CC5 ~ 56!

~ 56 ~

Havoc was not having fun. His troops weren’t listening to him. If they needed to die so that Francine would get out here, then they would die. His shouts were so loud that even the war itself could not stifle the echoes that rang through the cavern. “Traitors, every one of you! I… this isn’t going to happen! Not again! I don’t need troops. I told them I didn’t need troops! I warned them… I warned you all!

A silver orb appeared in his hands, and he crushed it with a single squeeze. In an instant, his form was obscured by a dense cloud of silver smoke. The people around him noticed what he was doing and screamed, turning to run immediately. Only the fastest of them, the ones that had been furthest away, managed to escape from the area of effect. The smoke climbed the wall, reaching the parapets after only a few moments.

Screams came from within the smoke, but they were different from the screams of a wounded person. These were more… concerned? Not pained, at least. It was the sound of someone waking from a nightmare only to find that the dream was, in fact, reality. When the smoke vanished, the people that had been caught in it were nowhere to be seen. The wall that had been holding them back was also gone, a massive breach revealing that the first layer of defense had been broken.

All of the stone composing the wall around the breach was slowly vanishing, so slowly that no one but Joe really thought much of it. He was seeing everything from as far away as it was possible to see, but his architectural senses were tingling. That thing that Havoc had used, it was a weapon. He knew it was; he just wasn’t sure what it did. One thing he did know was that whatever he was seeing wasn’t the end of the effect, and that using that hole as a point of entry wasn’t an option. He took a step forward and was slapped with a buff.

You have entered a raid area! All experience gain has been paused, and will only be calculated at the end of the raid, or when leaving the raid area.

The Lord of Slaughter stands with you! -30% sensation of pain. 25% damage dealt with melee weapons. 10% reduced damage taken from all sources.

“At least I know that Havoc is still alive in there.” Joe grumpily charged forward, joining the flowing silver-clad troops as his adopted group of soldiers entered the fray. Almost a kilometer of space had been cleared from the outer wall to the fort, and people and things were fighting for every inch of that space. Charging through wasn’t an option, and Joe didn’t think that trying to be fancy and jumping over people would end well. Certainly not with the sheer number of projectiles in the air.

The stone of the ground was scorched, and the interior of the volcano was actually increasing in temperature from all the plasma that was coming into being. He hurried forward, planning to join at the flanks, but Captain Cleave was suddenly in front of him, shoving him back and pulling her axe into her hands. A twist and a pull, and the stone elementals in front of them fell to rubble. She glanced back at Joe. “Stay behind me.”

“Don’t get hit by my spells,” Joe shot back, starting to get annoyed by his sudden babysitter. He was trying to remember why he accepted a partner; he had forgotten that it was so restricting. One of his orbs popped into his hand, and he tossed it forward. Just before it hit, Cone of Cold came into effect. The orb struck the elemental and left cracks at the point of impact, then the spell washed over the line of elementals; evidently it was extra effective against the stony foes in this high-temperature arena.

The subsequent hits from the Dwarves caused extra damage to the brittle defenders, and their line was broken in the next moment. The elementals that had been caught and surrounded were demolished, and the troops moved forward more than a dozen feet as a whole in under a minute. Captain Cleave nodded approvingly at Joe. “More of that would be exceedingly welcome.”

“Cooldowns.” Joe tried to stay salty, but he was as susceptible to praise as the next person. Checking that no Dwarves would be caught in the area of effect, he let out an Acid Spray to start weakening the hulking defenders.

Just after the liquid settled, Joe was knocked to the side as a dozen automatons pounded through the area and into the rocky defenders. It was a strange dichotomy of the natural world fighting the artificial, but it quickly devolved into a stalemate. The automatons were more directly powerful, and were designed specifically to fight this foe, but the elementals didn’t need an outside power source to keep fighting. The automatons could only last so long before needing a fresh core, but in that time they inflicted massive casualties.

Then they couldn’t move.

Elementals surged forward, slamming into the powering-down metal and reducing it to scrap with heavy blows. Incensed, the elementals turned their stony gazes on the Dwarves and rumbled forward like a landslide. They met a wall of blunt weapons; even the Dwarves that used edged weapons knew better than to attempt cutting these foes. Swords were replaced with rebar-looking weapons—perhaps weighted training blades?

Dwarf after Dwarf was crushed beneath huge arms, feet, or even a defeated elemental falling on top of them. For a few minutes, Joe was worried that they were going to be pushed back by the behemoths, but for every Dwarf that fell, two would enter the fray. He didn’t need to turn around to see that a new tunnel had connected; now they were being reinforced fifty percent faster.

Joe had truly underestimated the resolve the Dwarves had, the fury that they were holding in their hearts for having their ancient memorial site intruded upon. Not a single tear was shed for the fallen. There was only grim resolve and deadly intent. The elementals would move, or be moved. A light strobed within the cavern, and a swath of the Legion stopped attacking; worse, they stopped defending.

Illusion ignored: Fae Beckoning. Eye of Argus grants immunity to illusions!

“Snap out of it, soldiers!” Joe bellowed in the face of an auburn mustached Officer, who was standing there with a dreamy smile showing through the gaps of her helm. There was no reply, so he whacked her with a Ritual Orb. The damage registered, and she backhanded the empty air; making him extra happy that he had hit her at range. That gave him an idea, “Pain does the trick?”

He cast Dark Lightning Strike at an elemental, and the splash damage washed over the nearby Dwarves. They came back to themselves with a vengeance, and Joe hurried to stand near them. His three standard buffs were in place, meaning anyone within five feet of him would slowly heal over time.

The next hour was a grind of healing, attacking, working to keep people out of mental traps, and hardcore survival. Somehow, the pressure on them was waning, even though they were getting closer and closer to the actual fort. At the same time, the illusions were becoming more potent, more frequent, and harder for people to resist.

At one point, Joe noticed that Major Infraction was looking at him—yet another benefit of the Eye of Argus was that it let him know when people were looking at him—when Joe’s head snapped around so that they could lock eyes, she simply nodded at him with resignation in her gaze.

“Like your people always say, Major… success is it’s own reward,” he chuckled to himself. Joe was almost to the wall of the fort when a notification appeared, one that had happened earlier.

Message available! Send a message to friends list contact? Yes / No.

“What?” Joe selected ‘yes’, asking the empty air, “Who is this?”

The message sent, and a moment later a strangled cry of surprise reached his ear. It… it wasn’t human. Joe’s Eye of Argus locked on the position emitting the sound, and he watched as the tip of a reptile’s head vanished, leaving behind unmoving fingertips. The rest of the person was buried under a half-dozen boulders; this was clearly the end of an important battle. It took a moment, but he finally understood what was happening. Joe rushed to the boulders and touched the fingertips, allowing Lay on Hands to flow into the only portion he could touch.

The fingers spasmed with renewed feeling, their owner clearly in fresh pain. Joe turned to search for the nearest Dwarves, screaming for assistance. They ignored him at first, until Captain Cleavage stepped forward and slammed her axe into one of the boulders, shearing it off the pile. A Bro walked over. “Yo, guys, no one can fix that mess. I saw Pokey-Bro get squashed. He’s human; he’ll come back.”

“Get these off him.” Joe’s voice was furiously quiet, and he forced Mend and Lay on Hands into the fingers as fast as he could manage. The Dwarf shrugged and helped the Captain with the rocks. Joe tried to help as well, but even with his high stats, the magical rocks were simply too heavy for him to budge. His eyes flashed with an idea, and he slapped the rocks with a touch of mana.

Item: Elemental Stone (Dead). Aspect-

He ignored the rest, dumping mana into the Ritual of Reduction that was engraved in his very being. The first rock he had touched vanished, then he healed, and allowed his mana to come back. He reduced… and a mangled body was revealed. “Lay on Hands!”

After that heal, the face warped back into a recognizable one with a sickening popping of facial bones. “Jaxon! What the abyss happened?”

The man couldn’t speak; it appeared that he was still unconscious. Joe pumped more healing into him, making sure to do as much as possible so that his friend would awaken to a healthy body. It didn’t take long. As soon as his health passed an unknown threshold, Jaxon came up swinging. It was always concerning to see how the man stood, as if he were being dragged into the air by an outside force.

Then Jaxon calmed, too fast for it to be natural. He stared up at the ceiling, his standard smile becoming creepier over the next few seconds. Joe pulled out his Taglock, jabbing it into the back of his friend’s head. “There ya go, buddy. Now that illusion can’t get you.”

“Joe?” Jaxon slapped at his own head at the sudden pain, more arriving as he poked his new eye. “Ow! What? What illusion? I was just reveling in the feel of my bones being complete once more, and you poked me! Also! It’s very nice to see you again. So… what’s new? Been doing anything fun? Oh, thanks for the eye! I can see so many people smiling at me! Hello!”

“Who are you assigned to, Jaxon?” Joe tried to get the man to focus, which was hard, since it wasn’t Joe’s strong suit either.

Jaxon waved at the pile of rocks, “Oh, his day is off to a rocky start. I told him he needed to be boulder, and he took it literally! When I got over here, he was destroyed, and I had to charge those earth elementals with aggregated assault.”

“Wind spirits,” The Captain stated, getting a strange look from both of the humans.

“Oh. Right. The whole ‘call them by their weakness’ thing.” Jaxon stepped forward and tried to shake her hand. “Hi, I’m Jaxon. I was in Joe’s party on Midgard, and I’ll fight you if you took my spot on his team.”

“I’m his escort, not a party member. Though, I am thinking that I might want the chance to prove my skills and travel with him,” the Dwarf admitted cheerfully, limbering up with a swing of her axe.

“Joe!” Jaxon turned scandalized eyes on his party leader. “An escort? Now?”

“Not like that.” Joe shut him down as fast as possible. He turned and started toward the slowly disintegrating walls. “Both of you follow me. There’re Elves to boot out of the Shoe.”