FMH ~ 50!

“Here we go.” Zed was watching the walls of the pass intently. A thin layer of moss had coated it as far as his eye could see, and over time most had fallen off except in a few areas where large green ‘X’s showed what Andre had hoped were stress points. Taylor was heading to the largest of them even now, using her stealthy ways to cross the distance. 

Since she needed fairly close proximity, and the mana she devoted to the process would light her up like a beacon, Luke had happily offered himself as a distraction. The Murderhobo had somehow convinced Andre to use his vines to catapult him at the centaur herd that was waiting for them, and they had timed the release of the hobo with the next burst of electricity. While the monsters were distracted by the light and sound of their thunder lances discharging, Luke had activated Bum Rush, sprinting forward.

Just before he broke through the brush, the vines had wrapped around his waist and arms, lifting and sending him in a single enormous leap over the heads of the centaurs and into their midst. A wild-eyed Murderhobo had fallen from the sky and wrapped himself around the torso of a centaur before headbutting it. His mana armor flared, preventing him from hurting himself, and Zed had gotten a far-off thumbs up. “Thanks for the reminder that I can use every part of my body in combat!”

Though he hadn't been serious when he told Luke to attack with his face, in fact he had been insulting the concussed man, Zed felt flattered that the idea was working out. Still, Zed hadn’t been able to keep his eyes on the rest of the battle. Luke was brutal, and his attacks left twisted and terrible remains. Among the unarmored foes, there were very few that could survive more than a single hit, and there were only so many times Zed could watch a centaur get split into both a horse corpse and a man corpse before he got ill.

So, Zed turned his eyes once more to the bright green ‘X’ on the side of the mountain pass. His grip on a vine Andre had supplied was tight, and he was near to panicking. As soon as Taylor reached out to him, he needed to tell the others to start running. He also needed to leave the safety of both the stone column he was on and the oasis that Andre had created. Zed, a Bard that had barely higher characteristics than a standard human, was going to need to run through monster-infested territory and hope that the plane-walking, super-powered, incredibly violent members of his team remembered to wait for him and keep him alive.

“Well… at least I’ll get a good story out of it.” Zed checked his Potentia gains, and noted happily that he had already gained over two hundred since Luke had started fighting again. Through trial and error, Zed had found that the key to getting large chunks of exp was to point out things that combatants would otherwise miss, or needed to hear. Otherwise, he got nothing. Chatter didn’t do anything, and inane conversation had actually slowed the flow of Potentia. He was glad he had tested the mechanics of the exp splitting his new Mastery allowed, but really wanted it spelled out better. 

Zed was so lost in his thoughts that he almost missed Taylor whispering to him across the distance. “Zed, I hope you can still hear me. I’m starting. You need to go now.”

He sent a hasty affirmative, then told the others and jumped. Zed whimpered as the ground started approaching far too fast… then the vine went taut. He swung out like a jungle man, at a lower speed than Luke had managed; though it didn’t feel like it. Zed was moving toward a large thicket of thorns, but the vine twitched and he was sent sailing toward… “What in the abyss!”

A massive green bear was staring at him! He was getting closer; it opened his mouth. Zed squeezed his eyes closed, then felt a soft *thump*. Andre’s chuckle made Zed’s eyes crack open, and he froze as he realized that he was sitting on the bear. Andre spoke out, “Zed, meet Arthur. He has reluctantly allowed you to ride upon his majestic back. Please make sure to properly thank him later.”

“Andre there is a bear.” Zed squeaked out in a high-pitched jumble of words. Then his mind caught up to the conversation, and he looked at the bear below him. “He’s green… and I can see through him.”

“He’s my bound Cave Bear.” Andre explained simply as the bear started to lumber out of the area. “He is not actually physically present; this is a mana-clone of him. If he came here personally, he would be stronger, but could also be killed permanently. He was already hesitant to leave The Grove, and the low mana density on our world gave him the final push to decide against staying on this world when I returned.”

“Why is this the first I’ve seen him?” Zed managed to say the words in a normal register.

“He came through the portal for a few seconds when Archmage Don brought me back, but you must have been travelling still at that point. Short answer: he takes a lot of mana to summon. Now, there is no maintenance cost, but his mind is here even if his body is back home. Since there is a time difference, that means if he is here for an hour, his body is asleep for six. The limit is clearly shown here; what if he is attacked while I need him here? He just… dies; fully unable to protect himself.”

“Ah.” Zed nodded, pressing himself close to the bear as they broke through the brush and his terrifying mount shot forward. “I can… see why this is a rare occurrence.”

“Yup, hold on, Arthur wants to move faster than just walking.” Andre was having no issue keeping up with the bear-relling beast, yet they were moving far too fast for Zed’s comfort. “Luke, we’re going!”

Luke joined them in a flash, a stack of lances held under each arm and a satisfied expression on his face. “Got what I needed. Where’s the-”

*Rumble*.

“Oh, there it is.” A flash of purple in the distance caught their attention, a ring that turned into a pillar of light. It looked like a star had touched down on the pass, and the effect was similar. Thousands of tons of rock tipped and fell, almost in slow motion. The ground began shaking, and the subsequent earthquake simply became more and more powerful over the next few minutes. 

The three of them were sprinting toward the still-tumbling scree, very pleased that they were at the highest point of the pass. The rock followed the slope, and a vast multitude of chimeras were caught under the stony death. Zed’s head jolted up, and his eyes followed a particular rock that seemed to be falling at a different angle. “Luke! Andre! Taylor is there, she just went unconscious!”

Luke looked up, then down at his lances, then up at the falling stone that had a smidge of Taylor’s white robe showing on it. “Well, we had a good run together.”

“Save her, you cheese wheel!” Zed felt ashamed that his honed mind had only been able to come up with that very lacking insult.

“Throw me!” Andre demanded instantly as he charged at Luke. The Murderhobo prepared himself, dropping the lances. “At Taylor, Luke!”

Realization appeared, and Luke shifted positions quickly; then caught the man and hurled him even as the Druid jumped. The wolf fur-robed Druid shot like an arrow at the falling rock, vines exploding away from him and into a massive spider web as he got close. Taylor was scooped off the rock almost gently, and the ‘web’ closed around them and rolled into a ball that cushioned their fall as they hit the ground.

Arthur, Zed, Luke, and Luke’s re-collected lances were sprinting toward the ball before it had reached the ground. Taylor came flying out of the vines, though a few of them caught Arthur and tied her to his back like a bedroll. The remaining vines once more wrapped around Andre’s body and he once more appeared to be dressed only in a simple fur-and-flower robe. His Livingwood Staff flipped off the bear, and Andre caught it just in time to swing it up and around into a centaur’s knee. 

As the staff swung, a multitude of spores were released from small sachets connected to it. The seeds burst into bloom, and everything they landed on started to scream as roots twisted into them and began releasing capsaicin directly into the impacted areas. “Go, run, run!”

Luke was starting to lag behind slightly, the unwieldy lances forcing longer turns and making leapfrogging over the unstable and still-settling rocks more difficult. Andre glared at him as he joined the others on Arthur. “Drop those! I’ll make the wood in them walk the weapons to a safe spot!”

There was a long moment of hesitation, but then the lances were tossed. They started inching like worms toward a space between some rocks, and Luke felt satisfied that this teammate hadn’t yet betrayed him. The Scar was looming closer and closer, but the monsters were regrouping around it. Some were walking through the portal, and Luke knew that there would be no such thing as the ‘element of surprise’ when they got close to it.

What he wasn't counting on was the time differential. Creatures began pouring out of the scar, far more than should have been possible. They were coming so fast that some were getting crushed by the sheer numbers popping out, unable to get away. With a quarter mile to go, and thousands of monsters between them and their goal, Luke started to get uneasy.

“Something is wrong.” His voice demanded attention from the others. “They aren’t attacking. They… they aren’t’ defending either. Something has changed. I don't understand this, but the mana is swelling around the Scar. We need to wake Taylor up.”

The portal pulsed, and even as far away as they were… the creeping certainty of death washed over them.