Lucas sat on the ground, deeply engrossed in Chen practice routine. He had never seen the Illusionist so focused, the man being content with his skill set and his role in their party.

“Well, we did set out to become stronger” Lucas thought before Chen interrupted his line of thought with a frustrated shout.

“You still worry too much. Nobody thinks you are useless” Maggie’s voice was like music to Lucas’s ear, so much that he was lost for a moment.

“You wouldn’t said that if Margaret hadn’t managed to heal Ted. All of us had to contribute or next time we might not come out unscathed” Chen retorted, still frustrated.

“What are you even trying to learn?” Lucas interjected, grounded after his initial reaction.

“I don’t know. Something, anything” Chen responded.

“It doesn’t work like that and you know it. You must have a clear idea what are you trying to accomplish” Lucas said, ignoring the frustration radiating from the Illusionist.

“Easy for you to say” Chen muttered venomously.

“Boys, chill out” Maggie interjected before Lucas managed to muster a response. Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Lucas spoke again.

“You know, I learned “Infused piledriver” by myself, mimicking an att…”

“Mimicking what?” Chen was confused by the Lucas’s abrupt stop. Lucas, on the other hand was deep in thought, trying quickly to iron out any issues he could find in the idea that just dawned on him. After he had finished it, he started sharing it with others. They reaction went from shock and rejection to reluctant acceptance as he put down the final details of his plan.

“You are proposing that I become a mime?” Chen said, disbelief still present in his voice.

“Well, yes, you could call it like that. I just think it accentuate your strengths. You are already familiar with how our attacks work mechanically, this would just be the next step.” Lucas responded. Chen was still watching him intently and for a second Lucas thought he was going to burst into laughter and reject his proposal. After that second passed, Chen face signaled he was steeling himself.

“It’s not like I have any other idea” Chen said, sighing. He took position, focused. Lucas chose to activate “Double strike” concluding that it was probably the least complex skill he had. His sword clanged the wall two times in quick succession. Chen took out his dagger, preparing to mimic Lucas’s movement.

Activating “Sharpsight”, Lucas found mana swirling around Chen as he slowly gathered it up, before trying to coalesce it into attack. Unfortunately, Lucas could see how the mana was still raw and unfocused and on cue, Chen failed to mimic it. Just as Lucas prepared to say something comforting, Chen refocused and restarted it, but instead of mimicking it himself, he quickly conjured a illusion of Lucas, albeit pretty uncanny looking. Lucas watched as his illusion raised its sword and struck the wall two times in quick succession, the sound echoing through the empty chamber, albeit with less intensity that the Lucas attack’s.

Chen wasn’t finished, however, and Lucas begin to notice the euphoria of being close to the breakthrough showing on Illusionist. Ignoring his surroundings, he conjured two illusions this time and immediately after making suscesfull attacks he started working on the third and fourth one. Wave after wave of illusions chipped at the wall, even managing to make some visible damages before Chen smiled as his gaze has lost his focus, telltale signs of reading System announcement.

“Anything good?” Lucas asked, not needing any explanation for what just happened as he had enough experience with it to recognize when have new skill has been learned. Chen smiled once again and instead of responding in words, System prompt appeared in front of Lucas’s eyes to inform him Chen wanted to share something with him. Quickly accepting it, Lucas settled in to read it.

Illusion army (Epic)

There comes a time in Illusionist’s life when simple illusions are not enough and enemies prove immune to misdirection and confusion they provide, forcing direct action which an army of illusion certainly can provide, gaining some resemblance of material shape just as they attacks are about to connect. This skill allows the user to summon a number of illusions attacking their enemies with the attacks that the Illusionist had seen and have some understanding of their functioning. The damage dealt is reduced by 75% from the original attacks. The speed of conjuring illusions is decreased by 0.5 second for every point in Intelligence.

Cost: 240 mana per illusion

“This sound pretty good” Lucas commented as he finished reading the prompt “I just wonder how it works with “Vengeful doom strike”. If we can take out a quarter of enemies Health in one hit…” he finished.

“Unfortunately, I don’t understand how that attack functions, so it’s a no – go” Chen responded, apologetic look on his face.

“Yeah, that makes us two” Lucas said, irritated that he still hadn’t figured out how exactly the skill functions. He would most certainly like to add the element of instant kills to his other attacks. More out of habit, he inquired with the System about it, but the System ignored him, indifferent to Lucas’s plight.

The rest of the party came to congratulate Chen and they quickly settled into making plans for the next segment of the dungeon, hopefully the last one. From what little scouting Maggie had done, Lucas had a weird feeling of déjà – vu, once again trudging through castle, beset by royal guard of the king that was also the last boss.

“Technically, in the Scenario dungeon there were two last bosses, not just one” Lucas thought to himself, trying to turn his mind from drawing further parallels between that dungeon and this. Then, he realized something that proved to be a good distraction: They had never found the treasury of the General. Filing it in back of his mind, Lucas was pretty certain he had new task for his spy network, which he hoped would be much more expansive when he gets back from his current adventure.

His party did formalize their battle plan, Lucas mechanically agreeing to it without paying too much attention to what exactly they were saying, noting only Ted rummaged through the corpses of the constructs, liberating one small brass mace from its previous user as a backup weapon. With everything figured out, they got up and started advancing to the door on the far side of the chamber which used to be guarded by Rak’azis, stepping right through them. Once inside, they found themselves in a massive room, strongly resembling receptionist’s hall from the last days of pre – System Earth.

“I guess up is where our objective is” Lucas noted, pointing his fingers at large stairs that were in the right corner of the room.

“We should check the door on the left then” Ted said and immediately pivoted towards them. The rest of the party followed suit and they soon found themselves in front of the doors. Ted, being their resident tank, opened the door swiftly, hoping to surprise any potential enemies. Unfortunately, the ratmen behind the door had heard them approaching and as soon as the door opened, a dark green ball slammed directly into Ted’s chest, downing him.

“Motherfuckers” Lucas said and sprinted immediately, not even checking who he was fighting against. That proved to be a bad decision as the spear suddenly showed up, piercing his armor and it’s tip burying deep into flesh of Lucas’s thigh.

“You take 653 points of damage”

Grinding his teeth, Lucas instinctively activated “Dodge” leaping across the second spear and somersaulting forward, finding himself next to the ratman with a giant staff, surrounded by flies. The ratman shouted something in his guttural language and started waving it’s staff, but Lucas reacted quickly, activating “Soul – shattering strike” and striking the ratman in the torso. With a terrible yelp, the creature fell to its knees, stunned. Lucas wasn’t able to finish the job however as another swing of the spear forced him away from the downed ratman.

Refocusing on the spear wielder, he noticed that this ratman was fully covered in armor, wielding a shield in his free hand. With a roar, Lucas started running, preparing to activate “Punch parry” in a bid to stagger the creature when his spear inevitable come for him again. Instead, the ratman screamed in pain and quickly collapsed, two arrows sticking from the back side of his skull.

“Thanks” he muttered to Maggie before being force to activate “Dodge” once again as another spear went flying towards him. Even worse, the stun has wore off the caster ratman was back on his feet, preparing his attack. This time Chen came to Lucas’s rescue, at least five illusions of him spinning and slamming into the spearman. Although illusions lacked the real power of “Infused piledriver”, they proved enough to do some moderate damage and distract the spear wielding ratman, allowing Lucas time to activate the real skill and with a quick spin he was shredding the flesh and internal organs of the caster. With a quick pull of his sword and subsequent activation of “Guiding strike”, Lucas ended the life of the unfortunate creature.

“You have slain Royal Guard Mage, Disease Mage level 61”

The spearman was now struggling with combined attacks from Maggie, Chen and Ted, who Margaret healed and got back up on his feet. With a massive swing, Ted’s club connected with the skull of the creature, completely breaking it and spilling brain matter all over the floor.

After checking if everyone was okay, Lucas started looking all over the room. It certainly looked like some kind of barracks for soldiers and he wasn’t too hopeful of finding good loot here. But they were going to search it either way.