The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 31

Chapter 31

Karley stumbled backwards as she was pushed out of the way, the Smasher that had saved her life raising the haft of the oversized warhammer in front of him to block the strike. Even with Barlin’s prodigious strength, he was pushed back a step and his weapon looked to have been bent slightly out of shape were it had been hit – despite the Strengthen Steel +2 Fusion she had placed on it the day before. Even her best work with Fusions hadn’t been enough to make it completely invulnerable to the strength of the Dechonabras, unfortunately.

“We’ve got to run! They’re too strong!”

The Elementalist turned her head toward their Combat Healer, who flung out yet another spell when his Mana regenerated, the Air Blade cutting through half of one the large, hairy monster’s legs nearby. While it stumbled and fell to a knee, it wasn’t out of the fight yet, as it simply crawled forward and used its long arms to reach out toward Deivin; thankfully, the Healer was able to move out of range easily enough, but they were running out of room.

Quickly checking a portion of her Status, Karley saw that she also had regenerated enough Mana for another Pyroblast.

Karley Pastare

Elementalist

Healer

Level 25

Advancement Points (AP) : 4/20

Available AP to Distribute: 0

Mana: 152/1650

Intellect: 150 [165]

Acuity: 120 [144]

Pneuma: 50

Pattern Cohesion: 50/50

Mage Skills:

Fusion Level 15

Pattern Formation Level 60

Pattern Recognition Level 60

Magical Detection Level 60

Spellcasting Focus Level 61

Mana Control Level 62

I’m glad I took the time to create that Acuity Boost +2 Fusion on my staff last week; Fusions were never my expertise, the additional Mana regeneration is the only thing keeping us alive. If we manage to survive escaping these things, I’m going to see if there are any Fusionists back in Whittleton that can make +3 Boosts for me.  It would be worth the extra cost—

“They’re closing in from behind! How are there so many of them?”

Even as she began preparing the spell pattern for another Pyroblast, which would consume 150 of her Mana once she cast it – and that was with the bonuses to Mana Cost that came with her Elementalist Specialization after it merged her Pyromancer, Aquamancer, Geomancer, and Aeromancer Specializations – Karley glanced behind her to see what Rhylla was talking about. The Silent Blade had better vision than she did, thanks to one of her Battle Arts that focused on improving her visual and auditory senses, but the line of Dechonabras enclosing them in was visible even to the Elementalist.

Crap.

It was at that moment that she knew they wouldn’t make it out alive. Or, at least, everyone but Rhylla wouldn’t make it because they were all exhausted, but the Silent Blade was fast and agile enough despite her exhaustion that she would easily be able to flee. As for Karley, Barlin, Deivin, and Zorey, their Defender, even if they had the strength and endurance to see the through, they wouldn’t be able to escape before they were surrounded.

I knew this was a bad idea, but no, Zorey had to save the other SIC group in trouble. Now look where we are; those from the other group are dead, and we’re just about to join them.

It should’ve been an easy patrol through the main road leading west out of Whittleton, but Rhylla reported that she’d heard fighting off to the south and away from their path. It went against their orders to stray too far from the road, as they didn’t have nearly enough people to clear every acre of land around the town’s exterior, but Zorey was one of those Nobles that took his position seriously and considered everyone’s safety to be his responsibility. As a result, his role as leader of their group had them venture off the road and investigate this fighting that was nearby.

It turned out to be Swanek’s group who had stumbled across a horde of Harvest Voles, the 2-foot-long, mouse-like monsters that were more of a nuisance rather than a threat when seen in a Scission. Of course, they became more than a nuisance when they appeared in their thousands, which was soon proven to be too much for Swanek and his group of SIC personnel. When Karley and her group arrived, their fellows had been in the process of falling back to the road, but were cut off by the sudden movements of the Vole horde which cut them off.

Only Swanek and one of his groupmates were still up by that point, the others having been taken down at some point; it was a losing battle, but Zorey was nothing but altruistic in his zeal for protecting his people, even if Swanek was a bit of an oaf with manners that were fit for a pig. Which was why one of his quiet nicknames in the SIC barracks had been “Swine-ek”, because his piggishness was well known to everyone.

Regardless, they pushed ahead with their rescue, and the abrupt arrival of a fresh team of Mages and Martials was exactly what was needed. Within minutes, they had whittled down the Harvest Voles to under 100, though Swanek’s last groupmate had fallen and was barely able to stand on his own feet by that point. Deivin was able to heal him up once they finally finished off the rest of the monsters, but that was, unfortunately, when disaster struck. Or more precisely, that was when the Dechonabras appeared out of seemingly nowhere and attacked them.

Swanek, for all that he was a pig, valiantly stood his ground while Karley and her group were able to retreat into a better position, allowing their Mana and Stama to regenerate. They should’ve run at that point, but Zorey couldn’t abide allowing Swanek’s sacrifice to be in vain and had them hold the line. His reasoning was that they were out patrolling to eliminate monsters and keep the roads safe, so they might as well ensure that the Dechonabras didn’t endanger the local population.

It was a stupid reason, in her opinion, but she couldn’t deny that it needed to be done. Preferably with a larger group than just the 5 of them, however.

The problem was immediately obvious when the Dechonabras were proven to be tougher than any of them had imagined. Karley recognized them from her Academy days more than a decade and a half before, as Thanchet had been attacked by a Scission at one point and they were one of the monsters, but they had fallen quickly and weren’t much of a threat. Granted, that was probably because they were killed from the safety of the walls and were bombarded by dozens if not a hundred different spells simultaneously, but her memory of that time made them out to be weak.

The reality was that they were anything but weak. Their attacks were powerful, both their long-limbed strikes and in-close bites, and their hairy skin was slightly resistant to elemental magic and weapons; fire worked well enough, as had been proven by her Pyroblasts, as well as some air-based spells, but anything in her repertoire from water and earth was less effective. Barlin’s warhammer could break bones whenever he struck, but the monsters were resilient enough that even a few broken bones couldn’t keep them from advancing. Zorey’s sword was able to cut through the hair and into the flesh beneath, but where he was typically strong enough to lop off limbs with a simple strike, the same feat required an application of Stama to accomplish the same effect, and the Defender was as limited in his Stama expenditure as Karley was.

Rhylla was the only one able to move freely around the relatively slow Dechonabras without fear, but her knives were limited in the damage they could do, even when empowered by a Battle Art. Nevertheless, her strikes were able to hamstring dozens of the monsters, allowing them to maintain a slow retreat as they defended themselves, but that appeared to be coming to an end with more of the Dechonabras coming up behind them.

“Zorey! Rhylla needs to escape and let the others know about this threat!” Karley shouted at the Defender as he blocked another attack with his shield. Unlike Barlin who had taken a step back upon his block, the powerful Martial was able to deflect the blow with ease without moving; nevertheless, she could tell that it affected him by the way he was moving slower every minute, as even his high Strength and Body stats weren’t enough to keep him upright forever.

“No! I’m not going to leave you,” the Silent Blade said, even as she zipped ahead of Karley and hamstrung yet another Dechnoabra that was encroaching upon her side. The monster stumbled and struck out wildly, its long arms undulating unpredictably. An outflung fist suddenly struck Rhylla as she backed up, clipping her on the side of her right leg and sent her flying. Karley heard the tell-tale snap of a broken bone as soon as the impact happened, and she knew the Silent Blade would have some issues fleeing now that she likely had a broken leg.

“Give me a few minutes for my Mana to regenerate and I can heal that!” Deivin said, having seen and heard the same thing as the Elementalist, and he crouched by where the Silent Blade had landed in a heap, groaning in pain.

We’re not going to have a few minutes at this rate.

With one of their group members down, a second looking after her, and with Kayley nearly out of Mana once she finished her Pyroblast, which happened a second later and luckily killed 5 of the nearby monsters and lit another half-dozen on fire, their defense was down to a Defender and a Smasher. While both of them strong and resilient, neither of them was very fast; it was only a matter of time before a few of the Dechonabras made it through their defense and attacked those behind. She thought that her regeneration would allow her to cast a few more significant spells before the end, but it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

Despair was beginning to set in as she watched her groupmates kill or injure another two-dozen of the monsters that got close to them, but there were seemingly countless more right behind them. Looking back, she estimated that they had another minute or so before those coming from behind completely encircled them, and by that point it would be all over.

Damn you, Zorey, and your need to be a hero.

She knew it wasn’t fair to blame him like that, as she could’ve objected and the others would’ve listened, given that she had seniority in the group, but she hadn’t. It was only because the others were Nobles that she didn’t take on the role of a leader, as she had never become entirely comfortable ordering them around, even if the SIC professed not to regard things like Noble rank all that much, but in practice this was far from the truth. Thankfully, she never got too involved with Corps politics and kept her head down most of the time, so it hadn’t really affected her… until now.

Karley was about to start casting a swath of low-Mana Cost spells, such as dozens of simple Fireballs, as a last resort – even though she knew they weren’t terribly effective against the Dechonabras – but after she formed the spell pattern for the first one, filled it with Mana, and then sent it flying into the head of one of the monsters, she paused. It wasn’t because it the Dechonabra she was targeting somehow dodged most of the spell at the last moment by moving its head, which left scorch marks on its neck but not much else, but because she felt something she wasn’t expecting.

Someone was using magic nearby.  Despite her Magical Detection Skill stuck at 60, a common bottleneck that she had barely broken through with her Spellcasting Focus and Mana Control Skills, it was still powerful enough to detect Mana being used within 360 feet. Looking at Deivin, she could tell that it hadn’t come from him as he protectively hovered over the broken-legged Rhylla; instead, she had a strange sense that it was coming from behind the Dechonabras that were attacking them from the front.

“Someone is here!” she shouted, her words temporarily startling the others. Fortunately, they were stalwart enough in their defense that they didn’t falter for a moment. “They’re casting spells from the southwest,” she explained.

“I don’t feel anything,” Deivin said, but he didn’t naysay her. He knew that she was a higher Level than any of the others, and that came with higher-Level Skills like Magical Detection.

“We just need to hold on a little bit longer!” she added, before casting yet more spells as her Mana gradually regenerated.

That was, of course, easier said than done, considering that they were soon to be entirely surrounded, but something miraculous happened. The front line of tall, hairy monsters approaching them from the front suddenly stopped and turned around, their momentum completely canceled as it looked like they were retreating.

“What? What’s going on?” Barlin asked in confusion, as the Dechonabras that were so intent on killing them all seemingly abandoned their pursuit of the group. “Are they running away?”

Karley immediately knew that this wasn’t the case. They weren’t fleeing, nor were they walking away randomly; instead, based on their positioning, they appeared to be heading in a single direction.

Right where she sensed the magic being used.

Looking behind her, the monsters that were coming up to enclose them in from all sides were only 50 feet away by that point. As she stared at them, they seemed to open up in the middle of their line, aiming to move to either side of Karley and her group. It was almost like they were a rock in the middle of a stream, and the monstrous water was parting around them in order to reach their destination.

What is going on?

Running her left hand through her sweat-soaked, shoulder-length brown hair to move it out of her face where it had fallen forward, the Elementalist looked on with shock as their impending doom was somehow waylaid, leaving them alive despite the odds that weren’t in their favor. How is this possible?

She’d never seen or heard of anything like this before, though venturing out from the defensive walls of a town or city to hunt down roaming monsters was still new to most in the SIC. For all she knew, this was normal… but she didn’t believe that to be the case. Either way, she was determined to find out what this was all about – as long as their saviors didn’t fall into the same trap that they had by trying to save them.

“Rest up, regenerate, and heal,” Zorey said to the group as he stood in front of them, his sword and shield at the ready in case the monsters changed their minds and turned around to attack. “When we’re at half our maximum, we’ll lend what aid we can to those who came to help us.”

As much as a part of Karley wanted to flee while they had the chance, she agreed with their leader in this case. It wasn’t so much that she wanted to help those that came to rescue her group; it was that she wanted to know how they had done so. Is it some sort of area-wide taunting Martial ability? A spell designed to catch the attention of any monsters within a certain area? She didn’t know, exactly, but she was determined to find out.