Light spells...lots of light spells.

"Djarrus, hold your ground and defend yourself! I'll support with as many widespread spells as I can!" Nathraena yelled, her eyes wide as the whole situation became suddenly dire.

The beast roared in acknowledgement, pulling up his large axe close to his chest and grabbing the handle with both hands.

"Shit, we don't have enough room," you curse, glancing around. With the minotaur blocking most of the view, he is clearly also going to receive the most attack.

"It's not like I haven't noticed, Daeel. Thank you for your insight!" the drow retorts, clearly not in the mood for weak observations, "...Just stand next to me and help support if any of these creatures gets past!"

You curl your lips, nodding as you move next to her with your single knife in your hand. The drow beside you is planning to use magic and you can't help but feel a little trivial since you didn't know any offensive spells that would help with a large area of shadow fiends.

It's been a while since you fought shadow fiends, but never as many as this! One or two fiends usually escape from the shadow plane, a dimension where darkness thrives and monsters filled with the same essence are born. Usually, they escape where an area is filled with so much negative energy that it synchronizes with the shadow plane. As such, it doesn't matter if the whole area is glowing with purple light; as long as the negative energy persists, it will allow the darkness of the shadow plane to leak and stack.

As the dark wolf approaches with many terrifying and abstract creatures behind, Nathraena puts her hand close to her chest and starts incanting. She ignores the growls and screeches coming from the creatures as they raced towards you and your group.

The best way to "purify" an area and get rid of the darkness is to use light or more appropriately, positive energy. Fiends are also susceptible to physical attacks as they are almost physical themselves, but it difficult to hit due to their shadow nature. In some sense, these creatures are like ghosts, shifting themselves into different forms and evading attacks with ease.

"Ya khair sinur!" Nathraena yelled, her voice warping slightly as a ball of light fades into her hand. As the wolf, being the first creature to get close, leaped with its teeth ready to bite into the minotaur, the light ball within the drow's hand expanded quickly and massively.

A white light enveloped you and the party, but it weirdly isn't blinding. You hear screeches and painful roars coming from the shadow creatures, including the wolf, as their bodies visibly disintegrate into the air like black smoke before your eyes.

When the light faded, returning you to the purple glow of the caverns, you bit your lips as you saw the planar darkness still in front of you, expelling out more creatures or more specifically, shadow wolves. It is as if the plane had a mind of its own to understand that the wolves were the clear and fastest creatures to spawn.

AT A Black Wolf by Kipine

Wolves begin rushing towards you with ferocity, faster than even the first one, causing Nathraena furrows her eyebrows, looking annoyed and worried at the same time. She doesn't lose focus though, and prepares the next spell. The effects of the light is truly impressive, but it is clear that this negative energy won't back down anytime soon. It is only possible to keep expelling positive energy at the source until it weakens and dies.

Needing more time to prepare, two of the wolves inevitably attack the brown beast in front of them, extending their teeth. Djarrus prepares and swings his axe, cutting one of the wolves in half, causing it to immediately dissipates. The other turns its body a little midair and bites against the minotaur's arms. The minotaur grunts and swings the dark wolf, slamming it into a pointed rocky wall next to him and turning the black wolf into smoke.

One wolf sneaks below as the minotaur is distracted and attempts to attack the drow, but you don't plan on giving it the chance, stepping further in and stabbing at the wolf's muzzle. You hear it cry a little which is a good sign and swipe ahead, cutting its upper body and dissolving it.

The drow finished preparing and expelled the same light from her body...

"Ya khair sinur!"

All the rest of the wolves who followed the first three dissipated with a screech. Black smoke flowed all around you and the cavernous path ahead. Yet, even after two rounds of the drow's seemingly effective radius of light, the biggest source of darkness remains like a slithering portal. Luckily, it seems to be weakening as you can literally hear it groan and literally quiver.

It doesn't feel like a victory though. For the first time, you hear the drow panting and focusing your attention, you can also see that she is starting to visibly sweat around her forehead. She grits her teeth and her arms shake in irritation underneath your winter cloak.

"This is terrible," she manages to say before she has to breathe in again.

You feel an urge to point out such a weak observation, but you hold back, knowing she'd probably hit you for trying to be amusing in a disadvantageous situation. There isn't much you can do but fight back against the shadow spawns.

...again.

"Ya khair sinur!"

...and again.

"Y-ya khair sinur!"

Shadow wolves move fast, but the darkness before you appears to intentionally mix things up. Not only has it spawned wolves, but humanoid creatures with strange white eyes, creepily crawling towards you with long arms.

Regardless of the shape, they all dissolved by either **** or the drow's area-of-effect spell, but they still manage to chip away at you both mentally and physically. Amazingly, the minotaur in front of you never utters an ounce of pain besides a few grunts and roars to unbalance the creatures and their footing. After seemingly...forty...no, maybe fifty creatures, Djarrus is dripping blood across the floor as all the wolves loved to take a bite at him. To maintain his composure even now is incredible and yet, also worrying. You are glad that you don't have to fight such a terrifying and sturdy beast.

You were bloodied pretty badly yourself as some of the wolves who got past clawed away at your legs and chest, giving you some rather nasty cuts. Thankfully, you try to ease the pain through some spells you know that accelerate the body.

The worst of all, though, is Nathraena who may appear unharmed, but it is clear that spamming her light spells are taking a toll. She looks the weakest with her body hunched over, her breath heavy, and her eyes half-open. No doubt, she is going to pass out if she continues exerting herself like this.

You clench your fists and feel furious at yourself for not being able to do much. Djarrus has most of the muscle and brute strength to take on a majority of the monsters while Nathraena has the magic capability to end these creatures swiftly along with her physical agilities. You could only swipe away while enhancing yourself so that this neverending tide of darkness could be faced.

For the most part, shadow fiends don't have to worry about being affected by blindness, deafening, intoxicate, or any of the spells you knew because they are meant to affect beings on this plane, not another plane you have no experience dealing with!

This mountain is unfair.

After a few minutes of everyone recapturing their breath, you are surprised to find the darkness ahead taking longer to find out what to throw at you and your companions. It keeps making unnatural noises that would scare anyone away, but then...it stopped.

As time halted, you raise an eyebrow wondering if it is over, but that is naive to think, of course.

The darkness recedes, but not in the way you expect. It pulls towards the center of your view, curling into a floating ball. The walls that it enveloped are now glowing once more as it slithers away.

Distrubingly, the ball morphs. It stretches up and down, becoming more defined and...human?

Whatever is happening, you didn't like it.

From the planar existence, arms extends with long claw-like hands; Legs rip out and blend together, shadows sliding against the cold and uneven rock below; and finally, it begins to form a face that rises up, looking at the ceiling for a moment.

Before long, a large humanoid black creature stood in front of your group, but unlike the monstrous humanoids that were spawn, this one looked more refined; female even. It looks like it has some shadow curves, but it is difficult to tell as it is made up of nothing except planar darkness.

Unsettlingly, red eyes opened from its supposed face. You could swear you see it curling its lips upward in amusement.

Shadow Queen final by Eye-crazy

"My instincts are yelling at me despite your commands! We should run!" Djarrus suggests, clearly just as unsettled as you are. It appears he can handle shadow fiends for as long as he needs to, but this...creature is something unlike anything else.

You bite your lips as you wonder what to do, but then you feel a sudden bump on your shoulder and an increase in weight. Turning to your shoulder, you widen your eyes to see the drow finally passed out onto your side, completely drained from her magic.

Damn it...of all times.