Level 2+

(Essence Pengolin)

Health 92%

Without pausing to think, Gordon fired right into the Essence Pengolin's face as it flew at him.

The bolt dropped its health another percent, but more importantly the impact threw off its trajectory.

Its momentum arrested, it slammed into the fire escape below the window with a clatter instead of driving its claws into Gordon’s face.

Even so, the impact rocked the building. Gordon backed away from the window as the contraption swayed, keeping his aim on the opening, but he’d forgotten the unfamiliar environment. He stumbled into a desk and almost fell. With a jolt of panic, one hand darted back to catch him, the other flailing for balance.

He steadied his aim as he carefully edged backward around the obstacle, heart racing in his throat. The monster would be coming up any moment.

Sure enough, its teal-glowing claw appeared over the edge of the window, crushing the metal and wood and plastic like so much paper to be crumpled up and tossed aside. Frost fog rose around its claws, the air freezing on contact.

Gordon fired, but even at this range his aim wasn’t good enough to hit the relatively small target. As the monster dragged itself upward he dropped his manabow and drew the magic ax he'd been keeping just in case.

He gripped the ax handle tight with both hands and brought it down on the claw with all his strength, desperate to prevent the creature reaching him as it tore the wall apart.

Adrenaline surged in his chest and down his arms, stamina joining it in a heady mix that made the ax feel almost weightless. Mana pulsed down and into the ax’s blade, enhancing the strike as it crashed down on the monster’s head the moment it came into reach. Gordon didn’t let up, battering it with a desperate flurry of blows.

The monster fell, clanging back onto the stair below and rolling away out of sight.

The dust didn’t have time to clear before the building shook again, much more strongly this time. The Essence below had apparently decided to bring them down to its level.

The snipers in the building across the street had noticed his predicament by now. The pengolin's health started to drop steadily as they fired into its back.

Gordon swore and ran to the hole that had once been a window, ax raised and ready. If the building was coming down, he needed to get out, but with the pengolin right there…

It had fallen further than he expected, but rapidly clawed its way up the stairs toward him, the metal twisting and snapping beneath its frozen claws.

He had no time. Down wasn't an option. Even if he could get past the monster to reach the ground, he’d seen what that Essence could do to people and it was faster than any of them.

Cursing again, Gordon backtracked just long enough to snatch his manabow, then clambered up the fire escape. He reached the top and threw himself upward in a panicked surge of stamina that burned through nearly half of what he had remaining.

It was enough. He caught the roof's edge and pulled himself up in a single impossibly smooth motion, claiming the high ground.

The continued barrage from the sniper team across the road was bringing significant progress.

Level 2+

(Essence Pengolin)

Health 63%

…though not significant enough. Even though they all outleveled the thing by at least two or three levels, it was proving a significant challenge. Gordon himself was level 15 for crying out loud! He shouldn't have this much trouble with a level 2.

But Essence creatures were built different, and this single monster was still only a fraction of the whole Essence below. He still felt sick remembering the Essence’s unstoppable brutality, stomach knotting painfully at the shouts and ringing echo of blade on ice from below.

He couldn't spare the time to investigate, his own problems immediate and pressing. He could only hope whoever had been reckless enough to challenge the Essence directly was also fast enough to get out of the way before it was too late.

The building shook again, jostling Gordon’s aim but also forcing the pengolin to grip the wall with both clawed flippers to avoid falling.

For a moment both struggled to regain their equilibrium, then the pengolin decided it was time to turn its attention back to easier prey. It threw itself back across the street, clambering its way up to the rangers’ window.

Gordon turned and fired at the monster as fast as he could manage. This time, the rangers across the way were taking the threat seriously, but still their progress remained slow.

Level 2+

(Essence Pengolin)

Health 51%

He wanted this monster. It was too strong to waste. But he'd have to drop it into taming range first, and that wasn’t looking particularly plausible.

The entire question was quickly put out of his mind as the Essence rolled out into the open, closely pursuing one of Mark’s kalvex. The other kalvex ran just behind it, snapping off bites of the icy substance and throwing them aside as each bite morphed into a tiny frost spider.

Level 2++

(Ice Essence)

Health 90%

It was working, they were slowly but steadily diminishing the Essence’s volume. Unfortunately, that came with a veritable wave of spiders forming in their wake. Dozens of frost spiders, pure glowing teal all the way through, none of Frosty's snowy fluff. Too many to count.

Unlike the pengolin that had to claw its way slowly up the wall or the Essence that couldn't climb at all, the spiders were entirely at home on the vertical surface. Climbing along the sides of the walls with the repeated crystal tink tink of their many many legs. It sounded like sleet on a window, coming faster and closer.

It sounded like sleet on a window, coming faster and closer.

Wait. Closer?

Gordon braced himself and ran to the very edge of the roof, looking and firing down into the mass of spiders racing up at them, knocking them off two or three at a time with hasty shots. Even a level 2+ was sturdy enough to survive that; those he knocked off just jumped back up and kept coming, and there were too many for him to clear them all away before they reached him.

His mana was running low already, and his stamina was nearly gone. If he'd been alone, this would definitely be his end, but thankfully he wasn't.

…Though everyone else was busy trying to survive themselves at the moment. If he waited for rescue, he’d be waiting a bit longer than he could survive.

Something squeaked loudly, cutting across the background noise. Gordon blinked as he recognized Flomper’s voice, coming from the other side of the building.

He was reluctant to let the spiders have any more ground, but he wasn’t going to fire fast enough to stop them all anyway. Leaving his precarious defensive position, he ran to the other side of the roof and looked down at where his minion waited. She stood on the pavement, gesturing frantically.

She… wanted him to jump?

Skittering behind him made his time limit for deciding very plain. His pursuit had crested the roof and were advancing on him fast.

Gordon took one more look at the wave of spiders coming toward him, then took Flomper’s advice. Backing up just enough to get a running start, he jumped off the roof.

Even knowing intellectually that his remaining stamina should suffice to keep him from breaking anything, it felt reckless and terrifying. But, as he landed with a puff of stamina in a casual crouch, not even off balance, he couldn’t deny a little jolt of exhilaration.

Maybe a world-threatening apocalypse was what had been missing from his life after all.

Without pausing to contemplate the thought, he took off running to get some distance from the oncoming swarm. The spiders were coming around the sides of the building now, still locked on to him as their target - which made sense, since he was one of the highest level people around at the moment.

But now he was on ground level, his burrowing minion could put her own abilities on display. She’d be useless in a building, but asphalt was close enough to dungeon stone. In the streets she was in her element.

Flomper’s abilities to manipulate stone had only grown the higher she leveled. Her points in Earth-Shaper gave her localized control to mold the terrain to her will, while Saboteur allowed her to set up active effects to react to enemy presence.

The spiders reached the ground, only to discover the ground was their enemy. Flomper may not have been able to stop the Essence itself, but these smaller targets were exactly where she’d excel.

Gordon was out of mana, but that didn’t mean he was helpless. Flomper’s abilities bought him the window he needed to regain the upper hand, and with the spider swarm slowed there was no reason to hold back.

Dropping his manabow into his sheath, he gripped his ax and ran back into the fray.