86

--TheirWorld--

Ibraxis looked her over. “...You’re shit with those claws,” he snorted, though she heard some amusement lining the insult.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she bit in similar tone, then took a firm stance next to him. “If you are going lead, lead.”

“So serious,” he chuckled. Ibraxis the flipped his tail and gave his instruction: “The second archer still needs to be taken down. Tea’s reanimated swordsman should be able to maintain agro if you guys can quickly burn him down. Once you do that, assist BronzePaw. The armor these guys are wearing is no joke. Use your spear; you’ll want the range in that absolute mess she’s making, and it should have better armor piercing qualities that your claws.”

“Alright,” she answered, shooting off towards the remaining archer with claws drawn. Her speed seemed to catch him off guard, as he was already dealing with the swordsman zombie — who was in quite a state; bleeding from several places, limping with a broken leg, and his head was wobbling around with a very unnatural freedom.

Guin skirted around them, cast [Pandora’s Box] again to re-up the buff, and stabbed the archer in the chest as he tried to put ground between him and Tea’s zombie. The force of her ramming into him sent them tumbling down to the ground. He shrieked and struggled as she jumped back up.

She scowled. Her fingers hadn’t managed to penetrate the thick padding of the gambison. Licking her claws, she swiped at him, shredding the front of the cloth-based armor. The ability was obviously far more potent when it was administered in higher doses — but she paused as she watched the it take effect. Before it looked a little like rot. This time, however, the places her nails and saliva had touched melted.

Gaping, Guin checked the tooltip on the buff indicator.

>

<<[Slime Mucus (Random Status Granted by [Pandora’s Box])]>>

>

>

Oh.

“Well that works,” she muttered and continued to melt away her opponents weakened armor by focusing on the same point. The zombie’s sword managed to catch the archer in the hole that she had made, causing a critical wound that left him open to all manner of attacks — and within moments, the second archer was as dead as the first.

Lifting her head, she turned her attention to the other side of the battlefield. Guin watched BronzePaw slam into the ground with another ground shattering [Earthquake] that turned into an [Earth Spikes], sharp, jagged spears rising from the ground with an incredible amount of force. The spearman was easily knocked off his balance; probably losing a good bit of health just from being bashed back and forth by BronzePaw’s swift and powerful attacks, but Othren was yet to be fazed by any of her efforts.

Over the comm, she said, “Guys, the archer is down. All attention should be on the Spearman?”

“Okay,” Ibraxis said, and the others responded affirmatively.

Guin clicked her tongue as she observed the evolving battle. A flurry of magic missiles burst down into the area, crashing onto the spearman. It didn’t seem to do much damage, but it kept him from attacking BronzePaw as she dealt with the captain. Drakov’s armor piercing arrows had a little more luck, and even knocked him off his footing in the uneven terrain, but the ability took too long to cast. The faster she got in there to deal with the armor — to at least create an opening — the better off they would be. There were enough crags and crevices that she could shadow step into it all, but would probably only get her into trouble. In that case…

Taking her fox form, Guin wiggled her two tails in the air, and pounced through the chaos. Her smaller, more agile form was able to weave up and gain an angle of advantage on the back of the unsuspecting spearman. Bouncing off a rock spike, she human shifted, summoned her spear, and backstabbed the back of the spearman’s knee. The blow struck, causing the spearman to fall with a roar. Unsummoning her spear, she licked her claw again and did a quick series of blows in the openings on his armor.

Though she missed a few times, she could see that the marks left from her attacks had a discoloration left from [Pandora’s Box]. The plate was loosening, she saw. It wasn’t what she had really intended, but the slime mucus was eating through the leather and cloth that held the metal plate together, compromising the integrity of the entire suit. Smirking, Guin’s mind raced with potential applications for it, and side-eyed Othren.

BronzePaw looked awfully tired. Fighting a powerful, fully armored opponent like Othren was probably a little out of her league. But, if Guin could just get over there and tag it, just a little…

A shot of pain went through her thigh as the spearman took advantage of her lack of focus. Tsking, Guin slashed at him, freeing herself before hopping back. Blood trickled down her bare leg, but it was healing quick enough for her to maintain balance. It still hurt like hell, but at this point, her adrenaline had kicked in. She took another stab at him, adding another mark of decay.

Armor starting to flap more loosely about with every second, the spearman struggled to withstand the additional attacks from Drakov and Starshine — and Tea’s puppet finally managed to join the fray, the battering from the sword causing blunt damage that further damaged the armor. At the last, Drakov received the honor of the killing blow, with a well aimed critical that shot through the spearman’s head.

“Whoop!” Drakov went with a great deal more hope than had been in his voice. “Spearman down!”

“Good job! Turning all fire to the boss!” Starshine did a little cheer from above.

“Well done,” Ibraxis said. “Tea, do you have a mana replenishing song?” he asked. His voice still sounded controlled, but Guin could hear an unusual crack in his voice. Looking at the other garuli sibling, she could tell that it wasn’t just BronzePaw that was tired. Mana depletion? Guin bit her lip. There wasn’t much she could do about that.

“I-I do, but, I have to either stop healing, or lose my puppet!” Tea went nervously.

Guin took a healing potion out of her inventory and downed it. It tasted like a terrible mix of blueberries and swamp water, but it did its job.

Jumping down next to Tea, she said, “Send in your puppet as a meat shield and get the two of them their mana. I’ll take up healing for a bit.” She quickly set herself up a [Magic Circle] and started singing [Hymn of the Light], focusing on Paw. Ibraxis nodded at her.

Tea started played a different tune than he had been before. The blackened, broken swordsman limped up through the spikes gracelessly, but his strike immediately pulled the captain off BronzePaw.

Wincing at the sound of metal on metal as Othren’s sword struck the risen swordsman in the side with his two hander, Guin wondered if she should switch to healing the undead. The force and weight of the blow prevented it from simply bouncing off, instead leaving a massive gash in the side of the swordsman’s armor. An exchanged glance with Tea, however, told her not to.

Othren shouted obscenities as he staggered back. “Wicked things!” Cried he, his chin to the sky as he gripped his sword tighter. “Raising those you have murdered — my own, most loyal men to fight against me! Truely, this can only be the work of the darkness!”

“Look out! BronzePaw, fall back!” Ibraxis shouted. BronzePaw leapt down and crashed onto the ground next her brother, tail lashing back and forth.

As Tea’s puppet kept swinging its sword at them man was once its commander, the enraged captain rose his blade, up and outstretched to be level with his eyes, and began to spin.