Implode ~ 12!

“I don't know who they are, but they’re gaining on us,” Daniella managed to voice amid her huffing and puffing. It was just past noon, and they had been running for over twelve hours. If Joe hadn't been nearly as exhausted as she was, Major Cleave would almost certainly have scooped her up and forced them to continue going. But with two humans on her shoulders, even she would be slowed down enough that the people coming after them would start to catch up just as they reached a low point in their ability to fight back.

“Maybe saying this trip would only take five days was a little generous of me,” Cleave grumped as she led them up a hill. “We need to find out how many of them are coming after us. If there are more than we can handle, we are going to have to jump in a bubble and hope for the best.”

“I vote for doing that right away.” Joe raised his hand and looked around at the others, hoping they would get on board. “Oh come on, how likely is it that the Elven incursion has been able to get ahead of us and set up anti-air equipment? Plus, I have a whole new setup that I've been wanting to try out!”

“Please don't test new things on us when we are in a life-and-death situation,” Major Cleave replied calmly, pulling out her axe and a whetstone. There was no way that the small rock was going to do anything for the clearly enchanted blade, but it was obvious that the practice was more of a cathartic motion for her than anything else.

“Trust me when I say that this one is a whole lot better than my last attempt.” Joe rubbed his hands together slowly, the villainous glint in his eye doing nothing to boost his team’s confidence in his abilities to get them out of the situation. “Listen, I'll just get to work, and if this isn't a battle we can win… we go the magic route!”

“Is there a reason we waited until now? It's just past noon, so it's going to be kind of hard to hide a giant bubble flying through the sky.” Daniella petered off as Joe pointed firmly at the Dwarf who was their guide.

“She wouldn't let me.”

Major Cleave swung her axe through the air, glaring at the Ritualist. “You sound like a small child! Are you seriously tattling on me? The rules and regulations put in place by the Dwarven Oligarchy are there for a good reason. Just because you don’t understand what those reasons are does not mean they are not good reasons.”

“Is it so bad to have a backup?” Joe’s voice was filled with exasperation as he waved his hands to the side. “We are on a hill with very little cover, and we’re being actively pursued by an unknown force! If that isn't the time to have a solid backup plan, I don't know when is!”

“Fine!” Major Cleave slammed the butt of her weapon onto the ground while angrily staring him down. “When this goes terribly wrong, don't come crying to me! Start setting it up.”

“I’m already done, as a matter of fact.” Joe chuckled at the frustrated scream that she tried to muffle. He tossed a tile onto the ground, then started setting Mana Batteries in their proper places. “Only thing left to do is charge it, and I know you aren’t a huge fan of the mana signature that gets blasted all over the place when I start using my power. In this case, since they already know where we are, we might as well get it out of the way!”

Static electricity crackled in the air as Joe began weaving huge flows of power from both of the stones as well as his body. The resulting circuit released an increasingly high-pitched whine, setting their teeth on edge as the Elven war-party closed in on them. Daniella gulped and turned to look back at the party leader. “About how much longer do you think before we can hit the button? There's got to be at least three dozen of them, possibly more, if some of them are camouflaged.”

“Or there are only four of them, and they are using an illusion to mess with us.” Cleave growled the words out, flavoring them with excitement. “That's a pretty standard tactic that they use—in fact, it is a tactic we use as well. We just don't use illusions; we send a few people to carry extra torches when we attack at night to make it appear as though we have a force double the size of reality. I think we can take them.”

The Elves, apparently coming within firing range, started sending arrows at them. Unfortunately for Joe’s team, bow range was almost half a mile for the incredible archers. Another cluster of the attackers shifted off to the side and started simultaneously casting a spell. Jaxon watched them curiously and let out a low whistle. “Interesting! So very interesting! I haven't seen Mages working together to cast a single spell since we were back on Midgard. I wonder if that has any special meaning?”

“Abyss! They’re casting a war spell on a small party? That will alert every Legion force in the surrounding fifty miles to their location!” Cleave waved her axe, slapping a duo of arrows from the air and howling into the distance. “Cowards! Come closer so I can kill you!”

“Yeah, see, I don't think that they are going to do that,” Joe muttered as his mana inched down to the halfway point. “I've tried that a few times myself, but they never listen. Infuriating, isn't it? Any idea what kind of spell it is going to be?”

Jaxon rubbed at his chin. “Hmm. Elves are all about natural things, right? Well, the way the wind is blowing, and judging by how rapidly your magic generated static in the area, I'm going to go with the idea that they’re going to augment what nature is already providing by casting some kind of overcharged lightning bolt at us.”

“That was…” Joe paused for a moment and looked at his friend, “surprisingly well reasoned. Good call. If we have an idea of what is going to be coming at us, is there anything that we can do to not get hit by the spell?”

“Not be here when it hits?” Daniella offered with a weak chuckle as the wind changed direction and began gusting toward the Elves that were working together. Even with the air blowing against them, she swore that she could still hear the spell weavers chanting in a rhythmic pattern. “Is that an option? I think that they’re nearly done…!”

“It's up to the Major.” Joe fell back from the ritual, which completed by creating a swirling effect in midair above the anchoring tile on the ground. “She needs to escape first… but if she's not going, I guess we all die here together!”

Ritual Circles has reached Expert V!

Quest update: Student Ritualist. 11/20 Student Ranked rituals activated. -Woa~o~oh! You’re more than halfway there!

“Ahh! Ritual Circles went up a level! Celestials, when was the last time… and now I'm going to have that song stuck in my head for the next week.” Joe gestured at the strange distortion hovering in the air, unable to keep a smile off his face despite the dire situation. “Major, if you’d be so kind, hop in first? This will take us… I think about one hundred miles straight in that direction? We won't overshoot, will we?”

“What do you mean you think it will take us?” Cleave eyed him askance  as she slapped down a few more arrows.

“Woo, they really want you dead.” Jaxon chuckled as an arrow *pinged* off the Major’s breastplate. “They haven't even tried to get me once! Not that they could; I’m amazing at dodging arrows.”

“Spell is reaching completion, everyone! Now or never!” Daniella did her best not to shriek, but she was definitely eyeing the ritual and considering using it while the others made up their minds.

Cleave jumped into the distortion with an infuriated snarl, coming out on the other side surrounded by something resembling a massive soap bubble that was roomy enough for her to move fairly comfortably. A quarter of a second later, she shot into the distance as quick as an Elven arrow could fly. Daniella went next, followed by Jaxon, and finally Joe backflipped through.

As his bubble formed, Joe felt the air around him becoming supercharged, crackling with energy as the Elves in the distance were hidden by an intense flash that put the light of the sun to shame. Thinking quickly, he cast Dark Lightning Strike at his ritual just as his bubble shot away.

The soundless pure black bolt contrasted wildly with the thunderous tribulation of lightning that seemed to crawl through the air over the hilltop, shattering the Atmo-flat—not an atmosphere, as they were on a disk world—with thunder along its entire path. As far as Joe could tell, the lightning was supposed to impact a designated area and spread out, especially useful for striking an army marching toward a fortified location. However, it had been at least partially mitigated by his own energy hitting the ground and acting as a short-circuit.

Dark Lightning Strike has reached Student V! Now that was using your skills in a new and effective manner!

Luck +1!

Luck has increased to a new threshold! Luck is smiling on you!

Golden lightning converged on the hilltop and coated the ground in luminescence too bright to look at… and the entire hill detonated, sending tons of debris into the air as a mushroom cloud. Rocks whizzed by Joe’s bubble, filling him with great concern—these bubbles were built only for speed. Practically any damage at all would cause it to pop like the soap bubble it resembled, and either the destruction would catch him, or the Elves would.

“Looks like my Luck increased just in time.” He laughed wildly as the explosion settled and the lightning crawled along the ground. “Silly lightning! None of us are on the ground. Ha… woo. What?”

In the distance, the lightning wasn’t vanishing. As far as he could tell, it was rearing up and looking around as though it were a living being. “Was that actually an electric eel summoning spell? Huh. Well, either way, I’m happy not to be there right now.”

He relaxed back within his bubble and turned his eye to the horizon. His ritual effect was still going, even though the generating ritual had been destroyed. That wasn’t a bug; it was a feature. The ritual created bubbles around whatever entered it and sent the intruding object flying. The trade-off to the continued effect was the fact that there was no way to aim the bubble, and it only moved in a straight line. If they encountered terrain, monsters, or anything else, they would just crash into it unless they managed to pop their bubble from inside. “I’m just glad we were at a high point, otherwise that would have been a really short trip.”

Now that he thought about it, there were secondary benefits to traveling by bubble,  as well as a few things that he needed to change in the next version. For instance, it was starting to get hot inside the iridescent sphere , because no air was being exchanged from the inside to the outside. Thankfully, their intended trajectory was going to be a fairly short trip, otherwise he would have been concerned about the others suffocating or having to smash their way out. He would be fine, of course, thanks to his Neutrality Aura keeping things fresh.

One of the advantages was that they were neither touching the ground, nor were their scents able to escape the thin membranes. He could only hope that such obfuscation would throw off their pursuers, at least long enough for them to get into an advantageous position. Joe surveyed the terrain that he was soaring over and tried to calculate exactly how fast they were moving. “We are definitely above sprinting speed, even for the Dwarves in the capital. Eh… no real way to figure it out. What can I do for the next few minutes while… right! Knowledge, Alchemical Lore!”

As his mana drained into his skull, Joe felt the faintest pulse in the surrounding world. “Shoot… forgot that was a noticeable thing. I guess I can only hope that the war spell that just went off is making it hard for anyone to sense any small disturbance I just caused.”

Alchemical Lore has reached Apprentice V!

Knowledge has reached Apprentice IX!

“Oh yeah…” Joe’s eyes closed in pleasure as he perused the new information that had been shoved into his skull. “That’s the stuff.”