T. A. Star
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21 - Misery Broodmother
🕑 Added 2024-03-26 00:00:02 +0000 UTC
Phoenix awoke about five hours later, which is all a Crystal Caster really needed to feel fully rested, to find a small black murder-kitten curled up on her chest and her heart rate soared in her temporary panic.
“Whasit?! Whaswrong?” Saiya yelled, sitting straight upwards in the bed nearby and blearily searching the room for enemies. This shout in turn had Rayna practically jumping upwards only to smack a sleepy face into the icy ceiling from the bunk above Saiya’s bed causing a yelp of pain, surprise, and annoyance.
“Shhhh!” the Wayfarer loudly shushed the voxen, “You’ll wake her!”
The Healer seemed to finally focus on the sleeping chimera and gave an annoyed huff, “By the gods, Bliss. How did she even get in here?”
“I have no idea but I don’t want to see her react the same way you both did from being startled awake. Her claws are sharp,” the Wayfarer complained.
Rayna grumbled as the voxen rolled out of the top bunk, took a [Gem Encrusted] tail to slide under the sleeping kitten, and in a fluid movement tossed the chimera out the open window that Phoenix knew she hadn’t left open earlier.
She sat up to stare out the window then looked at the bard incredulously, “Did you just yeet a kitten out a window?!”
“She’s a Sapphire Caste Adventurer and that window is like two meters off the ground. She’ll live,” the pugilist stated flatly.
Phoenix fell back onto her bed and asked the ceiling, “I thought the Sapphire parties would all be gone by now. Don’t they only need like three hours of rest before being good to go again?”
Saiya rubbed amber eyes and started climbing out of bed as she answered, “Yeah but they took a staggered watch so all the Crystals could sleep at once. Rayna and I stayed up a bit later to talk with them. Bliss’ group probably took the second watch if she’s still here.”
“Well, we’re all awake now so might as well get going. We have another day of watching Summons do most of the work for us,” the bard grumbled.
“It’s not a terrible tactic,” the Tranquil Healer pointed out, “Less risk of an Adventurer dying when they’re not the ones directly in the fight. Summons will always come back later.”
Rayna smirked, glancing towards the immortal Wayfarer, and as the pugilist opened her mouth to speak, Phoenix interrupted by preemptively retorting, “I’m not a Summon.”
The Shatter Bard gave a feral grin and pointed out, “But you’re not from this world and you always come back! You’re totally a Summon!”
The Wayfarer rolled her eyes, “Nobody summoned me here. I told you all that some Night Witch did a ritual and sent me here.”
“So you were Banished. That’s basically a reverse Summon,” the Striker stated with a shrug, “Same difference.”
“Maybe you’re like a summoned Familiar to Makera?” Saiya seemed to speculate.
“Please, not you too,” Phoenix pleaded as her face sunk into her palms.
“A World Phoenix Familiar? That’s an interesting theory,” Rayna replied, taking on the same serious tone as her twin.
“It’s too early for this,” the Astromancer groaned and climbed out of her own bed, her normal casual clothing appearing around her in a shimmer of silver starlight and she conjured a brush from her collection to try and tame her wild curls into a braid while she walked out of the room.
Rayna had been correct about the second day being much the same as the first; with the overwhelming force of the summons annihilating the small groups or single large monsters they would run into. The small groups were more common it seemed, since monsters that normally spawned as singles would multiply during a blood moon, and the ones that did spawn alone were on the higher end of Crystal or low Sapphire Caste.
The Sapphires were tough but were the only enemies offering the group slightly more of a challenge with their ability to live long enough to fight back against the swarm of summoned creatures. These were the fights that King’s Dream would more actively participate in but they were still over relatively quickly with how much damage was being dealt from every direction.
It was about two hours before sunset when the group of Adventurers finally met an actual threat to them as they were surrounded by a veritable swarm of creatures that would often plague the Wayfarer’s nightmares.
The miserlings were quick-moving and delighted in the tortured screams of the Summons they devoured as they seemed to pour out of the cave Rayna and Phoenix sprinted out of after attempting to scout it and failing to remain undetected.
Their new shields from Saiya’s [Elements Spirit Gem] upgraded ability seemed to overlay Phoenix’s own [Sun Shell] with a rippling sheen of blue water that stayed visible unlike the shields of light that would turn translucent. However, both were quickly destroyed like dewdrops splashing among rocks as the horde attempted to overwhelm their defenses and it seemed to only get worse from that point.
Class Ability: Sonorous Shield
Type: Spell (channel, construct, magical, song, water)
Cost: Low mana per second.
Cooldown: None.
Current caste: Sapphire 1 (2%)
Crystal Effect: As you sing, nearby allies gain increased resistance to Magical damage.
Sapphire Effect: As you sing, nearby allies gain increased resistance to Elemental damage. Also constructs a shield of water around each affected ally at the beginning of the spell that absorbs damage and lasts until the spell ends or the shield is destroyed. This effect incurs a separate 5-minute cooldown.
It became even more apparent that they were in trouble when Polissa’s summoned Familiar, a large [Fortress Guardian] which appeared like a stoney lizard named Ton-ton, had been overwhelmed by the swarm. It was after this defender fell that the largest miserling Phoenix had ever seen appeared from the mouth of the cave.
It was about four times as large as a normal miserling and had a heavy stomach that dragged along the ground with dozens of smaller miserlings seeming stuck to it and would periodically drip off the giant one carrying them around.
“What in the abyss is that?!” Phoenix called out at the sight of the monstrosity. It had two extra pure white eyes rather than the normal three, and its forked tongue seemed to lash at both the air and would grab some of the smaller kin to toss them at enemies. Which let her know that it was at least slightly smarter than the already more intelligent and sadistic than normal monsters.
“It’s a Misery Broodmother!” Uriel informed over the communication network to avoid the din of combat, “A very rare type of evolved monster that can actually produce more of its kind.”
“It’s very high Sapphire!” the Wayfarer added with a look towards Dazien, getting a feel of its aura as it entered the radius of her own, “How do we kill it?”
The idea of an endless torrent of miserlings that were actually natural avals instead of their monster variant was terrifying to Phoenix and she wanted to end the threat as quickly as possible. Dazien began to order, “Can you meteor-”
He was interrupted by Tanner, however, as the group leader said, “We’ll just focus the Summons on it first to stop the stream. Guard us from the swarm until they handle it.”
The adrenaline was pounding through her body as Phoenix flew around the perimeter of the group alongside Rayna, stabbing and punching the slick void-like creatures that tried to use the same overwhelming tactics that the Chaos Summoners did. Unfortunately, the miserlings seemed to be doing better at it for the moment as the Summons tried to focus on killing the brood mother that kept generating more miserlings that just dripped through it like water from an overfull sponge.
A trail of [Arcanist Gems] followed behind the pugilist as the bard’s particular brand of music filled the area as both a warning and a call for the enemies. The voxen was chanting as she moved through the horde, singing in time with the rhythm of her steps, fists, and tail strikes. Rayna also wove in the usage of one of the newly cultivated Sapphire abilities, ideally to thin out the horde quickly. This one had been enhanced by the [Repetition Spirit Gem] and it gave Phoenix a better understanding of the customizing effects the gems had.
Ability: Blink Step
Type: Special Attack (movement, magical, dimension)
Cost: Moderate mana.
Cooldown: 1 minute.
Current Caste: Sapphire 1 (10%)
Crystal Effect: Teleport behind an enemy target within sight, inflicting increased damage with your next attack.
Sapphire Effect: Can be used an additional time per Caste in succession before incurring its cooldown.
The brawler was a whirlwind jumping around the tight circle they had been forced to form and landing opportune strikes with [Gem Encrusted] fists and tails. Shattering the sadistic monsters that the bard had recently learned had tortured the Astromancer.
As Phoenix poorly imitated the swift Shatter Bard, pulling and pushing herself across the rocky terrain with [Ruler of Relativity], she thought she heard Saiya chant the incantation for [Rain of Life], which let her know that things were actually going much worse than she had thought, “Let the waters of life rain their blessings from the watchful sky above us.”
She even caught a glimpse of a glowing tail as the Healer triggered one of the effects from a Natural Talent, which both twins had, that would boost the potency of the healing water.
Natural Talent: Tails of Power
- Increased Magical and physical resistance of your tails.
- Each tail gradually accumulates ambient magic that may be used to boost the effects of an ability that costs mana or stamina.
Rain began to fall, turning the snow into a slippery slush, and Phoenix almost lost her balance a few times as the grip of her [Snolf Paws] no longer triggered on the wet rocks. She was healing at a ridiculous rate, however, and the few serrated claws that managed to gouge through her gray scaled armor were quickly healed as she impaled the miserlings with her blades, [Nyx, the Dagger of Darkness] and [Caustic Floe], delivering Banes and boosting her mana regeneration even further. Her illusory birds from [Lunar Dream] fluttered around the field to serve as a distraction as she chanted her [Call of the Abyss] curse and renewed everyone’s [Sun Shell] as often as she could.
When a scream tore through the air that she had never heard before, her heart sank when she turned towards it and saw Saiya pinned to the ground by one of the monsters that had gotten past Dazien who was struggling with containing five of the creatures. Uriel had also drawn his sword to fight off one of them from the opposite direction. Another high-pitched scream later and Phoenix was sprinting across the rocks towards the downed healer.
Rayna beat her there, having used one of the bard’s own trump cards to close the distance in almost an instant as the Striker practically crashed into the miserling that had been cutting into her sister’s guts.
Ability: Beyond the Boundary
Type: Utility (movement, magical, song)
Cost: Severe mana and stamina.
Cooldown: 5 minutes.
Current Caste: Sapphire 1 (5%)
Crystal Effect: Instantly boost your speed by a massive amount, quickly declining to normal over 5 seconds.
Sapphire Effect: A shockwave is generated in your wake, dealing a burst of Song damage and knocking back anyone nearby.
That ability had also recently been cultivated by the [Shout Spirit Gem] and Phoenix found the results impressive as the swarm seemed to part like the Red Sea in the shockwave trailing after the bard’s path.
Simmon bent down next to Phoenix and helped by casting [Lifebloom], one of his few non-summoning spells, “May the seed of the world bloom renewed life.” A small glowing green seed appeared floating between the Healer’s hands and drifted down to sink into Saiya’s chest and would give a moderate heal but it would take some time to get the full effects; time that Phoenix didn’t think Saiya had.
Instead of worrying about the miserlings that were closing in around them, Phoenix focused on saving her friend as she cast the high-cost version of [A New Dawn Rises], unwilling to risk a shorter cooldown for the Healer’s life, “As surely as the sun will rise again, you will see the dawn of tomorrow.”
She poured her mana into the healing life magic and watched until the large gashes in the voxen’s torso closed. Then she glanced around the furious battle, realizing both parties had moved closer together as they fell into a more defensive pattern, the sheer number of the brutal creatures quickly threatening to overpower them.
An ear-piercing shriek rang out across the battlefield and Phoenix could barely make out the large brood mother, seeming to be heavily wounded, but was in the process of using its massive serrated claws to rip apart Tanner’s [Dire Snolf], which was one of his stronger single summons. The rest of the group’s summons weren’t doing much better as the horde picked them off one by one while they focused on the brood mother.
Dazien chanced a glance back at her, also in need of healing himself, but he settled for one of the potions on his belt and then gave an order, not bothering to check with the group leader first, “Light them up, Phoenix!”
Her eyes widened in surprise then she nodded and triggered the tattoo on her thigh, which she had been annoyed at discovering had vanished upon her last resurrection and had needed to be reapplied. She had gone with the same one, however, and it began to replenish her mana as much as it could before she started the long incantation, “As this star begins to dim, a final burst of light. As my life begins to wane, a final shout of triumph. In a supernova sacrifice, I offer the hope of victory.”
As the mana exploded out from her, tearing through the swarm, she felt herself rapidly weaken and silently prayed to any god that would listen that it would be enough to save her friends. When the bright blue mana and golden fire had dissipated, she was happy to see that the spell had gotten most of the remaining miserlings, with only a few struggling at the edges of the new crater the parties found themselves in. What she was unhappy to see was a giant trio of Crystalline Elementals rising up from their place on the mountainside that her explosion had caused to shift.
“Are you kidding me?!” Rayna exclaimed in frustration, the worry for her companions clearly evident. A worry Phoenix shared as the cost of her spell drained and silenced her.
