New Mines of Pruzonia 7: Crack Shot

Beth grit her teeth as the fighting around her happened. Fighting she really wasn’t doing, much to her frustration. Her magic flowed out in a steady stream, keeping the red spearmen locked in place while Senka, Estelle and Vivian steadily chipped away at them. Across the large chamber, the sound of battle also rang out. Glancing back, Beth could see Aeolia’s green magic flash as she flew around what Senka told them was the boss of this whole thing.

‘Everyone’s fighting and I’m here playing glue trap,’ Beth thought frustratedly. She hated the role she was being **** into playing. And the worst part of it was she knew Vivian and Estelle were right to use her ability like this. They weren’t heavy hitters like John and Aeolia so needed support to match their enemies. The necessity of her part in the redhead’s plan didn’t remove the bitter taste from her mouth as she watched Estelle repeatedly smack one of the crystal enemies with her own crystal weapon.

She didn’t like the feeling of being pushed to the side while someone new to their weird group got to fight. And she didn’t like the ugly feeling of jealousy that ate at her with those thoughts. Estelle had supported her earlier and gave her equipment to fight with. The witch had been nothing but helpful and supportive since they met. And not hard on the eyes either.

Beth shook her head, banishing all those conflicting thoughts. She could figure out her feelings later. A sharp crack drew her attention to one of their enemies as Estelle’s orb squarely hit it in the face. The witch’s magic ball proved to be made of better material and the head crumbled to pieces, shortly followed by the rest of its body.

Beth let that line of mana end as she saw Vivian hold up the thing Estelle gave her and fired a beam of pure light at her chosen target. The heat seared the crystal and the shift in temperature caused it to fracture, the earlier damage it had taken serving as the initial break points. A second later, Senka’s dark magic flared up and cleaved a deep wound into her chosen target, ripping it apart.

With the small fries gone, Beth let her magic end, taking a deep breath before turning around towards the more important fight. Before she could head towards it, Senka held up her hand.

“We’ll need to be careful,” the spirit said in a serious tone. “The boss seems like it’s able to adapt to mana heavy attacks.”

“How exactly?” Vivian asked, a worried expression on her face.

“Aeolia’s first attack did more damage than her follow ups, despite looking to be about the same in power,” Senka reported, a distant look on her face as she drew from John’s memories. “She’s said as much to John. And its shield seems able to block attacks with a high amount of damage mitigation.”

“Do you think my spores will work on it?” Anita asked, the gnoshroom having been quiet for much of the former fight. Beth could empathize with her. There was little in her current kit that could have helped in dealing with the red dudes. Her initial use of spores didn’t slow them down in the slightest.

“I guess it could drain the mana from its defensive measures,” Estelle thoughtfully mused. “But I think you’d need a big cloud to get a good hit in, which could be a problem.

“Depending on how it works, even your adhesion could be limited, Beth,” Vivian added, the redhead’s eyes bouncing back and forth around the area, as if trying to piece together a plan from the air itself.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Estelle chimed in, sounding hopeful. “Aeolia’s first attack did do damage, right, Senka?”

When the spirit nodded, the witch continued, “Then we have one shot to make any spell work. And that’s not taking into account if that guy has a limit to how many things it's resistant to.”

“So what, we try to do one big hit and hope it works?” Beth asked.

“Might not be that simple,” Senka said. “It seems to adapt quickly, so any prolonged effect will likely give it a good chance to grow immune to it.”

“So I’m useless here, great,” Beth grumbled.

“Maybe not,” Estelle said in a quiet voice before she whipped off her hat and began to pull things out of it. “Senka, can you ask John if it seems like it can adapt to two or more mana sources at the same time?”

“Already done,” Senka said. A second later, a crescent of wind shot down at the knight as a ball of fire flew at it from below. The knight tried to block Aeolia’s slash, but was too slow and both spells hit it at full ****. Aeolia fired a second slash before the knight could recover.

Senka let out a cheer. “Aeolia’s second attack did about the same amount as her first attack. It can’t adapt to multiple types of mana and looks like its defence is automatic.”

“So if we **** it to be resistant to a non damaging kind of magic, it won’t be able to block our stronger attacks,” Vivian mused and Beth got a sinking feeling. She knew Vivian was thinking about how to use her magic to phase the boss. Lock it for a second, let other people hit it, repeat to reset the damage reduction.

“I think my refractions should have enough of my mana to trigger the response,” Vivian continued, throwing Beth for a loop. “If that doesn’t work, Beth, I think you’ve got the best chance at pulling this off. Sorry it’s not the way you prefer to fight, but we’re not exactly spoiled for choice right now.”

Guilt churned in Beth’s guts as she tried to grin at Vivian. “I get it. Team sport. Probably will need to get closer though. Holding those little guys down wasn’t exactly an easy job. Trying to trap or slip him up from a distance will zap me pretty quick.”

“I think I’ve got a solution to that,” Estelle said as she presented Beth with a smaller crystal ball, about the size of a lemon, with some of that mana conductive wire she’d given her earlier wrapped around its center. “How’s your throwing arm?”

“Um, good, I guess. They always made me the pitcher when gym class did baseball,” Beth answered. “How is that going to help? I thought you said it’d take time to make anything that I can use like a bomb.”

Estelle awkwardly rubbed her head. “Well, for anything you can charge ahead of time, yeah. This’ll only hold your mana for a short bit. But, the wire will conduct your effect to whatever it hits. Um, the effect might be randomly applied but it will spread.”

“Well, it certainly won’t use as much of your mana, right?” Anita asked, trying to pick up their spirits.

“I guess there’s that,” Beth said, taking the orb from Estelle.

The witch beamed. “I can whip up a few more right quick.”

“Then do it,” Senka cut in a clipped tone. “I don’t want to waste any more time.”

That was something all of them agreed with. As Estelle made a few more orbs for Beth and Vivian looked for good angles of attack, Beth rolled the first ball in her hand. It wasn’t too far off a baseball’s weight and she was sure she could chuck it a good distance, but hitting a moving target wasn’t just a matter of distance.

As she mulled over things, spinning the ball in her palm, some random bit of advice she’d heard from someone in gym class floated into her head. Something about putting a good spin on the ball would allow for some extra distance and control over where it went.

‘Can’t hurt to try,’ Beth thought as she spun the ball in her palm, the metal around the central line sliding over her skin as she applied the smallest amount of her magic. Faster and faster she built up the speed, until the lack of friction made adding to the spin hard on her finger. The ball vibrated against her hand as it rotated, the energy she imparted on the ball increasing her hope that her shots would have some power behind them.

“The rest are done,” Estelle called to Beth, breaking her focus, and Beth clamped her hand on the ball, reducing her friction slightly to slow the ball down without burning her hand.

“Great,” Beth said, taking the spheres and sticking them to her leg. Turning to Vivian, she asked, “Should I go high?”

Vivian took a moment to think before nodding. “Yeah, getting multiple angles of attack is probably for the best. Senka, let John know we’re about to reset the boss.”

Senka gave a quick salute before running towards the battle.

“Anita, Estelle, I think you should hang back a bit,” Vivian continued to plan.

“Yeah, that was my idea,” the witch said. “I don’t have anything that would be all that effective against that thing. Still will get some pot shots in.”

“Do you think if I put some spores on your orb, they’ll affect that guy?” Anita asked as she followed Estelle. “I want to help too.”

Estelle smiled down at the gnoshroom. “Only one way to find out. Let’s try it!”

The chipper pair left, leaving only Beth and Vivian. The redhead looked over to Beth, a somewhat nervous smile on her face. “Ready?”

Beth nodded and smirked. “Race ya!”

She took off, not needing to look back to know Vivian’s expression was one of fond exasperation. Jumping feet first onto a wall, Beth ran up the stone edifice, and onto the roof. She stopped and briefly watched as John and Aeolia continued to pepper the boss with attacks, chipping away at it.

“Okay, let’s see if I can get this in one,” Beth muttered as she began to spin up her ball once more, charging up the crystal with her adhesion with each pass of her finger. Soon enough, the ball was at full speed, vibrating against her palm. And Beth waited for the right moment to strike.

A flash of light hit the boss, its body glowing like a light bulb before it darkened to an amber color. Beth’s arm snapped forward, all memories of pitching in gym class guiding her movements. The orb shot out of her hand, flying at great speed and heading straight for the boss. It struck the boss’ shoulder and shattered, but the **** of the blow also tore a massive chunk out of it. And in that brief moment of contact, its movements were stopped as its feet were locked in place.

Beth looked at the damage she had done and to her still extended arm, a shocked expression on her face. Then it morphed into a wide grin as she reached down and grabbed another one of the orbs.

“Think I might have just found my weapon.”

15 DMG

Vivian’s light was blinding but John withstood the shine as the boss’ color took on the hue of her mana, a grin on his face. With everyone coming together, the boss wasn’t so imposing. Hardy, but with so many people attacking, its advantage in defense was surmountable.

39 DMG

The boss’ shoulder exploded into dust, the rest of its body taking on a dark blue hue. It tried to adjust its position to better fight, but its feet remained affixed to the ground.

“Just what did Estelle give Beth!?” John asked Senka as she walked up from behind him.

“It was just a small crystal ball with a wire around its equator,” the spirit supplied. “But she was spinning it up to pretty high speeds. Suppose without friction she could get that rather high.”

“No kidding,” John said. He wasn’t going to complain, thirty-nine damage in one hit was the most any of them had done and now the boss was locked in place for a few seconds. Which meant it was time to strike.

Senka had beat him to the punch in that regard, not that he could blame her haste. With the reestablishment of their link, he could feel her frustration over this whole event as plain as day. He didn’t pry into why she felt as such, but he could guess that her earlier battles when she was alone and with Vivian’s group hadn’t gone the way she would have preferred.

With the boss frozen in place, Senka planted her own feet just outside of its range and brought her hand up, shadows covering her skin like a black and violet mist. She brought her arm down in a weighty chop, a line of darkness cutting into the knight’s torso in time with her motion.

25 DMG

Shards of crystal fell like blood even as the boss’ coloring darkened to violet and its feet became unglued from the ground. Now attuned to Senka’s mana, she pulled back as John stepped forward a few paces and fired off a Pursuit right into the crack Senka had created.

26 DMG

The fireball exploded in the jagged canyon, widening it deeply and causing a network of spidercracks to extend from the wound. The knight, clearly done with getting hit and no longer bound by Beth’s magic, bounded forward with surprising speed, forcing John and Senka to split apart and dodge the charging boss. From above, Aeolia circled around and fired off a wind slash, but it pivoted and brought its shield up to absorb the hit before trusting its blade up at Aeolia, the missing chunk of its shoulder not impeding its range of motion.

Aeolia barely dodged the thrust and sped away and the boss began to advance towards him. Then Beth fired off her second shot. All John saw was the wound Senka’d given the boss suddenly exploded into a deep crater. The **** of the blast caused the knight to pitch backwards, and with Beth’s mana clearly reducing its friction, it fell to the ground with a great crash.

29 DMG

“Someone hit it so I can stick it to the ground!” Beth shouted from her rooftop, already spinning up another ball.

“On it!” Aeolia shouted in reply and she dived down right at the prone knight, glaive alight with green mana. With a mighty swing, she let fly a large wind crescent right into the boss’ cratered chest before pulling back so she'd be out of the range of its sword.

30 DMG
952(50) EXP Gained

The knight made a jerking motion before it faded into dust, leaving only a small bundle of cash, a seed-shaped gem and a hot pink poker chip sitting in the curved interior of a crystal shield.

“Oh, come on!” Beth loudly complained.

“You can get the last shot on the next boss.” Aeolia grinned as she landed next to her, speaking loud enough for her voice to carry, “Which hopefully will be one of our choosing. John, you have any updates?

John shook his head as he moved to collect the loot. “Nothing yet. The boss’ Observe said the quest would end when those doors fully open.”

John waved over to the doors. The runes on them were still only about half lit up. “Looks like we’ve got to run out the clock before Fortuna lets us go.”

“Wonderful,” Vivian remarked as she jogged over to John and Senka. Some distance away, Estelle, Anita, Kiera, Teri and her two tribesmen were headed their way too.

“Guess we’ll pass the time by looking at these,” John said, gesturing to the loot. “And we can all get each other up to speed with what happened.”