferring to dodge in for the occasional heal and remain beyond the range of the devastating Bone Nova attack. Her rogues were all poisoned and simply wasting the mana of her Acolytes – uo meaningfully eh any of their foes.

  “I’ll get the shards,” she told . While the shards were attag their foes, they weren’t hurting the scorpion, instead causing more damage to her minions and friends with their chaotic attacks. There were a lot of them for ’s bow to find. But it was the tight wheeling formation that gave her an idea. If I aim it that accurately…

  “Ok,” answered. “I’ll get the wyverns.”

  “Totems on the scorpion,” Ali said, direg her shamans to ge their focus. “Lightning Bolts at the wyverns.” She tinued anizing her forces, direg her lone surviving archer and the Bone Mage to the wyverns also, while Malika danced among her minions adopting the role of full-time healer.

  Ali studied the Glimmer Shards gathering in the sky as they lined up their attack. Fireballs took several seds so she would o anticipate the perfeent. But I have three mages… Ali simply hedged, signaling each mage to begin at a slightly staggered time. It would be tight, but she would rather strike just a little early than too te. The speed with which they attacked was so high that even slightly te would result in a detonation in ay sky.

  There!

  The first fireball shot out, s into the air, leading the pack of Glimmer Shards. The sed fireball unched, and thehird, balls of fme unched into the darkness like the e of the Fall Festival fireworks show.

  The first detonation ripped through the sky, slightly ahead of the formation, the fmes and cussion reag perhaps half of the creatures. The sed detonated dead ter enveloping the entire formation. There were several rapid fshes as the Glimmer Shards began to unch, leaving trails and vortices through the expanding cloud of red fme and smoke. The third fireball deto the back of the formation, and shards of gss began to fall out of the sky.

  Her timing had certainly not been perfect, but there were only nine remaining shards shooting from the fmes.

  The pressure of ’s magic suddenly surged beside Ali, like heat billowing from a freshly opened fe. Intricate markings of pure light-affinity mana formed on his arms and face, extending down his neck. His eyes fred with indest radiance as his bow fired an interacer stream of arrows out across the battlefield to hammer into the wyvern cirg the Piercer Scorpion boss and raining poison down on it and Mato while they battled below.

  Ali reacted instantly, adding her Are Bolts to ’s boosted magic arrows, and calling fhtning Bolts and whatever else her minions could muster. It took about fifteen seds of trated fire before the emerald-scaled wyvern faltered, falling out of the sky in an untrolled spiral, trailing smoke, blood, and spraying poison everywhere, to nd with a crash in the middle of her shamans’ nova totems. With a blurring strike of its tail, the Piercer Scorpion decapitated the stri creature in an instant.

  Well, thanks for nothing, she thought sarcastically.

  Ali’s attentied widely across the field. Her Kobold Acolyte’s holy magic began to fade as the Glimmer Shards circled, ref their formation with their decimated numbers. Mato was holding his own against the thumping crash of the monstrous attacks while the bination of healing magics kept him from dying from the assault.

  ’s arrows switched instantly to the sed wyvern, and Ali followed his lead, sending her magic, along with that of her minions s into the air, while simultaneously watg the remnants of the shards food opportunity to strike. She struggled to split her awareness in so many different ways while still fog well enough to keep track of what she o respond to, certain that somehow, she was missing something important.

  Now!

  Right as the Glimmer Shards resumed their formation, she instructed her Fire Mages to strike. But as soon as she did, one of her mages colpsed. Followed immediately after by her archer and a Bone Mage dropping to the ground. Without the powerful healing boost granted by the pilr of light, her Acolytes were simply uo keep up with the relentless poison.

  Stay alive just a little longer, she willed with all her heart.

  “Fire!”

  Two fireballs lofted into the air, and one more Bone Mage colpsed immediately after. Two massive detonations of fme and smoke exploded in the air and again gss shards rained down onto the battlefield. This time, only a single Glimmer Shard emerged from the smoke and fire, shooting down to bounce off the thick armor of the Piercer Scorpion.

  ’s brilliant light faded, but it was enough. High in the air, the stri wyvern circled lower and lower, struggling with a crippled wing before crash-nding heavily on the ground where Ali’s remaining shamans quickly destroyed it.

  “Everyone on the scorpion,” instructed.

  “How’s your mana?” Ali asked of the Acolyte standing beside her.

  “It is gone, A Mistress,” she replied.

  Retrieving totions, Ali handed oo each of her Acolytes, ign the cost of the expensive ables she was burning on her minions before fixing the remaining Glimmer Shard in her mind and burning it down with her Are Bolts.

  From just beyond the range of the Piercer Scorpion’s deadly Bone Nova, they unleashed everything they had on the powerful elemental boss, sending bone chips and splinters flying in a tinual rain of magic as the miretched on longer and longer. Even with the mana potions, her Acolytes still ran low.

  “I am out of mana, A Mistress,” a Fire Mage announced.

  “Stop healing him,” she instructed. Her Acolytes’ mana was at a premium, and she had to prioritize Mato. A Fire Mage without mana wasn’t worth healing, and she was out of potions. Within seds the Kobold colpsed, leaving her with only two Acolytes, one Fire Mage, and oorm Shaman.

  “I’ll keep them alive,” Malika said, pausing briefly beside her. “Just trate on Mato, we need yic to get through that bone armor.”

  “Here,” said, handing her several mana potions. Quickly Ali distributed them among her remaining minions, g nothing for the sheer amount of money her summoned monsters were guzzling.

  Finally, her shaman’s Lightning Bolt opened a crack rge enough that it didn’t immediately close up, and she called for the Fireball. You’d better aim right, she thought. Her Fire Mage was almost out of mana, and they had no more potions. But the fireball flew true, bsting deep into the rent in the bone armor.

  With a muffled thump, the fire magic detonated within the elemental, sending a spiderweb of cracks ripping through the outer carapad gouts of fme spraying from the nes between its freshly sundered armor ptes.

  “I’m out of mana,” her mage decred and toppled over finally succumbing to the poison, subjeg Ali to the disturbiion of losing the Empowered Summoner boost to her intelligeribute.

  The Piercer Scorpion froze, standing pletely still for several long seds. A bolt of lightning crackled as Malika and unloaded their attacks at the mohen its legs abruptly buckled and it crashed to the ground. A few moments ter, Ali heard the sweet sound of her notification chime.

  Ign the chime, Ali swooped toward her panions. Notifications could wait. “Everyone alright?” she called.

  Malika faked a big yawn. “Simple.”

  timewalk