January 31, 2019, 11:02 pm. So close to February I can taste it.

Before telling Rufka, I inform the rest of the party about what Kellica shared with us. Which results in a soft chuckle from Roberts and Rose, while Josh just rubs his head.

"I'm less worried about Rufka, and more worried about Beth," Josh states, looking around at us. "She's been getting more and more... I... she's not taking the whole dying thing well."

"What does that have to do with the Taken stealing from Genitha?" I ask, watching as Roberts gathers up his cards.

"I... nothing. I'm just worried about her," Josh says, rubbing his forehead and catching some of his dark curls between his fingers as he pauses.

We all remain silent, waiting for him to add more. But when he lowers his head into his hands, all he does is repeat himself once more.

"I'll keep it in mind," I say. Wonder if Beth ever has to deal with us constantly going off topic... yeah, of course she does.

"Keep what in mind?" Rufka asks as she slips through the entrance before striding to join us at the table.

Tapping his deck of cards against the desk, Roberts says, "That Beth is having some trouble after her recent resurrection."

"Oh. Yeah, mum says the first one's the hardest. Good thing they're spending time together. Mum's got experience with helping cubs through that," Rufka says as she takes a seat next to me. "We ready to wash out the next wave of elementals? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm hoping Lexi leaves a couple for the rest of us."

I can't help but chuckle nervously as I glance at the quest notification.

"Zone Quest updated: Challenge Requested, Challenge Given. Requirements: Subdue the Primal Elementals with your party. Time until start: 08:09. Rewards: 10 iron rank integration points, 1 iron rank class progression point. 2/3 days remaining."

Huh. Much shorter warmup period for this one.

Pushing to my feet, I start heading out. I'm at the entrance when I realize no one else has moved. "You guys coming?"

"We still have... oh shit," Josh says, pushing to his feet. "Only ten minutes to prepare this time?"

"Guess it doesn't want us waiting around," Roberts says, though it's almost lost as everyone starts moving to join me.

Now that I have them with me, I head outside to the boss area. Shortly after we're all out, everyone confirms they're ready and I accept the prompt to start the encounter early. This time, the elementals that form are more than just blobs of their respective element. They all take vaguely animal-like shapes, though most aren't upright and they all have extra limbs. When I drop into time stop and shoot off my opening blast, I discover that these are the first real obstacle since we've arrived here. Not a single one of my Piercing Arrows does more than chip off a piece of the elemental. Chips that start to reform as soon as they're struck.

Snapping out an analyze on the elemental fire-cat glaring at Rufka, I hope to find out why.

“Creature analyzed: Primal Fire Elemental. Mana seed: 2.

A fire spirit bound to Elementalist's Peak. This elemental has been working with its counterparts to challenge the best Elementalists of Akilo since before the rise of the Aetherium. Unlikely to kill you, it has no compunctions with searing your flesh.

Name: Ineesis

Attributes: Physical; High, Mobility; High, Magic; High, Awareness; High.

Attacks: Flame Dash, Engulfing presence, Flame blast, Purge Conditions.

Defences: High physical resistance, medium magic resistance. Immunity to fire. High Resistance to all other base elements."

[Wyonna] "These are old elementals. Didn't think they could even get this old. And this isn't even their final form! Something super duper special about this dungeon. Anyway, this is a good sign you're getting to the interesting parts of the dungeon."

Not... okay, not encouraging. But also not terrible. It's just... resistant to everything. Snapping off a couple more analyzes confirms it's not just the fire-cat. They're all highly resistant.

As I let my time-stop come to an end, I attempt to teleport myself to the side to dodge the deluge of return fire I earned from my initial burst. But it refuses to activate. The others are protected inside Roberts' barriers, firing their own projectiles outward as I catch a face full of molten dirt. It manages to get past my resistances, the combined attacks shaving off over a hundred health.

When I look around, I discover that, except for Josh and Kellica, everyone else seems to be having as much trouble damaging the elementals as I am. A single toss of Josh's spear tears a hole in the earth-bear elemental's shoulder as I start shifting my weight manually, cursing the teleportation lockout. At the same time, one of Kellica's blobs of dark-green fluid splashes against the water elemental, causing it to slump.

I throw out a variety of attacks as I pause time again, trying to get a fraction of their success. Torrents, sprays and any other form of elemental attack are all nearly ignored. I'm not even sure if my new Ability to reduce resistances is doing anything. If I keep at it, I can probably knock them down by attrition. As long as I can get behind Roberts shields, I'll do that, if I can't think of something better.

But the elementals have separated me from everyone else. We've barely been fighting them for five seconds, and they've already worked to surround me. If not for the solid beating Josh was dishing out to the earth elemental, I wouldn't even be able to escape by flying away.

Still, his efforts are enough for me to flit out from between the other elementals, leaving me dangling over... nothing. Lots and lots of nothing. Not sure if being able to see forever is better or worse than the Abyss under Aethire.

Also, now's not really the time to worry about that. Dropping down, I'm pursued by the wind-bird and fire-cat elementals, neither having any trouble following me. I fly directly under the island. Right as I pass the deepest point, where I'm about to reverse direction to use the island as cover, my flight spell cuts out.

As I bring time to a stop, I look up. There's... something on the bottom of the island sucking up the remains of my flight spell. I can barely see the faint aftereffects, the lines of my spell twisting as they're drawn in.

Note to self, avoid spell vacuum.

Recasting my flight spell, I'm able to twist out of the way of a pair of fiery orbs as they rocket past me but I'm hit by an invisible blade of wind. Luckily, it's only a glancing hit, so I only drop a couple Health. Looking back, I wonder if the spell vacuum is what we need. Then the fire elemental flies straight through it, dashing my hopes before they're fully formed.

The next few minutes are mostly the same, taking an occasional fireball or windblade as I dodge around the bottom of the island. Every time I start to get close to the others, the elementals team up to keep me away. Otherwise, only the wind and fire elementals follow me.

In a moment of frustration, I shoot my most basic spell at the fire-cat elemental. A pure, non-aspected Pierce spell. To my shock, it disrupts the fire-cat enough to throw off the aim of their next pair of fireballs.

Grinning, I pause time and unleash a small storm of Pierce at the fire-cat. It manages to dodge half of them, but the rest land, scattering it's flames wide. Yet the wind elemental manages to land another invisible blow, shaving off more of my health.

I'm willing to accept the blow as I repeat my attack against the fire elemental from close range. The wind elemental's been too hard to even hit unless I'm close, and I feel grim satisfaction as ten separate Pierce spells find their mark.

Going to help the others, I make it to the top of the island and have unleashed another wave of Pierce spells when I see the fire-cat emerge on the other side of the island. Even as my Pierce spells land among my allies, scattering the elementals around them, the wind-bird elemental rejoins the fire-cat.

With the elementals finally giving me room, I land inside Roberts shield and take a look at everyone's status. No one else has even lost any Health. Roberts shields are just that good, I guess. Still, he's running low on Reprieve, and I haven't figured out how to beat these things yet.

"Nothing is doing permanent damage," Josh observes, looking out the barrier where the elementals are already reforming. I watch as the lightning elemental, in the form of a lizard, strikes Roberts' shield.

"I noticed," I reply. "There has to be something we've missed."

"We've hit them with every spell in our repertoire," Tipan says, even as she traces a shape with the tip of her staff. Then she releases a burning disc of screaming fury. It splashes harmlessly off the metal-monkey as it dashes forward to slam against the barrier. "And I'm running out of variations."

"Maybe it's..." Kellica starts, pausing as she throws out a blob of dark black fluid on a wave of wind. It catches the metal-monkey, causing the metal to deform but it just falls back and sheds its skin before moving to wail on the barrier again. "Maybe it has something to do with the challenges?"

As I release another wave of unaspected Pierces to clear the elementals, I step back. The others are all watching with me as the elementals fall back to reform.

"She may have a point," Roberts agrees as half of his barriers disappear for a second. They reappear before the elementals can attack, but they're even more transparent now. And we're packed more tightly together.

"Yeah," I agree, squinting at where the primals elementals are gathering on the other side of the barrier. "But... what are we supposed to do, channel mana into them until they pop?"

"Perhaps? Or perhaps we can manipulate them... if we get close enough," Roberts says with a shrug.

"Might be able to do it while they're dispersed," Josh says, throwing a spear that splits into three the second it's in the air, catching the earth elemental as it barely gets its shape back, reducing it to pieces again. "But I can't fight them and manipulate at the same time."

"I believe we will need to rely on Rufka and Tipan to do that while the rest of us keep them dispersed," Roberts says as one of his barriers collapses.

"I can do both," I note, grinning now that we have a plan.

Now that I'm looking for it, I can almost swear the elementals have little magical siphons in them. They're kind of similar to the mana-vacuum on the bottom of the island, actually. With Roberts Reprieve so low, he's forced to drop his shields. I throw up a metal shield as I grab the fire-cat's attention again, channelling mana into it. Which immediately triggers a change inside it. Its channels open, and it slows down, the orb of fire it was about to throw disappearing with a small pop. Not that I can hear it, with everything else that's going on. That's not the important part anyway. The important change is the internal structure, which now has visible striations that I'm able to grasp and shift the channeled mana to match. It takes me a several seconds, but I'm able to realign them.

As soon as I've finished, the cat sits back, licking its paw then drawing it over its head. I'm about to inform the others of my success when the wind and lightning elementals interrupt me with tag team attacks.

I take another hundred health damage as payment for my inattention, but then I'm taking cover behind a bramble shield woven by Josh with the others. They've managed to cool the heels of the earth and metal elementals, and as I join them, I finish adjusting the lightning elemental. Multitasking at its finest.

I trade high fives with Rufka as I speed past, linking to the wind elemental this time. I get buffeted about a little, but without another elemental to distract me, its unable to land any of it's bursts before I've got it lined up as well. When I look for my next target, I realize we're finished. The notification that appears a second later confirms it.

"Zone Quest Hidden objective completed: Challenge Requested, Challenge Given. Hidden requirement: Complete all Expert Challenges without failing. Rewards: 9.0 Mana Edge."

That's a pretty sizable chunk of Mana Edge, considering each of the challenges was only giving 0.5 per completion. Glad we took the time to ensure everyone got the reward.

"Zone Quest completed: Challenge Requested, Challenge Given. Requirements: Subdue the Primal Elementals with your party. Rewards: 10 iron rank integration points, 1 iron rank class progression point."

"Zone Quest received: The Final Challenge. Description: Complete one of the final challenges. Every participant can only complete a single final challenge. Requirements: 0/1 final challenges complete. Rewards: Increased Matrix Edge and Regen. One piece of bondable gear. Rewards quality will scale based on number of participants who complete their challenge. 2/2 days remaining."

Blinking a couple times, I reread the notice as the elementals gather around us. In the distance, there's a roar as each of the floating blobs shifts, turning into portals of dusky yellow rimmed by flowing elemental materials.

As I'm reaching down to offer Smoulder head-scritches the fire-cat sneaks it's head in, instead.

Despite all the health I just lost to the fight with the elementals, there's zero doubt in my mind that the look Smoulder gives it is the most dangerous thing I've seen since we entered Elementalist's peak.

It's with all due haste that I transfer my hand to Smoulder's head, leaving the fire-cat tilting its head as I stand up with Smoulder properly secured as it rubs against my leg. But I don't give in to its meows.

An elder elemental the fire-cat may be, but Smoulder's my ball o'doom.