Bonded Summoner

The Battlegroup didn’t have long to wait before more groups started showing up, Jake’s party having spent a few minutes at the Node.

Bloodberri needed armor repairs from the caustic explosion, and even Jake had been cut into several times by the void creature. Repairing their Mythic armor with gamelike repair items was still expensive, as the rare materials made them require many for the same result.

Refilling their ammunition, they were ready for the next battle after some rest. It was Valtor and Amara’s group that arrived first. Jake had wanted to take Valtor and Amara in his Dungeon Raid, but he simply wasn’t high enough level.

Jake and his wives approached him first. “Valtor! It’s good to see you. It looks like…everyone is here?”

Valtor laughed. “That’s right! The battle was a challenge, but those elites were no match for our teamwork. Teaming up with the beastkin and our allies, our Instance did well!”

Ophelia asked, “What kind of elites did you have in your instance?”

Amara answered, “They were quite varied. One was a sort of automaton caster, that would enhance the others in the lane it was in. Another was a large ape, that frenzied and leaped at our weaker allies when we attacked it. There was a dangerous rhinoceros-like creature, that tried targeting and destroying our tower. We were only barely able to save it, when we had to fall back and rest before our final push.”

Valtor added, “There was a powerful archer and a lightning spellcaster as well. Amara and I had to expend much effort to counter them.”

Getting more of their descriptions, they were certainly not at the level of the prime instance, but certainly a difficult challenge to counter. Their groups all seemed to have unique elites, providing varied challenges and synergy required for victory.

More groups arrived, most of them successful in keeping their allies alive and defeating the challenge.

But many of them suffered casualties. The elite’s aim was particularly dangerous, to score kills on the Battlegroup almost through respawn tactics. They eventually found the weakest link or created a difficult to deal with situation, and grabbed their kills.

However, many of the Hearthtribe groups made it through. Takoda’s group of tamers easily managed the towers with their auril beasts, while their many allies then focused down the elites.

Grayson and Sunmane managed to protect their weaker allies with focused healing and shielding.

A few had ended up using a different strategy. Brock’s Battlegroup focused on a strategy of pushing one lane heavily with only a token defense left at the other lanes, defending the towers. Then, they went hunting and ambushed the elite enemies before they could meet, and eliminate any of their targets. The elites were slaughtered easily, and Jake thought it sounded like a decent idea.

However, in some it backfired. Oman’s Battlegroup did lose a few allies because the elites were able to sneak and group up, and then hit and kill their token defense at one of the towers, even though the towers finished them off. Having lost five Battlegroup members, they left the Raid with two floors completed.

Having 50 people complete what was a solo Trial or better was still a big win. However, with what was the most difficult battle with less than their maximum potential, it was extra dangerous. What the Alliance knew about battles is there was often a requirement to deal a certain amount of damage per second, or the battle would become impossible in many of the chosen final challenges.

If the Battlegroup entered with less than their maximum number of members, they were at a severe handicap–when the challenge was difficult enough without it.

Davonious and Avina’s Battlegroup had done well, but also lost a few allies against the Boss monster. The fire and ice hydra was common among all the groups, but would vary in size and strength, especially if they lost towers. Several barely overcame their challenges, with only one tower lost.

Dave’s Battlegroup would need to leave, though they certainly weren’t going home empty-handed. The various loot and tokens could be exchanged, and once the world Trial was done, they would be able to select true classes of decent quality or rarity thanks to their efforts and impact on the World’s Contest.

He came over, holding a large canister. “I have some more grokk for you and your clan, Lady Fhesiah. I wish we could continue, so we could earn more of what was lost and earn you more honor, but we have failed.”

Fhesiah chuckled. “Thank you, Davonius. It is not a failure, only a lesser victory. You and your many allies have come a long way in just a few short months, but it was not enough for the best. Our enemy is wicked, and being able to improve and fight again is a great gift. Next time your claws will be sharper, and even greater victories will await you.”

The many Battlegroups eventually joined them in their rest, with there being a larger percentage of those backing down. A similar percentage to those that failed previously, failed entirely once again. The Champion’s Rift was set up as a game of tug and war.

As allies were lost and the elites powered up, it was as if it became impossible to win. A proper pace of progress needed to be set. Otherwise, loss was inevitable.

Berri looked at the canister. “Oh! Is this that coffee? I want some, this time.”

Jake chuckled. “Alright. Do you want it hot, or cold?”

Berri hummed. “Why not both? I want to try it!”

Stopping at the Node, Jake grabbed the ingredients and tools, blending some ice, caramel, whipped cream, and condensed milk for the cold drink, and then replaced the ice and caramel for a white chocolate flavoring in the hot one.

Tanda was excited to try the cold blended drink. Once again slurping from the straw, her tail was wagging. “It’s so good! It’s like the smoothie.”

Fhesiah and Ophelia both held steaming cups, Ophelia giving a big smile to Jake. “These are great! The grokk really has extra energy in it. I like chocolate, but this white chocolate is even better.”

Fhesiah hummed, as she mulled over the flavors. “Hmm, I’ll have to try to recreate this one.” She smirked. “Which do you like, Blood? Caramel or white chocolate?”

Blood looked between the two cups. “I have to say, it’s hard to choose. I did like it when you tried that honey flavor… I’m leaning more towards the white chocolate.”

Berri’s tongue whipped out and licked a bit of the whipped cream off the hot coffee, enjoying both drinks. A big smile was on her face, as she swapped between the two.

“I like them both! Hot and cold are the best. Blood, let’s find out what that duck lizard is called, so we can eat them.”

Finished making the drinks, Jake had his own hot white chocolate mocha. It had just the right amount of bitter flavor, mixed with the sweet white chocolate. The caffeine and vitality from the auril plant beans gave it an extra boost, making him feel like he had drunk a magical energy drink.

Blood hummed, as she scanned the Wiki. “Looks like it’s called a Muckbill, and it lives in high mana environments. A bottom feeder, it collects all sorts of waste, and like a living cauldron, it merges them with magic and creates its terrible fluids to attack its enemies.”

Tanda’s face scrunched up in disgust. “Ugh, that’s really gross!”

Berri’s expression matched Tanda’s. “Muckbill? More like Yuckbill! Well, their name is already icky.”

Blood smirked. “But it looks like there’s some good news. Their young are definitely like a blend of a duck and a lizard, and edible. Fried or roasted, they should be good.”

Berri cheered. “Yes! We will have our revenge!”

Ophelia laughed. “How is that having revenge? You already killed that one.”

Berri looked at Ophelia with a serious, savage expression. “Is there anything you can think of worse, than knowing your children were eaten by your hated enemy?”

Ophelia was stunned speechless. She was right, but…wasn’t that going a little too far?

To Jake’s surprise, Berri didn’t even ask Jake to cook the muckbills for her. She purchased them from the Node and happily roasted them up, and Jake found them to be decent. The duck and lizard combination was a unique blend of flavors, having just the right amount of greasiness for roasted meat.

Their time counted down, the family resting. The many Battlegroups focused on rest, the upcoming battle to be the most difficult. Rhia did come by to speak with Berri, to regale her tale of fighting in Brock’s Raid.

As Mindy leveled up and became a stronger auril hero, she also grew in size–mostly keeping pace with Rhia’s own growth. Thus, she remained Rhia’s best mount, to her dismay.

Tanda had grown too, but it was hard to notice–as the rest of Clan Hart did as well.

When the timer was nearly zero, Jake gave one final speech. Covering all the allies with his Aura of Heavenly Flames, he did his best to embolden the beastkin. They would have their vengeance against the enemy, by taking potential from it.

Entering the portal, they ended up in a large cavern, a circular arena. Four portals were visible, two were green and the others were black. They alternated in the four cardinal directions of the room. Two large demons stood in the center of the room, matching the colors of the portals.

The two demons had cloven hoofed feet, their bodies having leather-like armor on them. Their skins were covered with mystical scripts and runes, their respective energies wafting off them in waves. Each had what looked like powerful yet elastic flailed tails, that looked like they could be used as weapons.

[Welcome to the Final Challenge: Life and Death Reflection]

[Highlands is a unique world, embodying the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Face and defeat the twin legendary demons in front of you, using the powers of life against the death demon, and the powers of death against the life demon. Their health is shared, but challenges throughout the battle will require both energies to succeed.]

[Periodically, orbs of each alignment will be released from the portals, to move around the room randomly. Each absorbed orb will increase your power, but collide with an orb of the opposite polarity, and stacks will be lost with a harmful explosion. Orbs matching the demon will empower them instead, and attacks matching the demon will heal them.]

[You have 15 minutes to begin this challenge.]

Additional details about the encounter lit up behind them, the scripts providing the information. It appeared that throughout the battle, creatures would also spawn. They could accomplish various challenging things, the worse of which was to heal or empower the boss if they weren’t stopped in time.

The bosses would also shift things throughout the fight, using different abilities. What Jake noticed is that there was no fixture that healed them with a beam of light this time. Instead, the amount of energy billowing off of them was intense.

Jake imagined that these creatures couldn’t only compete with the peak of the 2nd Tier monsters, but actually monsters in the Third Tier might not win against them with so much energy flowing through them.

Looking over the four portals and the two demons, Jake tried to imagine what this fight would be like. They would need two tanks, one for each demon. Then, they would need to gain orbs opposing the demon, while ensuring the demons did not receive orbs of their own color.

This should mean that they’d need to tank the death demon near a green portal, and the life demon near a black portal.

This way, those in the melee could receive orbs matching what they required without moving, and keep the boss away from receiving its matching orbs.

Ideally, they would want ranged attackers to stand in front of the other portals, but the room was huge. They would effectively be doing nothing for a large portion of the fight if they simply did that.

The damage done increased from collecting the orbs, but it maxed out at near double the damage. If they reached maximum stacks, the person would receive a large boost for a total of three times the damage for thirty seconds, before they would lose the buff and have to start over.

There was some sort of immunity period when they reached the maximum number of stacks, preventing them from exploding if they touched an orb of the wrong color. It was something an individual person needed to keep track of, and thankfully, Jake had some confidence in his allies to pay attention to this.

Jake frowned as he thought about how he could arrange his people. If they grouped up too many death or life people in one area, then the opposing orb could strike one and explode, harming them all.

Tanda tapped her lips. “I wonder how fast these orbs are. My people are pretty mobile, and can probably dodge them.”

Blood hummed, as she examined the battlefield and even Jake’s thoughts, the girls all having thoughts of their own. “How about we keep an opposing healer or caster near the melee? This way, they can absorb the errant orbs.”

Jake nodded. “A good idea. Taking that a little further, I guess we will try to have four groups, in a sense. Stationing people as close to their respective portal as possible, we’ll make sure we have people of the right alignment.”

He looked at Bloodberri with a frown. Her epic size was particularly dangerous.

Ophelia laughed. “Well, I think she makes for one of the better tank options just for that reason alone. She’ll be able to almost completely block the portal!”

Berri scoffed. “Whatever. I’m big, but I’m fast. Those orbs won’t touch me unless I let them.”

Drysander, Nadessa and his wives were also a concern, being carried in his boughs. They would need to gather in the caster and ranged attacker’s section instead.

Jake sighed. This battle was too complicated. The possibility for a catastrophic mistake was extremely high, and that appeared to be just what Tartarus was looking for.

Imagining the other raid groups, he hoped that each group came up with a solution to the various problems, and quickly enough. At the same time, he knew they would get watered-down mechanics versus the Prime Instance. They would receive fewer orbs, fewer penalties when they made a mistake, and more.

He wanted to use Jasmina again, but reasoned that the Garuda would be much more mobile. The creature’s immense speed would be useful both for collecting orbs, but also making it able to quickly move to take on the spawned creatures.

Because he wouldn’t be using Jasmina, he preferred to use Oran for his healing and auril capabilities. However, some intense desire from his bond from Bree caused him to frown. He received a flurry of emotions, but he got the feeling that she would fight hard, and that she wouldn’t let him down.

Fhesiah smiled at his thoughts. “I say we use her. She has exceeded all our expectations, and has been a formidable ally. She enjoys the fight, much like Ophelia or Bloodberri do.”

Tanda nodded. “Bree is really strong! Her song is strange, like it’s being filtered, but I feel like she is dependable. Oran is less strange, but he’s more like a simple beast until Cernunnos takes over.”

Ophelia added, “And she has the intelligence to understand this complex battle. Odds are, we’ll need the extra offense, too. The idea that we get a stacking offensive buff means that this will be the largest challenge.”

Blood tapped her lips. “Something about her, Ainora, and Isolyn feel more…monstrous. But it feels…like Tanda said, like I can’t read her. Still, I respect her strength.”

“I like her now. I felt like she was a bitch like the others before, but now, she understands how great our Jake is! She’s like one of us girls now.” Berri was on board as well.

Jake raised his brows at that. It appeared to be unanimous. Jake summoned the Garuda and buffed it, before summoning Bree.

When Bree was summoned, he felt satisfaction and gratitude coming from her. She brushed up against him with her large head, her warm vines wrapping around him and drawing him into her neck in a hug.

“Uh?”

His wives laughed, and all took turns hugging Bree as well. She then appeared to focus, and her vines grew and twisted. Each beat of her odd quasi-auril heart, more auril was sent into her vines.

Jake gave Bree a questioning look, and she shrugged, sending him a feeling of frustration, and desire. It appeared she was changing something, but couldn’t really tell him much about it even if she wanted to.

Her vines were in an intricate weave, and it appeared she was building up to something. He sent her a bit more of the energy, as auril came back to him even faster than mana did. While Bree had the mouth of a boar or pig, she smiled at this, but kept working on her vines.

Bree looked at Tanda, and it seemed she understood what Bree wanted, and she cast Rampant Growth as well.

Buffing her up, he prepared the rest of the buffs for the Battlegroup. Meeting with Timone, Morwen, and Yiming, they created their best initial strategy.

Life melee (Death Boss): Ophelia, Drysander, Dahlia, Garuda, Seamus, Longwei, Bree, [Fhesiah].

Life Ranged/Casters: Nadessa and mothers, Jake, Timone’s mates, [Aisling].

Death melee (Life Boss): Bloodberri, Timone, Bedwyr, Roxo, Vesuvius, Yiming, Darris, [Tanda].

Death Ranged/Casters: Morwen’s Priestesses, War Maidens and Shrine Maiden, [Rookard].

Fhesiah would fight near the death boss, to capture any errant death orbs, as she used her flames on the Life Demon. Tanda would do the same, attacking the death demon with her bow as she flew around and collected any errant life orbs near the life Demon.

Meanwhile, Jake would set up his Mana Font near the center of the room, partitioning the two groups of casters at the edges, standing closer to their respective portals. Aisling would collect any errant death orbs for the life casters, and Rookard would collect any errant life orbs for the death casters.

Once again, the melee around the bosses would be crowded. Several melee attackers would be tasked with being the ones to go after any spawned creatures, and this would hardly be a detriment to their damage against the bosses.

Valora counted as a battle mount, and like Bedwyr’s unliving horse, would only collect orbs for Ophelia if she was riding her. The mare could run around and rescue people put in a bad spot with near-impunity, but her impact on the fight would be limited.

Bedwyr noted, “This is a complicated battle. The scripts say that the orbs will only influence our attacks–that the life orbs wouldn’t hurt to collect for the Emberborn. Still, it is good that we can act with the energy most appropriate to us–it seems there is a benefit or amplification for doing this.”

Timone frowned. “This battle is truly strange, though I understand this contest is partially the Framework’s doing. Still, balance and harmony are the path to victory, and Chief Jake has gathered a powerful choir. We will defeat this strange foe.”

Yiming looked thoughtful. “Our people now face this same enemy together, in hundreds of similar instances. We have an excellent mixture of talent, capability, and experience. I’m confident Hearthtribe and the new people of Highlands will come out on top.”

Jake smiled. “Once again, I’ll say that we have the best allies one could ask for. We’ll take on this great challenge, and ascend together.”