NOVEL NEXT Chapter 60: The Ssscholarly Sssealer
Dynamic Quest
The Ssscholarly Sssealer plans to teach you a lesson.
Sssurvive.
Ten balls of fire, each as big as an apple, hung in a line in the air above the Scholar’s open hand. The tome on his right opened, pages flipping in quick succession. The Lizardman’s eyes watched the pages until they stopped, and it gave a slight nod, then turned its attention to the party standing at the breach in the wall.
“Punch through the warriors to get to the Mid-Boss,” Seena instructed, reaching for Nivian’s shoulder. “Hiral, you got a shot?”
“Not a good one. At two hundred feet, my RHCs won’t do much more than annoy it,” Hiral answered, but then the Scholar lifted its left arm in front of it, the balls of fire following. “What’s it…?”
Balls of flame shot forward like meteors, the first tearing through the back of a Lizardman warrior like it was made of wet paper. Blood and viscera exploded out, but the other warriors didn’t even flinch. The next flaming projectiles shot over their shoulders or between their running bodies, down the long street, and raced ahead with deadly intent.
“Look out!” Nivian shouted, stepping in front of the group as the first fireball arrived with an explosive WHOMP against his shield that sent the tank flying backwards into Seena and Wule.
Hiral tossed out a wave of Rejection in front of the trio as they hit the ground, but it had startlingly little effect on the fiery assault. Still, it was just enough. The nearest fireballs changed their angles to slam into the road ahead, against one of the walls, or shoot just barely over the party members’ heads.
He dove to the side as the next fireball whipped down the street. A glance back found Nivian, Wule, and Seena still getting untangled in the middle of the road, and Hiral poured power into his Rune of Rejection, unceremoniously sweeping them out of the way in a tangled mess of limbs and shouts.
And not a moment too soon. Explosions rocked the wall and crashed into the center of the road where the party had been, flames billowing ten feet in the air and sending out a wave of scorching heat with each impact.
He paused for one second, two, three… five, waiting for more explosions. When none seemed to be coming immediately, he blew out a breath and checked on the others.
“Sorry about that!” he shouted over at the rest of the party on the other side of the breach.
“It’s fine,” Seena shouted back, finally free of Wule and Nivian. “Thanks for the save. How often do you think it can do that?”
Another flaming barrage answered the question—ten explosions shook the ground in quicker succession than the first time.
As soon as the last sphere of fire faded, Hiral held up a finger to ask the others to wait, then peeked around the corner to see if the Scholar had moved. He almost got a spear in the face for his trouble.
Hiral fell back as the spear’s blade scraped along the stone where his head had been, and hip-fired the RHC in his left hand as he hit the ground. The impact shoved the Lizardman warrior right back as it rounded the corner, but it recovered quickly and readied its spear to impale Hiral where he sat on the ground—until a thorned whip snapped around its neck. From across the gap, Nivian hauled on his weapon, tightening the noose on the warrior and hauling the monster into the road.
Too bad for it.
The first fireball took the warrior through the knee, completely shearing it off, while the next two went into its chest, leaving holes big enough to crawl through in their wake. The body dropped to the ground just in time for a concussive wave from another fireball to lift it into the air and toss it out of sight. Two seconds later, another Lizardman—burning like a torch from head to toe—staggered out of the breach between the walls, then collapsed to the ground, where it continued to twitch and burn.
“Note to self…” Yanily said, the entire party frozen while they looked at the burning Lizardman. His words carried clearly in the strange stillness between barrages of fire. “Don’t take this guy’s lessons.”
“Plan, boss?” Vix asked.
“Wait for the next salvo,” Hiral said, holding up his hands to make sure nobody looked around a corner. The next bombardment came seconds later—thirty seconds between the first fireball of each barrage; that’s a tight window.He waited a few seconds to make sure there weren’t any trailers, then glanced around the edge of the wall, ready for another spear. None this time. Lucky? Not for the closest Lizardmen—half a dozen bodies were burning in the street. Further down, another pack of warriors swept out of a side alley to rush mindlessly toward the gap.
As for the Scholar itself, balls of fire were forming over its left hand while Hiral watched. One every three seconds. Does it need to wait for all ten to attack? With only six formed, Hiral stepped out into the open and aimed both his RHCs toward the Scholar. Sure, they wouldn’t do much damage from that range, but…
The Scholar’s eyes narrowed at seeing Hiral standing so obviously. A seventh ball of fire appeared above its hand, yet it still didn’t attack.
Perfect.
Hiral pulled both triggers, his bolts cutting through the air straight for the Scholar’s chest… until one of the Lizardman warriors leapt in front of the attack. Chest caving in under the force of the dual blast, the monster fell back while the eighth ball of fire formed. There was still time, so Hiral pulled the triggers as soon as the cooldown on the weapons ended, aiming to do some damage to the Scholar before it could attack again.
Except another warrior jumped in front of the blasts, its body crumpling to the ground as the ninth fireball took shape above the Scholar’s hand.
Hiral was already pulling the triggers again, this time alternating left and right firing so a steady stream of blasts raced down the street. And yet, somehow, there was always a warrior there to take the hit before the bolt got anywhere near the Scholar. Whether it was one of the ones standing up from where it had been on the ground, or another dashing out of the side alley, Hiral couldn’t get a shot further than about halfway.
Then, with a cruel snarl of the Scholar’s scaled lips, the tenth fireball appeared above its hand, and the whole line of them burst straight for Hiral, one after the other.
Hesitating just a heartbeat, Hiral watched the fireballs practically incinerate the line of Lizardman warriors racing down the street, then he dove back behind cover. The roaring spheres of fire shot past where he’d just been standing, exploding in great plumes in a line along the road and the swamp beyond, while waves of heat rolled outward.
As soon as the last lick of flame subsided, Hiral jumped to his feet and dashed across the gap in the walls to join the rest of the party.
“What was that?” Seena asked him.
“I had to test some theories,” Hiral said. “Just one more thing I need to know, then I’ll explain what I think we have to do.”
“What do you need to know?” Wule asked.
“A few more seconds,” Hiral said. “Shouldn’t have any warriors coming through the gate, but watch out, just in case.”
“A few seconds for what?” Nivian asked, sharing a look with his twin.
Hiral held up a hand for patience, and then a barrage of fireballs shook the walls and ground in answer.
“Every thirty seconds, no matter what, it does that,” Hiral said. “It takes about three seconds for it to form one fireball, and for whatever reason, it won’t—or can’t—attack until it has all ten ready.”
“I saw you shooting it—did you do any damage?” Seena asked. “Can you bring it down in those thirty-second intervals?”
“No. One of the Lizardman warriors always took the hit before the shot even got halfway. And the Scholar doesn’t care if it hits its own kind, so we can’t use them as a shield.”
“Then, what? We need to get to the Scholar in the thirty seconds between attacks?” Nivian asked. “I can do that with my movement skill.”
“Does your skill get cancelled if you hit anything?” Hiral asked.
“Yeah,” Nivian said. “You think the warriors will block me?”
“I do. And, given the warriors on the street, I’m sure they’ll do everything they can to slow us down, or maybe even hold us down for the Scholar to blast us. That said, there are alleys between the buildings on both sides of the street. I think our best bet is to aim for one of them during the thirty seconds between attacks…”
Hiral paused his idea while the next barrage of fireballs thundered against the wall and road. After it finished, he continued. “Side alleys. If we can get to one, we might be able to circle around behind the Scholar without having to deal with his attacks.”
“And if we can’t, do you think there are enough alleys for us to alternate between to get to the Scholar?” Seena asked.
“From all the warriors I saw, yes,” Hiral said. “Like the road over there, or the Troblins on the top level of the keep, I don’t know if there’s a limit to how many warriors will come. We probably can’t simply wait for them to run out.”
“Okay, after the next…” Seena started, only to cut off as a pair of warriors rounded the corner and lunged at the party.
Nivian intercepted the first, parrying aside the spear with his shield, then straight-kicked the warrior in the chest. The blow didn’t seem to do much damage, but it did knock the Lizardman prone to the ground in the middle of the road. Hiral hit it with a pair of blasts to keep it there.
Meanwhile, Yanily caught the second, fluidly redirecting the spear out to the side with his own, which opened it up to a vicious combo from Vix. Abdomen, chin, then temple. The three hits dropped the warrior down to its knees, where Vix grabbed it by the back of its head and pulled it into a rising knee of his own. The body tumbled to its side on the ground, and Yanily put his spear through it for good measure.
“Sorry for the interruption,” Yanily said, giving a small bow to Seena. “You were saying?”
“Right. After the next…” she started, then a barrage of fireballs tore down the street, turning the Lizardman lying there to ash.
Seena sighed. “Oh, for the love of… After the next, next fireballs, we go. Hiral, you have the best eyes and you’ve watched the Lizardmen coming out of the alleys. Can you get us to one?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Left, Right, I’ll take you back in with me. We don’t know how much room we’ll have.”
The two doubles nodded, then took Hiral’s hands to get reabsorbed.
“Wule, give us Nature’s Blade,” Seena said, then did Lashing Vines herself.“Okay, everybody, get ready.”
The party members took their usual positions, other than Hiral stepping ahead of Nivian.
“Any second now,” he said, and the predictable stream of fireballs exploded in a line down the road.
“Now!” Hiral shouted before the last flames even faded, dashing into the road and around the wall.