Chaeli ran across the water soundlessly, barely leaving a ripple across the still waters. After she had made it some ways into the lake, she unsheathed her blade and intentionally dragged it across the surface of the water, causing a wake to ripple out far across the smooth surface. It was a small disturbance in the grand scheme of things, barely worth a mention in any normal body of water, but on the perfect, mirror clear lake it was as if the sky had fallen.

A subsonic rumble shook the sandy beach as Chilly instinctively took a step back from where he had been standing at the edge of the water. Beneath Chaeli, a blot of inky darkness rose.

She laughed, bright and high, then vanished in a blur as she activated her movement skill. In the space that she had just vacated, a navy blue tentacle the width of a minivan erupted out of the water in a spray of froth. Light glittered off shards of ice that stood prominent on its surface as it twisted and curled, searching for what had dared disturb its slumber. Then, it sank slowly back beneath the mirrored surface.

“Caught one!” Chaeli's voice echoed off the tranquil water.

She circled back to the spot where the tentacle had disappeared and slid her sword back into the water as she ran. Once more it left a wake behind her that created ripples in the surface of the lake that moved farther than they had any right to.

Another subsonic rumble grated at Chilly’s teeth. He watched in awe as the dark blot in the water rose once more, this time far larger than before, just as Chaeli vanished in a blur of motion. Five tentacles shattered the calm of the lake, only to writhe in frustration as Chaeli moved out of their range.

“What are you waiting for?” Chilly called to the distant figure. Upon reaching the lake, they had quickly discussed the plan to take down the Leviathans and it called for Chaeli to bait it towards the shore.

“It’s not angry enough!” Chaeli called back, laughter in her tone, as she sprinted circles around the tentacles which began to dip back under the waves. In response, Chaeli pulled out a chunk of ice that she had brought with her out onto the water, and with a delighted giggle, lugged it into the water. The chunk of frozen water crashed into the water and immediately vanished beneath the surface.

The effect was immediate. The five tentacles that had begun to sink beneath the surface froze in horror before the calm sea began to boil. Waves formed as a massive shape forced its way upwards. Chaeli whooped, stumbled, and used her movement skill liberally to maintain her balance on the shifting waves.

Tentacles ripped out of the water, and whipped about randomly, slamming into the water with ear-aching detonations that spawned colossal waves. Chaeli dodged both tentacles and waves deftly. She wove in between the thrashing monstrosity with the ease of long practice and began to whip out her blades in elegant, clean slices that left thin bleeding cuts all across the surface of the monster’s limbs. This only caused the Leviathan’s anger to wax, and more and more tentacles broke the no longer calm surface to try and tear her apart.

Chilly retreated further up the beach as the waves began to crash into the shore.

Chaeli continued to dash around it, occasionally using her movement skill for added speed, before she decided that it was ‘angry enough’, and disengaged smoothly towards the shore all while dragging her blood-stained blade through the water behind her.

The leviathan reacted instantly, chasing after the trail of its blood with the mindlessness of an enraged beast. Chilly made even more distance from the water’s edge to make space for the second part of the plan.

Chaeli barely outsped the Leviathan, and by the time she had reached the shore, it was still right on her heels. She transitioned from running on water to running on consecrated sand with nary a stumble, then twirled gracefully and knocked back a particularly expeditious tentacle with a precise chop.

Tentacles emerged from the water. Dozens of writhing, suckered, octopus tentacles large enough to strangle a mid-sized townhouse with room to spare. They slammed into the pristine sand of the beach with earth-shaking impacts, frantically, and desperately trying to reach the flea that had poked it.

Chaeli sprinted back to where Chilly was standing and gave him a cheery thumbs-up. A smile pulled at Chilly’s face as her exuberant enthusiasm in the face of a titanic and enraged monster rubbed off on him.

“Should be any time now,” Chaeli said, pointing at the water. She wasn’t even out of breath. Bloody unfair Warfarged and their superior biology. Treeology. Whatever.

The tentacles dug deep into the sandy shore and pulled a bulbous, barnacle-covered squid head out of the water; the main body of the Leviathan. A birdlike beak clashed angrily on the underside of the creature, chewing through the sandy beach in lieu of the tender flesh that eluded its grasp.

Chilly released a heavy breath, then nearly stumbled as Chaeli slapped his back.

“Come on scaredy pants! Go!”

Chilly shot her a sour look, then, before he could think himself out of the situation, he paused his breath and vanished in a flare of bright fire right in front of the mass of tentacles. A second later, he abused Second Wind to vanish once more and appear solidly within the mass of tentacles.

A red, semi-transparent chain covered in cruel spikes flickered out and began to wrap around the writhing tentacles. A red heat began to build in the ethereal chain, as it started to make the beast vulnerable to fire damage. At the same time, Star Fuel ripped out, but quickly sputtered, as the tentacles around him lashed out with devastating blows.

Spoiler :

>

He winced at the faint thrum of chaos damage that began to niggle at the back of his mind but refused to suck in a breath and relieve the tension.

Heavy, blubbery flesh pummeled him, but Starfire Aegis’ Gravitational Center augment in combination with Rock Solid prevented him from getting launched backward or crushed. The knockback resistance was a fascinating sensation. Every hit crashed into him, with the force of a mountain, but seemed to lose a flat percent of its power a fraction of a second before it could collide. The result was that despite being out massed by a thousandfold, Chilly managed to push through the writhing wall of tentacles and closer to the main body of the Leviathan.

Spoiler :

He grinned as his life recovered through the damage despite the cold damage, as Starfire Aegis began to punish the tentacles for the audacity of striking him directly.

He had changed up many of his augments for this fight. In addition to Gravitational Center, he had given up Ceaseless Crusade and Unity of Purpose. There was little reason to focus on supporting Chaeli when he needed all the help he could get to deal the killing blow to this beast. He had taken Primal Familiarity and Incendiary Resurgence to maximize his usage of Flame Dash. Barely a second after his first dash, he vanished in a flare of bright fire.

Spoiler :

He stumbled as he landed amidst the angry tentacles. They slapped impotently against him, but still ripped out chunks of his life each time they landed. As he pushed through their ranks, he noticed the numerous rends in the flesh begin to close. The process was slow, but the beast was regenerating. Chilly, however, didn’t bother unleashing Incinerate. Supposedly the Leviathan took damage when its tentacles were hurt, but it couldn’t be killed by damaging the tentacles. The reason why they had to drag it out of the water first.

Spoiler :

>

He heard a faint yell from behind him. Chaeli shouted something, but he missed it amidst the earth-shaking cataclysm of the tentacles churning the sand. That didn’t matter though, since all he had been waiting for was the call in the first place.

Instantly, Chilly’s frantic pace ground to a halt and he channeled Incinerate then panned the flame horizontally. The magical fire speared directly through the thick forest of blubbery flesh and extended far beyond Chilly’s limited vision.

A fel shriek pierced the sudden silence, as tentacles froze their insane pounding. Then all at once, every tentacle flopped lifelessly to the ground.

Chilly took a deep breath—

—and vanished in a flare of bright fire and appeared on top of the corpse of the Leviathan like a victorious hero after a hard-won fight, then proceeded to ruin the image as he stumbled on the blubbery flesh beneath him.

“Ayo!” Chaeli crowed from somewhere beyond the mountain of meat. “Get down from there! We gotta go. Like yesterday! Move! Move! Move!”

Chilly struggled to regain his footing, as he looked out across Mirror Lake to see the water boiling with activity as Leviathans from all over the lake raced towards the titanic disturbance that the first Leviathan had unleashed in its death throes. After a frustrating moment of slipping and sliding on the icky tentacles, he simply vanished in a flare of bright fire as Flame Dash came off cooldown. Several more activations of his movement skill had him beside Chaeli who was bouncing on her toes, beside a veritable pile of shredded Leviathan tentacles.

“Come on, slowpoke! Get a move on!” She urged as she grabbed his wrist and booked it back towards the crack in the mountain behind them leading to the Avalan Ravine. “We don’t wanna be anywhere near the beach for what happens next. Trust me.”

Once they were well within the safety of the icy walls of the ravine did they turn to look behind them, only to witness the gruesome sight of hundreds of titanic tentacles ripping at and shredding the fallen Leviathan.

In less than a minute all traces of the dead Leviathan had disappeared from the beach, and the only evidence of the battle were a few bloodstains on the disturbed sand.

Chaeli let out a long breath, “Awesome. That worked out better than expected.”

Chilly shot her an incredulous look, “How were you expecting it to go?!”

“Uh,” Chaeli froze, “Exactly like that. Yes. It all went precisely according to plan.”

Chilly harrumphed irritably. Staying with Chaeli was going to get him killed sooner rather than later.

“Aww, don’t be that way. Admit it. This was fun!”

Chilly stared at the deep furrows left in the sand, and stains of very red, and very human blood staining the sand.

“Admit it.” Chaeli crossed her arms.

“Hmm,” Chilly said, reluctantly. “I suppose so. It was pretty epic.”

“Damn, this is fun. We should do this again sometime.” Chilly said, with a contented sigh.

They were lying side by side at the edge of Mirror Lake, whose beach looked more like a modern warship had used it for artillery target practice. Several moments ago, the last Leviathan had been dragged back into the lake by its brethren, and they had taken the opportunity to reluctantly emerge from the dubious safety of Avalan Ravine and rest upon the damaged beach.

“Mhmm. I do it all the time in between scouting missions.” Chaeli hummed at his side, then added a little bitterly, “they’re the only enemies Gar-Khan lets me fight.”

Chilly turned his head and contemplated the armored warrior resting beside him.

“Perhaps when we soundly thrash the Hellbringer, Gar-Khan will be more willing to let you go out since...you know. You’ve proven yourself.”

Chaeli let out a frustrated snort. “I doubt it. He wants me to kill a thousand of every monster before progressing to the next zone. Doesn’t matter that there aren’t even a thousand Leviathans in the entire lake. Doesn’t matter that I’ve mastered fighting these things weeks ago. No. I’m stuck here forever grinding out the same monsters over and over again for no reason. I mean just look at how fast you are leveling. I could have reached max level by now, but nooOooOo.”

“It's not fair.” Chaeli pouted.

Chilly recalled his notifications and scanned through them.

...

Before pulling up his new skill choice for reaching level thirteen, he turned to the girl beside him. “I could vouch for you when we get to Teluria. It’s not much, but I did survive here for a couple of weeks alone, so that’s got to count for something.”

Chaeli looked at him, then back across the once more calm lake. “Thanks, I would appreciate that.”

Chilly turned to his menu once again and brought up the skill choice.

Shell of Caldera:

Attune with the mantle of the earth to protect yourself.

You gain a shield that can absorb up to the sum of your armor and fire resistance.

When the shield is broken, or after four seconds, the shield detonates, dealing fire damage equal to 50% of damage mitigated.

instant cast time

4s cooldown

4s duration

Finally, a shield skill. Shell of Caldera would be imminently useful. Most enemies so far dealt damage in very predictable patterns. Their attacks were telegraphed that it would be trivial to call upon the Shell of Caldera a fraction of a second before the hit landed. The instant cast time only made that easier.

The shield also scaled off his armor and fire resistance which was both a blessing and a curse. In the short term, it was great since he was already heavily invested in both attributes. It meant that the augments of Starfire Aegis scaled the ability, but on the other hand it meant that when he eventually swapped out his gear to be more attuned to cold or lightning, he would lose power with the ability. Unless, of course, he figured out a way to maintain his high armor and fire resistance while also getting cold and lightning. Unlikely, but with skills, anything was possible.

The other benefit was that it provided one-shot protection. The ability essentially could be used to buffer his life. At its current point, it would give him a 500-ish health shield which was as if he had 25% more life for the first hit. Since enemies like the Wall Crawlers existed whose entire purpose was to try and one-shot people, it seemed prudent to get an ability like this.

The augments would likely revolve around increasing defenses or perhaps making the ability scale with another type of resistance. It was tough to say.

Flame Wall:

Your mastery of fire has advanced to the point where you can manifest physical plasma.

Expend a charge to summon a Flame Wall of physical fire that may allow allies to pass through it while blocking enemies.

12 fire damage per second to enemies in physical contact

300 life

0 life regeneration

10 armor

0 elemental and chaos resistance

3m wide

3m tall

1m thick

1s cast time

10s duration

1 maximum charge(s)

Gain 1 charge every 20 seconds

Oh, that was interesting. Flame Wall would essentially allow him to create static terrain that could deal damage to enemies. It would work beautifully with the Chains of Subjugation. If he was able to get multiple charges, then he would be able to instantly summon a cage around enemies that would prevent them from advancing on him or escaping while the Chains of Subjugation did their magic. He hadn’t had a chance to test the Chains yet, but he had high hopes.

The wording was a little ambiguous but he might be able to use the ability as a bridge if he placed the wall horizontally on the floor. If he managed to get the cooldown low enough or the duration high enough then he could theoretically use the ability to create his own ground during fights that occurred in the air. Increasing the duration didn’t seem all that hard either. Presumably, he would be able to get a weapon with the increased duration of skills, and he always had access to Arsonist, which was a Flame Dash augment that increased the duration of fire skills.

The walls also had life and resistances of their own. It was unclear how it would work but if the walls were considered allies then the walls should benefit from Pious Path and Unity of Purpose which would bump up their life regeneration by a massive amount. They wouldn’t have resistances but hopefully, that was something that the augments for the skill could remedy.

Another way he could use the walls was just create a cage around himself and unleash Incinerate from a little protected cubby hole. Since he and his allies could pass through it freely, then it could become the perfect retreat point if a battle was going poorly, and he needed a moment to breathe and recover his life. Or hell, he could even just pop one up in between him and an enemy just before a blow landed to shunt the damage over to the wall.

Ironically, it was surprisingly similar to Shell of Caldera in that aspect, though it would be more difficult with the cast time of Flame Wall.

Augments for Flame Wall would likely contain a couple of generic upgrades for making the wall bigger, or dealing more damage. Perhaps another charge. It would be quite interesting if there was an augment that would allow him to reshape the wall to his will. If he could use a single charge to form a sphere around himself that would be amazing.

Smoldering Embers:

The fire you wield changes the very nature of spells you leave behind.

Ground effects you leave behind deal 6% of your maximum life per second to enemies

60% increased duration of ground effects

60% increased area of ground effects

That was...different.

Ground effects were presumably the consecrated ground left at his feet, and now that he thought about it, probably the trail of fire left in the wake of Flame Dash. If he dashed through enemies, the new skill would deal 8% of his maximum life to them in addition to the damage that flame dash would deal. That was around 100-150 fire damage per second. Pretty respectable damage that would likely increase once he took the skill. If he kept Ceaseless Crusade allocated then the consecrated ground at his feet would spread continuously around him which would make this skill essentially a damaging aura, and he wouldn’t even need to approach enemies at all.

If he stuck with this, then his playstyle would be further estranged from the standstill and Incinerate. Already he wasn’t channeling the ability all that much, and with this augment it would be even better to just run around enemies, Flame Dash through them, and allow Star Fuel and this new ability to deal all the damage.

Augments for Smoldering Embers would likely include increased damage, or perhaps even allow his ground effects to spread in some manner. If there was such an augment then it would be interesting how that would interact with Ceaseless Crusade which already spread his consecrated ground. Either way, having an ability like this that scaled off of other abilities would allow him to specialize in the future to other ground effect skills and cement him into a build.

It wouldn’t increase his defenses in any direct manner, but the change in playstyle was certainly more defensive. Honestly, he wasn’t sure which skill to choose. They all seemed viable. With regards to his most recent engagement with the Leviathans, Shell of Caldera might allow him to survive longer within the grinder of thrashing tentacles, while Flame Wall could allow him to sit in the sky and then fall onto the main body without having to push through the mass of tentacles. Or perhaps he would be able to funnel the Leviathan into a trap between the walls. Smoldering Embers was possibly even better than that by just allowing him to leave behind a damaging ground effect that would allow him to damage the main body of the Leviathan without getting near in the first place.

As had become the usual. Chilly rotated the menu showing his future skill-ups to the penguins and asked for their opinions. In the back of his head, his thoughts turned toward the future. What would happen when he ran out of skill slots? Would he have to replace a skill? Or would he just not be offered anymore, forcing him into his current build for perpetuity? At the rate he was going it would not be long at all before he learned the answer to that.