Bonded Summoner

Dealing with the elites the second time was much easier than the first. Tanda had waited at the edge of the tower’s bubble, and immediately began sniping the two ranged elites.

She kept the dark elemental busy blocking her attacks, the arrows sending out showers of seeds which grew and tried to wrap around both the elemental and the duck reptile. She kept both monsters busy, until Bloodberri lined up a hit of a cannonball-sized baseball after exiting the barrier of the tower. Berri had filled it with auril and her will, along with her immense hatred of the duck-reptile, before hitting it.

The deathly baseball struck the creature and exploded in a shower of gore. Deathly energies seeped into the monster as a result of her auril attack, and the next hit of her baseball caused the creature to explode like it had before.

The explosion actually knocked the dark elemental aside, and then Tanda empowered her large arrow with her flaming auril and launched it. Despite the dark elemental shielding itself with orbs, her arrow pierced through and exploded in a fiery bite of the deathly wolf, nearly killing the monster as the vines wrapped around it and pierced into the creature.

Berri then hit another baseball, shattering the golem’s torso and allowing Tanda to finish it off with her next attack.

Berri dusted her hands in satisfaction. “That’s what you get, duck! Screw you!”

Easily dealt with, they continued their work on the second tower.

In Fhesiah’s lane, she worked with Jasmina and Nadessa to defeat the hornet’s wind shielding with the sonic vibrations and lightning, then hit the creature with her Sun and Moon Hex. It could not douse the flames, and it eventually succumbed to them as it was nearly ignored, its harassment pathetic.

In the center lane, Ira picked up on the enemy’s approach much sooner, knowing what to look for. Jake had prepared several runic shackles in his hearth bubbles, ready for the void creature and the troll.

The troll had moved to explode out and attack Morwen and her priestesses, but she and her priestesses were prepared as well. Bone Shields floated around the priestesses, the four of them prepared to be targeted.

At Jake’s warning, Morwen slammed the ground with her staff, sending out a wave of frost and catching the troll underground. Timone was tanking the tower, while Bedwyr and Dahlia took on the automatons.

The troll’s underground rush was stopped, causing him to erupt from the ground a distance away. Ophelia met the troll on Valora, ready to take on this foe.

The troll’s swings were powerful, but the lack of skill made it easy to deflect the attacks and counter it with devastating efficiency. Her Hearth Guardian met the troll’s swings, while she slashed and stabbed into its flesh, sending vajrafire into it.

When the void creature appeared, it swung at one of the priestesses with its arm blade. A wave of bones blocked the attack despite its sharpness, and Jake saw the monster was covered in its blue barrier.

Sending a wave of telekinetic force first, the shield absorbed his spell before he released two of his stored shackle spells onto it.

This time, he was in the state of the Monarch, and the shackles lined with golden hue pushed harshly to restrict the void monster. Ira spent some more of their combined void energy to really lock it down, and Jake’s hearthblade arrived to pierce into the creature just a moment later.

It roared with anger as Jake sent more hearth flames into the monster, and Ophelia’s [Vajra Strike] struck the troll and sent fiery lightning into the void monster. Ravens from Timone arrived to send deathly energies inside, and his mate’s arrows pierced it as well.

The troll and the void creature didn’t use their special abilities before they died. Perhaps whatever enabled them to cast the pillar of stone or for the void monster to become enraged and hit much harder was still on cooldown.

Jake wasn’t sure what the special ability of the hornet or the two ranged-focused creatures in the left lane were, which worried him. However, their second spawn was easily dealt with.

The three parties worked to finish off the second tower. It was not stronger than the first, and they managed to destroy it not long before the elites could spawn again. Each party did their best to recuperate, taking turns taking on the tower.

The right lane was well-off, as Bree had done her job efficiently. Jasmina could sing and heal Bree’s vines nearly forever, and Drysander’s wives aided her vines even further. They increased the speed of the vine’s growth as well as hardening them, amplifying the effectiveness of the auril altogether.

The tower’s red orb shots only struck and melted away a portion of her vines, the heroic beast extremely sturdy.

With the second towers down, a final path opened up deep in the lane. The three lanes got close to one another, enabling movement between the three locations. Riding Valora, Ophelia could now move between the lanes within just a few seconds.

However, on the final tower, the elites could also move between lanes in defense. This led Jake to gather all allies to the center lane, to push the middle. The towers could tank the automatons for a time, while Jake’s party could roam if required.

Pushing on the middle tower, its blows were more significant than the others. But Bree once again took on the challenge, Jake’s Aura of Heavenly Flames combining with Jasmina’s song to completely deflect blows every few seconds. As before, Drysander’s wives aided her, and even some talismans from Yiming and Longwei’s wives landed on her back, blanketing her with a thin layer of shielding energy.

The automatons spawned in front of them, as well as the down the other lanes, while Jake’s larger party easily killed the ones present.

Based on their strength, Jake guessed three, maybe four waves of them would be enough to defeat one of the towers if his party did not interfere with them.

Because they were nearing the end of the battle, Jake switched to the state of the Guardian, and added Giant’s Growth to Bloodberri. Her immense size took off chunks of the tower with every swing, Tanda’s avenging flames and Fhesiah’s draconic empowerment too dealing significant damage.

Jake’s aura boosted the auril heroes and Warrior Brotherhood as well, increasing their damage to be even more ample. Ophelia added Einherjar to herself, her swings blurring with speed and power.

As both the next wave of automatons and the elites spawned in the back of the enemy’s base, they managed to destroy the tower in the center. To Jake’s surprise, the automatons meant for the center lane split between the two remaining lanes, joining the two waves on their march out of the enemy’s base.

However, defeating the tower had revealed a fixture. Defeating it would stop future spawns, and would even prevent the elites in that lane from respawning. They quickly destroyed this fixture, Bloodberri taking it out with a satisfying Maul of Hestia-Echidna.

There were two even larger towers in the center of the base, that appeared more than powerful enough to be alarming. The artillery focused elites began raining attacks down on Jake’s Battlegroup from underneath their protective barriers, forcing them to back away from the lane.

Ophelia rode up next to Jake, as she surveyed the battlefield. “What now, Jake? We took out that tower fast enough, that maybe we should threaten another in the same way. The elites will be forced to act.”

Jake saw a few ways that this final confrontation could go. He was worried about their increased strength, combined with their more powerful abilities–which they hadn’t yet seen them all. However, taking them on with the largest group was certainly the safest and strongest method he could see.

The Battlegroup moved through the back path through the trees to the left lane, and began tanking the tower once again. As Fhesiah floated high in the forest, she spotted a surprise.

“The hornet is moving to the right lane, and it looks like that…duck lizard is about to launch some attacks from the safety of that next ring of towers. No signs of the other creatures.”

Clearly, it appeared the dark elemental, void creature, and the stone troll were setting up an ambush. If they left the hornet alone, it would destroy their tower and make the final encounter more challenging.

Ophelia responded to his thoughts, hers mirroring his own, “If we take too many to kill the hornet, they may just ignore us and attack the Battlegroup instead.”

Jake nodded. He didn’t like it, but he definitely needed to give the elites an enticing enough target to take on. Sharing his thoughts with the girls, he leaped on Valora’s back behind Ophelia.

“Let’s end this.”

Jake raced off with Ophelia, making themselves an enticing target. Fhesiah planned on following, but only once they got close to where the trap would likely be sprung.

Using [Ride of the Valkyries], Valora sprouted wings and blurred through the forest, heading to the right lane. She zigzagged slightly, making it difficult to get a bead on her for their ambush.

They passed the middle lane, heading through the forest to come up behind the hornet. Fhesiah concealed herself with her kitsune magic and moved away from the left lane, following as fast as she could.

Ira was on the lookout, but it sensed nothing until a pillar of stone rose from the ground in front of Valora. She easily dodged, but that was when the void creature slashed at Jake, him barely blocking its attack with his shield as he was knocked off the mount.

The dark elemental appeared, sending an immensely powerful wave of gravity and darkness with a wave of its arms, trapping Ophelia and Valora inside. She filled her shield with her Hearth Guardian, spawning one next to Jake.

Jake was able to arrest his fall with his cape, and stand in the air with his boots a small distance away. The void creature laughed wickedly, as it grew and came after Jake.

The dark elemental appeared busy with what it was doing to Ophelia with its odd hands out in a grasping motion, so now Jake was set against the other two. Jake tried to use Call Summon, but found space to be locked down. Ira shoved against the void creature in an attempt to see if it could create an opening, but was unable to.

The dark elemental’s gravity-well ability appeared to be enhancing the effect, so Ira truly had difficulty making anything happen. The gravity well had caused Valora to disappear into motes of light nearly immediately, the spell crushing and tearing at Ophelia dealing damage to her as she was inside. But she was extremely sturdy, the Hearth Guardian shielding and healing her.

She was okay for now, spending ample mana to keep herself alive. She shoved at the spell with a consecration, but the flames just washed over the gravity well, disappearing as if sucked into a black hole.

The three had forced Jake into a 2v1, the stone pillar also slowing him.

Some might think that Jake was perhaps the weakest link in his party, especially if restricting him from reaching his summons. Finding resonance with Fhesiah, he entered the state of the Sage.

However, as long as Jake had mana, nothing could be further from the truth. Within his hearth bubbles, he released two spells as the echo of Ophelia’s consecration blasted out at the stone troll and the void creature.

Using Berri’s holy light mana, he cast the runic spell of Holy Might on himself. Much like how her Mace of Hestia ability would briefly increase her strength significantly for a single attack with an explosion of holy light, this would accomplish similar–just without the explosion, and for a longer duration.

Then, he used Blood’s Holy Dark mana to cast a runic Weakness spell. A wave of darkness covered both the stone troll and the void creature, the two reeling from Ophelia’s vajrafire consecration.

Forming up the flames of his Hearth, he wrapped a barrier around him as he shifted his runic prisms on his Champion’s Spearstaff. The troll and void creature charged and each swung at the barrier, but the flames held them back.

Pushing his hearth flames into the construct, he cast yet another spell on himself. Giant’s growth filled his body, armor, and weapon, his size and strength increasing further. He drew back in the flames of the barrier using Hearth Control, and filled both his body and his spear with auril and the flames of his hearth.

This was the culmination of all his efforts in learning to use Advanced Energy Control and Auril Manipulation in the last month. As long as he kept the auril within his body or weapon, he could combine it with his hearth flames. This had a qualitative increase in his power, his ability to enhance his overall attributes with his special energies.

He could still manipulate his hearth flames like this, but he could not easily form runic spells. He was forced to use his flames almost like a form of pyrokinesis, but he found that this fighting style worked particularly well.

Jake added his flames to his shield, floating it next to him and holding his spear in a two-handed grip. Slashing out with immense strength and speed, he targeted the weaker void creature. It blocked his attack in a cross armed block before it teleported to escape being cleaved in half, only for Ira to shift Jake’s shield behind him and block its attack.

The troll swung at Jake with its large club, but Jake deflected it easily and kicked the troll, sending it flying back. Spinning, Jake swung once more at the void creature as it covered itself with its barrier in defense.

Jake’s powerful swing cleaved through the barrier and one of the monster’s arms, and was about to finish off the monster when the troll leaped with supernatural speed and met his blow with its giant club.

But Jake was not just swinging his spear around. A wave of hearthflames was sent out in a cone, hitting both the void monster and the troll, but also the darkness elemental holding Ophelia.

This disrupted the monster’s spell ever so slightly, allowing Ophelia to blast vajrafire lightning straight at the darkness elemental. Struck powerfully, its spell now halted completely, the gravity well dissipating. She blitzed at the monster with her Technique, her spear meeting the odd monster’s claw, as she sent out more fire and lightning into it.

The void creature frantically morphed as it swung at Jake and tried to escape. But Jake just took a deep breath, and breathed out his void energy, disrupting it before sending another wave of hearthflames out. Resembling consecration, he bathed both his opponents in it in a cone, as he once again slashed at the void monster.

It moved to block with its remaining arm, but Ira removed the arm’s momentum, freezing it as Jake slashed right into the monster’s body. Filled with hearthflames and auril, Jake’s size and strength was immense, cleaving the monster easily in two.

He followed up against the stone troll, who swung with its large club to meet his thrust. Jake’s attack was blocked, and the troll glowed green and swung yet again. Meeting Jake’s shield, he then punished the troll with several slashes of his hearthblade. The first two dug deep into the monster’s shoulders, the flames spreading and the creature roaring in anger.

Jake then used his superior skill to parry and counter the club repeatedly, adding more flames and wounds to the first. He was about to finish the creature when the hornet arrived on the scene. A vortex of wind was created in front of the hornet, like a giant vacuum tunnel.

It prepared its stinger as if it were going to fire, before several darts of Fhesiah’s kitsune flames slammed into it. The Moon Hex was added to it, more or less sealing the creature’s fate.

The gem fired several empowered wind bullets down the tunnel in response, but Jake was able to shield himself with auril and his heavenly flames, having ample warning. The troll continuously lashed out at Jake, but he easily blocked and countered, as more wounds and flames gathered–just as an orb of dragon flame from Fhesiah arrived, exploding into the troll.

The troll died as the flames spread further, and Ophelia then finished off her quarry–the darkness elemental unable to mount a significant defense. Its special attack had cost a significant amount of its resources, leaving it weak.

The hornet slowed as it was burned by the ruinous flames, allowing Jake to easily hit it with a blast of runic lightning, finishing it.

Fhesiah looked Jake up and down, his giant’s growth allowing him to tower over her, even as she was enhanced with draconic empowerment.

“That was sexy as hell how you did that, and, it has occurred to me that there are many opportunities for enjoyment here.”

Ophelia nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that was a pretty epic battle–my Chosen sure was–”

Berri interrupted, [M-Me first! I want big daddy Jake first, I call dibs!]

Ophelia chuckled at her sister, but Fhesiah groaned. “Dibs, really?” She smirked, as she looked lower on Jake. “Well, not to worry. There’s more than enough daddy Jake to go around. Right, Lord Husband?”

Jake chuckled. “That’s right, my dear wives. Once we wrap these battles up, there will be plenty of time for enjoyment, I’ll make sure of it.”

Ophelia summoned Valora once more, her appearing with a sad whinny. [We hate…weak.]

Smiling, Ophelia patted Valora’s snout. “It won’t be much longer, then you’ll be able to be strong like your true self. Let’s win this!”

Jake and Fhesiah hopped onto the back of Valora behind Ophelia, and cleared the right lane of all the automatons as the left lane’s tower and respawning fixture were destroyed. The annoying duck lizard remained alive, trying to rain powerful shots of gross spit onto the Battlegroup. Each attack was met with waves of water enhanced by Jasmina’s song, vines, or bone shields, the annoying creature whittling away at their resources.

Berri fumed with rage at the monster hiding behind its tower and shield. “Grrr, okay, so maybe Bill isn’t that bad. I want that thing dead!” Surprisingly, her axe growled with anger as well.

Tanda chuckled. “I’ll kill it as soon as it’s wide open, Berri. We’ll get ‘em.”

Marching to the right lane, the Battlegroup rejoined Jake, and the large party was able to push through and destroy the tower and respawning fixture before the hornet could rejoin the fray.

As the final fixture fell, the barriers on the last set of towers were removed, and they actually collapsed into the ground. The duck lizard was running away, but Tanda was ready with a powerful arrow. Her long-distance shot exploded with a fiery wolf, biting off a leg and much of its lower torso.

But the creature still lived, so Berri hit an arcing baseball the long distance. The ball was about to strike, when a creature appeared in motes of light, blocking the attack. A tail wrapped around the duck lizard and lifted it into the air, as the Boss appeared.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Berri shouted.

It was a two-headed hydra which was absolutely massive, one head billowing fire and one ice. It had a large lizard-like body, the two snake-heads curving up and backwards from where a lizard’s head would be on its shoulders. The creature’s body was a mix of red and blue, matching the heads.

The body stood a little shorter than the frost giant king had, but its two snake heads rose taller than that. The monster aimed the duck lizard as if it were a gun with its tail, a loud quacking sound echoing as it shot at the Battlegroup. The hydra’s two heads roared and shot fire and ice breath at the large group of allies.

Jake and Ophelia blocked the hydra head’s ranged attack with Sacrificial Barriers, while Berri hastily erected a barrier to block the duck’s spit at her. But now, some magical quality was added by the empowered creature, where it shattered the barrier and the caustic substance splattered all over her.

Blood floated several baseballs into the air, and Berri groaned as she removed the caustic substance with a clever wave of auril before using the cleaning spell form. “You’ll pay for that!”

Her weapon morphed into the baseball bat, where she began hitting the balls at the duck lizard, but the tail swung and moved its implement around, evading their attacks.

The boss’s lizard-like body was engaged in melee with the many members of the Battlegroup. Drysander and the Auril Heroes attacked it with their various polearms, and Yiming and Longwei cut into it with valorous blades. The creature was large, but it did not have a health bar to restore itself.

Instead, it shed scales and flesh restored rapidly, but not as rapidly as the Battlegroup was able to harm it. Bolts of frost from Morwen’s priestesses pierced into its flesh, Fhesiah’s flames from her Sun and Moon Hex, Tanda’s arrows and more struck the boss, as everyone laid into the creature.

It snapped with its large jaws with its two heads, and sent waves of flame and ice out as they did. Bedwyr was ready with his aura of frost protection, and Jake’s Aura of Heavenly Flames enhanced by Jasmina’s song rejected much of the flames. Ophelia with her Valkyrie Champion ability enlarging her blocked one, and Vesuvius and Darris worked together to block the other as Jake, the war maidens, and Drysander’s wives healed the damage caused.

Angry at the difficulty of killing their hated enemy, Bloodberri blurred to the rear of the immense creature, both girls requesting Jake make them bigger once more.

Chuckling, Jake found resonance with Ophelia and took on the state of the Guardian, and sent over the Giant’s Growth buff. Her axe roared as it enlarged, and they leaped and wrapped their spiked body around the back of the large creature.

Their weight even made the creature stumble, as the many warriors’ efforts crashed and slashed into the creature from the front. Chopping into the base of the creature’s tail, they worked to eliminate the monster’s control over their hated enemy, even as it shot its caustic substance at them.

But they used their Maul of Hestia-Echidna ability, cutting deeply and sending out a wave of light and dark, rejecting some of the creature’s attacks. Then, dropping [Between Heaven and Hell], they debuffed the boss as it was wrapped in darkness, and additionally, sent out a wave of holy light energy.

The girls also used their dance as they swayed side to side and struck the creature, moving holy light and dark through their bodies, and even auril. The magically enhanced caustic spittle from the annoying creature was ignored, as she cleaved into the monster with her large axe.

The two heads turned to try to breathe frost and fire at her and bite into her, but Ophelia’s Hearth Guardian arrived, along with Jake’s Hearth flames, to block and rebuff them. With a final chop, the tail was disconnected from the rest of the monster’s body, the duck lizard being dropped.

It nearly fell to the ground, but Blood grabbed it with her telekinesis, lifting it into the air and bringing it toward them. The chimeral axe shifted into a spear, its length being nearly eight meters.

Spearing the hated monster in its chest, its color began to change immediately. Blood and Berri were both expecting this, so they flung it at the monster’s neck of frost at the base. Blood also aided its trajectory with her telekinesis, so it hit its mark and exploded.

The explosion easily severed the Boss’s spine, nearly destroying its neck and disconnecting it from its body. The head hung limply, unable to move. The Battlegroup capitalized on this, Tanda’s arrow striking with a powerful golden wolf and several others sending their ranged attacks at this target.

The head was removed, and while the neck stump appeared to be regrowing, the caustic substance kept it in check. Fhesiah’s flames were spreading along with Timone’s fiery ravens, and wounds could not heal over fast enough.

Ophelia’s halberd sliced off large chunks of the beast, and now that she only had to defend against one head, it was easy to deal with. Bloodberri cleaved into the creature’s body from the rear, the back of its body now slumping as she wrapped her tail and crushed and sliced into its back legs with her large axe.

Having not lost any towers in the challenge, this boss was not empowered and relatively easy to deal with. It still fought back with its flames and lashing out with its front body, but as it was taken to the ground, it became easy pickings.

The creature eventually died, and the Battlegroup roared in victory.

[Alliance Victory! You have 15 Minutes to Loot the boss and chest, before being moved to the Rest Area.]

As the monster slumped over dead, Bloodberri’s axe began eating chunks of the enemy with glee.

Berri gave a relieved sigh, finally having killed their hated enemy. “Oh! It looks like this one was special. I wish we could cook and eat that duck lizard. It’s the ultimate revenge.”

Blood nodded. “Yes, that would do quite nicely. I feel a strong desire to have some roasted duck. Then some fried auril beast? They are like a lizard.”

They collected the loot, the treasure not all that dissimilar from the last one. It took the axe a few minutes, but eventually the monster had eaten enough of the monster’s flesh. They triggered loot on the immense creature, receiving a large number of scales perfect for crafting, and various other portions of the creature’s body.

Blood and Berri would later use Essence Extraction on much of it, to craft resistance equipment and similar. They eventually arrived at the Rest Area, receiving the same prompt as last time. They would have six hours to rest, before their final challenge.