Bonded Summoner

Jake was surprised to learn that the previous war camp sort of spawned given enough time after a rift opened. In a flash of light like him adding onto his refuge, orcs that emerged would arrive at predefined locations and create fortifications. Not all Rifts worked this way, but often when the creatures emerging were of the intelligent sort, this was often the case.

They were now at the rendezvous point, and the other two teams arrived. Jake had learned that his two groups were in fact the lower levels among the force and those with the least amount of experience, but he was not very impressed. He had also learned that chant-based casting was the more prominent of the denizens of this world, rather than being something most common in the multiverse.

Jake did somewhat see the appeal of chant-based casting. It had a longer casting time, but the efficiency was high even with their low amount of mana control. It also produced the same result every time for their skill levels, so there was a power in uniformity as well. It was also much easier for casters to form a sort of ritual, where a group of mages could generate one empowered attack; other casting types had this capability, but required much more preparation and much higher skill levels among those involved.

Even Framework-based casting needed [Mana Control] to be at the peak of the advanced stage to be able to learn the skill [Formation Casting]. Jake would need to learn what it took to create this type of effect using runes, as their group already had three casters that could use runes in his party, and Jake would do what he could to help Berri become the fourth.

The [Sons of Rome] guild did look to be better equipped, and they did carry themselves much better than the other groups. They were just at the limit of the level range of the [Rift] to not cause the encounter’s difficulty to be increased overly much. With their leadership, this team had a good chance of defeating it without many losses, from what Jake could tell.

[C’mon Jake, don’t be mad and ignore me. It wasn’t that bad, nobody got hurt, and it’s not like they would want that Orc watchtower standing. You should have seen Berri’s face. It was hilarious! She was so proud of what she did! It’s not my fault they didn’t even let me entertain myself with fighting.]

Jake just shook his head, but he cracked a smile. It was like he was herding cats; he had a 104-year-old child, and yet another giant and dangerous child. Thankfully, he also had–

The valkyrie interrupted his thoughts about her, “Do you think that big guy over there would duel me? He looks like he might be strong. I think he might be a half-ogre?”

Just as he thought he could count on her to be his rock that couldn’t possibly cause trouble for him, she once again proved to him that there was only one place that he could count on his girls to behave as he hoped and expected. The battlefield. Well, the bedroom too, he realized.

Antonius was now directing them on their assault to close the [Rift]. Once they entered a predefined radius based on its size, the [Challenge] would trigger based on those entering it. Creatures would spawn if they weren’t already there, and often in waves, they would face enemies until they defeated them all. Sometimes there would be a boss, and other times there would just be many enemies. Either way, they just had to kill everything that came out of the rift, or face those that were already present when they began the challenge.

Jake had summoned his trusty badgerdillo once again, and he had the [Arcane Eye] out watching everything. Their battlegroup of over thirty people entered the rift’s area, and after a few seconds the large, purple, glimmering portal turned red. His [Menu] lit up a notification.

Orc Commander’s Rift

Levels 12-16

Wave 1/3

A contingent of orcs spawned behind the portal. It looked like red lightning struck from the other side of the portal, and the lightning left the force of orcs in its wake on the ground beneath the portal itself. There were forty orcs, and they were arranged in units. There were casters, archers, and many of the orcs were wielding two-handed weapons or a combination of axe and shield.

The enemies advanced, and the [Sons of Rome] led their own formation along with many others. It felt like Jake was watching a battle from a strategy game, only this was real life for Jake. He couldn’t help but feel excited about this.

The two forces clashed, and each side cast their respective spells and shot their arrows. Jake did his best to cast barriers and cast heals, and things were going mostly fine, as far as Jake could tell. However, some people were getting close to being overwhelmed on the opposite side of where the [Sons of Rome] were located, and even with Jake’s barriers and heals, it looked like they would be difficult to keep safe.

So, he sent Berri in. She used [Dark Siphon], and she smashed into their flanks like a wrecking ball, sending orcs flying through the air with each swing of her mace. Her attacks healed the people in the surrounding area as a dark haze drifted over them, and she started really using her bladed tail to good effect as well, slicing foes as she swiped and slithered through the crowd of orcs. Within moments, she had already cleared nearly a dozen orcs, freeing up that side of the battlefield.

Those that were nearly downed by the orcs cheered, and Jake could see the [Sons of Rome] side had also cleared their side of orcs. As the last few orcs were cleared off in the middle, Jake received a new notification.

Wave Completed. Wave 2/3 in 2 minutes

Jake and his party would get a little bit of reprieve. They tried their best to top up the other groups, but Antonius approached Jake. “What the hell? I thought we both agreed for your group to heal and provide backup.” Jake did his best to mollify Antonius. “Yes. Berri only has [Dark Siphon]. She can only heal those near her by causing damage. She healed the right flank quite well. I think we might have lost a few if she hadn’t.”

One of those on the right flank defended Berri, “That’s right, I thought I might be a goner if she hadn’t come in. When she swung that mace and sent those orcs flying, a black haze drifted over me and I was filled with energy and healed of some pretty nasty wounds. I had felt many heals before then, but this was different.”

That filled Antonius with confusion, but he did seem a little less angry. Jake decided to push again, “Look, my group can more than hold its own. We’ll provide backup while handling our role that was agreed on. But let me send Fhesiah and Berri in. They will help keep the flanks clear. Ophelia and I can more than handle our role without needing additional protection.”

Antonius glanced down at the badgerdillo in question and at him and Ophelia’s equipment, and even searched the sky for something, but eventually, he nodded. He shouted off some commands to form back up as the next wave was beginning, and then lightning struck. This time, the orcs were slightly better equipped, but otherwise there was not much difference that Jake could tell. What was different was that this time, there were two giant boars. They were about the size of a full-sized truck, and their tusks were the size of polearm weapons.

They roared, and Jake could hear Antonius’ plan to deal with them being shouted. Antonius’ plan was to let casters and range focus on them, while the melee focused their attacks on the orcs in front of them, but Jake thought this was a huge mistake. Boars are known to have charge abilities, and they would likely ruin their formation when they least expect it.

Jake used a spell that would save them from quite the headache: [Runic Magic: Field of Frost]. Jake had improved this spell slightly, but overall, its function was the same. It turned the area beneath the boars and many of the orcs in the rear into an ice-skating rink worth of ice, making it difficult for them to gain traction. The improvement was mainly that the area was even larger than when he used it in the arena during the [Trial], and that there was even more ice than before, making it more difficult to just smash and walk through.

Many of the orcs slipped right away, and so did the boars. Jake had managed to use a single spell to nearly cut the enemy force in half. The spells started slamming into the boars from the many casters on the battlegroup’s side, and Jake kept his task of keeping people healed that he could tell were damaged. He used the battlegroup menu to monitor their health, and found that the Framework would help guide him as to where they were physically located by focusing on them there. Fhesiah and Berri were both working through the enemy ranks, and Jake guessed their kill counts were much higher than any other individual, or even party of five.

The archers managed to pick off the orc casters, and the fight went quite smoothly. The battlegroup found crossing the ice a challenge, but Fhesiah and Berri had zero problems at all finishing off the remaining enemies.

Wave Completed. Wave 3/3 in 2 minutes

Jake guessed that the next wave would include the orc commander, following the name of the [Rift]. So far, those in the battlegroup were doing well enough. Jake and Ophelia had kept them healed, but Jake could see that up to now, despite them likely to have taken a few losses due to the boars, the [Sons of Rome] were holding their own pretty well. They handled their own healing, and Jake could tell they had a paladin of their own, or at least a melee adventurer that also provided healing. Jake felt like unless this final wave was over double the difficulty, the [Sons of Rome] would have ultimately won this battle, even without Jake’s help.

It's just the problem for Jake was the losses. If ten to fifteen died out of thirty, was that really a win? Jake knew that resurrection from the framework was not free, with each death helping the enemy’s [Conquest Progress]. It was much more efficient for the war effort to resurrect the person where they died, without having [The Framework] be the one to do it, once they had resurrection spells. But Jake knew that in Tier 1, this was not common.

Each death pushed the conquest counter just a little further in the direction of losing the world, so while they might win here today and close the rift, it could be a net loss. Still, closing the rift was better than letting the spawns assault the nearby town and slaughter them, Jake supposed. Also, the fifteen to twenty who lived would advance in experience, skills, and level. It was difficult for Jake to gauge what genuine success looked like in this type of fight.

The final contingent of orcs spawned, and there was a giant orc that stood almost as tall as Berri’s casual stance. They too had a massive, wicked looking mace, or club really, and Berri’s eyes gleamed. Jake noticed something strange though: various orcs were wearing what looked like cleats, or spiked boots. Were they countering Jake’s [Field of Frost] spell? Jake found this to be quite interesting.

Jake guessed that in the greater multiverse, there would be all sorts of classes or types of abilities that could render regular armies or creatures ineffective, from people that might be spirits like Fhesiah was previously, to classes that could fill the area with poison as a sort of scorched earth tactic. It made sense that the outsiders would have some mechanism to handle these types of scenarios without just sucking it up and taking a loss, such as spawning with anti-spirit weaponry in the first example, and gas masks or similar in the second one.

It was a good thing Jake learned this fact, and it once again showed how important it was for Jake to master as many spells as possible, and keep as many answers in his [Storage Bracelet]. Jake wondered if his being present in future rifts would increase the likelihood of creatures that wouldn’t fall prey to [Field of Frost]. However, this counter to Jake’s spell was not without cost for the outsiders. While the second wave had even better equipment than the first, this wave had worse, aside from the Orc Commander.

The [Orc Commander] roared, and the army of orcs was enveloped in red energy. They moved with greater fervor, moving faster and they bulged up and became stronger. Even the commander himself became bigger. Jake was surprised when Berri started casting a spell.

Jake was a little frustrated with what he learned about Berri’s spells. She had [Dark Magic], but Jake couldn’t learn very much about it from her, at the level of detail he was used to. She was very much a ‘natural’ type of spellcaster that did not learn through studying as Jake did. Her spells were driven by her feelings about how her magic worked, and Jake supposed it did match her monstrous nature. She didn’t have a list of spells to give him, but there was a ‘spell that made enemies weak’ that Jake guessed would be a logical choice for her to cast now.

She completed her casting, and a dark, purplish aura spread out from the middle of the enemy formation. The bulging orcs definitely lost some of their bulk, from what Jake could clearly see. The [Sons of Rome] and the rest of the battlegroup started working on killing the orcs, and they prepared for the approaching [Orc Commander]. Fhesiah and Berri were cutting through the enemy flanks, and Fhesiah activated her Warg Cloak. It enveloped the battlegroup, giving them a red energy of their own.

Jake used this leeway to cast a few Runic Spears of Ice against the orcs, and Ophelia cast a few [Spear of Hestia] attacks at the [Orc Commander] that was in the rear of their formation, and they caused the orc no small amount of harm as they pierced their armor and hurt them with their flames, but the damage appeared to be mitigated by their red aura.

The battlegroup mages were casting spells of their own, raining death on the orcs and even the orc commander. Their spells were mostly ineffective against the large humanoid, but the commander grunted and got pushed back at the effort, giving them a little more time to finish off the orcs and focus on the commander. The commander was getting near the battlegroup’s formation, but Berri was getting near to the commander, as well. She wanted to take this enemy on, for some reason.

Her tail shredded or tossed orcs left and right, and she smashed orcs aside with her mace with ease. Jake couldn’t help but feel that his initial thoughts about this woman were correct, that she was very much a weapon of war. That the [Dark Lamia] would keep her around despite her so-called curse was proof of her worth. Fhesiah was doing her fair share of work, weaving in and out of the enemy formation and cutting orcs. Shortly they would have nothing left to deal with but the [Orc Commander] himself.

The [Orc Commander] met with the melee defenders, but they activated a shield skill. Jake guessed it was a skill called [Phalanx], that he had seen in the game. Each defender with the skill would add to the amount of defense, and it allowed a group of coordinated and prepared defenders to defend against much larger creatures without being flung away or their shields mangled into uselessness in a single attack. The large orc’s massive club met with their shields, but they were barely pushed back, the six of them gathered in formation.

The last regular orc had died, and Berri began wrapping her tail around the large orc, engrossed with attacking the front of the battle group's formation as he was. He was large, but he was not larger than her. As her tail wrapped around them, they tried to fight the tail off but were rebuffed and pierced by several of the blades lining her tail, until she had even their arms bound.

Berri’s body then glowed with heavenly might, and she raised her mace and smashed it into the orc’s head crushing its skull, using her [Mace of Hestia] ability. Healing energy hit the battlegroup, and everyone gasped in awe. The enemy that they were prepared to have a difficult challenge against, was defeated so easily by her.

Rift Closed.

Party Contribution: A

Contribution Points: 343

Berri lowered the lifeless corpse of the [Orc Commander] to the ground, releasing them from her stranglehold. They had to unhook various blades and spikes that had entered the orc’s skin and get them dislodged from his body and armor, but eventually, she picked up the large mace the giant orc was carrying from the ground. To Jake, it reminded him of a giant caveman club, only made of metal. It had metal studs all over it, but otherwise was somewhat smooth.

“I killed the little green guy, so I can keep his stuff, right?”