FMH ~ 49!

Luke was yanked to the ground as two people on horses ran past him while dragging a net. He started skidding as they dragged him, but he was released in an instant as the horses slammed into a razor-sharp stone spike each. They collapsed forward, and Luke was sent flying as if he had been in a slingshot instead of a net. He flipped in the air, Innate Balance coming to the rescue and allowing him to be prepared for the new threat as he landed on his feet.

The people didn’t get off the horses after they were impaled, and that was when Luke realized that they were not separate creatures. “What in the-”

“Down!” The order came from Taylor, but Luke didn’t duck. That wasn't in his nature. Instead, he struck out at the threat, using his left hand to cleave another of the horse-creatures in half. The body split around his mana-made sword, the momentum of the beast causing Luke to be soaked in viscera.

“Luke, these are called ‘Centaurs’.” Zed’s cheerful voice appeared in Luke’s ear as he tackled another man-horse to the ground and punched it wildly. “It appears we found the theme of the invading world. They are all chimeras!”

“No idea what that means, Zed. Tell me.” Luke threw the horse half of his opponent at another charging group. The loss of morale was visible, but he could see them steel themselves for their attack.

“Sure thing, sugar-booger!” Zed stopped playing around when he heard the dark threats Luke began muttering in reply to his gentle teasing. “Chimeras are creatures that are essentially hybrids. They have pieces of at least two things grafted together. Centaurs are pretty well-known, obviously horse and man. The Scuttlers make sense as well now, I’m thinking crab and man at the minimum.”

“How does this help us?” Luke demanded as he took a blow across the head.

Simple Metal Helmet. Armor: 4/17.5

“Well, it lets us know that they will have both the strengths and the weaknesses of the types of creature they are made of. Horse and man? Likely afraid of snakes? Got any snakes with you?” Zed trailed off as he tried to think of anything actually helpful. “Well… the less ‘creature’ there is, typically the more intelligence there is. Centaurs are smart enough to work in groups and use tools, but they are too much horse to be able to create a real civilization as we know it.”

“The point, Bard!” Luke Bum Rushed at another small herd, taking two to the ground upon impact. The Centaurs whinnied at a frequency that would have caused damage in a weaker person, so Luke punched them in the face to cut off their noise. Noses and facial bones shattered, the remaining sounds were garbled and wet.

“The point is that their commanders, the intelligent threats, will be mostly Humanoid. The more person-like they are, the more effort you should put into killing them as fast as possible.”

Luke liked that explanation. “Good. That was actually useful. Tell me more things like that.”

Zed’s next words were also informative, though in a different way. “There’s two herds closing in on you from either side! They have lances, you need to move away from there!”

“I’m not afraid of a horse with a silly stick.” Luke coldly cut off the incoming warnings. “Tell me more about things I should be on the lookout for.”

“The lances, look out for those!” Zed’s fear caused Luke to slap a Scuttler out of the way so he could judge with his own eyes how dangerous this opponent was. He felt more than even heard the thundering hooves, and his eyes widened fractionally when he saw that the lances glowed enough to be enchanted. While the Centaurs were still a long way away from him, dozens of lances discharged a figurative river of lightning at him.

“Abyss.”

Armor break! Simple Metal Helm, Simple Metal Pauldron, Metal Gauntlet (Stone Ape), Simple Metal Cuirass, Simple Metal Greaves, and Ornate Leather Boots have reached armor: 0.

Mana pool expended! 80% mana must be regained in order to reactivate the broken armor!

Health: 92/250 (Paralyzed, 4 seconds remaining.)

Luke read all of the messages as he stared at the sky. He slowly fell flat on his back. He couldn’t move, and his clothes were on fire. He had a high enough resistance that the weak flames didn’t really damage his skin, but it was still uncomfortable to feel his clothing carbonize. The thundering hooves got closer, but another sound drowned them out as Taylor tore open a Fissure in front to the leading herd. Their screams cut off as they fell, but only because the ground slammed together again with a ringing *shriek* of tortured stone.

Though he was feeling something pulling him, Luke only managed to wriggle. Taylor’s voice stopped even that, “Knock that off, I can barely manage to haul you and fight as it is!”

“No… the lances.” Luke weakly pushed the words from his charred throat.

“Yeah, you should have listened. There is a reason we need to have team cohesion. Listen when someone tells you to watch out!” Taylor’s voice went on deaf ears as the paralysis wore off of Luke. “Learn to duck-”

“No, the lances. I want them.” Luke forced himself up and took a step toward the fallen centaurs.

“They are buried right now; you’d need to attack that other herd in order to get even a few lances.” Taylor grabbed him as Luke took a shaky step toward the regrouping centaurs. “That wasn’t an invitation. Enough. You’re injured and naked, fall back for now. We need a new plan.”

“What?” Zed’s faux-shocked voice echoed in their ears. “You aren’t going to just keep attacking them directly? Your face is still intact, why not hit them with that? Abyss, go bite them to death!”

“You’re not helpful.” Taylor calmly yet firmly pushed Luke back, knowing that if he didn’t want to go, there was no physical way to make him do it. Luckily, in his current addled state, he was more receptive to listening to what she was saying. “Luke, we need to regroup.”

“Can you just… throw me? Get me right in the center of that Scar. I take out the leaders, you mop up the scattering army by dropping the mountain on them.” Luke’s voice was firm, though slightly slurred. The blood running down his forehead made Taylor think that he might have a concussion.

“How does your head feel?” They were moving steadily toward the fallback point that Andre had made, though Taylor needed to blast their way through a few times.

“Is fine.” He punched a Scuttler, and luckily his weapons were still available; else he would have broken his hand. “Only took… twenty hits on the head so far? I was fine until the lightning.”

Sparks started to flash on Luke’s body, increasing in intensity until they became sparkles, then planes of mana began to form. After a long moment, the same thing started happening all over his body, and Taylor realized that it was his armor reforming. “Are you doing that?”

“Huh? Oh. No.” Luke looked at his arms as the sparkles faded and the shifting mana once more became invisible. “When the armor breaks, it needs to reform. Whatever mana was in it was locked until the full amount invested is regenerated. Then it just stays that way unless I shift it again.”

“It’s a passive ability?” Taylor let the fact that she was impressed seep through her voice, working to keep Luke distracted and amiable. There was far too high of a chance that he would charge back into the fight if she didn’t.

“Mostly. There are active components to it as well. Oh.” Luke’s looked into the distance, a clear indication that he was looking at a notification. “It hit level four.”

Taylor tried to control her eye twitch. Luke had gained well over a thousand Potentia in under thirty minutes? She checked her own notifications, finding that her portion had been closer to seven hundred, and most of that was due to the sheer differences in monster types that she had killed before. New always meant more Potentia. “That’s great! Big changes between levels?”

“Literally nothing that I can clearly see. Just a way to pass time until the next tier.” Luke took a deep breath, feeling his mana reserves top off at the same time. “Welp, time to go do some killin’.”

“Abyss, hold on, will you?” Taylor grabbed him, then went cold at the look he gave her hand. She knew in that instant that she had nearly died, and only the fact that Luke had already been straining against his instincts so they could talk mid-battle saved her life. “I’m… sorry, that was a bad idea.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to launch you at the Scar. We’re at the fringes of the horde, and still can’t easily kill everything. I mean, because of the swarm tactics. Obviously, you can punch things to death. However, your idea of dropping the mountain on them was a good idea. Let’s go talk to Andre and figure out how and where we could cause a landslide.” Her idea was sound, so Luke nodded and entered the strange, still oasis that had no place in this bloody battlefield.

“Welcome back! Can you please let me down now? I need to pee.” Zed called from his tree-tall perch.

“I’ll make you an arrow slit.” Taylor’s calm reply made Zed groan. “Just keep watch. If something too strong comes, we need to be prepared. How are you doing, Andre?”

“Good.” Andre opened his brilliant green eyes and stood, shaking off the vines that were clinging to him. “It is a fine balance, teaching plants to kill without directing them to do so at my will. It’s an interesting experiment though!”

“Convincing other things to do the work for you. That’s an impressive way to get around the requirement of not killing directly.” Luke plopped to the ground with a sigh, basking in the calm atmosphere. “Are you sure you aren’t a Bard?”

“Was…” Andre looked at Luke with clear excitement, “was that a joke?”

“He has a concussion.” It pained Taylor to see Andre slump at the explanation. They had once been best friends, and now none of them really knew each other. Though the change was the clearest with the Murderhobo, all of them had spent a lifetime apart. “Luke had a good idea; I want to create a landslide and use the distraction to get to the Scar. Can you help me find the best place to create a Fissure, and shear the wall? The higher the better.”

Andre became introspective, hesitating before responding. “How much time do we have?”

Thunder filled the area as a herd of lightning lances discharged into the trees around them. Taylor watched as vines whipped out and put out the fires that had been started as a result.

“Work fast?”