Marathon - Part 7

"Which direction?"

"On the left, I can sense one of them!"

For an instant, John thought the Nekos had misheard Vallya's call as they bounded by him. They darted to the right, but as he was getting ready to call a correction to them, they bounded onto the right-hand wall and kicked off it just before the intersection ahead. The Nekos ended up beating the rest of them through sheer momentum, catching the last little gremlin in their claws before it could scamper away.

The tiny little blue-skinned annoyance disappeared the moment the claws pierced its skin, hardly a proper threat and unusually self-aware about it. The odd little burrow they'd traipsed into shuddered as something a bit bigger started to emerge further down the hall, tunneling its way right through the side wall. It was a humanoid, albeit a fairly bizarre one, and it emerged from the shifting dirt with a grossly phlegm-y roar.

It was a surprisingly large creature in comparison to the gremlins, standing almost twelve feet tall, enough that its spiky green hair brushed the top of the burrow when it stood at full height. It had deeper blue skin and a hilariously undersized pair of wings on its back, wings that fluttered futilely as it stepped into the main chamber. The drooling monstrosity swung a slightly-sharpened length of rock intimidatingly when it caught sight of them, which brought down a sizable clod of dirt on its own head for its trouble when the 'blade' carved through the ceiling above.

Hobgremlin
Level 21 Cross-Breed Gremlin
365 / 365 HP
Relationship: -11
Alignment: -62
Status Effects: N/A

"Can I have this one, Master?" Vallya asked. A blue ball of fire was already lit in her hand as the oafish creature stumbled its way toward them.

"We caught the last one, though! We get the big one," Mithra pouted. She was down on all fours, prepared to pounce, with her cute little rear swaying in the air. The sight of Mithra in those short-shorts that dared to call themselves combat gear was almost too tempting for John's rather bored and out-of-focus mind to turn away from, but somehow he found the willpower.

"We agreed on an order. You two got the last ones; it's my turn, and I'm giving it to Aclysia again." John gestured toward the hobgremlin, stepping aside so that Aclysia had a clear line to the oncoming beast. "Go ahead, let's see how you do with a bit of a size difference."

Aclysia gave an affirmative nod as she stepped forward, shield already raised. The hobgremlin wasn't the largest foe she'd fought, but it was the first mini-boss today to approach twice her height. Aclysia had already learned how little size mattered, though, if she ever had reason to think otherwise. She held her shield unerringly, and the rock that John hesitated to call a proper weapon shattered against the shield.

"Not even a scratch. I guess those enchantments were worth it after all."

John kept his eyes more on Aclysia's equipment than her stances and technique as the fight continued. He was hardly a master swordsman to begin with, and Aclysia had learned what little he was confident enough to teach. His biggest relief now was seeing that his very minor enchantments seemed to be holding up, blade razor sharp and shield unblemished despite the growing level of their foes.

"You're no fun." John was used to the pouting from the Nekos, but having it come from three directions instead of the usual two was definitely making it a little less adorable. Especially with Vallya hovering at eye level, glaring at him the whole time.

"I thought we were working on your restraint," John commented with a side-eye that Vallya seemed almost entirely unfazed by. There was a single moment where she looked properly admonished, then her usual grin returned without a moment's hesitation.

"We were working on my restraint of something else," Vallya emphasized, giving him a wink and throwing him a v-sign as she twirled through the air. "My impatience has always been a part of me, you're just going to have to learn to live with that. I'm a girl who knows what she wants, and I go for it! You usually appreciate that…"

"Fair enough. You know, if you'd prefer, I could bring you along with me to the Order's manor and let you train alongside Moira, Kim, and Etriyya." Even with his eyes locked onto the battle Aclysia was waging against the blue-skinned goblinoid, John couldn't miss the way Vallya's flight path jittered, nor the way that her body tensed. "Julianna hasn't arrived yet, there's going to be an empty spot in one rotation or the other regardless. It'd give you a chance to fight something a little stronger, be a little less bored while I let Aclysia improve."

"You'd really let me accompany you? Have you even told them about, you know...?" Vallya left the question unfinished, but her acrobatic spirals came to a halt, her twisting tails flowing up to wrap gently around her midsection as she stopped in the air, her gaze firmly directed at John.

"No." The word escaped John with a sigh, the listing of things he hadn't shared zipping through his mind as it often tended to. He didn't like keeping all these secrets, from Moira or anyone else, but he was in too deep on most of them at this point. And he didn't know how some of them would play out... like telling Moira about the fact that he'd made a literal demon. Or telling his otherworldly family about his weakest moments.

"I... I shouldn't go. And I won't," Vallya said weakly, giving a little nod at the end to reassure herself as much as him. "I haven't been back to the old world since this all happened. I might react differently, or I might just happen to lose control while fighting the stronger enemies. No, it's too risky."

Vallya hugged herself and turned her back to him as she spoke, resuming her slow orbit of him, a motion that had somehow become more somber. John was still searching for the words to reassure her when the dungeon completion notifications materialized in front of him.

Mini-Boss defeated, Dungeon complete [Level 20]!
+2500 EXP [+50 EXP from Perks]
+$10,000 ($5,000 + 100% from Perks)
+18 Minor Fae Crystals
+9 Crystallized Faerie Fire
+1 Gremlin Poncho

"Vallya, it's alright. We'll get you back there, alright? You're not going to be trapped in this world forever."

"I'm a Star Guardian." The words were a little shakier than John would've liked, but just speaking them made Vallya look a little less distraught. "I don't mind being here. This is where I belong. I just don't want to be a burden to you. Though, I wouldn't mind getting to sleep in my own bed again... and to be closer to you."

John nodded, pulling Vallya a little closer as the dungeon faded away around them. His words to Magnus rang in his mind, flavoring the sweetness of the moment with just a hint of bitter anxiety.

"Some day soon, Vallya. I promise I'll bring you home."

"Another wave. Damn, how many corpses were they hiding in this thing?"

Cables, some whole, some unraveled into sadistic twine, spread out and lashed across the battlefield. Any attempts at precision or strategic targeting were abandoned now; Adantia was contained in this Barrier alone with her foes, and thoughts of preserving her stamina were far from her mind. The wave of malformed flesh, lacking even the structure and stability of skeletons, rose and fell in short order as different sections of the battlefield were shredded, minced, or in one case roasted as a line of crimson runes along a cable set off a series of massive, fiery detonations.

Even if she'd wanted to conserve her energy, Adantia couldn't spare a single thought for the resurrections, even the modestly impressive ones. Every bit of her focus was on avoiding the attacks of the woman she had once called a true friend.

In life, Wren had been one of Paix's most skilled and feared warriors. She'd been the first to fall, the first that Suula killed when she turned against the city. Her undead form was a little less dexterous and a lot less cunning, but still frustratingly strong, and her ability to blink around the battlefield had managed to keep her out of Adantia's grasp for far too long already.

It was an effective strategy, if a bit simple. Both of the necromancers on the other end of the battlefield were channeling absurd amounts of mana, seemingly pouring everything into the offense that they had. They were throwing enough waves of mid-tier undead at her to make using her full might against the real threat risky, while the abomination that had once been Wren pushed her hard enough that she couldn't easily strike at the necromancers themselves without risking her life in a moment of distraction.

"If their strategy is to bet on someone trying to protect their own life above winning, they picked the wrong girl. Wish I'd died along with my city."

The cables twisted and writhed underground as Wren moved forward for another strike. Wren had thrown her dagger and warped to it as it passed by Adantia, but the moment her foot moved to anchor on the ground, the dirt gave way and the assassin tumbled into an abruptly formed pit. The inconvenience was momentary at best, but it was more effective than trying to land blows on Wren's elusive and strangely ethereal form. With the briefest of windows bought, while the next armada of undead were still assembling themselves from a litany of freshly-unearthed piles of viscera, Adantia struck.

All but two of her cables surged across the battlefield, bypassing the arising forces in favor of their creators. A massive wall arose from the ground in front of them, and to Adantia's surprise, it held up to the first wave of strikes, the slightly sharpened ends of the cables bouncing away from the enchanted material.

"Inconsistent shape, and the mana's reacting strangely... must be heavily enchanted, probably bones," Adantia thought, fixing the shape of it in her mind. "I can break it."

Golden light surged along one of the cables as another rune burnt itself out, and this time the thick steel cord struck across the whole front of the structure. Blinding white light erupted on impact, and a massive chunk of the wall was blown away, along with one of the necromancers. The weaker one was knocked cleanly off her feet, tossed back to collide with the edge of the Barrier violently. As she crumpled to the ground, the army of undead that had nearly finished rising immediately began to decompose again, a sight that should have brought a smile to Adantia's face... but she immediately recognized the problem.

"I only hit one of them. What the hell is the other one even casting, then-?"

Adantia twisted to the right in desperation. A tiny flicker of mana had been her only warning as Wren's dagger landed beside her, replaced a moment later by the woman herself. A spectral calf swept Adantia's legs out from underneath her, and only the two cables she'd preserved for protection were able to save her. They immediately cinched around her waist and pulled her out of the way as Wren's dagger plunged through the spot where her heart had been a moment ago.

"They're up to something. Not as simple as I thought. But what?"

Adantia was back on the defensive, and her cables were still retracting. Rather than conjuring up more undead, the necromancer she'd blown away had opted to funnel her energies into the ground. Adantia could feel dozens, maybe hundreds of skeletal hands grasping at her cables beneath the surface, unable to stop them entirely, but strong enough to slow them down to a frustratingly slow pace.

"They're just delaying. But for what? If they had something else up their sleeve, why not open with it?" Adantia's lips turned into a frown as she stepped forward the moment Wren lunged. Her body moved in a practiced motion, striking Wren's wrist as the undead woman thrust her dagger at Adantia again. Wren tossed her dagger up and warped to it, maintaining her momentum and striking again.

This time Adantia took the blow, moving her hand into position and letting the dagger pierce right through it. The pain was searing, and the enchantments that lit on the silvery blade's hilt immediately seeped into her. A half-dozen wards cast in unison halted the flow of what amounted to mana poisoning, though they couldn't fully purge the roaring pain now engulfing most of her left arm.

But the pain was worth the payoff—a patchwork biomancy alteration "healed" the wound around the embedded blade and turned her flesh to something akin to steel, locking the blade inside of her body. Adantia then locked her grip around Wren's hand as tightly as she could, holding the elusive spirit in place.

"If you were still in there, you'd have remembered not to fall for this one again." Adantia's voice was almost playful, despite the lack of anything save misery in her clouded eyes. She found herself grateful that she couldn't see Wren's face. Easier to focus on her aura, the taint in her mana, and remind herself that all was not as it seemed. "But if there is a little piece of you somewhere in there… I'm sorry that it's my fault you're dying. Again."

One of Adantia's cables surged through the ground, piercing through the spirit's chest. An agonizing cry rang out from the false replica, but this creation's energy seemed more resilient than the rest of the risen dead she'd faced so far. When the first blow failed to end her, Adantia brought forth another. More wailing, an outpouring of mana. Adantia started to shout, a wordless cry of rage and frustration. A third cable, and a fourth-

And then the earth began to tremble underneath Adantia. Something had been summoned into the Barrier - she could feel it immediately, the mana signature overwhelming everything else in the Barrier except herself. The shock of it caused her to loosen her grip, and then freed the half-shattered spirit of Wren entirely as a massive creature broke through the ground underneath them, a primal roar bursting from its maw just as it burst from the earth below. The size and shape of the creature were absurd, and the shape of its aura was clear. Adantia grit her teeth and used her cables to pull herself back to the ground as the reanimated Wren landed atop the creature’s skull.