We waited a little longer in the morning, letting the sun fully rise, even if part of me wondered whether fighting at night would be better. Even days after the new moon, I still gained a nice boost to my powers during night-times, something that might be useful. Sadly, it just wasn’t feasible, even with my low-light vision and affinity for Darkness-magic, I was hindered, to say nothing of Adra, Rai and Sigmir. On the other hand, we had no idea if the bolotnisa would be weakened or hindered in any way. Thus, we went in during the morning.

Again, Sigmir led the way, only for once, we weren’t trying to find enemies. We would dispatch any we came across, hopefully giving us a clear path of escape, if we needed it, but we weren’t hunting for experience-points, not with the small amount we now gained from shambling crawlers. Will-o-wisps would still be relatively feasible, but even with them it would take us days for each level. I still considered to try grinding at least one more level but the problem was, we weren’t sure how mobile the bolotnisa was. Making people stumble into her unprepared seemed to be her preferred style of battle. No, our plan was to deal with the bolotnisa, hopefully with as many resources available as possible.

In addition, I saw it as a point of personal pride to beat the encounter without specifically grinding for it. If things went wrong, we could still retreat, as our first attempt had shown.

It didn’t take long for us to hear the panicked cries for help again, only this time, we were prepared. The others still looked pained and tempted, as if they wanted to dash in to help and only their knowledge was stopping them and even I felt a mounting pressure in my head, pushing me to move. Together with Lenore, I focused on my magic to dispel the attack, letting a dark glow wash over us, devouring the Mind Magic and return us to normal. A short glimpse to my health-bar showed that I had taken a bit of damage, possibly a result of forcibly resisting the magic,

“Showtime…” I whispered to the others, and we started towards the source of the attack, just as it had wanted us to. Only now, we did it with a clear mind and violent thoughts.

“How nice of you, to come back. I love company. Maybe this time, you will stay. Forever.” the bolotnisa greeted us, as soon as we were on the shores of her lake. This time, she didn’t bother with the illusion hiding her, or maybe it only worked if you didn’t know about it, either could be true.

“Let’s split.” I ordered and started moving together with Rai while Lenore landed on Adra’s shoulder. As we moved, the bolotnisa threw water-orbs at us, one on either group, but knowing about them gave us enough room to get out of the way, letting them splash against the vegetation behind us. When the crawlers started to come out of the water, we stopped, letting Rai and Sigmri get to fighting them. In addition, we had enough distance between both groups to allow us to attack without a single water-wave being able to stop both attacks.

Using Lenore to coordinate was incredibly useful, allowing me to effectively channel a lot of Astral Power into a single runic formation, without wasting any of it to instantly manifest any runes to make the timing.

Just as we had planned, Adra’s arrow, clad in an incandescent cyan-glow, piercing through the still air and my own attack, a beam of twisted energy, Liquid Moonlight and Dark Radiance spiralling around the other, bringing deadly cold and devouring magic into play, struck the bolotnisa in the same instant, causing a pained shriek to echo over her lake. But my attack wasn’t done yet, not in the slightest. I had pumped as much power as possible into the formation and only part of it had been used yet. The Dark Radiance had carried a powerful curse that was not slowly taking hold, at least hopefully.

But before I could even try to empower that curse further, the bolotnisa’s retaliation came, a wave of foul water crashing towards the shore. With my athame in hand, I channelled power through it, drawing one rune normally while instantly projecting the other two, creating a triangular shield of Ice in front of Rai and me, letting the wave break on it and around us. I had to use Ice Magic to keep it solid, the corrupting influence of the water strong enough to even attack my magically created ice, but it held.

On the other side of the lake, Adra and Sigmir had retreated some and both had used their respective powers to withstand the attack. In Sigmir’s case, what I saw through Lenore’s sight had me grinning at her utter lack of subtlety. She had simply done it said on the tin for her class, Mountain Cleaver, and used her Lok’nar to cleave a deep trench into the soil. Adra, on the other hand, had created a strong gust of wind, pushing back against the water, keeping it away from them, especially the flying drops.

Sadly, there had been a shambling crawler remaining when the wave came, the water healing and empowering it, just as another wave came out of the retreating water. But I noticed that the lake was visibly smaller by an almost impossible amount.

“You will die for this!” the bolotnisa screeched, causing my smile to widen. I could still feel the curse, tearing at her essence, and after a moment of communication with Adra, through Lenore, I started to ready another attack. Rai, in the meantime, had to fight hard against the shambling crawlers, but the best course of action for me was to end the fight as soon as possible, trusting his abilities to keep him alive.

By the time Adra and I had readied the next attack, Rai had managed to dispatch one of the crawlers, leaving two for him to deal with. Again, our attacks lanced out, towards the bolotnisa, interrupting her attempt to strike back with Mind Magic and striking home again. The curse, still active, was strengthened even further, sapping what offense she could muster and giving us more time. Again, she screamed and again, water surged towards us.

We dealt with it the same way as earlier but this time, we didn’t try to start a new attack right away. Instead, both Adra and I helped Sigmir and Rai to deal with the mounting pressure from the shambling crawlers and together, we quickly destroyed them. If they could focus on a single combatant, they were a serious threat but faced with multiple foes, their lacking intelligence allowed us to strike at their weak points with ease. It allowed the bolotnisa to attack again, this time with a thin jet of water, but it was directed at Sigmir who simply used her Lok’nar to direct it past her in an impressive feat of strength and agility. I certainly couldn’t have done that without magic.

“One more time.” I spoke through Lenore, starting another set of runes, considering if the curse was worth it. I could see that the bolotnisa was covered in frost, the blood from the deep wounds caused by Adra’s arrows freezing as it seeped out, making her look quite pathetic. At the same time, I could feel the curse ravaging her and was reasonably sure that the strength and speed of her magical attacks had been greatly reduced, making me wonder. But at the end of the day, changing a working system was a bad idea, so I stuck with the large formation that had worked before.

Our attacks struck home again, but this time, there wasn’t even a water-wall to block parts of the attack, they simply went through unopposed. While my Liquid Moonlight splashed all over the bolotnisa, Adra’s arrow struck her right between the eyes, visibly penetrating in a way that should have been fatal. And it was.

I felt my curse tear at the fading shreds of magic and I could see the lake change with the naked eye. Only that I wasn’t too happy about the way it changed. The repeated waves of water had lowered the lake’s water-level considerably but now, the swampy soil below seemed to raise up, the water draining away. In the middle of the lake, where previously the lilypad had been was now a strange, golden thing, looking like a mix between lichen and fur, while the black sludge that was the only thing remaining from the bolotnisa was evaporating.

Below us, I felt the ground shake, just a little and suddenly, the ground around the golden thing erupted upwards and a truly grotesque being stood in the middle of the lake. It was almost as tall as Sigmir but hugely bloated, orange, saggy skin covering it while the strange fur I had seen earlier sat on its head, a mockery of hair. With a voice that resembled a quacking duck, it screamed out. “You killed my wife. Now, you’ll be my wife!” while pointing at me.