Templars

We’re dropped in front of a large medieval castle, with a drawbridge that is raised up all the way. Immediately as we enter the dungeon, some guards on top of the walls surrounding the castle start to yell and raise the alarm. They’re classical looking templar knights, with the armour and shields to match.

A simple enough looking observe sheet. I’m about to give the order to attack, when the loot listed under the legendary category catches my eye. A vibranium shard? I think back to the many lectures on the abyss that Olivia has given us, very happy to remember that vibranium is one of the most powerful metals of the abyss.

A shard sounds tiny, but even just a small piece of that stuff could be really helpful. Turning my mind back to the task at hand, I ready myself. Templars holding massive longbows appear dotted around the wall. “Skylar, shields!” I call, raising a block of ice to protect us from the arrows that are sure to rain down on us any moment.

Skylar’s shadow magic forms into a solid in front of us, and together, we form an effective barrier for the four of us. Not a second later, a hail of arrows clatters uselessly against our magical shields. The storm continues for a solid thirty seconds, as our magic is starting to crack. The arrows let up, and immediately, I order Mia and Skylar forward.

“Blast down the door!” I tell them. In perfect unity, the two of them gather their strength, and unleash a blast of combined power, air and shadow. Their combined magic rips a hole through the drawbridge. The chains holding it up, fail and snap, causing the bridge to swing down, landing in front of us with a loud crash!

“Let’s give ‘em hell!” I shout, surging forward with the rest of my guild. We all know our roles intuitively, and I take point at the front, crashing into the group of knights that meets us just past the entrance. Mia flies up on top of the wall to deal with the archers. Skylar supports me with the knights, protecting Ivy as she does. Ivy looks for openings to help out herself, restraining the knights and flinging archers off the wall.

I move rapidly between the knights, enjoying my advantage in speed and using blunt **** to smash through their armour and take them out of the fight. The mace of ice does it’s job easily, making quick work of the first group. Mia having dealt with the archers up top, she comes back down to join us in pushing forward.

The description of the siege dungeon said we had to get to the “command centre”. In this dungeon, I believe that’s the throne room. We storm forwards, meeting the next group of knights halfway through the courtyard. This one is bigger, and I can see templars behind them wielding staffs instead of a sword and shield.

Mia and I attack them as one. The instant I hit one of the knights and it doesn’t seem to do much damage, I know what the staff wielding templars are. “Mia! Target the healers in the backline!” I tell her. The order is completely unnecessary, as Mia realised just a split second after I did.

I keep the attention of the knights on me as Mia and Ivy work together to decimate the ranks of the healers, blasting them with air magic. A huge vine flattens several of the healers, while smaller vines wrap around them and crush them into golden dust. She’s very much enjoying her magical mastery over plants, I can feel it.

Some of the knights turn around to try to defend their healers, but I pull them back with mana chains, pulling them towards me and forcing them to fight the more immediate threat to them. I barrel towards them, reinforcing my fists with ice and punching hard, straight at the face of one of them.

My fist connects with the helmet covered face of the knight and he staggers backwards. I whirl around, sending my mace crashing into the side of another one, too fast for him to avoid. He crumples, dissolving into golden dust with a single blow. I keep fighting, lashing out left and right, until suddenly, the space around me is clear.

We press forward, encountering one final, bigger group of knights before the door to the interior of the castle. This group puts up more of a fight, and we have to spend a solid ten minutes fighting to clear them. Once they’re finally all dead, we rest for a bit to conserve our resources.

We’re supposed to be trying to clear the dungeon quickly for the most amount of XP, but speed is no use if we can’t do it without everybody surviving. There’s also another use to this type of dungeon beyond just XP: training for different types of situations. That’s the other reason we decide to take a small rest: in the real world, we won’t have fateweaving to save our asses if we make a mistake.

Once we’ve been able to recover enough mana, we open the gigantic double doors and press forward. Inside is a pretty spectacular great hall, with a throne at the end of it. No popup materialises to say that we’ve won yet, so there must be a different one, presumably smaller.

Between us and the throne is a hoard of knights, bigger than the group we faced outside, by far. It’s only thanks to my enhanced senses that I can see archers up on the balconies around the room, and assassins concealed around the sides of the room, in the shadows. Torches line the room, the dancing flames providing a sinister glow to the room.

Nobody moves for a full five seconds. We’re all just getting our bearings. The knight commander, easily picked out by his golden coloured helmet, simply raises his sword to point at us. The squadron of knights bangs their swords on their shields twice, creating a ringing clang! They then start to move towards us.

I hear the scrape of arrows being drawn back. “Skylar!” I yell. We pull up our shields of magic again, this time feeling the strain as the arrows rain down on our position. I feel movement close by and stab at the air instinctively, taking an assassin in the throat and revealing him out of his invisibility. “Watch out for the assassins!” I yell.

Ivy uses a mana strike on another one that got close by, stunning him enough for Mia to use a cutting slice of air to take him out of the fight. I take note of the knights getting closer, knowing we can’t just hold the position forever. “Mia-”

“On it!” She yells, knowing what I’m about to say already. She takes off swiftly, and a few seconds later, the rain of arrows stops.

I charge forward to meet the knights, stopping them from getting to Skylar and Ivy, trusting that they have my back. Skylar uses her magic to unveil the assassins, targeting each of them and dispatching of them with ruthless efficiency and spears of shadow. Ivy interrupts enemy attacks to help me as I ferociously attack the knights.

I duck under a sword swing and stab upwards with a dagger, piercing the armour around his neck. I stab a second time and the knight fades away. I turn, just barely quick enough to conjure a shield of ice to block a blow from another one. I retaliate quickly, sending a wave of freezing magic out in a 180 degree arc, slowing down the knights.

I hack, slash and batter my way through the crowd, using my ice magic to slow them down enough for me to handle the group, weaving in and out of attacks, shoving the knights into one another, stabbing and punching through their thick armour, which seems to be made out of some kind of enchanted steel, likely an alloy with some vibranium mixed in, at least if the loot table is a clue. It’s not pure vibranium, or we’d have a tougher time breaking through it, from what Olivia has told us.

I hear a crash and catch a glimpse of Mia having fallen to the ground. Skylar and Ivy act quickly, with the former raising a shield to keep our girlfriend protected from the number of arrows sent towards her, while Ivy grows a simple plant inside the shield and heals Mia from the blow she just took.

I catch a glimpse of a tear streaking down Mia’s face. She stays where she fell on the ground, her body quivering slightly, her head drooped. “Mia?” I call out, concerned. She shakes her head, rubs her eyes and stands up. “I’m okay!” She calls back. I’m about to ask if she’s sure, when an arrow whistles past my face.

I dodge the arrows as Skylar provides support, and Ivy draws fire. Her high health regeneration lets her act as a temporary tank in a pinch, although it’s a strategy we generally try to avoid. A healer tanking isn’t often a very good idea.

The next time I manage to see Mia’s face, there’s no trace of the earlier tears. I decide to check on her later, after the fight, as Ivy finishes healing Mia all the way.

Mia resumes her crusade against the archers, and I can fight properly again. I note triumphantly that the ranks of the knights around me are growing thin, and I redouble my efforts, cutting down enemies left and right. As the last knight falls, I let out a deep breath of satisfaction. We’re not done yet, but we’re doing really well.

We stop to rest again. Mia and Skylar’s mana is getting pretty low, and they have to meditate to recover it. It’s a quirk of the way Ivy’s magic and mine works that we can passively regenerate mana. Most people can’t. We give them some time to meditate while Ivy tops us all off on health, and we sit down for a bit of a breather.

During the break, I double check to see if Mia is okay. She brushes me off, telling me that she’s fine. I don’t really believe her, I can tell something’s off. I’m guessing she’s still not okay after what happened with Mathias and Max. Getting stabbed like she did and nearly dying is a pretty traumatic experience after all.

But seeing as she doesn’t want to talk about it, there’s not too much I can do at the moment, especially when we’ve still got the boss to fight. Mia insists that she’s okay to keep fighting, and that’ll have to do for now. Once we’re all rested enough, we get to our feet to continue.

The boss is looming up ahead, just past the great hall. I can feel it. There’s only one more challenge before we clear the dungeon. Once Mia and Skylar have finished meditating, we continue to advance. We walk up to the throne, examining the space behind and around it. It doesn’t take us long to find a doorway that leads into a separate, smaller room, also with a throne in it. Along with the boss.