I couldn’t argue with Lily’s rather colorful description of the events. The desire for an analyze ability snuck up on me as I stared at the roaring monstrosity. Unfortunately no helpful analysis of the creature appeared which led me to assume that my information on Chola was based on the fact that I had summoned her. It did make me think there would be one available, but I was getting off track. Not that it was really a surprise, fighting this thing seemed like a death sentence.

Gremlin Assault

Weapon of choice from Azure Squad (Received), Rank D Class Core from Azure Squad (Received), 100 Advancement Points

“Screw this, I’m out of here,” came the voice of one of the mages.

A quick glance showed that most of that group was making a run down the tunnel to flee the area. Of the other party Marie, Jared, and Richard remained. Lily looked at me and asked, “What do you think?”

I stared at her dumbfounded and responded, “Why are you asking me?”

She shrugged and said, “The twins seem the sort to go with the flow, not leading unless they have to. Richard strikes me as the type to fling himself into a dragon’s maw in an attempt to go out in a blaze of glory. Marie is trying to get the soldiers out of the room. I could go either way with this. I won’t run, but I won’t fight a hopeless battle either.”

I shook my head, “That doesn’t answer the question. Why are you asking me if we should fight or flee?”

I kept my eyes trained on the purple hulk while I said this. I wasn’t one to fight a hopeless battle either, but I also wasn’t one to lead when there were competent leaders available. Lily snorted and said, “Are you serious? I would trust Richard to lead a charge, but that’s about it. Jared was a squad leader, so he may be good at coordinating small groups and could arguably take over. Me, I played games and wrote code that got me in trouble. I do however read people fairly well. You have been looking at everything we have encountered so far like I look at a piece of software: where is the pattern and openings. If you think we can manage this I’ll back you up.”

I heard three sets of footsteps approach before Jared said, “What’s the verdict Lily?”

She looked at me and I sighed. Well I had wanted to be an officer, but not to have things dumped on me. I shifted my shoulders as if I was settling a weight and stopped focusing on the reasons why someone else should lead, and instead focused on the challenge before me. This thing was large, and the room was relatively open. There was plenty of open space to maneuver around it. The hide was more leathery looking than the gremlins skin which made me think that it had some form of natural armor; that meant solid strikes would be best but also that it might have some resistance to heat like a lizard. I really wished I had an analyze ability. I could see tendons, muscles, and weak points such as the eyes but wasn’t sure how well strikes to those would be. Honestly it was just a larger, angrier, version of the gremlins.

My eyes tracked over the party that remained. Marie was out; she was dragging the soldiers out of the room. It was good to see that once they cleared the cavern entrance they seemed less affected by the miasma. They wouldn’t be able to help however. Richard was vibrating with an eagerness to launch himself at the thing that reminded me of a puppy seeing a ball in his owner’s hand. He was however holding himself back, keeping one eye on the rest of the group. Jared and Lily watched me, weapons ready, while the twins held their shields as if they were going to charge alongside Richard.

Game logic, we had two tanks, one melee damage dealer, two ranged damage dealers, myself who was a hybrid healer and damage dealer, and possibly a dedicated healer if Marie came back in. That was a small scale raid group for some games. On the other hand it was larger than standard party for some others. Either way I doubted the quest would have been available at the start if we didn’t at least stand a remote chance of succeeding at it.

“Alright, I think we should go for it. We can’t just rush in though, this can’t be as easy as the swarms,” I said.

Jared asked, “What’s the plan?”

“First, I assume the runners got dropped from the group. Invite the rest of us into one party,” I answered.

A second later and it was done, with the seven of us in one group. Marie was still dragging people away, but seemed to be hurrying now that the group had reformed. I guessed she could see which way we were planning and was determined to help out. “Marcus and Helena, I want you two to try and keep it focused on you. Without any special ways to taunt them it may prove difficult. Everyone else give them a ten count before you attack. Richard, I want you trying to see if those tendons are worth cutting. Jared and Lily if you think your aim is good enough go for its neck and eyes. I’m going to focus on healing until Marie joins us, assuming that happens she should take over primary healing duties.”

Richard growled softly and said, “Fine, I’ll start the count when they make the first blow.”

I nodded and said, “You two know your way of fighting better than I do, so position yourselves how you think best. Go for it.”

The twins lifted their shields and quick stepped forward without a word. They were halfway to the beast when it stopped roaring and started moving to engage them. My thoughts hit my lips without checking in with the rest of my brain first and I said, “Now we see how it fights. Will he try and smash? Maybe a claw rake? Grab and bite? Does it have magic now or is it just an overly large gremlin?”

Lily’s chuckle interrupted my train of thought and I looked at her as she said, “You have thought out how to respond to each of those haven’t you?”

Realizing I had been speaking my thoughts I said, “Maybe a little. I won’t know how effective the counter strategies will be until I see how hard he hits and how hard he is to hurt. If he has magic that’s going to be the real challenge as I don’t know an effective way to deal with it except to heal through it.”

Both the twin’s shields rose, locked together in support, as the beasts first attack came at them. It was a downward strike with the claws on either hand one after the other, that was stopped by the shields. The force of the strike however caused our tanks to take a knee in response, but they quickly rose back up and lashed out with their swords at the retreating claw. Marcus’s sword bit deep into its palm, but Helena’s took off one of the beast’s fingers.

“Richard, how would you rate your strength compared to theirs?” I asked, my brain doing mental math of the shields weight and how quickly they moved both shield and sword.

Richard answered, “Mine was a six before I bonded the crest. It puts me at an eight now. I’d say they are at least an eight, maybe a nine now.”

Jared interrupted, “Marcus is a ten and Helena is a nine.”

“When did they tell you that?” I asked.

I could feel his eyes on me as he responded, “They didn’t.”

It didn’t take much for me to understand, especially as I noticed the difference between his party sigil and Lily’s, “Shit, your class has some analysis passive doesn’t it.”

“Yes, I picked scout. I gained a passive trait that grants me the effects of the analyze ability. It lets me see the status page for each of us, and basic information on monsters. Apparently it can be upgraded to share the effects with the party, but that costs five hundred advancement points,” he responded.

“What can you tell us about this thing?” I asked.

“It’s called a Void Gremlin; it was formed of the condensed corrupted aether. It apparently has three special actions: Claw drive, Call of the Void, and Bestial Bellow,” he answered.

I muttered to myself, “Should have fucking asked if anyone could see anything.”

Pushing my self-flagellation aside for the moment I ran through the possibilities. Claw drive sounded like a straight forward damage attack. It would be either strong or swift, or both. Bestial Bellow was likely either an area stun ability or some other debilitating effect. Call of the Void sounded disturbing like an ability that would call forth additional enemies.

My analysis was interrupted by the sight of Richard launching himself forward straight towards the back of the twins. My brain was moving faster than the rest of me as I noted the Void Gremlin begin another attack with both of its claws. This time I caught the slight darkening around it’s limbs as it began the attack. “That’s Claw Drive,” I said.

The twins readied themselves to take the hit and I saw an opportunity. As the first claw struck I called out, “Springboard!”

They understood my words. As they took a knee to help absorb the strike Richard reached them. Instead of instantly coming back to their feet they paused, allowing Richard to step first on Marcus’s broad shoulder, and then onto the overlap of the shield. As his foot left the shoulder, both twins stood and pushed to give the crazy swordsman a little more of a boost.

Lily commented, “I swear, give that man an axe and he would be a movie worthy barbarian.”

I really couldn’t argue as I watched him fly towards the head of the beast. Instead of striking though, he reached one hand to catch the beasts shoulder arresting his motion while he was on its back. As the creature raised a hand to strike I saw him reverse the grip on his sword and drive it into the things back. It obviously felt that one as it reached with both arms to strike at him. Richard though didn’t waste any time and he soon dropped out of sight from above the creature, his feet slowly appearing between the creatures crouched legs.

“Is he letting his weight draw the blade down?” I asked before shaking my head and saying, “Aim for the gut while it is distracted!”

Both of them began firing, Lily in a display of speed that showed while she may not have hunted much she was skilled. I glanced at the party sigils in the side of my view and saw that both the twins had a slight red circle around theirs. I cast my healing spell on one, only to see another healing spell hit the other as Marie stepped up beside me. I nodded to her and said, “That attack of the boss seems to hurt them even when they block it.”

Her light voice answered, “I noticed that. It seems that a block will negate a certain amount of damage, but anything beyond that still gets through. They didn’t take anything from blocks against the smaller ones at the tunnel.”

Out of curiosity I asked, “Jared, do you see any numerical representation of the damage?”

“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that is available somehow. We may just need to discover it. It does say the thing is moderately wounded however,” he answered.

When we got out of this I needed to sit the NPCs down for a long conversation about what kinds of abilities were out there. Effective strategy required information. That was for later though, for now we had to defeat this thing. If it was only moderately wounded from Richard dragging his sword down the things back that meant it was fairly tough. In some games that level of damage had around fifty to sixty percent health left. While I wasn’t a gamer I had done some research in preparation for this trip. Usually a special move was used at major health intervals which meant; I called out, “Watch for an attack change!”

My words were just in time as the creature lifted its head and roared. The sound vibrated through us, and I saw status icons appear next to our melee team’s names. At the same time I heard the cracking of stone and saw some of the stalactites break free and come crashing down. The falling spears weren’t going to hit us though so I ignored them. I couldn’t ignore the fact that both the twins had lowered their shields and seemed to be trying to hold themselves upright as the creatures arms began to darken again.

“Ah fuck,” I cursed as I sprinted forward, my spear held up and ready.

I did not want to see what that claw strike would do when not blocked. They icons showed that all three were stunned for five seconds; apparently the ranged group was far enough away not to be affected. Options flashed through my consciousness as I watched the right claw move back to strike. I knew I couldn’t take both hits, but I had no shield to block one. There was a chance of stopping, or at least weakening one hit, but the second was going to hit me. “Marie, watch the group. Chola, I hope you’re up for this girl.”

I heard the birds chirp as she lifted off my shoulder. The creature’s claw began to descend as I shouldered past the twins, my spear point lifted and the butt braced against the ground. The claw struck; the tip piercing deep into its hand before the shaft snapped and shards of wood flew around. The first strike was stopped, but even as I started to leap to the side the second claw caught me in the gut, one tip piercing out my back before I flew off of it and crashed into the crystal.

The pain was intense, worse than anything I had ever felt before. It only dimmed slightly as I felt the warmth of Chola’s healing begin. I wasn’t going to be doing much more than lying here and hurting for the time being. My brain however wasn’t idle, latching onto various bits of information as it sought to escape the pain. Richard had recovered and sliced deep into the back of one of the creature’s legs, causing it to lose the use of the limb. That allowed the twins to alter their method of defense and shift to both the right and left of it. The next time it tried to use its special attack the second attack was interrupted as it tried to turn to strike on a leg that wouldn’t hold it. The amount of damage blocked was less, due to being only one person blocking as opposed to when they used the supporting shield. Marie was keeping up with the damage though. I could see the wounds to my abdomen closing, and I added my own heal spell to the effort, focusing it on the injury itself.

Jared and Lily’s fire never stopped and within another sixty seconds the beast let out a pained bellow before it fell over and seemed to dissolve into black dust that disbursed into nothingness. My aether had run out, as it seemed had Chola’s, at about halfway through the healing. I could tell that the wound was closed enough for me to move around, but I would likely reopen it if I did anything too strenuous. ‘Damn, the damage mechanics in this game are no joke. I can see why Kathryn said that hit points would take away from the realism, but right now I wish I didn’t have to deal with this,” I thought as I used the crystal to assist me as I stood.

“Nice work,” I said when I had regained my feet.

Marie rushed over, glyphs appearing around her hand in the pattern I was used to seeing in my own healing spell, before I waved her off, “Save your aether. If there is another fight you’re the only healer left. I’m tapped, but not dying.”

Apparently a spell couldn’t be canceled as I felt a burst of healing, stronger than my own, before she stopped. She said, “You’re probably right, but what else could happen?”

Jared, Richard, and I all groaned as she said this. Lily spoke up, “Never tempt Murphy with that question girl.”

The miasma was dissipating completely, and I saw Rhiogail with Davis by her side come back into the room. My hand on the crystal felt it begin to grow warm and I quickly moved away from it, my hand reaching for a weapon. My spear however was in pieces, and my aether was spent.

The crystal continued to brighten, and we all raised a hand to cover our eyes. The light dimmed slightly as a figure stepped from the crystal bathed in the green light. It was feminine, standing about five feet tall, and bore a spear and shield. As the light dimmed further we could see the woman looked like the stories of elves. Delicate with sharp pointed ears and arched brows. Her hair, eyes, and armor were all the same shade of green as the crystal. In fact her weapons and armor seemed to be made from the crystal.

Jared’s voice interrupted my train of thought, “Crystal Guardian. A spirit bound to the crystal to serve as its protector. The special abilities hidden, but there is a sigil next to the name that looks like the twins’ with a few frills around it.”

I nodded at the quick summary and waved my hand in a gesture meant to tell my companions to lower their weapon. The being looked at us and smiled the smile of a child does when it looks at a puppy, before she said, “Greetings and thanks be upon you brave warriors for what you have done this day.”

Spoiler: Character sheet at end of Chapter Four Name: Michael Wolfe Class: Freelancer Cores: Hybrid Summon (Rank D), Strength 6 Offense 6 Agility 7 Defense 6 Vitality 6 Spirit 6 Willpower 6 Aether Pool 120 Luck 5 Advancement Pool 317 Skills None Abilities Evolving Summon: Phoenix, Evolving Magic: Fire, Magic Wind Shield, Magic: Heal Traits Lucky Break; Spirit Caller