“Don’t be a fool.”

“M’not a fool,” Chilly grumped, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared up into the brewing storm over Kellington’s Boughs.

“Just put it on,” Rahlin sighed and tossed over a silver helmet streaked with veins of yellow lightning.

Chilly yelped, fumbling with the heavy helmet as he identified the piece of gear he had crafted alongside his current set.

Electrum Full Helm

Rare

Helmet

iLevel: 19

38 lightning resistance

251 life

50 lightning resistance [Brand]

16.88% increased lightning resistance [Brand]

30% increased effect of Ashes of the Stars [Brand]

“Careful boy,” the penguin said.

Chilly let out a put upon sigh, but nodded and donned the helmet.

Chilly winced at the massive loss to his armor, but decided it was best to leave the complaining to a minimum. He had done the math before he had crafted up this particular helmet, and diversifying his resistances only made him stronger against lightning based enemies.

Despite losing nearly five-hundred armor, his physical mitigation only dropped by about one-point-five percent. If he subtracted one from his mitigation, then that meant that he was going from taking about 5% of physical damage to around 6.5% of physical damage. Or, around 20% more physical damage compared to before. Since the physical damage was already miniscule that 20% didn't amount to much.

The lightning on the other hand would hit like a truck in comparison. Assuming a hit was split evenly between physical and lightning then with zero lightning resistance he would be taking fifty plus five percent of the hit. The healing from Aegis Aurora would mitigate that to a degree, but it was far simpler to get a small amount of lightning resistance to minimize the load. At 55% lightning resistance — that the single piece of armor granted him — an evenly split attack would deal 22.5 plus 6.5 or 29% of the total damage of the hit. Losing around 25% of his armor — and therefore healing — was totally worth reducing all incoming damage by nearly half.

There was a lot of assumptions rolled into that reasoning but it made sense to him. Still. It hurt seeing how all his synergies fell apart if even a single piece of gear wasn’t up to snuff.

With reluctance, Chilly tucked his old helmet into his pack and turned to his party. They had all geared up in steel and electrum gear, making them look like medieval knights of Zeus. It boosted the team dynamic, having a uniform, though it didn’t help that Chilly himself was only partially participating.

“Oh, shush you,” Teluria strode by, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Let’s go say hi to little Mia and get you started on climbing this storm before the reset grows nigh.”

They marched up the staircase encircling the titanic tree. Penguins frolicked around the group, spending the most time bouncing on top of or around Chaeli who led the way. Chilly’s domain spread out ahead and above them, filling the air with swirls of calming gold and sickly green, and provided the group a sense of safety hard to find outside of a safe zone. Within a dozen strides a low level lightning elemental skirted the side of the great trunk and wizzed towards them only to fizzle out like a firework as soon as it crossed into Chilly’s area of effect.

It was only level seven.

“The enemies are so low level that we could get through this zone with our eyes closed,” Chilly laughed.

“Definitely,” Chaeli turned around with a grin, “your new gear makes this place a piece of cake.”

“Hubris kills,” Teluria admonished. “This zone is protected by Mia’s illusions. We could fall into the earth at any moment if we don’t pay attention.”

“Chilly’s penguins can see past them, right?” Chaeli spun excitedly towards Chilly. “We definitely could probably go th—Ow!”

Rahlin dusted off his claws and glared at the young Warforged. “Mind your elders, and mind yourself. The scout leads, with eyes unclouded. This is hostile territory and you will treat it as such.” Rahlin turned his searing gaze on Chilly. “And you. Reign yourself in before you find your journey — and ours — ended before it has even begun.”

A somber silence settled over the group with a pouting Chaeli up front and a thoughtful Chilly beside Teluria. Every couple of minutes a spark and crackle sounded through the air as another living cloud incinerated along the border of Chilly’s domain. Each was between level seven to nine, but none lasted more than a second to Chilly’s five thousand life fueled skill.

“Anyone else hear that?” Chilly stopped the group after the ascended halfway up the trunk.

“Musical notes,” Chaeli said, tilting her head, “coming from above.”

“Not an illusion?” Rahlin rumbled.

“I don’t...think so,” Chaeli frowned. “At least it sounds real enough and my skills aren’t picking up anything unusual.”

The party looked amongst themselves but there was nothing to do but continue. The uncomfortable silence from before faded, replaced by a quiet determination as the intermittent musical notes trickled past.

“Hole,” Chaeli said some minutes later while pointing at a smooth section of path. Chilly frowned but paused with the others. As far as he could tell the ground was absolutely flat.

The penguins paused as well, with several waddling forward to inspect the ‘hole’.

One penguin leaned forward then turned to face Chilly. It opened its beak to say something when a second penguin burst through the crowd with a a flaming Realm Walker raised high.

Nahlcal’s eyes shot open wide as it attempted to dodge, but Chaos Child anticipated the move and tackled the other penguin. Flames erupted around the duo as they fell backwards over the supposed ‘hole’. Mad cackling followed as the two vanished through the floor a second later.

“Yup, can confirm there is a hole there.” Chilly dryly stated as the rest of the penguins began to form a line to jump into the hole.

“How wide and deep is it?” Rahlin scrutinized the flat ground as if glaring at it would reveal the truth behind the apparent illusion.

“It’s jumpable,” Chaeli shuffled forward. “Though it goes way down. We wouldn’t want to fall.”

“Mark the edges, and we’ll cross,” Rahlin growled, as the another lightning elemental fizzed in the distance.

The group crossed the gap, using a crude marking scraped into the wooden stairs as an aid, and continued up the side of the trunk.

Hours passed as they paused for lunch after dozens of traps. Holes in the stairs were the least of the problems that they encountered. Falling stones, nets, little holes that spewed out waves of poisoned darts, or large sections of the stairway that collapsed to reveal meter long spears of sharpened oak. Each trap was identified and circumnavigated by the group with no consequences other than time. Eventually, after the zone had been entirely depleted of enemies, the group reached the top of the staircase.

They stepped out onto a wide branch housing a picturesque glade of lush flowers. Narrow mulch paths snaked around flowering bushes and fruiting vines. Iridescent droplets of water cascaded down damp leaves as the rustling wind brought movement to the life filled garden. Deep behind the greenery, pure musical notes resounded at a volume just short of uncomfortable yet somehow contained a reverberation that leeched into their armor and shook the base of Chilly’s stomach.

“Woah...” Chaeli murmured, holding onto her vibrating full helm. “This is trippy.”

The music cut off, dropping the glade into a stifling silence accentuated by the faint whoosh of flames. Rahlin’s fist shot into the air and the entire troup fell into a battle formation.

“Hold,” Rahlin growled as his scales lost their color and gained a metallic sheen. “Something’s coming.”

The gentle rush of fire approached to reveal a small woman around hand height sporting a set of sparkling wings fly through the foliage. Sickly green and glowing gold enveloped her in the distinctive black and purple of baelfire.

“Mia!” Teluria smiled, rushing over to the diminutive humanoid and snuggling with it, oblivious of the black flames. “We found you!”

The little fairy chirped in indignation, summoning a protective sphere of compressed air that pushed the excited elf’s arms aside. She tilted her head and let out a familiar musical trill consisting of two ascending notes.

“Oh, well. We can’t understand you right now,” Teluria’s smile dimmed, “but once we climb all the way up the tower, we’ll figure something out and free you of that foul curse.”

Mia the fairy, responded with another set of trills, consisting of a half dozen notes flying through the ranges. None of them understood the little fairy, though Chilly glanced at the penguins in curiosity.

“The ghostly star seems unreliable,” the penguin shrugged. “Thanks for the chapter.”

Chilly pursed his lips thoughtfully. “How long do you suppose it’ll take y’all to figure it out?”

A penguin in a top hat and horned rimmed glasses pursed its beak in thought.

“Feet your soul...Walk while...you’re down?” Mr. Harvester tilted its head with a frown, then smiled and threw up its flippers in delight. “Rises!”

“It’ll take a bit I guess,” Chilly muttered.

“M...me...meow?” Mr. Harvester shook its head sadly and shrugged, “thanks for the chapter.”

“That’s fine, take your time.” Chilly nodded and turned back to the conversation.

Teluria had burst into a long winded explanation of who they were and what they were doing here as well as a brief summary of what had transpired to free Sooty and Teluria herself. Her recounting was scattered, which only encouraged Chaeli to jump in and try to straighten up the retelling.

Chilly stepped back and observed the fairy. This was clearly Mia, the Lightning Guardian and the fourth Guardian that Chilly had met. She was speaking in code like the others had, though her particular brand of inarticulacy was musical notes. She didn’t seem sad or angry, rather, her demeanor was downright cheerful, which was a stark difference compared to Sooty or Teluria.

Teluria was just wrapping up the story with how they planned on defeating the lightning boss when a heatwave-like ripple distorted the air for a fraction of a second.

“Well if you’re going to give that old sack of bones a what for, them I’m coming with!” Mia beamed as the rest of them froze in shock for a moment. “Let’s be awesome friends!”

A shudder ran through the glade as the flowers wilted and the vines desiccated. The brilliant sky full of clouds lost its luster and fell from the heavens, growing closer and greyer after only a scant moment. Chilly ducked, eyes wide as he saw the sky falling only to realize that the lush grass beneath his feet had transformed into the rough stone of a cave floor.

He shot his gaze back to the ceiling and saw only distant stone where once the sky had dominated. Long stalactites hung low, illuminated by Chilly’s domain rather that the brilliant sun that he had grown used to after several hours of trekking through the idyllic paradise.

Chilly spun, realizing that the titanic illusion that had enveloped Kellington’s Boughs had faded in its entirety. Gone was the life encrusted tree, replaced by cold gray stone. He stood speechless, taking a moment to process the change. He had known that it was an illusion but there was a difference between knowing something and experiencing it.

“Hello? Hey! I’m over here!” Mia tilted her head, waving her diminutive arms wildly towards the frozen group. “You guys are such weirdos...it’s awesome!”

“What have you done...” Rahlin recovered first. He glanced about the cave then turned a scathing glare at Chilly. “What have you done!”

“It wasn’t me!” Chilly raised his hands in a placatory manner. “I didn’t even say anything. The fairy—”

Rahlin’s meaty palm slapped Chilly’s mouth closed as Teluria gasped and Chaeli pointed and giggled.

“Gah!” Chilly shoved off the dragonborn’s arm. “What was that fo...”

He trailed off as he saw Mia storm through the air toward him.

“That’s not nice!” she cried, “I’m a Sprite! A Sprite! Not a filthy Fae!”

“Mia!” Teluria admonished.

“What! He said it. What can’t I?”

“You know damn well why you don’t invoke the little people!” Rahlin roared. “You both are lucky we are in a dungeon right now, or none of us would see the light of day again.”

“Right, sorry. I’ll keep that in mind.” Chilly said, pulling his helmet off and rubbing his face. Apparently Sprites were not the same things as Fairies despite the fact that Mia was cleary a fairy. It was just semantics and besides, now that Mia had apparently been freed, they had bigger fish to fry. “Hi Mia, I’m Chilly, and I guess you are free now?”

“Yup!” Mia beamed. “Mia is going to have new friends, and its going to be awesome because friends are awesome and we can have a party with—”

“Cake!” A penguin who was inexplicably wearing Realm Walker as a wooden hat formed in the likeness of a double decker cake encrusted with layers of cream and pudding.

“Exactly!” Mia gasped. “Cake and stuff and things and so much awesomeness!”

Chilly blinked, “You can see and hear the penguins?”

“Sooooo many friends!” Mia twirled through the air leaving a trail of glitter behind, then she sank down, her shoulders slouching. “I miss Bannon’s friends. No friends is not awesome.”

“We’re here now, sweety,” Teluria stepped froward and let the diminutive sprite land on her palm.

“It’d be an honor to fight with you,” Rahlin rumbled. “Your magics would be invaluable in the fights to come.”

Mia preened, little pink sparkles trickling off of her wings as she beamed up at the group, her previous melancholy forgotten in an instant.

“Wait, so I have a question,” Chilly said, raising his hand before dropping it awkwardly. “If you could free yourself just like that, why didn’t you do so earlier?”

“Well,” Mia put a dainty finger on her chin and tilted her head in thought. “The dead called to me, so I went! It was pretty awesome, but I like this too.”

“You trapped yourself?”

“I wasn’t trapped!” Mia stomped her foot, then her eyes grew wide as saucers and she spun off Teluria’s palm in a puff of sparkles, “I had a HUGE garden. So many flowers, it was almost as good as friends!”

She blurred through the air and landed on a penguin's face giving it a big hug. The penguin looked mildly miffed, and tried to dislodge the exuberant sprite, but failed when its flippers phased right through the corporeal creature.

Chilly pursed his lip, trying to understand what the sprite wanted to see what triggered her freedom. “So you were ok with talking to...flowers?”

“It was cool, but,” Mia beamed as she flopped onto the penguins head who was getting more and more agitated. "I wanna have fun and chat with someone besides myself! I haven’t tried listening recently, but I’m sure I’m awesome at that too!”

“Enough,” Rahlin rumbled stepping forwards and plucking the tiny sprite from midair and settling her back on Teluria’s palm. “We have a crisis on hand and must defeat all the bosses within two weeks or half the population of sentients in the dungeon will succumb to the blight. We must set out.”

Mia gasped, “Did I do that?”

Rahlin’s eyes narrowed, “It was inevitable, and we might’ve managed more time, but ye—”

“Awesome!” Mia beamed, bright cyan sparkles floating from her wings in a halo.

Rahlin’s eyes narrowed further and his broad shoulders flexed before relaxing as a great smoky breath rushed from his flared nostrils. “We’d appreciate your guidance in ascending this here zone, if you will.”

“Sure, this way!” Mia zipped away around a bend in the cave before rushing back. “Come on! Come on!”

The group looked amongst themselves but it was Teluria who broke the moment with a shrug. “She gets like this sometimes.”

“Right,” Rahlin nodded and hiked up his pack. “Let’s go.”

He began jogging after the Sprite going so far as blurring forwards every dozen paces to close the distance faster. Chilly and co. took a second longer, but they soon caught up.

The cave quickly narrowed and became taller until the left wall abruptly broke away to reveal a deep dark chasm that extended far beyond the range of Chilly’s domain. The right wall had likewise risen beyond Chilly’s domain to form a sheer cliff face on their right. Far in the distance, at the end of the narrow path, an imposing tower made of black flagstones dominated the horizon.

A penguin manifested on a wooden platform shaped like a cloud.

It turned to the black tower and pointed Realm Walker at it.

“Dark tables lurk in the Shrine. Beware.”

“Talk about railroading,” Chilly joked as he turned his gaze to the left.

Dozens of lightning elementals floated above the path and around the ravine. Their stormy forms sparked with unchained lightning as they zipped around in search of prey. Chilly narrowed his eyes and identified the nearest of the elementals.

Chilly let a faint smile grace his face. This zone was still underleveled for them and shouldn’t be difficult at all to cross. At less than a thousand life points, barring some ungodly regeneration, his domain should be able to take care of the blighters by itself.

A faint presence alighted on his shoulder as he heard Mia’s soft whisper.

“Psst! Hey! Can you tell me your secrets?”

Chilly turned to see the little sprite sitting on his shoulder. “...What?”

“Please!” Mia begged, clasping her palms together and falling to her knees. “I promise I’ll only share them with like...” she held out both hands out with her fingers splayed. “Fifty people!”

Chilly blinked, not sure how to respond to that but was thankfully saved when a pair of level fourteen lightning elementals charged them.

“Incoming,” Rahlin rumbled, falling into a battle stance and dragging Chilly to the front with him. “Chaeli, stats.”

“Three and a half thousand effective life. Minimal regen. 840 lightning max hit” Chaeli said succinctly, though her posture was relaxed with a cocky grin as she watched the clouds approach. “Why are you so uptigh—”

“Focus,” Rahlin rumbled, his gaze locking onto a small flock of a dozen elementals gathering right behind the two low level leaders, “more’re incoming.”

“Shield’s up,” Teluria said demurely as a crystalline transparent dome of ice formed around the entire party.

The first of the the lightning elementals crashed past the edge of Chilly’s domain and erupted in a conflagration of black flames. The storm clouds crackled and dual arcs of lightning crashed into the ice shield as peels of thunder shook the cavern. Small chunks of ice cracked off the barrier and clattered onto the ground as the two elementals burned away.

“See,” Chaeli huffed, crossing her arms. “Chilly’s awesome. The rest will just fizz before they can reach us.”

The rest ignored her as they watched the rest of the elementals. Blue lightning sparked inside of the elementals as they neared but just as they were about to cross into Chilly’s domain, a level sixteen elemental arced with electricity that bounced to its neighbors and the group swerved to the side.

The lead elemental floated forward until it crossed the barrier and it immediately burst into flame. It jerked back, putting out the black fires, as bolts of agitated lightning sparked through its amorphous body.

“Can you tell their range, Chaeli?” Rahlin rumbled, still standing with his fists raised.

“Less than Chilly’s range. They can’t bombard us from way over there,” Chaeli said, “I told you there is nothing to worry about.”

The elementals jittered in agitation at the edge of Chilly’s domain. They swirled, jumping in an out, and traveling across the boundary. Each motion brought the half-dozen elementals closer and closer until it was impossible to tell where one elemental ended and another began. They began to swirl, spinning in a stormy vortex as clouds of misty white vapors shot out.

“Focus Chaeli, I won’t ask you again.” Rahlin growled, a dangerous rumble entering his voice. “What is that cloud?”

Chaeli paled, “Well, uh. It says zero damage so it isn’t an attack.”

The white wisps condensed into dense clouds that billowed out of the vortex of spinning elementals and began to cover the path before them.

“It is out of my range as well,” Teleuria spoke calmly.

“We move, try to get them in Chilly’s domain.” Rahlin said, ushering the party into a quick but careful jog. The moment they started moving the elementals billowed backwards and over the great ravine, far out of their range.

“Stop,” Rahlin raised a fist as the clouds covered their legs. “Watch for ailments.”

The group froze as the clouds thickened, first covering their ankles, then waists, until it rose to cover everything. No notifications popped up. Chilly lifted his hand but could barely see it even when he held it right up to his face. His party members were just dark silhouettes in the gloom.

“Clear,” Rahlin rumbled, his voice distorted in the fog. “Looks like a blinding cloud. Teluria could you take care of it?”

“I can,” Teluria said, “but this is an excellent time for Chilly to practice non-specific skill targeting.”

“Not the time, elf. He can learn party tricks once my people are safe.”

“Y’know,” Mia’s voice tinkled through the fog entirely unobstructed. “There aren’t enough unicorns here. I’m going to go find some...”

Her voice faded into the distance, in the direction of the ravine. Chilly looked after the faint path of fading sparkles when a burst of flame lit the murk in Rahlin’s direction. Chilly couldn’t quite tell, but he felt like Rahlin was using everything in his power not to rage at the fleeing sprite.

“Patience Rahlin,” Teluria said. “If we rush, we may not ascend at all. Rest and care is a requirement, not a recommendation. Sit, relax, eat something. This is as safe a place as any.”

After some more grumbling the group settled down to rest in the mist for fifteen minutes. Chilly felt incredibly out of place resting in what was essentially a hostile skill, but after a few minutes with no more danger originating from the distantly whooshing elementals, he relaxed.

Teluria scooted up carefully to sit beside him with a measured smile.

“Is this the thing you started teaching me back in the village?” Chilly asked.

Teluria nodded, “non-specific skill targeting is an advanced technique that allows you to affect what gets targeted by aura-type skills. It can be used to target the environment, yourself or even allies with skills you normally could not.”

“Targeting the environment to get rid of bodies for example I get, but why would I want to harm my allies?” Chilly retorted, thinking of the problems that he had when interacting with Sooty all those weeks ago.

Teluria raised a delicate brow, “You would be surprised how often it comes up. For example, there is a specific type of slime that resides deep within the southern marshes. Klirites. Nasty things capable of taking complete control over humanoids. Even Warforged are not entirely immune to their powers. Once they take control, they are able to use the host as a shield against hostile skills.”

Chilly blinked, “So it’s possible to target just the Klirite with non-specific skill targeting?”

Teluria smiled faintly. “For many, non-specific skill targeting is a gimmick, a party trick if you will. Klirites are dangerous but there are other — less skill intensive — methods of dealing with them. In a few minutes I will freeze the mist and clear our vision, but other than that, there is not much I can do with ice or even fire.” She gestured to Rahlin’s obscured form. “Not everyone has access to non-targeted skills like you, and fewer have need to target something other than enemies with it.”

“I mean,” Chilly said, “auras are basically normal skills that can’t be targeted in exchange of having a large area of effect.”

“And many see that as a detriment, but for you it is the opposite. You wield baelfire.” Teluria said. “The element of pure destruction. With correct control, you could use your skill not just to clear corpses, but also carve statues, build homes, create.”

Chilly paused thoughtfully. He hadn’t thought much — if at all — about what would happen after he escaped the dungeon. The people of this world had their own society and culture. Considering how levels were acquired it was almost inevitable that combat would be an expectation rather than an exception. Children raised from birth to fight was a scary concept. This however, gave him hope that the surface could be just as beautiful as his home world, with art and creativity just as common as conflict and war.

“So can you create sculptures with your skill?” Chilly turned to the High Elf curiously.

Teluria raised her palm and ice condensed into an intricately detailed rose. If not for the transparent blue tint, Chilly would have thought it was real.

“That’s amazing.”

“It is why Sooty’s punishment was truly cruel,” Teluria handed him the rose, and looked off into the distance. “Before this enslavement, I don’t believe Sooty has ever held a hammer in his life. Making him hammer metal like a barbarian was an eternal reminder of his lost craft.”

“I didn’t know,” Chilly murmured as the delicate rose melted in his hands.

“Enough of that,” Teluria smiled, “let me show you how.”

Chilly turned fully to face her, intent on figuring this skill out.

“The first step is to feel your skill in action. Reach deep within yourself and sense the flow of energy. Many find it helpful to take long deep breaths.”

Chilly closed his eyes and settled into a meditative position. He sent his minds eye behind his sternum to the bubble of otherness that had popped into existence the moment he had first leveled and acquired Incinerate.

“Alright, I got it.” Chilly said.

If Teluria was surprised at his speed she didn’t show it. “Now you must communicate to your skill what your desire is. Smoldering Embers functions through your ground effects which will make it more complicated to control, so to start, focus on Pious Path.”

Chilly nodded, feeling out the specific part of his skill that had jumped into being when he had gotten Pious Path.

“Reach through your connection of Pious Path and try and feel out the Consecrated Ground that it is summoning.

Chilly nodded, feeling out the limits of his domain easily.

“Now try and feel the consecrated ground itself. There should be a difference between where your skill is spawning and spreading the ground effect and where the effect actually is.”

Chilly reached, getting a sense of the difference that she was speaking of. Instead of a perfect sphere around him with a second larger sphere showing where the ground effect was being spread, he faintly felt — at the very edge of his perception — the individual crucifixes that congregated around his allies.

“I think...I’ve got it.”

“If you are doing it correctly it should feel roughly to how that one augment of yours works. Quantum Connection if I recall correctly.”

Chilly blinked his eyes open as he realized that his intuitive knowledge of his allies and enemies that the augment gave him was exactly the same was what he was manually doing. It was much more mentally taxing but, once he got good enough he would be able to save a skill point.

“I’ve got it,” he said with much more confidence.

“Perfect,” Teluria said, “Now, while focusing on your skill, attempt to restrict me from the healing effect. You may find it helpful to think of me as a stone, or any other inanimate object that comes to mind.”

Chilly reached for the dozen or so crucifixes floating around Teluria and willed them to move away.

They ignored him.

He focused harder, imagining that Teluria was just a lump of stone that shouldn’t be healed or affected in any way, yet still the crucifixes ignored him.

“You can also try to consider me as an enemy,” Teluria said softly.

“It isn’t working.” Chilly frowned.

“The greatest lie of our world is the idea that skills are somehow external to you. Remember that your skills are a part of you as much as if not more than your arm is. When you struggle to make Pious Path ignore me, you are not fighting your skill, but yourself. You are yourself, and so you cannot overpower yourself. You may gain a temporary advantage here or there, but to gain true control you must find peace.”

Chilly begged, pleaded, and cajoled the little specks of awareness in his minds eyes. He focused until he was red in the face until, ever so slowly, the little devils began to float away from Teluria’s sitting form.

“Remember to breath, Chilly.” Teluria said, a hint of amusement in her tone.

Chilly’s breath exploded outwards, and the crucifixes instantly snapped back to float around Teluria.

“Bloody hell that’s hard.”

“You did quite well for your first try.” Teluria said, standing up and brushing off her summer dress. “All you need to do is to practice that an eventually convince those specks of baelfire traveling through your Consecrated Ground that all this mist is an enemy.”

Chilly looked around at the fog, he could barely control a dozen crucifixes, there was no way he would ever be able to manipulate so much volume.

“Fifteen minutes is up.” Rahlin rumbled. “Clear the mists Teluria.”

The High Elf smiled and raised her hand. A wave of frost flowed out from her leaving behind crystalline spheres that tinkled to the floor. The wave spread through the fog, revealing the other party members and the surroundings. After less than ten seconds it reached the edge of the skill created fog bank to reveal the rest of the environment.

No elementals flew through the ravine. Even in the distance the Lower Scarp was utterly deserted except for the space right before the great black tower in the distance.

Beneath the tower, hundreds of lightning elementals coalesced into a gigantic swirling storm of anger and lightning.

“Uh oh,” Chaeli muttered, her eyes squinting into the distance.

The great chunks of stone rose from the ground and floated up around the storm in the vague impression of a face. Two glowing blue eyes turned to face the party as more stones rose to float around vague mallet-shaped fists.

“Lightning Titan. Level 19.” Chaeli gulped. “Max hit is pure lightning at...uh...eleven thousand five hundred and thirty-eight.”