"Jack! Stop! You're going to kill us, idiot!"

Drake's voice shocked Jack back to reality, his gut filled with sudden dread as shaking hands quickly bought him back down to the ground, eyes widening as he saw just how right Drake was.

"Mighty fine spell, lad!" Commented Barlton philosophically as his sausage fingers tightly gripped the carved ledges on Jack's side of the cavern for dear life, Jack only now noting the thick viscous river of caustic death he himself was responsible for forming after casting what Sharon had once called her artillery spell nearly a dozen times, laughing like a madman after each cast.

Desperate eyes found momentary relief in catching everyone's faces, thanking all the heavens that no one had died to his temporary fit of madness, though he winced at some of the looks he received in turn.

Now recalling all too well laughing like a madman when he had melted his enemies to piles of goo.

Even if the mad rush of potency now flooding his soul had pushed the spell that had served as such a gloriously lethal instrument of their death all the way to Journeyman Rank 4.

Drake somehow managed a laugh. "Boy, you do have a knack for the overkill, shieldbrother. Now, I don't suppose you have a solution equally as clever as our all too literal cliffhangers here?"

Jack forced his racing heart to calm, taking deep breaths, noting the slight incline, understanding at last why the liquid had flowed back their way so quickly.

"As a matter of fact... maybe. Just hold on," he said, quickly scooting down and meeting the dwarf's bemused gaze. "Ready for some more rock scaling?"

With those words he began scooping out another pair of furrows, while also taking a chance on his own growing abilities. Both in terms of his spells and growing immunities.

"Lapis Armis!" Though he was especially careful at first, scooping out a good ten feet of grooves on barlton's side, his friends growing curses and Veti's tired sob forced him to act on his hunch.

"Jack, what are you doing?"

Jack just smiled, gazing down at his own pair of spell-encased feet as he stood in several inches of magically enhanced solvent, carefully lifting up his boot to see no traces of damage at all.

He could only hope it would hold.

"Okay, Barlton. Here's the deal," he said, using Artisanal mastery as fast as he could. "You're going to scoot down this ledge. the solvent's only puddle thick here. So you're going to step off and skeddadle another twenty feet, stopping just before the corridor bend, and I'll go get the others!"

"But wait, boy, what about the bottom o' my... oh hell," Barlton grumbled, because Jack was already moving back, not even worrying about wasting long minutes carving any more notches in the wall, just going up to a desperately hanging Veti gazing at him with pleading eyes before he turned around. "Get on my back," he said, and after a moment's confusion and protest, she did just that, Jack then carefully walking up the hallway to wear a bemused dwarf was waiting.

"Yer damn lucky me shoe's didn't melt completely off or you'd be havin' a tailorin' bill like ya wouldn't believe!" said Barlton as Jack handed him the still shaking Veti, for all that the ground here was utterly free of solvent.

Drake, Elof, and finally a much amused Aroust were brought back much the same way, Jack doing his best to avoid the almost completely dissolved remains of the bugbears, which were now little more than bones.

"Well, that was an adventure and a half, no doubtin' it, even if our master wizard here managed to make impossible to recover the beast cores!" declared Barlton in a cheerful, if purposely subdued voice as they all eyed the entrance to the central chamber. "But considering our welcoming committee, we'd best have a plan in place, should anyone else be eager to greet us the same as our melted friends back there."

Aroust's eyes bulged. "You're lecturing us? We nearly died back there, because you felt the need to jump through the gate!"

Barlton's gaze hardened. "That I did, lad," he said, tapping his nose. "And if my hunch is right, you'll be drinking to my health all yer days, once we get outta here with all the sweet prizes we'll discover within. But fer now, we need a plan. Because sure as shit, pinning our wizards so tightly together didn't do us a lick of good. Not until the elf got clever again."

"We used standard battle formation, and it kept them alive!"

The dwarf grinned, raising his giant sausage-sized fingers to scratch his luxuriously thick beard. "Not sayin' otherwise. But we still need to do things a bit different-like, from here on out."

Drake nodded thoughtfully. "Alright, let's get a plan ready before the next wave hits."

But before Jack could give his imput to the quietly murmuring trio, Elof bowing out of the conversation entirely, Veti's hand was squeezing Jack's shoulder, intent brown eyes peering into his own.

"Jack, just what level are you?"

Jack winced when all of them quieted, staring at him intently.

"Zero. I don't have a class. I thought I told you all that already?"

But Veti wasn't having any of it. "Jack. You shot dozens of Dissolution Orbs the size of Barlton's shield, an Elite Tier 2 Enhancer's spell, completely obliterating almost a scour of Green tier Bugbears, and you did it all without collapsing from mana loss. There's no way any novice adventurer should be capable of that. Especially someone who doesn't even have the Enhancer class, let alone no class at all."

Barlton chuckled softly, his lips breaking into a jovial grin. "Ooh, she's got you there, laddie. And I must admit to being a might bit curious myself. Grateful as the dickens, mind you, but a might bit curious as well."

Aroust just shook his head, flashing a rueful smile. "Well, at least I no longer feel quite so bad about our one and only match."

Jack frowned, his eyes roving across the group, seeing identical looks of curiosity, and in some cases, awe. Drake, of course, was beaming from ear to ear. As if taking credit for Jack's unexpected accomplishment. "I told you he's one of a kind. Did I not say he's one to watch?"

"That ya did, lad," Barlton acknowledged with a grin. "To bad those bugbears didn't know that!" He roared with laughter at his own joke, before instantly falling silent, hard gaze firmly back in place. "But best we not be gettin' distracted, lads. We don't know what band o hellions or worse is just a dozen paces around the corridor. I just know that we need ta get past them, get past them all, if we're gonna get to where we need to go."

Aroust glared at that. "And you still haven't told us why the hell we jumped through here in the first place.

To which the massive broad-shouldered giant of a man, a Dwarf in name and squat legs only, merely placed a sausage finger against a cavernous nostril and grinned. "The nose knows."

Drake smirked. "Of course it does." Then his eyes grew intent. "First thing's first. Let's take advantage of the lull to buy whatever advantage we can, before death comes for us all."

Words that immediately drew everyone's eyes to his own.

Intent blue eyes locked with Jack's own. "We have no idea what's around the corner, but I'm betting it isn't pretty." He then glanced at the hallway, about fifteen feet wide where they presently were, the corridor gently curving around before widening to a proper entrance. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Jack flashed a toothy grin. "If by that you mean putting together another mote and battlement? I'm all for it."

This earned Jack a number of furrowed brows, and worried glances at the screeches to be heard echoing into their tunnel from the chamber beyond, but Jack didn't hesitate to whisper "Formo!" and tear out great big clumps of stone from the ground before stacking it on the flooring just behind it, earning a pleased smile from Barlton. "Yer a useful lad indeed, boy! Too bad I dare not swing me pick, not yet, lest the racket warn our foes. But if there was a way I could help, you just let me know!"

Jack's eyes widened, struck by a sudden flash of insight he refused to over analyze, just pricking his finger and allowing his digit to furrow a straight line across the stone corridor he then repeated two steps forward, encasing an sliver of stone flooring about 3 feet wide and 15 feet long, feeling a sudden shiver of potency and mana leave him, blinking away the message now flashing across his mind's eye.

Congratulations! Artisanal Manipulation is now Journeyman Rank 1! Synergism with Elite tiered skill detected. Perk retroactively chosen: Runic Form. You may now designate areas that will uniformly soften to loose clay with a single drop of blood and 1 potency point per cubic yard. This spell now counts as both Artisanal and Runic Magic. Designated area will reharden with an act of will equivalent to original mana spent, no additional potency cost needed, or the placement of a Resilience or Pertinax rune.

Jack flashed a relieved smile, surprised and grateful that the experience and mana costs were so low, probably because it also now counted as an Elite tiered rune, as he gazed at his friends. "Actually, maybe you can do just that. The earth between the lines should now be softer than any clay you've ever worked with, and it goes about 3 feet down. Let's dig it out and plop it right over hear to form the wall of our battlement."

Drake laughed, pulling out four shovels as Barlton flashed a pleased smile, pulling forth a massive shovel of his own, seemingly out of nowhere. "Now that's the kind o' magic I can get behind, lad! You've got a miner's blood in ya somewhere. I can tell!"

Jack smirked, grabbing a shovel of his own as everyone got to work, save for a grinning Veti. "I'm happily claiming lady's privilege, at this point," she said, as Aroust winked and said, "And I'll scout ahead. Very slowly. So you all have plenty of time to play in the mud."

The dwarf laughed. "If you don't want to boost yer physique, that's on you two, but few things let you survive the deeps better than a fit body."

Veti blinked at this, and in short order was sweating and cursing along with the rest of them. "This isn't what I signed up for," she murmured.

"Then stop at any time," said the massive dwarf working as industriously as a steam shovel, but she never did.

Jack blinked after losing himself in the zone for either seconds, minutes, or hours, exchanging a bemused grin with an equally sweaty Drake at the sight of their battlement, having accomplished in a very short period of time what should have taken days.

Jack bowed to a beaming Barlton, patting the wall now before him with an odd sort of pride. "Thank you, Barlton. Without your might and mighty shovel, that would have taken us forever."

The dwarf chuckled. "Oh, I don't know about that... would have probably taken you lot days," he said, smirking at a panting Elof, who still grinned and flexed his bicep.

"Whatever makes me stronger," the young man said.

The dwarf smirked. "What will make ya stronger is workin' on yer sword and board technique. We were survivin,' but just barely! Ya hardly thrust with yer blade at all!" He then laughed at Elof's crestfallen expression. "Don't take it ta heart, lad. Just keep focusin' on the blockin' and I'll do the bashin'. But as soon as we finish our glorious run here, yer gonna need a month to whip yerself into shape, assumin' ya don't burn all yer skill points into buying up low ranked skills, which ya shouldn't! Train up as as much as ya can at first, and save yer points fer fighten' feats that will protect yer mates. That's what my uncle always used ta say. And he's a Red Beard, just like Otto."

Elof quickly nodded. "Will do, sir," he said, already treating Barlton like his commanding officer.

Jack blinked. "Otto?"

Barlton grinned "The dwarf what sits at the Silver Wand Inn with his mates, feelin' kingly betweeen his delves, when really he's just jealous he doesn't have it in him te mine! Yer tellin' me you've never seen him?"

Jack frowned, before slowly nodding, thinking perhaps he had seen the giant barrel chested man who, now that Jack thought about it, looked an awful lot like Barlton. Even if his dimensions were a tad bit closer to human norms than the dwarf now among them, and his beard was a bit more crimson than the bright orange of Barlton's, now that he thought about it.

Just then Jack caught a flash and a dull explosion in the corner of his eye, spinning around in alarm, before his attention was pulled to an anxious-looking Aroust, who appeared out of no where.

"There's another swarm of those bastards heading our way, and I swear one of them threw a ball of fire when he caught sight of me!"

Veti's eyes widened with sudden anxiety.

"I was scouting slow as sin and carefully as a rogue, I swear it! Their lookout just happened to look my way and call out, right before I ran him through!"

Barlton glared and cursed, looking at their still rough fortification. "Dung beetles and Blister Bats, we're not ready!" Even as he said the words, he took his shovel and smacked the rough wall facing as fast and hard as he could, pounding the three feet above the pit to smooth stone in surprisingly short order as Drake hurriedly collapsed the small ledge Aroust had used to scoot to their side.

"I pray ya can harden this stone back up, lad. I hear trouble comin!"

But Jack was already hard at work, fingers unleashing a great fountain of caustic acid.

"Aqua Effusorium!" Having decided once more to go for volume as quickly as he could, with the added benefit that his elemental based acid was as much a natural caustic chemical as it was the essence of dissolution, which mean that it might be less damaging, but it wouldn't be used up dissolving into the stone floor and should last as a relatively permanent part of his mote. And of course, any unlucky enemy that fell into the three foot deep pit would likely collapse and perish in short order regardless.

Still, the second he felt the tremble of scores of feet still some distance off, he immediately changed focus, for all that he fluid was only two feet deep, slamming his hand against their fortification, everyone's eyes on him. "Resilience! Pertinax!" He roared, shuddering and stumbling back as a flood of potency and mana drained away. Far more costly than if he had just turned it back to the original stone which would have barely been ten points. But at least this way, the cobbled together barrier that included two feed of elevation, and a foot thick wall ascending another three feet with crude crenelations would be pretty much resistant to anything and allow Jack and his friends to thrust Drake's deadly assortment of spears into their foes as they tried to cross the mote and scale what would be for them a total of 8 feet of wall, assuming their feet were at the bottom of the moat, the first two feed of their legs dissolving as they did so, with splashing fluid no doubt doing a lot worse to the prizes between their legs.

"Jack? Jack!"

Jack blinked as the corridor filled with hoots and howls, several throwing clubs already sent hurdling their way, before a dazed Jack finally understood. "Sorry! Yes, you can stand up here, now. Stone rampart's now stronger than anything else in here!"

"Good!" Drake hollered. "Okay, everyone knows the plan! Warriors shield the mages while they cast! Once we shoot our load and hex our foes, we step back and let the warriors spear the fuckers! Jack, you stay at the far right corner, cast spells as you will. Veti and I will stay near the far left corner and deal out shouts or spells, or hell, shoot the crossbows while Our warriors spear those fuckers before they can cross the moat or breach the wall!

"And you fools better duck when spears and hurl-sticks are flying!" Aroust snapped, everyone quickly getting into position as a flood of 40 plus bugbears charged down the corridor.

"There's no way this should be the yellow starting chamber!" The duelist hissed under his breath, but Jack did his best to tune the man out, near freezing as too many hateful jackal-faced glares caught his own, having to choke out the words to his spells as the air roared with his friends titanic shouts, and Veti's own deadly spells.

"Sublimato!" Jack cried after taking a sip of one of the three blue potions his friend had handed him, not having had any chance to replenish his mana reserves after solidifying the ramparts and filling the moat before their enemies had swarmed.

Enemies that Jack's great globes of slippery dissolution missed entirely, which earned any number of hoots and yips and mocking snaps of tooth-filled maws before deadly throwing clubs of brutally curved stone were sent hurtling for his head, easy enough to dip his head right below the lip of the crenelation and look through one of the unevenly placed slits in the wall Jack had hurriedly poked in before hardening the thing entire, pleased enough to see his plan working even as the wall rang with the sound of spears and stone sticks slamming into the wall.

For just as his friend's spells sent their foes crashing to the ground in a pile of suddenly dizzy and off balanced limbs, a full dozen bugbears stunned to insensibility, the landed smack into the slicked corridor absolutely covered in dissoluent that sent their enemies sliding like a greased shoot, dozens losing their footing and screetching as their feet, legs, hands and unmentionables began to sizzle and melt, a double handful sliding right into the moat itself in a cacophony of agonized shrieks and howls, quickly fading into choked gurgles as they howled and died.

Perception check made!

Jack frowned at the caustic bubbling hiss and clouds of vapors being generated as highly caustic agents bubbled against flesh, eyes widening in sudden alarm as the obvious finally clicked.

He elemental version of a caustic attack was based on elemental properties, not simply the magic of dissolution. Which meant that the byproducts generated would be just what one would expect in any chemical reaction, even if the speed of reaction was magically enhanced to echo his increased damage potential the actual chemical reaction perfectly mirrored what occured in the real world.

Including generating toxic byproducts.

"Everyone get next to me!" Jack cried out as he crouched behind the parapet, ignoring their puzzled frowns...before they blinked suddenly reddening eyes and coughed, now looking at him in growing alarm.

"Ventus Zephyrus Maximus!" He cried allowed, cutting his thumb and deliberately feeding his now sentient companion spirit a bit more of his life force, deliberately trying to boost his spell.

Spell boost skillcheck made. Cost to cast spell has tripled! Radius of filtered air and speed of vortex above your head has increased 50%.

Which had the added benefit of increasing the whirling storm of air assuring that the projectiles aimed for his suddenly visible head were flung wildly off course, even as his friends crouched near him.

"Jack, what's going on?" Drake hissed, clearly upset to be pulled away from their attack, losing that split second of seizing the initiative, for all that over half their foes were now drowning in acid or suffering hands or feat being eaten away by the hyper slick surface their crowded fellows kept shoving them into, refusing to back up or recognize the trap.

Or at least, until now.

Jack winced in apology even as a quick glanced out the eye-slit showed a trio of wizened little figures shrieking what seemed to be orders for the footsoldiers to back up.

"Yeah, sorry about that. The coughing your experiencing? My fault. It seems that dissolving a half ton of monster meat in hyper-caustic fluids is leaking some pretty noxious gasses."

Drake blinked at this even as their friends cursed, Elof glaring Jack's way.

"I'd rather not die to my teamate's stupidity, suffered enough of that idiocy when I was press-ganged," the youth grumbled, showing more spine in his ire than he had the whole day so far, as far as Jack could tell, Aroust also glaring before shaking his head with a sigh.

"Yeah, hey, my bad 100% I admit it and I apologize for it. But so long as you keep within two paces of me, my air sprite should keep the air clean and help deflect most of the ranged attacks.

Barlton's eyes widened at this, taking a deep breath of spring fresh air. "Elf's right. No more ticklen' in me lungs. And a tickle in a dwarf's lungs is death in anyone else's. Too bad we can't give some o' that gas back to our new friends, hey?"

Jack blinked, lips curving into a slow grin. "Who says we can't?" he said, pointing his fingers at the retreating swarm of bugbears and roaring out the words to his spell.

"Ventus Zephyrus!" Jack cried, surprised by how well his spell, fresh air generated completely out of the ether, from what he could tell, pushed back the heavy cloud of toxic miasma. He could only assume it had to do with the fact that the toxins were generated by his spells, so in a sense were just an extension of his magic, now flowing down the corridor under the power of his gust.

And for all that it boiled up and swirled midway between Jack's group and the milling swarm of jackal-headed humanoids, at least they could breath easy once more.

Until Jack felt the equivalent of an arcane hand pushing back against his cloud of miasma as balls of fire started hurtling their way.

"What the hell!" Drake shrieked in alarm, ducking under the parapet as a small ball of fire wooshed right where his head had been, arcing down the hallway before exploding against the distant corridor, another pair slamming against the bulwark in explosive roars that, much to Jack's profound relief, didn't crack or damage the stone wall, though he quickly ducked away from the eye hole he had been using, lest that be splashed with flame.

"Those bastards have casters, Jack. Casters!"

"I know!" Jack shouted back. "They're just at the end of the corridor! Veti, can your curses hit them? Aroust! Barlton! Can the doubleshots hit them? I'll see if I can figure something with the fireballs, but snap shots only and keep your head behind the barrier until you know its clear!"

With those words they all rushed to work, and Jack was pleased to see the surprised look on one of the shriveled old bugbear's faces before he collapsed to the ground, along with the handful of prime looking specimens that could only be their personal bodyguard, Drake's roar knocking another dozen over and sending several into shuddering spasms but doing no more damage at that range, for all that every single one of their foes were now panting with seeming exhaustion. It was clear that some of his friend's shouts were better for effecting groups at range than others.

Or perhaps it was just the fumes.

Perception check made! Magesight skill bonus in effect!

Then Jack's mind immediately snapped back into focus, eyes widening as he spotted the fresh ball of fire now arcing through the air, playing his hunch that he might somehow be able to counter it, even as he prepared to duck down should the ball of flame proceed undeterred.

"Aqua Effusorium Majoris!" Jack cried out, his massive jet of water near instantly extinguishing the water spell. And his pleased smirk at the frustrated shrieks echoing through the air was tempered by the realization he had spent mana when he could have just ducked. But still. It wasn't a bad reflex to get down, he thought to himself.

Magic parrying at its finest.

Then Jack flashed a hungry grin, gazing at the milling party of shrieking, disorganized bugbears banded together at the far end of the corridor just as it widened out into the chamber beyond. He had been on the defensive and keeping an eye on his friend's tactics long enough.

How many books had he read about combat to know that seizing the Vor, claiming the initiative, and overwhelming your opponents with so much confusion and deadly force that their own attacks faltered was the surest way to survive any battle?

It was time for him to unleash some caustic death of his own.

"Sublimato! Sublimato! Sublimato!"

And suddenly the air was filled with gigantic balls of caustic doom crashing into the milling mass of monsters now shrieking as the hyper potent dissolvent slammed them to the ground before melting the flesh right off their shrieking bodies, first a handful, then literal dozens of hissing barking jackal-faced monsters now stumbling back down into death as the caustic fluid penetrated their skulls, entered their howling maws and ate out their throats, lungs, and hearts, or just melted away crucial joints and tendons before they could even regain their feet.

And Jack wasn't finished with his first trio of deadly balls doubling and doubling again in the blink of an eye before crashing down upon his foes as enemy spell-casting sputtered off completely, launching volley after volley to crash down upon his increasingly desperate foes, unable to hide the fierce grin twisting his features as the final flickers of their life force flooded his soul, nearly half a dozen spells increasing in power as their endless potential became his own.

Until at last, only three remained.

Only then did he dare glance at his interface, feeling a fierce surge of delight at the messages flashing across his mind's eye in just an eyeblink of real time.