Callie's Heroes

PART VII - AWE AND SHOCK

“What the hell is it!” Ambria screamed as she ran as fast as her furry Faun legs could carry her.

“Something bad,” was all Callie could respond with, her voice fighting against the sound of rumbling rocks as she ran as well. She risked a glance, trying to understand what she was seeing.

Behind them, the chunks from the crumbling archway plummeted to the ground with a crash, where they started to reform. Broken boulders and pieces of the shattered arch seemed to fly haphazardly into the shapes of four pillars at least four or five meters tall, some kind of vaguely-glowing magic holding them together. Next, chunks of various dead Elementals began to fly towards the chaos, beginning to build a support between each of the four pillars, upon which started to form a central spire, at least another five meters tall.

Callie dove behind a rock, joined a moment later by Lhawni, and peeked out at what was happening, now about one-hundred meters away. A chaotic assortment of rocks, from tiny hand-size stones to boulders as big as she was, were flying towards the … whatever it was, seeming to give it form. “This can’t be good,” Callie said to no one as she stated the obvious. “Looks like we found the big boss Elemental in charge.”

More dead-Elemental detritus was sucked through the air, melding to the vague shape of two giant arms attached to that central pillar.. They were at least six meters long, but with the blood pounding in her ears it was hard for Callie to really get a sense of scale on anything. Finally, to call it a head wouldn’t be right, but that was still what seemed to fit, formed at the top of the central spire body. It was as if it looked down to the field below, seeming to know who it was up against.

“That … is a big boss in charge …” Maugra said in disbelief, her hands on her head.

“Is there a Heartcore?” Cheena asked.

“I … don’t see one,” the Major responded, now evaluating the thing tactically. “Callie, can you see anything closer from here?”

Callie Eagle Eyed her vision tighter on the construct at the same time she instinctively triggered her Resist Fear. This thing was huge and the smart move was for all of them to run like hell. Still, she had to stay focused until someone in charge made that decision. Now, able to get a closer view, she could see the telltale glow of its heart. It was leaking around plates of stone, though, which seemed to be floating in front of its chest, acting as protection, the light buried deep inside a layer of makeshift armor. “It’s in the center pillar, but it’s covered,” Callie called out.

One of the four pillars moved, now obviously acting as a leg, and it began to slowly walk forward.

“Ah, hell!” Vanis said, stating exactly what everyone was thinking. “Run or fight?”

“Let me try something,” Callie said, taking careful aim. This thing wasn’t moving its legs very fast, but it was large enough to make up the ground quickly, and so it was coming. Callie only had a couple opportunities before it would be on them.

BURST SHOT + PIERCING SHOT + SNIPER SHOT

With the armor protecting the core, Callie used Sniper rather than her normal go-to, Rapid Fire, as the single-arrow spell put significantly more into the attack. She sighted carefully, taking the necessary four seconds for the final layer to form on the arrow. She released, the sniping attack flying hard and fast, where it impacted on the huge Elemental’s … well … chest. There was an explosion and a lot of dust, but when it cleared it looked like there had been minimal, if any damage, and the telltale glow was still present under the armor. “Well … shit!” Callie snarled.

“Run or fight?” Vanis called out again. They really should run and regroup out of danger.

It was Pixyl that seemed to react first with any decisiveness, and she took off at high speed towards the giant monster. Juniper saw the Pixie rushing, and swept into action as well, waving her hands in vague yet complex patterns as she summoned one, two, three pairs of vine tentacles that sprang from the ground. They wrapped around the Elemental’s legs, trying to pull it apart, pull it down, or at least hold it in place. Rowani, seeing Pixyl charging and what Juniper had done, cast her own Platinum-powered Entangling Roots spell, effectively doing the same as the Sylvan to the remaining leg.

The monster responded by raising its arm, pointing it at the Sylvan, and launching a boulder from its end, barely missing the incoming Pixyl, who twisted out of the path as she flew. Juniper just had time to summon her thorny shield into existence, and the incoming projectile slammed into it, the shield magically absorbing the momentum as the boulder glanced off, falling with a thump next to her. But the distraction weakened the grip the tentacles had, and the giant Elemental managed to tear two pairs apart as it loosened its legs, before Juniper was able to regain control of the third.

Vanis … was confused. He didn’t know what to do. Every fiber of his being said they should turn tail and run. They weren’t expecting something like this. Yet, Pixyl was already on the attack before they even had decided, and then both Juniper and Rowani were forced to take action a moment later. The Dryad and Druid had the thing momentarily held in place, but that wouldn’t last. His brain raced, trying to make sense of what the next steps were, but nothing he knew was fitting what he was seeing. Part of the problem was that nothing he possessed in his skill repertoire was designed for this type of enemy. Deathbolt was only usable on living things, the same as his Lifetap. Curses were useless and he was too far away for Nether Hold. His summoned minions? He couldn’t see how any of them could be effective against something nearly ten meters tall. Even his Threat Reduction Aura had ultimately proven useless. He was of absolutely no combat value at the moment! He felt like his brain was locked into place.

“Vanis!” Callie called, catching the Warlock’s attention. He looked her way.

“Try sending in something to distract it!”

He could at least do that, Vanis realized. With barely a thought, he brought forth a Ritual Circle, summoning a Bronze Tier Fiend, which he immediately ordered to attack. There was no way the Demon would be able to kill the Elemental, or likely even harm it, but it could at least crawl all over it and draw its attention. He quickly followed the first with a second, and then started on a third, which would be the limit of his concurrent summoning capability, and put the spell on cooldown, recharging.

Pixyl flew forward, diving down and through the Elemental’s legs, twisting to fire an Ethereal Blast at it from underneath. There was a magenta explosion of light and sound, but whatever damage had been done was quickly repaired as more chunks of smaller, dead Elemental flew in to repair the wound. A giant arm swung towards the tiny Pixie, and if not for her Instinctive Dodge, she would have been smashed to the ground and certainly killed.

The rest of the team fanned out slightly, the Healers running to take up positions behind piles of rocks for protection, as they had done before. Lhawni ran from Callie’s side, moving to another spot where she’d be more-easily able to get to multiple people should the need arise.

Maugra waited for Pixyl to finish her attack and clear the monster, heart stopping for a moment as the tiny Fey was almost smashed. Once clear, the Totems on either side of her simultaneously lashed out with a bolt of lightning, the thunderous cracks echoing across the scattered landscape. For the briefest of moments the monster seemed stunned, but after maybe three seconds, shrugged the attacks off and resumed trying to pull its legs free.

Seeing the attacks effective, at least partly, Cheena summoned a Lightning Orb, launching it in a high arc. It struck! She had been aiming for its chest, but the monster was moving as it struggled, the attack landing roughly at the base of its body, close to where the four legs came together. That was good enough. Electricity danced up and down the big Elemental, completely stunning it again, and Callie saw another opening. If one sniper-based Explosive Shot couldn’t cut through the armor, could five normal ones?

BURST SHOT + PIERCING SHOT + RAPID FIRE

With the enemy momentarily not moving, Callie had an easy target-of-opportunity. She aimed precisely at the plate protecting the Heartcore, hoping that multiple hits would be able to eat their way through. She loosed, and five arrows traveled sequentially, striking the target. Without Sniper Shot as part of the layered cocktail, each individual arrow did far less damage, but struck one after the next, each eating away at the armored protection. When the dust settled, though, the monster’s armor was still in place, sporting only a few marks of where it had taken some damage. It was going to take several attacks to get through that much protection.

The stun effect wore off. Responding to the quintet of exploding arrows, the Elemental launched a boulder towards Callie. She dove towards another cover, the incoming attack certain to smash the protection she was already using. There was another crack of lightning energy, this time from one of Cheena’s Totems that she had just summoned. The Lightning Bolt struck the in-flight boulder, shattering it into tiny, marble-sized pieces, which instead rained down around Callie. “Huh, it worked?” Cheena said quizzically, glancing at her hand, amazed the counter-attack was effective.

“Wish we had known that before!” Callie yelled back with a cranky inflection, huddled under new cover, as the last remnants of the boulder rained into the ground, each leaving little puffs of dust as they struck.

“Spread our Totems out!” Maugra shouted. “Use them for the defense!”

Cheena moved, summoning her second Totem while repositioning the first. Maugra did the same, spreading out the line of point-defense as she resummoned her own two Totems into better spots, before adding a third. They were immediately put to use as one of Maugra’s Totems lanced out, destroying a boulder in midair that had been launched towards Cheena in apparent revenge for the Lightning Orb attack.

Tazrok and the other Guardian Druids were unsure what to do. Both Bratig and Melga, while able to move quickly, weren’t exactly agile. It was obvious those arms were going to be quite good at smashing, and even with his bony armor, Bratig would be injured, if not squashed. Tazrok was significantly more agile in his Hellhound form, but one good hit would injure him just as badly. The best he could do was to probably harass the enemy, and hope to hold its attention, even though Taunt was ineffective and not available in his Striker form anyway.

The first of Vanis’s Fiends arrived at the giant Elemental, and began to scramble up one of its moving legs. It tore at any small pieces of stone it could dislodge, trying to fling them away, but the Elemental’s magic simply grabbed what was torn loose and pulled everything back into place. Seeing a second Fiend just summoned and following after the first, the Elemental raised its arm. As it fell, the stone making it up flew apart, telescoping the entire arm out like a whip, a hazy wisp of magic still holding the materials to form. It fell on the Fiend, turning it immediately into a puddle that slowly began to boil away into purple smoke as the extended arm slowly started to retract back to its normal length.

Pixyl continued to harass the Elemental, zipping and swooping around its body, using Ethereal Blast to take potshots where she could. The attack was largely useless, but did at least do some negligible damage, the concentrated Ether disintegrating small chunks of stone. Unfortunately, replacement stones continuously rose from the battlefield, filling in any damage. Even with Olin adding to the mayhem, the attacks weren’t going to be able to get ahead of the monster’s ability to repair itself.

Tazrok had noticed something interesting. While Pixyl was underneath the Elemental, she was largely safe. The long, stone arms didn’t have any fingers, and so the best they could do was wave vaguely around trying to hit her. That gave the Ogre an idea. He stomped up to Cheena, who was busy watching for incoming missiles. “Give Talisman!” he demanded, extending his fingers.

It took Cheena a moment to realize what he was talking about, but she quickly fished it from the leather pouch on her belt. Not arguing the point, she sent the mental command to activate its Elemental-disrupting powers and handed it over. It was so tiny in the Ogre’s hands. “It lasts about five minutes,” the Elf warned.

Tazrok grunted a nod. The cord to hang the Talisman around one's neck was far too short, so with his almost-too-big fingers he shoved it down the front of his armor, safely sandwiching it between his skin and the tunic he wore. He could feel it, a warm humming of power seeming to radiate out. He looked and transformed into his Curvax, taking off at incredibly high speed towards the giant Elemental. He charged, dodging a boulder and heading right for one of the monster’s legs. As he drew close, at the last moment, he leapt, changing midair into his giant Brontorn form. With the momentum of the high speed Curvax, his massive Draft form bowled into the Elemental with its shoulder. The ramming attack, coupled with the weakening power of the Talisman, sent him straight through the leg. Stones went flying, and the Elemental buckled momentarily, a leg quickly repositioning to form an effective tripod to maintain stability.

It hurt Tazrok though! Twelve tons of Brontorn-Tazrok running at the speed of Curvax-Tazrok may have done a lot of damage, but the Ogre could feel bones creaking from the impact, possibly even some breaking. A Brontorn was not at all a nimble animal, and when he landed, the rolling caused as much damage as the initial impact did, and Tazrok quickly assumed his Hellhound form to finish the tumble. It hadn’t been the brightest of ideas.

The Ogre watched in horror with his Hellhound eyes as the leg he had just smashed began to reform itself, the hazy magic sucking in replacement stones from all around. At best, all he managed to do was to slow the thing for a moment. All that for probably some cracked ribs and a lot of bruising. WIth a snarl, and within the relative safety of the monster’s underside, Tazrok set to work, ripping and tearing whatever he could, from whatever leg was closest to him. He’d smash it with his weighted tail, sending shards of rock flying in all directions, the Talisman weakening the bonds. His efforts didn’t do much good, except to continue to slow the monster’s march, and give Tazrok a way to work his frustrations out.

Juniper finally got another charge of her Twisting Vines spell back, and immediately cast it. The twin tentacles sprang from the earth, before wrapping tightly and struggling to hold the giant Elemental in place. She had seen Tazrok smashing away underneath, so focused on holding it still, rather than pulling it down, lest her Ogre friend get hurt. Now with the Shamans providing protection from most of the incoming boulders, she was able to discard her shield and put more strength into each of the tentacle summonings she had active.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Callie hissed to herself, waiting for Piercing Shot to come off cooldown. She actually had one of her normal triple-layered shots still stored, but was reluctant to pull it out, worrying she’d need at least some of its parts for an emergency. She glanced around the rock she was behind, seeing Tazrok tearing away at the underside of the Elemental, and focused her attack again at the armored chest of the titan they were fighting. Loosing the quintet of exploding arrows, each struck and created loud flashes, but still very minimal damage from what she could see, despite the piercing layer. The attacks just weren’t strong enough. This whole plan wasn’t working! They either needed to run, or figure out something different. Hell, that really wasn’t much of a plan.

Ten meters away from Callie, Vanis was starting to panic a little. The fight was slowly being lost, and he seemed powerless to provide any significant contribution to the fight, given most of his skills were simply ineffective against Elementals. He kept, almost mechanically, summoning Fiends to replace the ones that were killed when he could, sending them forward to distract and harass. That was about all he could accomplish, though, and his brain was struggling with what to do next. His heart leapt into his throat for a moment as he watched Pixyl just barely dodge a swinging arm, which then crashed to the ground, sending chunks of stone in all directions.

The Major saw the look in the eyes of their Warlock sergeant, and could tell he was beginning to waver. She once wore that same look what seemed like a lifetime ago when she was nothing but a corporal. She Flashstepped, arriving at a spot right next to him, and asked a very pointed, “Are you good?”

Surprised for the briefest of moments by the sudden appearance of the Bladedancer officer, Vanis swallowed hard, able only to say, “I’m not helping any.” Then he added a humblingly-honest, “I don’t know what to do.”

Frowning, the Major had two choices. Either she could simply assume command, which probably made the most sense, and maybe even call for a retreat, or she could try to get through to the Warlock. She chose the latter, for now, but being pressed for time, she wasn’t going to be subtle about it. She pushed out a hard Command Aura pulse, mentally slapping Vanis upside his head to get his attention. “You don’t go into a fight with the soldiers you want, you go into a fight with the soldiers you have!” she hissed, before smacking the side of his head, for real this time. “Deal with it, or relinquish command to someone else. Decide quickly! Duwana!” With that, Celeste disappeared in a flash of static as she re-entered the fight.

Downfield, Pixyl dove from above. She had seen Callie’s exploding arrows fail again due to the armored protection over the Elemental’s Heartcore, and was determined to do something about it. She twisted and bobbed, pushing off hard telekinetically against everything, focusing on speed and avoidance. As she zipped by the Elementals body, she launched her single Ethereal Bomb charge. The attack struck, sticking to the stone over the Elementals chest. Pixyl continued, pulling up and corkscrewing to avoid a boulder launched at her. She looked back, and pumped her arm once, the bomb detonating.

There was an explosive roar as the bomb went off, causing Callie to peek around her rock defense. It took a few moments for the remnants of Ethereal magic to clear, but to her amazement the armored protection was gone! On instinct, the Ranger pulled her last layered combination from the bow’s Talisman, restoring a charge of Piercing Shot, and began to weave as fast as she could. Burst Shot and Rapid Fire were instantaneous, but Piercing Shot took just over a second to cast with help from the Heartwood bow, which felt like a never ending eternity. Finally, the castings completed, Callie ducked out again to aim and fire. The arrows, five of them, flew true, but were stopped cold as new stones flew through the air, rebuilding the armored plate just in time. She had taken too long!

Pixyl watched in annoyance as Callie shot her five explosive arrows towards the Elemental, only to have them blocked at the last possible moment. It would be almost a half-minute before her Ethereal Bomb spell was off cooldown. Maybe next time she could plant the bomb, hold the explosion, and then circle around with a well-timed Ethereal Blast attack at the same time? She focused, mentally lining up a flight path that would work. Before she could start her run, though, she watched in horror as one of the Elemental’s arms lashed out, extending its whip-like reach, aiming right for Callie in response to the Ranger’s attack!

Hiding behind her rocky protection, Callie scowled to herself, trying to figure out what to do. It would be several more seconds before her Piercing Shot came off cooldown, but maybe she could try to coordinate an attack with Pixyl? She’d have such a small window of opportunity once she started to layer up the attack, though.

The air was nearly knocked from Callie’s lungs as something swooped in from her right. Bathed in a magenta-colored haze, Pixyl lifted her off the ground, carrying her several meters, before they both fell to the earth, rolling several times as they came to a stop behind another pile of rocks. She looked back, seeing the tell-tale streak of the Pixie’s Flying Dash skill fading away, just as the Elemental’s arm fell and smashed where she had been hiding a moment before. If she hadn’t been saved, she would be nothing but a puddle of chunky Gnome! She turned to look at her friend, who was panting from the hard flight and needing to carry her for even a dozen meters.

“Th-thanks!” was all Callie could say as she scooted her back up against the rock cover. “It almost got me.”

Pixyl looked back as the last remnants of the streak of magic faded away behind them, the Ethereal Armor she had summoned to protect her wings in the tumble winking from existence. She then looked at Callie. She looked at those big purple eyes. Then she looked down the field, seeing the Elemental smash another of the summoned Fiends into nothing with its other arm. This was stupid, and it wasn’t the right time, but she did it anyway, just in case.

Without a preamble, Pixyl rushed towards Callie. Placing her tiny hands on either side of Callie’s face, she roughly pressed her lips to Callie’s, hard and passionately. Callie’s eyes went wide in surprise and confusion, but then she instinctively closed them like one should do when one was kissed. The kiss lasted forever, yet for only a blink of a moment, and the Pixie pulled away. Callie didn’t know what to say, her mouth simply hanging agape, her brain utterly locked for the moment.

“If one of us is going to die,” Pixyl said, no stuttering in her voice, “I needed to do that.” She turned, about to launch herself back towards the fight, but stopped, looking back. “I’m sorry, I should have asked permission first.”