Chapter 199: Drake Wing

A/N: Happy New Year!
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Cut hard, cut fast, cut to the bone.

- Kir’mogan, Troll Champion of Aman Rak.

Aliandra

“That seemed fast,” Malika said, as Ali began deconstructing the twin Living Flames in the Landing.

“I think that’s mostly because you and Calen leveled up a lot,” Ali answered, shifting uncomfortably in the oppressive heat. It had indeed been the fastest they had killed the cloned elemental boss.

Abyssal Stalkers were expensive, reserving as much mana as a Hobgoblin and Ali hadn’t had the opportunity to put them through their paces. She had made one at the start, intending to give it a real trial on the early caverns and tunnels of the mine – to make a decision without crippling her mana in the meantime, but before the first passage was clear, she had summoned a second one and dispensed with all her Kobold rogues.

There was no comparison.

With just two Abyssal Stalkers, the Flame Broodmother had fallen in less than half the time, her demonic spiders tearing it to pieces with their insane bonuses to blood magic damage. Even against these Living Flames, the Abyssal Stalkers dealt out a respectable amount of damage – but it was in resilience that they truly shone. At twice the level of the Kobolds, and with better attribute progression, they had far more health and armor and incomparably better defensive abilities.

“Probably, but you leveled too, and your spiders are very strong,” Malika said, echoing her thoughts and tapping the carapace of the nearest one before it faded away to invisibility.

“I like them,” Ali said, smiling as she let Malika collect the essences.

“Ok, let’s see if Morwynne can go three for three,” Malika said, retrieving a strange new potion swirling in an oversized vial. While still blue, there danced within it a flame of pitch black. How the hellfire remained unquenched, suspended in a liquid that was a combination of ice and water affinity, Ali had no clue. But somehow the resourceful Gnomish alchemist had created it.

“Skipping the demon wing, right?” Calen said, eyeing the ominous middle door.

“Yes,” Ali said, firmly. In order to finish the dungeon off, they would eventually need to return to that wing, but only after they were far stronger – and with a solid plan for dealing with the rift. “The priority is finding the Forge if it’s still there, and…” she trailed off. Her friends understood. They needed to get to the end of the dungeon to learn if this was another tool of the Lich.

“Opening it,” Malika said. She tipped the vial and spilled a tiny droplet of the liquid onto the Rune of Hellfire, and the mana sustaining the flame was instantly drawn into it, freezing the flame in place with a loud crackling noise. Stone grated on stone as Mato braced his armored shoulder against the unlocked door and shoved, revealing a well-constructed passageway leading to unnaturally smooth and unworn stone stairs descending into the depths.

“We’re in the right place. This is the way to the Forge,” Ali said, instantly recognizing the expertly crafted stonework. Supposedly a natural source of unusually potent fire mana had been discovered down here in the mines, many years before she had been born – and rather than waste it on a raw excavation, the dwarven smiths and stonemasons had created the Forge down here in the remnants of the ancient, depleted initial excavations of the mine.

“Be on your guard,” Calen said, taking the steps first.

Ali summoned a barrier to cast a golden accent against the light from Calen’s motes, allowing her to pick out the details of the stonework as she floated along behind her friends. The clicking and clinking of footfalls, steel weapons, and claws on stone echoed off the dusty old passage that could not have seen traffic in thousands of years.

The stairs meandered ever downward, adorned with unlit sconces bolted to the walls in precisely even-spaced alcoves. Even the buttresses supporting the heavy weight of the rock overhead had been finely crafted and would hardly look out of place in a cathedral. Eventually, they approached a sculpted granite archway and emerged into a sizeable open chamber. The heavy raw rock of the roof was held up by many marble pillars and arching stone buttresses but, save for the giant monster of red gleaming scale and sharp fangs guarding the far doorway, the chamber remained empty.

Armored Drake – Dragon – Level 76 (Fire)

“Shit, that looks tough,” Malika murmured.

“Drake, level seventy-six,” Calen said.

“Fire,” Ali added for Malika’s benefit, as if there could be any doubt. The drake looked every inch a predator, its reptilian head scanning back and forth, trails of black smoke curling up from its nostrils and out between its large fangs. It had brutal-looking spikes along the crest of its head, down its spine, and all the way to the end of its thick tail – and its body was armored by heavy gleaming red scales. Gleaming talons cracked sharply on the rock as it prowled back and forth.

“Flightless,” Calen added, glancing at Mato.

A flightless dragon, Ali thought, carefully studying the monster with every sense at her disposal. It was fully as large and heavy as one of her Forest Guardians, its body broad and squat, contrasting strongly with the pictures of the sleeker and more streamlined winged dragons and wyverns she had seen in her monster compendium, presumably trading wings for bulk and armor.

“Duh, no wings,” Mato joked. “Want me to tank it facing the wall?”

“Yes, and watch out for that tail, it looks dangerous,” Malika added.

Ali smiled softly. Her Abyssal Stalkers had caught the scent of its blood.

Mato

Mato twisted and warped into the familiar shape of his Bear Form, trickling his mana into both his armor and his new ring, allowing them to be included in his transformation magic. Come on, big boy, he thought, eyeing the extremely dangerous-looking drake. Let’s see what you’ve got.

“We’re ready,” Calen said, his bow out and nocked. His eyes had that faraway look he got whenever he was scouting or shooting and, although he didn’t show it, his friend’s heart sounded a little faster than usual, betraying a little nervousness or excitement.

Mato measured the distance to the giant Armored Drake, noting the subtle ripples and shimmers of heat rising from the red scales. He turned his head, catching sight of Ali’s Acolytes standing ready and in range. Malika stood beside him, balanced on the balls of her feet, her body poised and ready. She always looks ready.

He huffed and tossed his head – the closest he could get to a verbal acknowledgement. An indication that he was about to start that wouldn’t alert the entire room with his roaring. All around him, his friends and Ali’s minions tensed in preparation.

Mato Charged, stamina burning through his body in an avalanche of power as it accelerated his normal four-pawed loping gait to an impossible speed. He tore across the hard dusty stone like a bolt fired from a crossbow. An almost two-thousand-pound bolt of muscle, fur, and glinting heavy plate armor crashed into the side of the heavier and bulkier Armored Drake – like running headlong into a wall. Tossing his head side-to-side, he shook off the stunning reverberation of the impact like shedding water from his fur.

He roared, opening battle with his stamina-powered Challenging Roar, taunting the drake and lowering its strength a little. He lashed out but his claws bounced off the scales with a ringing clang. Only the nature damage of his Brutal Restoration and the augmented light magic flashes from Calen’s support magic penetrating the dense natural armor that was harder than enchanted steel plate.

He’s tougher than the bone elementals, Mato grimaced as the drake wheeled about to face him, talons scraping long gashes in the stone beneath their feet.

“Hold!” Calen called out.

Mato’s instincts screamed with the premonition of extreme danger and everything around him slowed except for the blurring cleave of the drake’s talons. He had barely enough time to block as the near-invisible clawed strike accelerated through his guard. The wicked, gleaming talons, each more than a foot in length, cleaved across his shoulder, screeching against armor, ripping through muscle and dense hide. But the strike was backed by incredible raw power. It barely slowed as it sliced across his chest, leaving deep parallel gashes through his hide and across the bands of his heavy plate armor. The claws continued, tearing a huge bloody gouge through the rock wall on the follow-through. Mato staggered backward, driven into the wall by the unrestrained might and ferocity of the devastating strike, his blood splashing across the gleaming red scales, where it sizzled and burned on contact with the monster’s intense internal heat.

Shit! My health…

“Heals!” Ali screamed in the background.

He was grateful he had had the chance to practice his new Survival Instinct with Brena. Having a feel for the acceleration of his reflexes had given him just enough of an edge to block the Cleave. He shuddered to think of what might have happened if he’d failed to block it and taken critical damage. The battle might have been over, he thought soberly. In one strike, he had taken the measure of his opponent and knew he was the weaker fighter. By a large margin.

But I’m not alone.

Malika’s body blurred toward him, moving almost as fast as the drake, and her magic seared through his body, forcing his wounds to grow closed in moments.

And I have this. He summoned a Stonecap Armor potion to his mouth and bit down hard. When he had received his shiny new guild ring, Mato had been overjoyed to have more attribute enchantments available to him in his Bear Form but the first thing Calen had asked was if that meant Mato could use his storage enchantment in combat. It was Morwynne who had figured out how to use treated gourds instead of vials – gourds that he could bite.

It crunched, spraying thick oily liquid across his tongue. It tasted like eating sand. The gritty concoction went down because he forced it, and immediately its magic swirled through his body, condensing in his hide. Normally supple and strong, it hardened dramatically, adding weight and toughness, and moderately restricting his ability to move. But his tanking style did not require dexterity.

You have gained Stonecap Armor
A dark brown gritty earth affinity potion made from Stonecap Mushrooms. It tastes like dirt, but greatly increases Armor.
+15% to Armor
-5% to Movement Speed
-5% to Dexterity
Created by Morwynne Fizzlebang – “Don’t stub your toes!”
Potion – Duration: 2 minutes.

Survival Instinct triggered his danger sense again, this time stronger than the first. The giant fanged dragon-maw opened wide. A bone-shaking roar heralded a sizzling blast of dragonfire. Flame filled Mato’s vision while he still had a face, tearing through his fur and hide like a wildfire ravenously consuming dry grass.

He didn’t hesitate, instantly using Last Stand to boost his health and armor. He could sense Malika standing beside him in the raging torrent of flame. Swirling eddies roiled in her wake and he instinctively reached out to save her with his Sanctuary, but she was not taking any damage. She just stood there pouring her healing magic into his burning body while dodging the conflagration.

That skill isn’t fair. He knew she could dodge magic, and he knew that it was only a chance and not a certainty, but he was jealous of her standing there healing him in the dragonfire, unbothered by the flames that were tearing him apart. She must have taken a huge risk remaining in harm’s way to ensure he survived the dangerous and chaotic moments at the beginning of the fight.

Fewer than a handful of seconds had passed, and already he had blown his most powerful defensive skill and survived two of the deadliest attacks he had ever faced. He could hear the frantic chirping of the Kobold Acolytes as they finally caught up to the action, loading him up with holy magic and healing. Malika stepped away as the fire began to fade.

Time to get to work. Using instinct and memory, he struck without waiting for his eyes to be restored. Aching pain coursed through him as he spent health to power Bestial Combat, but with the amount of healing they had loaded up on him, it would be recovered quickly. Spending mana and stamina, he added Brutal Restoration, creating his most powerful Swipe, simultaneously enhanced by both his support skills. This time, when his claws struck, he felt them ripping and tearing through the heavily armored scales and even sending some flying. And with it came the welcome rejuvenating feel of his restoration magic beginning to pulse through him, powered by the sheer amount of damage his strike had inflicted on the angry dragon before him.

“Go,” Calen called out, clearly having seen him land the big hit on the drake and decided that the monster was sufficiently controlled to begin the attack. The Hobgoblins rushed in as a hail of spells and arrows filled the air. Two large, indistinct spider-like shapes materialized from thin air behind the drake, slashing with vicious slicing strikes that set the drake to bellowing in pain.

For a moment, the drake turned toward the spider demon which had just landed a critical damage Ambush, but Mato wasn’t about to allow Ali’s minion to pull the drake from him. In the brief window of opportunity, his Battlemaster triggered, and he spent health and mana aggressively to power his retaliatory strike. His paw felt light with the thrilling power of his skill accelerating it to near instantaneous speed, but it landed with inexorable weight, ripping through armored scales like paper. The thick gnarled roots creaked and groaned as they twisted themselves around the drake’s feet, slowly blackening as his magic lost the battle against its intense heat. But that didn’t matter, the drake whirled back to face him, and he began trading blows with it, keeping a sharp focus on his danger senses while watching for the dragon-fire breath or the almighty Cleave attack.

The temporary health and armor from Last Stand wore off, and moments later his danger sense warned him of the incoming strike. He blocked the near-instantaneous cleaving talon strike but even blocked, the power of the attack smashed him up into the rocky wall behind him in a shower of blood and shattered stone. His health surged back up in steps as the Kobolds reacted to the damage, landing their biggest heals on him as he recovered his stance. He dropped down, ducking under snapping fangs, and retaliated with another armor-piercing strike, ensuring that the drake’s armor was weakened for the rest of the group to do damage. The Hobgoblins were certainly taking advantage of his skill, and the demonic spiders even more with high-speed flurries of attacks that flickered and glinted, spraying drake-blood into the air as a fine mist.

He was quickly getting used to the flow of battle with his new enhanced reflexes. He blocked another cleaving talon strike, taking a savage bite to his left shoulder, barely able to move his head out of the way in time. The fangs sunk deep into his hide, puncturing his armor with raw strength and power. His counterstrike broke the drake’s bite by tearing the fangs from his shoulder along with a sizeable chunk of armor and flesh. He ignored the pain, allowing the abundance of healing magic on him to rapidly restore his wildly oscillating health.

He roared, using Challenging Roar more to keep the drake’s strength debuffed than to taunt it, and, as if in response, one of the Hobgoblins shouted in concert with him, the booming voice of her skill filling him with power. That’s more like it!

He felt the breath attack coming, and before the flame even struck, quickly scanned the fight so that he would know where everything was when he lost his ability to see and braced himself up against the wall. The roaring flame washed over him, tearing into his face and body. He blocked another claw attack purely on Survival Instinct as the world faded from red to black. As the roar of flame faded and his sight was restored, he could feel the heat radiating from the red-hot rock behind him. Dragon-fire was insanely hot, and it easily outclassed the hellfire of the wargs in terms of how much of his health it burned away, but he would still take the dragon’s breath over the hellfire, simply because the pain was less, and the flames did not linger forever.

Suddenly, one of the spiders landed a whistling strike and the drake stumbled. It was only for a moment, but in that instant, Battlemaster triggered again. Oh, this is fantastic! he thought, taking full advantage of the opportunity to land his biggest hit yet.

Mato shifted to the side, moving out of the partially melted rock. It wasn’t much extra damage, but with the sheer volatility of his health, any damage saved was likely to be worth it. He settled in for the long haul, grateful for his regeneration and Battle Trance as he focused on learning how to defend himself against his magnificent opponent. Claws swiped and talons Cleaved in a dizzying conversation of violence and strength. When the chime finally rang out in his mind, Mato found himself filled with an overwhelming sense of triumph – but, laced through the emotion was a distinct undercurrent of disappointment that it was over.

Your group has defeated Armored Drake – Dragon – Level 76

Swipe has reached level 36.
Survival Instinct has reached level 27.
Last Stand has reached level 8.

Aliandra

It was the strangest sensation; she could smell weakness in the drake. Ali still hadn’t gotten used to the stench of blood from the exquisitely sensitive Scent of Blood skill her Abyssal Stalkers had, but the more she studied her demonic assassin spiders, the more impressed she became.

Immersed in the senses of her spiders, she fought as one of them – aware of the pulsing of dragon blood in the web of arteries and veins below the dense nearly impenetrable scales, the ebb and flow fueling the enormous muscles. With her enhanced senses, she felt the speed and impact of her forelegs slicing with precision through the rents and tears in the armor left by Mato’s skills. She was already extraordinarily familiar with her Kobold rogues, and their methods of fighting, and although entirely different in anatomy, she found her understanding of their fighting techniques surprisingly transferrable.

The monstrous Armored Drake was too strong for even demonic web to have much effect on it and had so much endurance that Blood Shock seldom had a chance to stun – and even then, only for the briefest of moments. But Mato was quick enough to take advantage of even the tiniest opening. Her strikes left wounds that bled continually, and she could even smell how much damage blood shock was adding to every mutilate. The more it bled, the better she could smell weaknesses.

“Those spiders are good,” Calen said. “Very good.”

“Oh yes,” Ali agreed, refreshing her precautionary barriers against the dragon fire. In the mid-forties, they were by far her highest damage minion. In fact, the Abyssal Stalkers might give Malika, or even Calen, a run for their money in that department – especially with Mato’s Battle Trance augmenting their stamina regeneration via his Sanctuary aura.

She had misjudged the spiders’ damage at the beginning of the fight, though, allowing them to use Ambush, Critical Bleed, Blood Shock, and Mutilate simultaneously. One of the spiders had done so much critical damage that it had pulled the drake’s attention off Mato for a moment. But his retaliation had been enough to regain control, and she fortunately hadn’t lost her minion or disrupted the strategy.

Your group has defeated Armored Drake – Dragon – Level 76 (Fire)

Martial Insight has reached level 40.
Empowered Summoner has reached level 32.

“Not bad,” Malika said when the drake finally hit the ground with a shuddering crash.

“Calen, do you want to skin this?” Ali asked, lowering herself to the stone floor near the drake, taking care not to step on the still-scorching stone melted by the dragonfire. It would make a gorgeous minion, but the scales were something else. A piece of armor made from the tough dragon scales would be extraordinary – provided they could find a leatherworker of sufficient skill to work it.

“I do,” Calen answered, studying the corpse. “But you have a dragon imprint, I think the priority should be your minions.”

“I won’t be able to use a fire drake in here, though,” Ali noted, still frustrated that none of the monsters she had learned through the entire Emberforge Mines had been of any help to them. In fact, the only one she had found useful had come from beyond the mines in the abyssal realm.

Well, that’s not quite true, she corrected herself looking at the tiny imp that hopped and scampered around poking at the corpse of the drake. Although the juxtaposition of the demonic dungeon just through the rift and the presence of fire demons in the mines could not have been a coincidence – chances were that the Emberforge Mines had learned the imps and wargs from the Demon Hunter chamber. Still, the drake was magnificent, and she wished at least some of the dungeon would not be immune to fire.

“We’re not going to be stuck in here forever,” Calen continued, concluding the discussion. “And when we go somewhere else, you will be able to use them. Besides you only need the first three or so anyway – there will be more in the next chamber, I’ll bet.”

He was probably right, there would be more than enough to go around. Ali lowered herself down to the drake and placed her hand on a scale. It was warm and hard as steel, still glowing slightly in her mana sight. She had to admit, she wouldn’t mind having dragon-scale armor for her Hobgoblins. She channeled her deconstruction, turning the giant drake’s corpse into an explosion of mana that sizzled and evaporated in the heat of the dungeon.

“Hey, Ali, you might want to see this,” Calen said, his voice coming from the giant stone arch exit that had been guarded by the drake. He had of course gone exploring while she was busy deconstructing the monstrous corpse.

She flew over, curious to see what he had found, but as she reached the archway she stopped, stunned by the view. Falling away from their high vantage point were a series of massive stone terraces, hewn straight from the raw rock, and a forest of stone pillars rose to the rough-hewn roof far above, supporting the weight with mighty arched buttresses, a feat of stonework engineering that staggered her mind with its vast scope. The cavern itself clearly followed the irregular shape of the original mine, but it had been reformed by the stonemasons of ages past. Down the center flowed a large river of bubbling lava, spanned by several arched granite bridges.

Instead of supply carts, miners, and merchants, the entire space was dotted with roaming monsters of fire and scales, each group looking deadlier than the last – and in the shimmering air above, flame wisps cavorted and sizzled as they darted among the pillars reveling in the abundant fire mana.

“What are those?” she asked, pointing at the nearest group which was still distant enough that she was unable to identify the pillars of yellow-white flame that flanked another drake.

“Shard of Inferno,” Calen answered. “Same as the ones the Inferno summoned during the fight.”

“That looks difficult,” she said. The drake by itself had already been a huge challenge, and now they were expected to battle it in the aura of flame emitted by the shards.

“Yes, but look behind them,” Calen said, pointing.

It was difficult to make out, but the small red figures seemed rather familiar. She swapped to the better vision of her Hobgoblins and suddenly she could tell what she was looking at.

“Kobolds?”

“Yes. They look like higher-level versions of your Fire Mages.”

“Oh! An upgrade!” Ali exclaimed, but then the reality of being forced to dodge fireballs while simultaneously fighting an Armored Drake crashed in on her. “How are we even going to do this?”

“Mato tanks the drake, maybe in here,” Calen answered, his expression thoughtful as he studied the distant group. He would be the one provoking the group to attack, and he would need to survive the sprint back to wherever they decided to fight them. “Malika, can you tank two shards?”

“I think so, but is that a good idea? Don’t they heal from being near each other?”

“I don’t think the Shards of Inferno do, I was able to kill them with area damage during the Inferno fight while they were all bunched up,” Calen answered.

“Kill the Fire Mages first, I assume?” Ali asked. “And spread out for the fireballs?” Not nearly enough time had passed for her to forget the terror of facing Kobold fireballs, and even though they were all much higher level now, and had faced the much more dangerous hellfire fireballs, she still felt the anxiety keenly.

Calen nodded, agreeing with her. “They’re the lowest level of the group, they should go down fast.”

“I’ll put the stalkers on them.”

“Five minutes on my Last Stand recharge,” Mato said, sitting by the wall.

While they waited and discussed tactics in low voices, Ali took the time to organize her minions, arranging them around the area where they would hopefully be spread out enough that only one would be hit by any stray fireball. She also placed her Acolytes a little closer to the tanking spot, remembering just how dangerous the beginning of the fight had been last time.

When Mato got to his feet and transformed to his Bear Form, Calen nocked his enormous recurve bow. The bow suddenly lit with the black flames of hellfire and howled as he loosed an arrow. It shot out across the stone terraces, flying between the pillars, and struck the drake squarely on its flank. The angry roar echoed off the stone as the drake charged, closing more than half the distance between them in an instant rush, while the Shards of Inferno and Kobolds flowed and scampered along behind.

“Incoming, three seconds,” Calen said calmly.

Ali slipped her awareness into the nearest Acolyte as Mato and Malika stepped out in front of the doorway to receive the monstrous charge. Quickly, she loaded them both up with holy Restoration magic to help ease the transition at the start of the fight.

The Armored Drake slammed into Mato, making his claws screech across the stone as he was body-slammed several meters back into the room, and its razor-sharp talons blurred in a horizontal arc. Ali’s heart stopped as Malika’s health vanished in an instant. Mato had lost a little more than a quarter of his life in that single shot, but Malika had nothing. A fraction of a second later, a small sliver of life appeared in response to a tiny pulse of holy magic from the restoration spell on her, and then suddenly Malika’s powerful Healing Mantra surged through her body, dragging her back from the brink. It all happened so fast that Ali might have thought she imagined it but for the accelerated mental reflexes of her Arcane Recall.

Malika’s body blurred into action, punching and kicking the Shards of Inferno, but all Ali could do was take a breath as the reality of what had just happened sunk in. Malika had taken a single hit from the drake’s frontal Cleave and had lost almost all her health. The tiny sliver of health that had been returned first had been the continuous healing pulse of the restoration she had decided to pre-cast on both her and Mato, and then Malika’s insane reflexes had her healed to full before anything else had hit her. That was far, far too close… she shuddered.

“Ok, kill them,” Calen announced.

Ali’s brain started working again. Malika was already off to the side opposite Mato, tanking the two Shards of Inferno, punching and kicking furiously, flashing periodically with the light of her healing magic. Mato’s health was oscillating wildly between the breaths and the Cleaves, and her Acolytes were already working hard to keep everyone alive.

At the doorway, two Kobold fire mages stood tall, conjuring balls of flame.

Suddenly remembering her job, Ali summoned a barrier just in time to intercept a fireball aimed at her Acolytes, detonating it harmlessly in midair, but her heart was still pounding, hammering the underside of her throat like a crazed blacksmith pounding out a stubborn chunk of iron.

“Now,” she commanded. Her two Abyssal Stalkers dropped in full stealth from their perches on the walls, landing on the two Kobold mages. Several rapid gleaming flickers and the Kobolds were spraying blood into the air, stunned, their fireballs interrupted mid-cast to explode on the ground beside them. Her spiders unleashed their fury as Calen laid down a barrage of arrows and in seconds, both Kobolds were trussed up in demonic webbing, bleeding profusely and about to die.

“Shards next,” Calen said.

Ali switched her attention to the Shards of Inferno. As soon as she had entered the third wing of the dungeon behind the hellfire rune, she had given up on her Goblin shamans. Too low level to even use fire elixirs, they struggled to survive in the progressively denser fire mana. So, she had switched to the somewhat higher level Bone Mages and a handful of archers. She directed all her ranged attackers to target one of the Shards of Inferno.

She slowly calmed her racing heart, but she refused to take her eyes off Malika and Mato’s health for the entire fight. It was indeed fortunate that the elementals were Shards of Inferno and did not heal each other, otherwise Mato would have needed to tank one with the drake. Calen’s arrows joined those of her minions, and then her two spiders joined the fray, but without the advantage of Blood Shock, the elementals tanked their assault for quite some time before succumbing one after the other.

With a small fraction of her awareness, Ali fired her barrier shards at the Armored Drake, but the bulk of her attention, she devoted to Mato’s health and the mana of her Acolytes. She rotated them through their Prayer skill aggressively, making certain they would have enough mana to keep Mato alive. They were chain-casting their highest power healing magic into Mato’s enormous health pool, and it usually took several to recover the damage from the dragon breath or the cleave. Seeing how taxed her healers were becoming near the end, she decided immediately that she would summon more for the next fight.

The drake finally crashed to the ground, though, sending dust puffing up into the air all around the chamber and she breathed an audible sigh of relief.

Your group has defeated Armored Drake – Dragon – Level 76 (Fire)
Your group has defeated Shard of Inferno – level 60 (Fire) x2.
Your group has defeated Fire Mage – Kobold – level 35-36 (Fire) x2.

“Are you ok, Malika? What happened?”

“Sorry about that, I got too close to the drake at the start,” she said nonchalantly.

“I thought you were dead!” Ali burst out. The sight of Malika with no health visible to the senses of her healers had been so terrifying it would likely haunt her dreams for quite some time.

“I very nearly was,” Malika answered softly. “I had twelve health after that Cleave got me. Without the vitality buff from Mato’s breakfast, I would be dead.”

It was only then that she noticed how Malika’s body was shaking.

“How about we break for snacks? I need to wait for my recharge anyway,” Mato said, with a surprising level of perceptiveness and tact.

Ali walked over and stared at the corpses of the Armored Drake and Shards of Inferno lying on the ground where Malika and Mato had been tanking. She had always known a combat class, and delving through dungeons fighting monsters came with significant risk. But most of the time it felt rather distant, like an abstract concept grasped intellectually but lacking emotional significance. Their group always had healers, and Malika and Calen were level-headed and cautious whenever they chose to engage monsters. But the memory of Malika’s health vanishing in an instant was like the icy grip of the Death Knight’s fingers around her heart. She very nearly lost her friend, and that would have been the end. No healing could have brought her back.

Her mind was pulled out of her troubled contemplation as the Shard of Inferno vanished, disposed of by her magic, leaving two small, still-burning yellow-white globs of flame on the ground.

Lesser Essence of Inferno x2

Ali collected the essence, and a couple more as she finished up her chore of deconstructing everything. She walked over to where the others were sitting and handed the still-burning essences to Malika. She squashed them together in her hands and her mana flickered briefly and suddenly the essences merged.

Essence of Inferno

“What did you do?”

“You take three lesser essences, push them together, and feed them a little mana and they merge into a regular higher-level essence.”

“That’s useful,” Ali said, sitting down next to Malika. She reached out and grabbed her around the arm and squeezed. “You scared me. I don’t want you to die.”

“I’m sorry, Ali,” Malika said, returning the gesture. “I won’t make that mistake again. Trust me, I don’t want to die either. I mean, I suppose Seth could bring me back…”

Ali winced. “No. Just, no.”

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